Taiwan is a shining example of impeccable social distancing and quality diseases control, compared especially to its ethnic rival China across the South China Sea.
After Taiwan banned all entry and travels to parts of mainland China, it banned cruise ships while boosting internal production of face masks to be self-reliant on their supply produce. Taiwan is outstanding in its record of 440 coronavirus cases, with 7 deaths in total. And now it wants to share its secrets and nifty tips in handling the curve. The United States, Japan and New Zealand have all voiced support for Taiwan to join next week’s World Health Assembly — an annual meeting of World Health Organization (WHO) members.”We are an integral link in the global health network,” Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said Thursday on Twitter. “With more access to the WHO, Taiwan would be able to offer more help in the global fight against #COVID19.”
The WHO states that member nations of the WHO decide who or who cannot attend WHA meeting, and has said Taiwan is not cut out of its coronavirus discussions, pointing to its collaboration with Taiwan’s scientists and health officials.
But as the virus gives Taiwan a chance to elevate itself in the international stage, Beijing has not deemed this funny, and formally accused of Taipei of pushing for formal independence — and stepped up military drills around the island.
In recent weeks Chinese politburo carried out military exercises around the Liaoning, around the island in April.
On social media and in the Chinese press, some have called on the People’s Liberation Army to take advantage of the pandemic to invade Taiwan, arguing that the timing could not be better, with the US preoccupied with the coronavirus and its military might in the region crimped by an outbreak on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
Timothy Heath, a senior international researcher at the RAND Corporation, a US think tank, highly doubts that there will be any Realpolitik consequences of the Chinese bluff as of now: “China needs access to (global) markets once they recover, and so it is in China’s interests to maintain good ties with the US and the world,” Heath said.
“A reckless attack on Taiwan would only exacerbate tensions with Washington and could elevate the risk of economic sanctions and other penalties — potentially crippling the Chinese economy.” He added that while Beijing “cares a great deal about Taiwan,” the Chinese government cares “even more about maintaining the economic growth that underpins the (Communist Party’s) rule.
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