Coronavirus: Taiwan slams China’s ‘cover-up’

China has been accused of manipulating the humanitarian and economic chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic to expand its political clout.

Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu. Picture: AFP

China has been accused of manipulating the humanitarian and economic chaos caused by the coronavirus pandemic to expand its political clout while continuing to deceive the world about the true source of the pathogen.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Beijing had been particularly active throughout the Pacific, where it had capitalised on the disaster to ensure the region’s impoverished island nations were increasingly reliant on China for healthcare and vaccinations.

He said the strategy was “a cynical trap” given China’s secrecy over the initial Wuhan Covid-19 outbreak and resistance to international calls for an independent investigation into the origins of the disease.

“We know that Covid-19 stemmed from Wuhan, there’s no doubt about that at all,” Dr Wu said. “Our scientists noticed from internet discussions in China that there were SARS-like symptoms occurring in this region in late 2019, but China continued to keep this secret from the world for months.

“Our scientists were so nervous about it they ended up ­contacting the World Health Organisation in January 2020 and alerted the WHO to the fact there is something going on in China right now, and we’re worried it’s going to spread to other countries.

“There needs to be an international effort to understand how it was allowed to get to this point and so we can try to prevent future pandemics.

“Every responsible government in the world should be working together to demand an independent investigation to pinpoint the precise origin of the virus, whether that be in a lab in Wuhan or through some sort of cross-species contamination.

“We need to open up everything. We need to be very transparent. We need to trust our scientists. We need to trust our people … but China doesn’t operate that way. Anything Beijing believes could be seen as embarrassing to the Chinese government, it will try to cover up.

“This is what’s happening to the Chinese way of dealing with Covid-19 or dealing with the international effort to investigate the source of the pandemic.”

Even though Taiwan has been hit by a wave of Covid-19 outbreaks in the past month, ratcheting up more than 11,000 infections and 330 deaths, it has refused to turn to Beijing for any assistance or support.

Instead, Taiwan – which lies about 160km off China’s south coast and is considered a breakaway province by Beijing – has welcomed mass shipments of vaccine doses from the US and Japan in recent weeks.

Despite its own domestic concerns, Dr Wu said Taiwan would provide support to its Pacific island neighbours.

“China has tried to menace democratic countries throughout the Pacific into abandoning us, but in the countries that still recognise Taiwan – namely Tuvalu, Palau and the Marshall Islands – all our diplomatic relations remain incredibly good,” Dr Wu said. “We are trying to work with these countries just to show that Taiwan is still having a significant and positive presence in the Pacific.

“Taiwan is offering a unique ‘Taiwan Model’ in helping these diplomatic allies in the Pacific.”