Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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English
Photo Credit: Chien Chih-Hung/Office of the President/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
TAIWAN’S DOMESTICALLY DEVELOPED and manufactured COVID-19 vaccine, Medigen, continues to be contested in a partisan fashion. This can be observed in a recent announcement by the Taichung city government that Medigen vaccines would not be distributed on school campuses, with the claim that this was due to parental concerns.
It is generally thought that this takes place because Taichung is currently controlled by the KMT mayoral administration of Lu Shiow-yen. Lu is currently considered the KMT’s frontrunner for the 2028 presidential elections.
Likewise, as a mayor who was in power during COVID-19, Lu was among the local KMT politicians who frequently lashed out at the COVID-19 response led by the then-ruling Tsai administration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was frequent back-and-forth between the DPP-controlled central and KMT-controlled local governments, over issues such as information-sharing, vaccine and PPE distribution, and etc. To this extent, local governments frequently attacked the Tsai administration and the Central Epidemic Command Center that coordinated Taiwan’s COVID-19 response with the claim that it was either too lax in taking preventative measures against the pandemic or was too quick to relax such measures.
When it came to the development of Medigen, the Tsai administration accelerated the development of Taiwan’s domestically developed and manufactured vaccine at a time when Taiwan lacked vaccines. The KMT, on the other hand, alleged that Medigen’s development only took place because of illicit ties between the vaccine manufacturer and the Tsai administration, alleging investment by Tsai administration officials in the company and insider trading. When there were, in fact, insider trading charges linked to Medigen, this gave the KMT all the more political ammunition.
Such allegations took place in the context of attacks on the Tsai administration’s vaccine policy more broadly. Taiwan initially lacked vaccines–as most countries that are not major world powers did— but eventually Taiwan did see vaccines arrive from donations from the US and vaccine purchase agreements that had been previously negotiated. Still, despite such worldview shortages, this did not prevent the KMT from alleging that such shortages only took place because of the particular fault of the Tsai administration.
Indeed, Taiwan is not the only country in the region to develop its own vaccines, and most countries in the world that were not major powers lacked vaccines. However, the general public may be unaware of this. The KMT likely took advantage of the public’s lack of awareness of this fact in order to attack the Tsai administration.
During the pandemic, the Tsai administration sought to drive up national pride in Taiwan’s domestic pharmaceutical industry in the push for Medigen’s development. With the KMT hitting out at Medigen, this often framed the issue in such a way as to play on Taiwan’s national self-doubt. One has observed similarly with the KMT’s other actions targeting what DPP presidential administrations have framed as accomplishments of Taiwan’s domestic industry, such as Taiwan’s first domestically developed and manufactured submarine.
When Taiwan began receiving supplies of AstraZeneca vaccines donated by the US and other countries, the KMT leaned into claims that AstraZeneca had only been foisted onto Taiwan by countries that did not want it, due to the dangers of the vaccines, playing on fears caused by international reports of blood clots caused by AstraZeneca. Similarly, some members of the KMT began to call for the use of Chinese vaccines in Taiwan. Nonetheless, this did not prevent some members of the KMT from illegally jumping the vaccination priority order to be vaccinated with AstraZeneca, something that caused public controversy.
Controversy about Medigen has continued after the pandemic. In 2023, Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an of the KMT stated that he would not allow Medigen vaccines for influenza to be used at schools in Taipei. So, too, with Lu and her more recent actions regarding Medigen. When the KMT sought new legislative investigatory powers last year to target members of the DPP, one of the issues that the KMT hoped to set up an investigation committee regarding was Medigen, indicating that the KMT still seeks to pursue legal action against the DPP when it comes to Medigen. It is to be seen if this takes place.