CALD Hails Taiwan’s Democratic COVID-19 Response

As Asia, like the rest of the world, grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the countries that appears to manage the health crisis quite well is Taiwan. And that it has been able to so without declaring a state of emergency or imposing a lockdown shows that there is a “democratic way” of dealing with a pandemic.

Taiwan’s democratic handling of the health crisis was commended by the members of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) in its Executive Committee Special Session held last 2 April 2020.  The Special Session was called to share experiences and best practices on how Asian countries are addressing the threat of COVID-19 (See CALD’s Summary of COVID-19 Policy Responses in Asia here).

Presided by CALD Chair Bi-khim Hsiao, who was also recently appointed as Taiwan’s Senior National Security Advisor, the Special Session was attended by representatives from the Democrat Party of Thailand, Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, Liberal Party of the Philippines, Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia, Singapore Democratic Party, Cambodia National Rescue Party, Democratic Party of Hong Kong and the CALD Secretariat (See Summary of the Key Points Raised in the Special Session here).

In her country report, Hsiao stated that Taiwan started its preparations really early, having learned from the previous SARS epidemic in 2003.  She summarized her country’s COVID-19 response into three (3) components (See Taiwan’s Detailed COVID-19 Policy Response here):

• Social and Public Management – Taiwan has observed transparency in dealing with the crisis. It has been informing the public of the number of cases, where the cases are coming from, and the possible contacts of the cases.  This transparency of information has given the public assurance of how the situation is evolving in the country.  Coupled with this transparency of information is the imposition of heavy fines on those people spreading disinformation about the health crisis.
• Medical Expertise and Professionals – Drawing from the SARS experience, Taiwan’s medical professionals immediately set-up protocols on treating COVID-19 patients. Special isolation hospitals have been designated, and these have been provided with adequate medical support.  Moreover, all hospitals in Taiwan are required to have a 30-day stockpile of medical equipment and supply, which prevented the shortage that many countries are now experiencing.
• Private Sector and Industry – Private-public partnership is also crucial in Taiwan’s pandemic response. This is most evident in the mask industry, which immediately responded to the call of 24-hour mass production and enhancement of production line.  With government support in the procurement of machines, the daily mask production increased from 2 million in January to 13 million in April.  For this reason, Taiwan has now been able to donate masks to the US and Europe, while donations to Southeast Asian countries will be next in line.

Recognizing that the world can learn a lot from Taiwan’s experience, CALD voiced strong support for Taiwan’s membership in the World Health Organization (WHO).  In this regard, it is important to note that Taiwan attempted to notify WHO at the end of 2019 & early 2020 about the human-to-human transmission of a new strain of coronavirus from Wuhan, China, but was not taken seriously.

“We want to help — to send out our great doctors, our great researchers, our great nurses — and to share our knowledge and experience with countries that need it,” said Taiwan’s Vice President Chen Chien-jen, a Johns Hopkins-trained epidemiologist, in an American Chamber of Commerce event in Taipei. “We want to be a good global citizen and make our contribution, but right now we are unable to.”

If the world wants to prevail over this pandemic with its democracy intact, it needs to pay attention to Taiwan.