“Fast, Fair, Fun”: Taiwan Shares Formula for COVID-19 Success

It is a country which has not imposed a lockdown or adopted an emergency law since the COVID-19 pandemic started.  Its businesses and schools remain open, and even sporting events continue, albeit with social distancing guidelines.  This is the story of Taiwan – an inspiring story that needs to be told and retold in these rather difficult and uncertain times.

This, however, is not as easy as it seems. ““We are in a unique situation where we remain excluded from full and equal participation in the World Health Organization (WHO), which limits our ability to engage on pertinent healthcare matters at the global level”, said Bi-khim Hsiao, Chairperson of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) and Senior Advisor to Taiwan’s National Security Council.  “We are also in a constant struggle to breakthrough from the political isolation imposed by Chinese pressures on other countries…”, she added.

The pandemic is changing all of that.  More and more countries are becoming more vocal of their support to Taiwan because of its successful handling of the health crisis.  “We at the international community has to set an example now”, urged Hans van Baalen, President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party.  “Taiwan should be a part of the WHO and also of other organizations where it can fully participate in fighting this pandemic.”

In a webinar initiated by ALDE Party, in close coordination with CALD, last 5 May 2020, Taiwan’s success story took the spotlight with the country’s Digital Minister, Audrey Tang, serving as the keynote speaker. Praised locally and abroad for her role in coronavirus control efforts, Minister Tang shared that Taiwan’s successful handling of COVID-19 can be summarized into 3Fs: Fast, Fair and Fun.

Guided by its “collective memory” of the 2002-2004 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, Taiwan responded immediately to reports of a possible epidemic by screening arrivals from China, isolating potential cases and holding daily press briefings.  It enlisted the support of the general public by encouraging the wearing of masks, the supply of which it distributed fairly and widely using technology and the national insurance card.  To address disinformation, and keep the Taiwanese people calm and collected during the pandemic, the government adopted, as a mantra, “humor over rumor”. In practice, this is essentially the use of meme guided by the “triple 2 principle” – it must be released within 2 hours, accompanied by 2 pictures, and captioned with 200 words or less.

This approach, combined with “transparency, technology and teamwork”, accounts for Taiwan’s compelling pandemic narrative.  When asked by the moderator, European Parliament Vice President Dita Charanzová, about the balance between technology (i.e. Bluetooth tracing apps) and data protection and privacy issues, which is the main bone of contention in Europe, Minister Tang clarified that Taiwan has not used any contact-tracing apps, but has relied on traditional contact-tracing interviews for information, and chatbot and telecom-collected signal strength to enforce the so-called “digital fence” on those subjected to mandatory quarantine.

“In Taiwan, transparency means making the government transparent to the people, not making the people transparent to the state, which is surveillance”, said Minister Tang.  She also noted the country has partnered recently with American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to launch Coronavirus Hackathon (Co-Hack), which aims to boost the development of innovative solutions for controlling and stopping the global coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.  She noted that this is Taiwan’s contribution to finding a solution to the health crisis which can scale into the entire world.

Taiwan’s story in addressing the pandemic paints the way forward for liberal democracies.  As eloquently argued by Minister Tang: “It is possible to keep being a liberal democracy and operate under a way that respects all the essential freedoms, and not make a false dichotomy between anticoronavirus efforts and democracy… The Taiwan model is something that all the liberal democracies can learn from.”

Click here for a link to the webinar.