World’s supply of chips in danger unless Taiwan gets vaccines

FILE PHOTO: A logo of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is seen at its headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan August 31, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

BACK in February, as the world was beating a path to Taiwan’s door for help to tackle a shortage of semiconductors, the health minister got into a scrap with China over Covid-19 vaccines.

Beijing, he suggested, had used political pressure to derail Taiwan’s plan to purchase five million doses directly from Germany’s BioNTech SE, rather than via a Chinese company which held the rights to develop and market the BioNTech-Pfizer Inc. vaccine across China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying retorted that Taipei "should stop hyping up political issues under the pretext of vaccine issues.”