https://time.com/6083748/taiwan-vaccines-terry-gou-foxconn/
Will Foxconn Billionaire Terry Gou’s COVID-19 Vaccine Deal Bring
Taiwan Closer to China?
富士康富豪郭台铭的新冠疫苗交易会让台湾更倾中吗？
作者：Natalie Tso/台北
2021 年 7 月 26 日
For 18 months, Taiwan was a model of COVID-19 prevention and
President Tsai Ing-wen reaped the political benefits. Her approval rating
surged to a record 73% in May 2020. Then, a year later, the island’s first
major outbreak hit and it became clear that its COVID-19 defense was
lacking one major component: vaccines.
过去 18 个月以来，台湾是预防 COVID-19 的典范，而蔡英文总统
因此收割了其中带来的政治利益。她的支持度在 2020 年 5 月飙升
至创纪录的 73%。然而在一年后，该岛首次爆发大规模疫情，显然
其 COVID-19 防御缺乏一主要组成元素：疫苗。
As infections surged this May, Taiwan had just over 300,000 COVID-19
vaccines for its 23.5 million people. The government had ordered 20
million doses from overseas, but supplies were just trickling in.
随着今年 5 月感染人数激增，台湾 2350 万人口仅拥有 30 万多剂
COVID-19 疫苗。政府已从海外订购了 2000 万剂疫苗，但供应量却
如滴水涓涓流入。
Tsai, who has forged a close relationship with the U.S. and favors a more
distant approach to China, blamed the shortage on interference from Beijing
after a deal to buy vaccines directly from Germany manufacturer BioNTech
fell apart in January. But finger-pointing didn’t stop her popularity from
plunging as many Taiwanese people agonized over the lack of jabs. A poll
in June showed her approval rating had dropped to just 43%.
已与美国建立了密切关系并对中国采取更疏远态度的蔡英文，在 1
月份直接从德国制造商 BNT 购买疫苗的交易告吹后，将疫苗短缺
归咎于北京的干预。但这项指责并没有阻止她的人气暴跌，因为许
多台湾人受苦于缺乏疫苗注射。6 月份的一项民意调查显示，她的
支持度下降到只剩 43%。
It’s against this backdrop that 70-year-old billionaire Terry Gou became
Taiwan’s vaccine hero. Gou, whose company Foxconn is Apple’s
largest supplier, spearheaded a series of deals this month with Chinese
state-owned Fosun Pharma—a pharmaceutical giant that holds the
distribution rights for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for China, including
Taiwan. (Pfizer is the agent for the rest of the world.) The deals will bring
15 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to Taiwan, with the first
batches expected to arrive in September.
正是在这此事件背景下，70 岁的富豪郭台铭成为了台湾的疫苗英
雄。郭台铭的公司富士康是苹果最大供应商，他在这个月引领了与
中国国有企业复星医药进行一连串交易的动作。复星医药是一家拥
有包含台湾在内的中国之辉瑞-BNT 疫苗经销权的制药巨头 (辉瑞
本身是世界其他地区的经销。) 这些交易将为台湾带来 1500 万剂辉
瑞-BNT 疫苗，第一批预计将于 9 月抵达台湾。
“Our government was too complacent with buying vaccines because we
hardly had an outbreak,” Taipei resident Akane Lee says. “Gou’s
vaccine purchase is like sending rain in a drought.”
台北居民 Akane Lee 表示，“因为我们几乎没有爆发过疫情，政府
购买疫苗的过程太过自满，郭台铭购买到疫苗就像久旱逢甘霖。”
Gou enjoys close ties to Beijing and ran unsuccessfully in Taiwan’s 2019
presidential primary election for the opposition Kuomintang (KMT). His
platform argued for the cultivation of a stronger relationship between the
democratic self-ruled island and Mainland China, which views Taiwan as a
breakaway province that must be brought back under its control—by force
if necessary.
郭台铭享有与北京的密切关系，并在反对党国民党 (KMT) 2019年
的台湾总统初选中落败。他的政纲主张在民主自治的该岛与中国大
陆之间建立更牢固的关系。然而中国大陆将台湾视为必须重新取得
控制的分裂省份──必要时会透过武力。
That the deal came via a businessman with billions of dollars in business
interests in the mainland, and months after Tsai’s government failed to
buy the same vaccines, indicates that Beijing put its finger on the scale,
political observers say.
政治观察者表示，这笔交易是透过一位在大陆拥有数十亿美元商业
利益的商人达成，而在蔡政府未能购买相同疫苗数月后，这代表北
京左右了其中局势。
“I think [the Chinese government] encouraged Fosun Pharma to make
concessions so the vaccines could be shipped directly from Germany,”
says political scientist Spencer Yang of Taiwan’s Chinese Culture
University. “The Beijing government might want to use this deal to
humiliate the Tsai government.”
台湾中国文化大学的政治学者Spencer Yang (译注：有人知道是谁吗
? )表示：“我认为 (中国政府) 鼓励复星医药做出让步，让疫苗可
以直接从德国出货。北京政府可能想利用这笔交易来羞辱蔡英文政
府。”
But the vaccine deal was fraught with political obstacles from the
beginning. In May, when a COVID-19 outbreak started by cargo pilots
spiraled into hundreds of daily cases and island-wide restrictions, Gou
volunteered to buy five million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for
Taiwan—but the government took nearly a month to allow him to begin the
process.
但疫苗交易从一开始就充满政治障碍。5 月当由货机驾驶引发的
COVID-19 爆发加剧为每天数百例和全岛移动限制时，郭台铭主动
建议为台湾购买 500 万剂辉瑞-BNT 疫苗──但台湾政府花了将近
一个月的时间才允许他开始这个过程。
Why would Tsai hesitate to let a local billionaire foot the bill for its most
desired import? “If Gou hadn’t run for president two years ago, it
wouldn’t have been a problem,” says political scientist Arthur Ding of
National Chengchi University. “But Gou gave the Tsai administration
tremendous pressure. Tsai had to give in.”
为什么蔡英文会顾虑让一位当地富豪为其最想要的进口物买单？“
如果郭台铭两年前未竞选总统，这次就不会有问题，”国立政治大
学政治学者丁树范表示，“但后来郭台铭给予蔡政府重大压力。蔡
不得不让步。”
When the Tsai government granted permission for Gou to purchase
vaccines, it also gave the go-ahead to Taiwan Semiconductor
Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—the world-leading microchip maker,
which has closer ties to the government—to pursue a vaccine deal. TIME
asked the Health Ministry to comment on the recent vaccine deals, but it
declined.
蔡政府在核准郭台铭购买疫苗的同时，也同意了与政府关系密切的
全球领先微芯片制造商台积电 (TSMC) 进行疫苗交易。时代曾要求
卫福部对最近几起的疫苗交易发表评论，但卫福部拒绝评论。
On July 12, Gou’s Foxconn and TSCM announced a $350 million deal for
five million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines each with Fosun Pharma. The
following week, the Tzu Chi Foundation, Taiwan’s largest charity,
followed with a deal for another five million doses. The KMT has also
offered to buy five million more, but Tsai has closed that door, saying no
more doses were needed.
7月 12 日，郭台铭旗下的富士康和TSCM宣布与复星医药分别以3.5
亿美元的价格购买辉瑞-BNT疫苗。之后一周，台湾最大的慈善机
构慈济基金会也以500万剂的交易跟进。国民党还提出再购买 500
万，但蔡已关闭了这扇门，称不需要更多剂量。
Gou, who declined to speak to TIME for this story, said on social media
that the deal went through without influence from Beijing: “The mainland
did not meddle or interfere in the vaccine procurement process,” he posted
on Facebook.
郭台铭拒绝就此事与时代周刊发言，他在社交媒体上表示，这笔交
易的进行不受北京的影响。他在 Facebook 上发文：“大陆没有扰
乱或干预疫苗采购过程。”
Beijing’s Global Times quoted a mainland official as saying, “The
signing of the vaccine purchase deal proved that previous rumors of the
mainland preventing the island of Taiwan from accessing vaccines are
unfounded.”
北京的《环球时报》引述大陆官员的话称，“此次疫苗采购交易的
签署，证明在此之前大陆阻止台湾取得疫苗的传言毫无根据。”
The private purchase of vaccines has highlighted recent public discontent
with Tsai and her party. When Tsai announced on her Facebook page that
the deal resulted from “the hard work of the government and private
sector,” most people left scathing comments. “Has our government
fallen asleep? They can’t even buy vaccines. They need to use the private
sector to do so,” one user said.
民间购买疫苗凸显了近期民众对蔡及其政党的不满。当蔡在其脸书
页面上宣布这笔交易是“政府和民间努力”的结果时，大多数人留
下了严厉的评论。一位使用者表示：“我们的政府睡着了？他们甚
至无法买疫苗，需要透过民间来买。”
The Global Times, too, was quick to criticize Tsai’s “self-aggrandizing
attitude,” while highlighting that it was not her government that
completed the vaccine deal.
《环球时报》也迅速批评蔡英文“自我夸耀的态度”，同时强调完
成疫苗交易的不是她的政府。
Meanwhile, people have flooded Gou’s Facebook page with expressions
of gratitude: “Thank you CEO Gou!” said one user. “Your initiative
and goodwill led to TSMC and Tzu Chi following suit, and the saving of
15 million lives in Taiwan.”
与此同时，人们纷纷涌入郭台铭的脸书页面，表达感激之情：“感
谢郭执行长！”一名使用者表示，“您的主动和善意让台积电和慈
济纷纷效仿，拯救了台湾1500万人的生命。”
Deal undercuts Taiwan’s other vaccine sources
外购交易降低台湾其他疫苗来源的重要性
Part of the reason for Taiwan’s vaccine shortage was that Tsai’s
government banked on producing its own vaccines, and said at least one of
two jabs under development would be available by July. “Tsai promoting
them so eagerly and so early definitely hurt her popularity,” says Ding.
台湾疫苗短缺的部分原因是蔡政府指望生产自己的疫苗，并表示正
在开发的两种疫苗中的至少一种将在 7 月前上市。丁表示：“蔡这
么早就热切推广国产疫苗，绝对伤害了她的声望。”
Taiwan’s drug regulator authorized the use of the first domestic
COVID-19 vaccine, from Medigen Vaccine Biologics, on July 19.
However, instead of using large-scale Phase III trials to test its efficacy,
regulators accepted “immuno-bridging” studies that measured antibody
response levels in people who had gotten the Medigen shots.
台湾药品监管单位于 7 月 19 日核准使用来自高端 (Medigen) 的国内
首款 COVID-19 疫苗。然而，监管单位并未进行大规模三期试验来
测试其效价，而是接受了“免疫桥接”研究──此研究测量了接受
高端注射的人的抗体反应水平。
Officials say Taiwan is the first place to use such methods in regulatory
authorization, but the methodology has proved somewhat controversial.
Only 20% of people said they were willing to get jabbed with Taiwanese
vaccines in a recent My Formosa survey, and 82% said the vaccines should
go through Phase III trials before getting approved.
官员表示台湾是第一个在监管授权下使用这种方法的地方，但这种
方法已证明有所争议。在最近的《美丽岛电子报》民调中，只有
20%的人表示愿意接种台湾疫苗，而 82% 受访者表示，疫苗在获得
核准之前应该通过三期试验。
Luckily for Tsai, six million vaccine doses began arriving from the U.S.
and Japan in June, allowing Taiwan to start its mass inoculation campaign.
Currently, more than 24% of Taiwanese people have received one dose. “
When people in Taiwan were desperate for vaccines, the donations by the
U.S. and Japan really bailed Tsai out,” Ding says.
对蔡而言庆幸的是，6月有600万剂疫苗从美国和日本开始运抵台湾
，让台湾开始大规模接种。目前，超过24%的台湾人接种了一剂。
丁表示：“当台湾人迫切需要疫苗的同时，美国和日本的捐赠确实
拯救了蔡的困境。”
For Gou, this could be a political beginning
对郭台铭而言，这可能是政治生涯开端
The Gou-led purchase of 15 million doses from BioNTech—enough to
vaccinate nearly one-third of the island’s population—means that Taiwan
will now have much less need for either additional donations from allies or
its own domestically developed vaccines. But the deal has sparked some
skepticism in Taiwan.
郭台铭领导从 BNT 购买 1500 万剂疫苗──足以为该岛近三分之一
的人口接种疫苗──意味着台湾现在对来自盟友的额外捐赠或本国
开发的疫苗的需求将大大减少。但此交易在台湾引起了一些怀疑。
“It’s fine for Gou to buy vaccines but he didn’t have to buy BioNTech,
” says Vivian Yu, a legal counsel who specializes in cross-Strait
commercial ties. “There’s always a political risk of going through
Shanghai’s Fosun Pharma.”
专门研究两岸商业关系的法律顾问Vivian Yu表示：“郭台铭买疫苗
没问题，但他不一定要买BNT。”“透过上海复星医药总有政治风
险。”
Tensions with Beijing have been at their highest in years. Taiwan sees
Chinese warplanes fly into the island’s Air Defense Identification Zone
(ADIZ) on a regular basis, with a record high of 28 warplanes encroaching
on one day in June.
与北京的紧张关系达到了多年来的最高水平。台湾近来经常见到中
国战机飞入该岛的防空识别区 (ADIZ)，6月份中的一天曾有28架战
机侵入台湾领空，创下历史记录。
Has Beijing earned new loyalty during Taiwan’s vaccine woes? Ding
believes China gained ground—but to a larger extent, Tsai and her
pro-West Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost it. A Taiwanese Public
Opinion Foundation poll released in July indicates that in the past three
months, Tsai’s ruling DPP lost 15% of its supporters.
北京是否在台湾疫苗危机期间赢得了台湾人民的新认同度？丁认为
中国的确有所进展──但蔡英文和她的亲西方民进党 (DPP) 在更大
程度上失去认同度。台湾民意基金会于 7 月发布的民意调查显示，
在过去三个月，蔡英文执政的民进党失去了15%的支持者。
However, the defectors haven’t switched to the more China-friendly
KMT. Most people, 48%, are non-partisan and some now support smaller
parties, like the new Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) led by Taipei Mayor
Ko Wen-je, who takes a more pragmatic tone with Beijing than Tsai. After
losing the presidential primary for the KMT, Gou called for supporting
candidates from the TPP and other small parties in the 2020 election.
然而，转向者并没有转向对中国更友善的国民党。大多数人 (48%)
为中立选民，有些人现在支持较小的政党，比如台北市长柯文哲领
导的新台湾民众党 (TPP)──柯对北京采取了比蔡更为务实的基调。
在国民党总统初选失利后，郭台铭在2020年大选中呼吁支持 TPP 和
其他小党派的候选人。
Gou has earned a place in Taiwanese hearts for his determination to
provide Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, a brand that has topped local surveys of
the jabs people favor. There is also no doubting his philanthropic
credentials. He donated over $635 million to build a state-of-the-art cancer
research and treatment center in memory of his first wife and brother, who
both died of cancer. When he remarried in 2008, he and his new wife
pledged to give 90% of his $6 billion fortune to charity.
郭台铭凭借供应辉瑞-BNT疫苗的决心，在台湾人心目中赢得了一
席之地──此疫苗品牌在当地民众的偏好调查中名列第一。他的慈
善行径之资历也毋庸置疑。他捐赠了超过 6.35 亿美元，成立了一
尖端科技的癌症研究暨治疗中心，以纪念因癌症去世的第一任妻子
和弟弟。2008 年再婚时，他和新婚妻子承诺捐出他的60亿美元财富
中的90%，以用于慈善事业。
Will such generosity translate into enough support for another presidential run?
这次慷慨行径是否会转化为对另一次总统竞选的足够支持力？
“The next presidential election is three years from now, so it’s far too
early to call,” says Lev Nachman, postdoctoral fellow at Harvard
University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. “But I don’t think
he will quietly bow out from politics. His public involvement in securing
vaccines, his general presence in the KMT and TPP, show future political
ambitions from Terry Gou.”
哈佛大学费正清中国研究中心的博士后研究员列夫·纳赫曼 (译注：
上次说“不买任何疫苗，对DPP最有利”) 表示：“下届总统选举
是三年后举行，所以现在下定论还为时过早。但我认为他不会悄悄
退出政坛。”他公开参与取得疫苗，他在国民党和 TPP 中的普遍
存在感，显现了郭台铭未来的政治雄心。”
And while Beijing’s earlier vaccine overtures to Taiwan were rejected, by
staying out of the BioNTech vaccine deal with Fosun (at least publicly), it
may have achieved some political aims in Taiwan. “To some extent,
China has won points,” says Yang at Chinese Culture University, “but
Chinese planes remind us that Beijing is still hostile towards Taiwan.”
虽然北京更早之前向台湾提出的疫苗提议被拒绝，但不插手与复星
的 BNT 疫苗交易 (至少以公开的观点)，北京可能在台湾实现了一
些政治目标。中国文化大学的Yang表示：“但中国飞机提醒我们，
北京仍然对台湾怀有敌意。”