Taiwan placed their main bet on the AztraZeneca vaccine, with that to be half of the total ordered vaccine supply. The other half was split between Moderna and Biontech.
They got some AstraZeneca type vaccine from the South Korean licensee, but the big global exporter was supposed to be India, who aren't exporting any now. Europe refused to export any to them (or to anyone else).
The US cut off exports of Moderna and only a trickle was coming out of Europe to anyone.
Biontech have a 50 - 50 joint venture with a Chinese company called Fosun to cover the China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao markets. This is comparable to Biontech's joint venture with Pfizer for the rest of the world.
Fosun are providing the money and Biontech providing the technology to produce the Biontech vaccine. Fosun also handle sales, and they have imported vaccine from Biontech for the Hong Kong market already. Fosun's own plant is expected to be ready to ship vaccine this summer.
Fosun have said they are happy to sell vaccine to Taiwan, but the Taiwanese government won't talk to them because it would be a political hot potato to spend tax money on vaccine bought through a Chinese company.
Taiwan tried to buy directly from Biontech, but Biontech told them to go through the local sales agent, Fosun. You have to remember that for Biontech, vaccine is a business and they aren't going to tear up their contract with Fosun in order to please the political sensibilities of Taiwan's government.
Taiwan also put a big bet on developing domestic vaccines, but those have taken longer to develop and go through trials than expected.
Taiwan, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and most other countries in the Far East are far behind Europe, the US, and Canada in getting their vaccination programs going. The exceptions are Singapore, China, and Mongolia. There are probably many reasons for that, but government purchasing strategy will be at the head of the list.
So, the spin seems to be that it is all China's fault that the US, Europe, and India cut off Taiwan's vaccine supply and the Taiwanese government refused to deal with the local distributor of Biontech for domestic political reasons.
Canada was in a similar position to Taiwan earlier this year. The US had cut off vaccine supplies and only a trickle was coming from Europe, India, and South Korea. At one point vaccine supplies from Europe were totally cut off. We could have bought vaccine from Russia or China, but that was unthinkable from a domestic political standpoint. Domestic vaccine production capacity is being built, but it won't be ready until the autumn.
Over the past couple of months however growing quantities have been coming in, and now it's a flood. Things are looking fairly good. I expect the same will be true for Taiwan.
The reason why Canada is in a better position than Taiwan is that Taiwan ordered when they were sure the vaccines were going to work and only as much as they needed. Canada placed big advance orders with cash in advance before it was known whether any of the vaccines would work and we ordered seven times as much as we needed on the assumption that some of those orders would not be able to be delivered.
Most of the world are worse off than Taiwan, with many countries not having received a single dose of vaccine yet.
What will probably happen with respect to the news story is that Foxconn and TSMC are worried about their Taiwanese plants getting shut down, so they want to buy vaccine from Biontech to distribute in Taiwan. Biontech will probably point them to Fosun, Fosun will import it from Biontech and collect their commission while they sell to Foxconn and TSMC, Foxccon and TSMC won't say where they got it from, and everybody will be happy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
