A diplomat said BioNTech has planned for Taiwan 5 million vaccines by July

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Injections are seen in front of the Biontech logo displayed in this illustration taken on November 10, 2020. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic / Illustration / File Photo

TAIPEI (Reuters) – The top Taipei diplomat in Berlin said on Tuesday that Bioantek SE (22UAy.DE) was planning to send five million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan by July under an original agreement that collapsed in January. A highly politicized agreement disintegrated.

Taiwan has been trying for months to get the vaccine from the German company, until on Sunday, the Chinese sales agent for BioNTech, who is also entitled to sell the vaccine to the island, said it would sell 10 million doses to two Taiwanese tech giants, after Taiwan. The government said it could negotiate on their behalf. Read more

Taiwan blamed China for the collapse of a direct deal with BioNTech in January, allegations that Beijing has vehemently denied.

Shih Jiewei, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador in Berlin, said the original English-language press release that was supposed to announce the agreement on January 6 stated that five million doses would have been made available in batches by July.

But two days later, on January 8, Sheh said a different person at BioNTech than they had previously been communicating with began returning messages.

“English mixed with simplified Chinese characters to ask to change ‘our country’ to ‘Taiwan’, and since then everything has fallen apart,” he added, writing on his Facebook page, referring to the draft press release.

Simplified characters are used in China, while Taiwan uses traditional characters. China claims that Taiwan is its territory and strongly opposes any language that the island is a country.

BioNTech did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said in May, when the government first gave details of what happened, that they had agreed to change the wording to only “Taiwan,” but the agreement has since stalled. Read more

Sheh said his description of what happened was “of course” political interference.

“But who? This is self-evident,” he added.

“However, during the whole process of coordination and behind-the-scenes negotiations, not only I, but also German parliamentarians and officials, felt the power of willingness and high enthusiasm on the part of BioNTech’s senior management to supply Taiwan with vaccines.”

Germany, like most countries, does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Yimo Lee) Editing by Christopher Cushing

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