China is sabotaging itself in Taiwan through the Wuhan coronavirus

Beijing is pushing away not only the Taiwanese people but Xi Jinping's 'Chinese Dream'

Focus Taiwan
DATE: 2020/02/08
By:  Taiwan News

On Feb. 3, the first charter jet sent to evacuate Taiwanese businessmen stranded in Wuhan was found to have someone on board infected with the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as well as dozens of "uninvited" passengers believed to be the Chinese spouses of Taiwanese businessmen instead of the elderly, children, and those with medical emergencies, leading to merely half an evacuation.

A backlash mounted on the island as the government officials involved in the operation and the public were surprised to learn that those in need had not returned on the jet and that a man confirmed to be infected had arrived without the knowledge of Taiwanese authorities, putting other passengers and Taiwanese as a whole at risk.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) criticized the Taiwanese government four days later, accusing it of overreacting and of being politically motivated when it blocked subsequent flights from returning the remaining stranded Taiwanese. His remarks coincide with a popular petition launched by professional medical workers calling for the government to carefully select and schedule passengers on subsequent charter jets before they board the planes.

Let's hear what those on the front line have to say. A petition launched by medical professionals titled "Medical workers supporting the Taiwan government's insistence on medical defense" urges the authorities to allow only citizens to board evacuation jets, as many other countries do, and to limit the number of flights to a certain period of time, as Taiwan is not able to deal with every compatriot in Wuhan coming back all at once.