Taiwan Vice President William Lai used his final day in the United States to repeat an accusation that China blocked the island from obtaining COVID-19 vaccines last year, and to thank a U.S. lawmaker for her role in donating the inoculations.
for COVID-19 vaccines, after Beijing offered the shots to the island via a Chinese company just as Taiwan was dealing with a rise in domestic infections.
Beijing has angrily denied trying to stop Taiwan getting vaccines, and also offered Chinese-developed shots which the island rejected, citing safety concerns. China claims Taiwan as its own territory.Less than two weeks after Tsai's comments, Senator Tammy Duckworth, visiting Taipei with two other U.S. lawmakers, said the United States wouldSpeaking to the Illinois Democrat during a stop over in San Francisco while on the way back to Taiwan from Honduras, Lai offered his thanks.
Lai said he was "especially grateful to her last year when Taiwan was unable to obtain vaccines due to the China factor", Taiwan's presidential office said, citing the de facto U.S. ambassador to Washington Hsiao Bi-khim, who is accompanying Lai. "She not only actively advocated that the Biden administration should provide vaccines to Taiwan, but also personally went to Taiwan to announce that the United States would donate Taiwan vaccines."
In Beijing, China's foreign ministry said Lai's accusation was "total fiction", calling it a "malicious slandering and smearing of the true face of the mainland".
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