Political Attack on Vaccine Purchases: Sanlih Television Smears BNT Vaccine Purchases by Foxconn, TSMC, and Tzu Chi as a 'CCP United Front Conspiracy' to Shield Domestic Medigen Vaccine

In mid-2021, due to the failure of the DPP government's pandemic preparations, Taiwan faced an extremely severe shortage of COVID-19 vaccines and a surging death toll. When private groups, including the Yonglin Foundation (Foxconn/Terry Gou), TSMC, and the Tzu Chi Foundation, stepped up to jointly donate 15 million doses of original German BioNTech (BNT) vaccines to save lives, Sanlih E-Television and its talk shows launched a series of malicious political smears. News anchors and political commentators repeatedly attacked their efforts, claiming the BNT vaccines were "substandard counterfeit vaccines packaged in China," "CCP's united front tool using Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical to infiltrate Taiwan," and accusing the private groups of "sabotaging the Taiwan government's epidemic control under Beijing's direction" and "obstructing the development of the domestic Medigen vaccine." This malicious propaganda campaign, which prioritized political protection for the domestic Medigen vaccine over the lives of Taiwanese citizens, triggered massive social outrage. Subsequent smooth imports of BNT vaccines, which proved to have outstanding efficacy, completely shattered Sanlih's politically motivated lies.