时论广场》波兰捐赠台湾疫苗的背后（方恩格Ross Darrell Feingold）

波兰政府捐赠台湾的40万剂AZ疫苗，5日清晨由长荣航空公司BR66航班自维也纳运抵桃园机场，海关完成机边验放作业后，地勤人员上前将货物消毒，随后送往指定冷储物流中心存放，进行后续检验封缄作业后再供计划所列实施对象接种。（陈麒全摄）

波兰近日捐赠台湾40万剂AZ疫苗，台湾政府立即公开表示感谢波兰政府、强调波兰此举是民主自由价值之下互助与共患难的展现。在这之前美国、日本等国向台湾捐赠疫苗时，台湾政府也做出了类似的反应。许多台湾民众也在社群媒体上大力称赞这些疫苗捐赠国，认为这是台湾民主新价值被国际认可的证明。

殊不知美国、日本除了捐赠疫苗给台湾之外，同时也在世界各国间大量捐赠疫苗，而这些疫苗受赠国之中有许多国家并非民主国家，换言之，这些疫苗捐赠的动作，并非都是基于民主信念，虽然台湾人普遍对于民主价值朗朗上口，但在国际情境下与事实相违。

放眼国际间其他的疫苗受赠国，多是贫困、无法取得疫苗的国家。然而台湾医疗先进且富裕，列在受赠国之中显得格格不入。台湾政府一方面想要摆脱「疫苗乞丐」的名声，一方面又大力欢庆他国政府的疫苗捐赠，是否有些矛盾？

就在波兰宣布将捐赠台湾疫苗的同一天，苏贞昌院长宣布了政府将在屏东建棒球场、双语学校等文化建设。疫情当前，笔者不免对于台湾政府在政策上的优先排序感到质疑。只能合理推测现在在地方上进行文化建设，或许是希望将民众的焦点逐渐从疫情转移至明年的地方选举上。此外，政府大力向世界各国要疫苗之举，或也可弥补其在疫情爆发之时未能及时采购足量疫苗的缺失。

若台湾真的正视国际间疫苗捐赠的形象价值，在目前台湾疫情控制良好的情况之下，台湾忙着欢庆受赠疫苗是外交上的大成就的同时，更可以考虑与捐赠国合作，一同署名将原本要捐赠给台湾的疫苗进一步转送至更需要的国家，这可以帮助台湾在国际间获得更大的美名。

此外，值得台湾民众关注的是目前波兰的执政党「法律与正义党(PiS)」近年来对于民主、人权和法治的政策上，在国际间已恶名昭彰，以下简单列举：

2020 年，现任波兰总统杜达(Andrzej Duda) 在当时的竞选集会上表示，LGBT(同志文化)的意识形态比共产主义还更令人唾弃。同年，包括美国在内的50名驻波兰大使和国际组织发出共同声明，表示波兰政府的歧视性政策是对于性别少数族群与人权的威胁。然而在台湾通过同婚、高呼人权胜利之时，台湾的名字却未出现在这些国际间的联合声明之中。

今年8月，波兰众议院(Sejm)通过了对媒体所有权法案的修改，迫使美国Discovery集团出售其在波兰电视公司 「TVN」 的多数股权，其旗下新闻频道 「TVN24」是少数仅存对波兰政府持高度批评态度的当地媒体，有人称此举为波兰政府所做出的媒体清洗。美国国务卿布林肯（Antony Blinken）也对此发出强力谴责。

就在几周前，波兰众议院通过「大屠杀及共产主义下受害者能索取他们过去被夺取的财产之权利」相关法规将不再适用。在各国努力进行转型正义的同时，波兰政府不顾美国和以色列的挞伐，开始倒行逆施，罔顾历史事件下的受害者权益。

波兰政府接二连三推出的争议性政策，让欧盟数次对其发出警告。其中对于波兰政府干预司法独立性，欧盟表达严厉指责之外，就在波兰宣布向台湾捐赠疫苗后的这几天，欧盟对又波兰政府发出了更具体的警告令，要求其不得继续侵害当地LGBT者的人权，否则欧盟将要停止对波兰当地政府所提供的1亿2600多欧元援助。

在台湾议题正受到美、欧关注的同时，波兰选在这个时机点捐赠疫苗给台湾似乎很合理，或许这能帮助波兰政府在他们逐渐破败的国际形象上加点分。但笔者不禁怀疑，站在台湾的角度，执政的民进党与波兰的法律与正义党在人权、自由民主等议题上价值观明显南辕北辙，为何台湾政府愿意在此时帮助波兰政府挽救他们的国际形象？

然而就在9月6日，波兰与台湾的疫苗情谊瞬间顿然无形。波兰外交部长拉乌（Zbigniew Rau）在他访问立陶宛时公开表示，波兰并不承认台湾独立，并强调在波兰所奉行的「一中政策」之下，他们始终视台湾为中国的一部分。

这无非让台湾学习到一课，无论台湾在外交处境有多么孤寂，君子慎所择，交友须小心谨慎！

（作者为美国共和党海外部亚太区前主席）

全文：

Do DPP Values = PiS Values?

By Ross Darrell Feingold

Former Asia Chairman Republicans Abroad

The recent donation by Poland of 400000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses is accompanied once again by the Taiwan’s government references to partners in democracy and freedom assisting each other. Such statements by the Taiwan government accompanied the United States Japan and other vaccine donations even though vaccine donors have donated vaccines to countries worldwide with many of these recipients not democracies. Clearly whether or not a donor recipient country is a democracy or not is not a main motivation for vaccine donations.

First it is important to re-iterate this author’s previous public statements that a wealthy country like Taiwan does not need to accept vaccine donations because it gives the international community the impression that the Taiwan government is a vaccine beggar which lacks money to purchase vaccines. In fact on the same day that Poland’s vaccine donation was announced Premier Su Chen-chang announced government support to build an unnecessary baseball stadium in Pingtung among other recently announced unnecessary projects that have more to do with obtaining voter support in the 2022 local election than actual need. Perhaps the government’s strategy is to obtain vaccine donations so as to divert attention from its own failures to timely procure vaccines while focusing voter attention on the 2022 elections.

Second if Taiwan wants to maximize the global public relations value of vaccine donations rather than tell only a domestic audience that Taiwan has achieved a foreign relations success Taiwan would gain far more international attention if in conjunction with the donor country the vaccines were further donated to a country that is in greater need than Taiwan (with its relatively small number of COVID-19 cases) for vaccines.

Of greater concern about Taiwan accepting Poland’s donation is that at the moment Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party’s recent democracy human rights and rule of law record is a concern. During a campaign rally in 2020 Polish President Andrzej Duda told supporters that LGBTQ “ideology” is worse than communism. Later in 2020 50 ambassadors and representatives of international organizations in Poland including the United States expressed their support for “efforts to raise public awareness of the issues affecting the lesbian gay bisexual transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community and other communities in Poland facing similar challenges”. A similar letter was in 2021. Taiwan’s representative office in Poland did not sign either letter. In August the lower house of Poland’s parliament passed changes to the media ownership law that would force US group Discovery to sell its majority stake in TVN one of Poland's biggest private TV networks whose news channel TVN24 is often highly critical of Poland’s government. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement calling the media law “troubling”. Also in August despite criticism from the United States and Israel the Polish parliament amended an existing law on restitution claims which would prevent descendants of Holocaust victims or Communist Poland’s victims from seeking restitution. Later in August the Polish government attempted to avoid European Union threats of sanctions due to the Polish government’s interference in judicial independence.

It appears that Poland’s vaccine donations to Taiwan were timed to help address Poland’s international image. One wonders why Taiwan decided to assist Poland in this effort especially as the values of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party appear to be quite different than the values of PiS.

The Polish attempt to use the vaccine donations to Taiwan might not be working though. Days after the Polish donation to Taiwan was announced on 6 September 2021 the European Union threatened to block 126 million euros of aid to local Polish governments over concerns about LGBTQ rights.

Earlier this week Poland’s foreign minister Zbigniew Rau during a visit to Lithuania reportedly said Poland does not recognize Taiwan’s independence and that under Poland’s One China policy Taiwan is a part of China.

This is all a good reminder for Taiwan that despite its diplomatic challenges it must be prudent when selecting friends.