Taiwan directly accused China for the first time on Wednesday of blocking a deal with Germany's BioNTech SE for Covid-19 vaccines, in an escalating war of words after Beijing offered the shots to the island via a Chinese company.

Taiwan has millions of vaccine doses on order, from AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc, but has received only slightly more than 700,000 to date, and has only been able to vaccinate about 1 percent of its population as cases surge.

While Taiwan has previously said it had been unable to sign a final contract with BioNTech, it had only implied that Chinese pressure was to blame.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and frequently puts pressure on countries and firms to curtail their dealings with the island...