Taiwan Struck by Deadly 7.4-Magnitude Earthquake

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Taiwan’s biggest earthquake in 25 years, NATO commitments for Ukraine aid, and an opposition crackdown in Thailand.

Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.

Massive Earthquake Rocks Taiwan

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan on Wednesday, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 1,000 others. Around 50 hotel workers en route to a national park remain missing, and 70 miners are trapped in two coal mines. “At present the most important thing, the top priority, is to rescue people,” Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te said.

The quake struck Taiwan’s eastern coast near the city of Hualien and was felt as far as 200 miles from the epicenter. Shanghai and China’s southeastern provinces recorded shock waves, and parts of Japan and the Philippines issued tsunami warnings that were later lifted. More than 200 aftershocks have been documented thus far, including one reaching a magnitude of 6.4.

This was Taiwan’s biggest earthquake in 25 years. Taipei sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a region that is home to most of the world’s earthquakes. Over the past 50 years, the island has recorded seven major quakes, the last being a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in 2006 in southern Taiwan’s Pingtung County. The island’s most devastating earthquake in the last few decades, however, was a 7.6-magnitude quake in 1999 that killed more than 2,400 people and damaged or destroyed around 50,000 buildings.

Taipei issued new building regulations following the 1999 disaster to prepare for future earthquakes. Since 2019, it has reviewed 36,000 buildings built before 1999 and provided subsidies to improve them. Experts believe these improvements could explain Wednesday’s low death toll.

Still, more than 300,000 households temporarily lost power on Wednesday, around 14,000 households are without water, and the island’s high-speed rail system suspended operations, stranding commuters. Lai said the rail link is expected to reopen on Thursday. At least 24 landslides across Taiwan cut off three highways and collapsed one bridge. Taiwan’s military has sent rescue teams to the area to work with local search efforts.

The island’s two nuclear power stations were unaffected, officials said. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world’s largest chipmaker, evacuated numerous fabrication plants and suspended some operations following the quake. Safety systems were reportedly operating normally, and TSMC officials said facilities would resume production overnight.

However, any halt in production—even one of only a few hours—could disrupt supply chains, Bloomberg reported. “Some of the high-end chips need 24/7 seamless operations in a vacuum state for a few weeks,” analysts Bum Ki Son and Brian Tan said. “Operation halts in Taiwan’s northern industrial areas could mean some high-end chips in production may be spoiled.”

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

New NATO responsibilities. NATO foreign ministers convened in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss long-term military support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg proposed a five-year, $107 billion aid package as well as a measure that would place the alliance in charge of overseeing the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a U.S.-led coalition that coordinates military aid donations to Kyiv. “We strongly believe that support to Ukraine should be less dependent on short-term, voluntary offers and more dependent on long-term NATO commitments,” Stoltenberg said. Officials aim to have a proposal finalized before July, when Washington hosts the summit marking NATO’s 75th anniversary.

Not all NATO members are on board. The United States said Washington will not step aside to let NATO lead the group, arguing it “is bigger than NATO,” having more than 50 nations involved, and that “American leadership” is what is keeping it together. Budapest also rejected the plan: “Hungary will not back any @NATO proposals that might draw the alliance closer to war or shift it from a defensive to an offensive coalition,” Hungarian spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Any decision requires unanimous agreement from all 32 members to pass.

A senior NATO official told Reuters that Stoltenberg’s proposal aims “to shield against winds of political change” in member nations, particularly regarding a potential second Donald Trump presidency in the United States. Trump has repeatedly threatened to remove the United States from the alliance and even encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin and his supporters to do “whatever the hell they want” against NATO members that do not meet the bloc’s defense spending minimum of 2 percent of each nation’s GDP.

Opposition challenges. Thailand’s Constitutional Court agreed to hear a case on Wednesday that seeks to dissolve the opposition Move Forward Party and bar its leaders from participating in politics for 10 years. The nation’s electoral commission filed a petition to disband the popular anti-establishment movement for trying to reform a law that shields the monarchy from criticism.

In January, the court ruled that the Move Forward Party’s attempt to alter the law was unconstitutional and amounted to an attempt to overthrow Thailand’s constitutional monarchy. At least 260 people have been prosecuted under this law in recent years.

The Move Forward Party’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, was disbanded in 2020 for violating election laws on donations to political parties—sparking mass pro-democracy protests. Last May, the opposition won parliamentary elections, but lawmakers loyal to the monarchy blocked the Move Forward Party from forming a coalition government.

Foreign agent law. Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream, announced on Wednesday that it will reintroduce a controversial bill that targets charities, opposition groups, and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad. The draft text replaces “agent of foreign influence” with “organization carrying out the interests of a foreign power,” but it does not change any other wording from last year’s iteration, party leader Mamuka Mdinaradze said.

Pro-democracy activists warn that the new bill will restrict dissent and push Tbilisi toward authoritarianism, comparing it to a similar foreign agents law in Russia. The bill’s previous version was scrapped last year after mass protests erupted across the country. “As much as this law would give the government greater control over civil society and the media, it would also cut Georgia off from its European path,” Natia Seskuria argued in Foreign Policy at the time.

Odds and Ends

Botswana has an elephant-sized bone to pick with Germany. Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Berlin on Tuesday after Germany’s environment ministry criticized the hunting of elephants in southern Africa and suggested stricter limits on hunting trophy imports. More than 130,000 elephants—nearly a third of the world’s total elephant population—live in Botswana, and Masisi said hunting is necessary to keep the herds in check after new conservation laws caused a population explosion.

Germans should “live together with the animals in the way you are trying to tell us to,” Masisi told German newspaper Bild, noting that elephants are trampling people to death and destroying crops and villages. “We would like to offer such a gift to Germany,” Masisi said, adding that Botswana will not take no for an answer.

The post Taiwan Struck by Deadly 7.4-Magnitude Earthquake appeared first on Foreign Policy.