Taipei, Taiwan:

Taiwan’s parliament passed a package of controversial bills on Tuesday to expand its power as thousands of disapproving protesters rallied outside and chanted “defend democracy”.

Proponents say expanded parliamentary powers are needed to curb corruption but critics fear the laws could weaken the self-ruled island’s democracy against the influence of China, which claims it as part of its territory. 

New Taiwan President Lai Ching-te represents the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which advocates for the island’s sovereignty but lost its majority in parliament in January elections.

The bills were proposed by the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s largest opposition party that is widely regarded as friendlier to Beijing, and passed with the support of the upstart Taiwan People’s Party on Tuesday after several sessions.

Among the amendments passed was one requiring the president to hold a “State of the Nation” address to parliament and answer legislators’ questions, a first for Taiwan. 

The parliament can now also exercise its “power of investigation”, requiring government agencies, military units, private companies or relevant individuals to provide information. 

They may be fined up to NT$100,000 ($3,100) if they refuse, stall or conceal information.

“Many of our friends outside are frustrated and sad, and we regret that the evil bills to expand parliament’s power are passed today,” said DPP lawmaker Huang Jie.

“It’s absurd that even after the third reading, the complete clauses are still not released on the parliament’s website… The process is in a black box from the very first to the very last moment,” Huang said.

‘It’s not over’

The DPP hung banners around parliament’s main chamber that read “oppose expanding power, support Taiwan”, while party lawmakers threw paper planes at the KMT during Tuesday’s lengthy session.

Another bill passed penalises “contempt of parliament”, which could lead to a further fine of NT$200,000. 

The DPP has said the laws were pushed through without proper consultation, with lawmaker Chiu Yi-ying accusing the KMT of “following (Chinese President) Xi Jinping’s plan”.

Protesters rallied through the night, holding signs that said “no discussions, no democracy”. 

“This matter has become a long-term battle, it’s not over,” said protester Wang Tin-lin, 39, after hearing that the bills had passed. 

“We will not lose confidence and fighting spirit because of this incident.”

Tens of thousands of protesters surrounded the parliament at the height of the demonstrations on Friday, sitting in heavy rain demanding that lawmakers drop the bills.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

China warned on May 24 of war over Taiwan and said it would ramp up countermeasures until “complete reunification” was achieved, as Chinese forces conducted military drills around the self-ruled island.

Warships and fighter jets encircled Taiwan on the second day of exercises that Beijing said were a test of its ability to seize the island, days after its new president was sworn in.

China’s military kicked off the two-day war games on Thursday morning, surrounding democratic Taiwan with naval vessels and military aircraft as it vowed the blood of “independence forces” on the island would flow.

The exercises were launched three days after Lai Ching-te took office and made an inauguration speech that China denounced as a “confession of independence”.

Beijing’s defence ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Friday that Lai “has seriously challenged the one-China principle… pushing our compatriots in Taiwan into a perilous situation of war and danger”.

“Every time ‘Taiwan independence’ provokes us, we will push our countermeasures one step further, until the complete reunification of the motherland is achieved,” he said.

The drills are part of an escalating campaign of intimidation by China in which it has carried out a series of large-scale military exercises around Taiwan in recent years.

They are testing the “capability of joint seizure of power, joint strikes and control of key territories”, Li Xi, spokesman for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theater Command, said on Friday.

Fighter jets loaded with live ammunition scrambled towards targets and bombers formed formations to combine with warships to simulate “strikes against important targets”, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

China, which split with Taiwan at the end of a civil war 75 years ago, regards the island as a renegade province with which it must eventually be reunified.

The dispute has long made the Taiwan Strait one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints, and this week’s events have stoked fears that China may use military force to bring the island under mainland rule.

The United States, Taiwan’s strongest ally and military backer, “strongly” urged China on Thursday to act with restraint. The United Nations called for all sides to avoid escalation.

Common roots

As the drills – Codenamed “Joint Sword-2024A” – got under way, China said they would serve as “strong punishment for the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces”.

Footage published by China’s military showed soldiers streaming out of a building to battle stations and jets taking off to a rousing martial tune.

CCTV reported that Chinese sailors had called out to their Taiwanese counterparts at sea, warning them against “resisting reunification by force”.

An animated graphic published by the Chinese military showed missiles raining down on key targets on the island, declaring it would “cut off the blood vessels for Taiwan independence!”

At a tourist park on Pingtan — a Chinese island situated in the Taiwan Strait — visitors clambered over the rocky landscape to gaze out at the misty horizon as pop music blared from a loudspeaker at nearby tea stalls.

Others posed for pictures in front of a sign proclaiming “the closest distance between the motherland and Taiwan island”, 68 nautical miles (126 kilometres) away.

“We share common roots,” Chen Yan, a 60-year-old woman from Wuhan, told AFP about Taiwan.

“So I think there will definitely be unification,” she added.

Heads broken

China has repeatedly branded Lai a “dangerous separatist” who would bring “war and decline” to the island.

In a speech on Thursday, Lai said he would “stand on the front line” to defend Taiwan, without directly referring to the drills.

Beijing was incensed by his inauguration speech on Monday, in which he hailed a “glorious” era for Taiwan’s democracy.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin delivered a warning on Thursday that included language more commonly used by China’s propaganda outlets.

“Taiwan independence forces will be left with their heads broken and blood flowing after colliding against the great… trend of China achieving complete unification,” Wang told reporters.

Beijing’s Xinhua news agency and ruling party organ the People’s Daily ran editorials hailing the drills on Friday, while slamming Lai’s “treacherous behaviour” and promising a “severe blow”.

The drills are taking place in the Taiwan Strait and to the north, south and east of the island, as well as areas around the Taipei-administered islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin.

Beijing has said the drills will last until Friday but analysts say it could choose to extend the war games or launch missiles near Taiwan, as it did after a visit to the island by then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022.

Taipei’s defence ministry said the Chinese military had gotten within 24 nautical miles of Taiwan’s main island.

Its coast guard reported on Friday that four Chinese vessels entered the “restricted waters” of two Taiwanese islands as two other vessels nearby provided support.

In this image from a video, roads in Hualien, Taiwan are cordoned off after a cluster of earthquakes struck the island early Tuesday, April 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A cluster of earthquakes struck the island republic of Taiwan early Tuesday, the strongest having a magnitude of 6.1, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There were no reports of casualties in the quakes, although there were further damages to two multi-story buildings that had been evacuated following a magnitude 7.4 quake that hit the island earlier this month, killing 13 people and injuring over 1,000. That earthquake was centered along the coast of the rural and mountainous Hualien County.

ALSO READ | A lesson from Taiwan in quake resilience

It was the strongest earthquake in the past 25 years in Taiwan and was followed by hundreds of aftershocks

According to the USGS, Tuesday’s quake of 6.1 magnitude had its epicenter 28 kilometers (17.5 miles) south of the city of Hualien, at a dept of 10.7 kilometers. The half-dozen other quakes ranged from magnitude 4.5 to magnitude 6, all near Hualien. Taiwan’s own earthquake monitoring center put the magnitudes of the initial quake at 6.3. Such small discrepancies are common between monitoring stations.

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HUALIEN, TAIWAN – APRIL 06: A helicopter descends onto a car park carrying people rescued from the Taroko Gorge after they were trapped in the mountainous areas for nearly 3 days on April 06, 2024 in Hualien, Taiwan. There are still hundreds of victims stuck in the mountains after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake hit eastern Taiwan on Wednesday, April 3rd, triggering a tsunami warning for the coastline in Taiwan, The Philippines and Japan. (Photo by Annabelle Chih/Getty Images)
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Rescuers were planning to bring in heavy equipment on April 6 to try to recover two bodies buried under boulders on a hiking trail, three days after Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years.

Four more people remain missing on the same Shakadang Trail in Taroko National Park, famed for its rugged mountainous terrain. Search and recovery work was set to resume, after being called off Friday afternoon because of aftershocks.

Also read | Rescuers search for people out of contact in Taiwan after strong earthquake

At least 12 people were killed by the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck Wednesday morning off Taiwan’s east coast, and 10 others were still missing.

More than 600 people, including about 450 at a hotel in the Taroko park, remained stranded in various locations cut off by rockslides and other damage.

Survivors have told harrowing tales of rocks tumbling onto roadways, trapping them in tunnels until rescuers arrived to free them. In the city of Hualien, a building left tilting over a street at a precarious angle was being carefully torn down.

The relatively low number of deaths from such a powerful quake has been attributed to strict construction standards and widespread public education campaigns on the earthquake-prone island.

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Debris surrounds a tilted building a day after a powerful earthquake struck, in Hualien City, eastern Taiwan, on April 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Rescuers searched for dozens of people out of contact on April 4, a day after Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century damaged buildings, caused multiple rockslides and killed nine people.

In the eastern coastal city of Hualien near the epicentre, workers used an excavator to put construction materials around the base of a damaged building to stabilise it and prevent a collapse. Mayor Hsu Chen-wei previously said 48 residential buildings were damaged. Some of the damaged buildings tilted at precarious angles with their ground floors crushed.

More than 1,000 people were injured in the quake that struck on Wednesday morning. Of the nine dead, at least four were struck inside Taroko National Park, a tourist attraction famous for its scenes of canyons and cliffs in Hualien County, about 150 km (90 miles) from the island’s capital Taipei.

“Nearly 150 people were either still trapped or out of contact on April 4,” the National Fire Agency said.

About two dozen tourists and some others were stranded in the park. The Health and Welfare Ministry said 64 others were workers at a rock quarry. Six workers from another quarry were airlifted from the area where access was cut off because roads were damaged by falling rocks.

Several people, including six university students, were also reported to be trapped. Around 50 people, mostly employees at the hotel earlier reported to be in the national park, were out of contact with authorities.

For hours after the quake, TV showed neighbours and rescue workers lifting residents through windows and onto the street from damaged buildings where the shaking had fused shut the doors. It wasn’t clear on Thursday morning if any people were trapped in the damaged buildings.

The temblor and aftershocks caused many landslides and damaged roads, bridges and tunnels. The national legislature and sections of Taipei’s main airport had minor damage.

Taiwan measured the initial quake’s strength as 7.2 magnitude while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4. The Central Weather Administration has recorded more than 300 aftershocks from Wednesday morning into Thursday.

Taiwan is regularly jolted by earthquakes and its population is among the best prepared for them. It also had stringent construction requirements to ensure buildings are quake-resistant.

The economic losses caused by the quake are still unclear. The self-ruled island is the leading manufacturer of the world’s most sophisticated computer chips and other high-technology items that are sensitive to seismic events.

Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018 that killed 17 people and brought down a historic hotel. Taiwan’s worst recent quake on September 21, 1999, a magnitude of 7.7 temblor, caused 2,400 deaths, injuring around 1,00,000 and destroying thousands of buildings.

At least four people were killed and nearly 60 injured on April 3 by a powerful earthquake in Taiwan that damaged dozens of buildings and prompted tsunami warnings that extended to Japan and the Philippines before being lifted.

Taiwan is regularly hit by earthquakes as the island lies near the junction of two tectonic plates, while nearby Japan experiences around 1,500 jolts every year.

The quake was the strongest since a 7.6-magnitude struck in September 1999, killing around 2,400 people in the deadliest natural disaster in the island’s history.

(Inputs from agencies)

Image taken from a video footage of a woman standing near a partially collapsed building in Hualien, eastern Taiwan on April 3, 2024
| Photo Credit: AP

A powerful earthquake rocked the entire island of Taiwan early Wednesday, collapsing buildings in a southern city and creating a tsunami that washed ashore on southern Japanese islands.

A five-story building in lightly populated Hualien appeared heavily damaged, collapsing its first floor and leaving the rest leaning at a 45-degree angle. In the capital, Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings and within some newer office complexes.

ALSO READ | How are earthquakes measured? 

Train service was suspended across the island of 23 million people, as was subway service in Taipei. But things quickly returned to normal in the capital, with children going to school and the morning commute appearing to be normal.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said a tsunami wave of 30 cm (about 1 feet) was detected on the coast of Yonaguni island about 15 minutes after the quake struck. JAMA said waves likely also hit the coasts of Miyako and Yaeyama islands. Japan’s Self Defence Force sent aircraft to gather information about the tsunami impact around the Okinawa region and were preparing shelters for evacuees if necessary.

Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2 while the US Geological Survey put it at 7.4. It struck at 7:58 am about 18 km south-southwest of Hualien and was about 35 km (21 miles) deep.

The head of Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring bureau, Wu Chien-fu, said effects were detected as far away as Kinmen, a Taiwanese-controlled island off the coast of China. Multiple aftershocks were felt in Taipei in the hour after the initial quake.

The USGS said one of the subsequent quakes was 6.5 magnitude and 11.8 km deep.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii or the US Pacific territory of Guam.

The quake was believed to be the biggest in Taiwan since a temblor in 1999 caused extensive damage. Taiwan lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquake’s occur.