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    At Least 4 Killed in Suspected Gas Explosion at Taiwan Shopping Mall

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    The deadly blast occurred in a food court. The island’s president ordered an investigation into the cause.Windows and walls were blown out by the blast at the building in Taichung, the island’s second-largest city.Yufu Liao/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt least four people were killed and 30 others injured in a suspected gas explosion in the food court of a Taiwan shopping mall on Thursday morning, according to Taiwan’s state-owned news outlet.The explosion occurred in the city of Taichung, about 100 miles southwest of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, local officials said. The fire department received a report at 11:33 a.m. about a possible gas explosion on the 12th floor of the mall and dispatched 136 personnel, the department said in a statement. Search and rescue teams stayed on site until about 5 p.m., the news outlet, the Central News Agency, reported.Two of the people who died in the blast, and five of those injured, were tourists from Macau, the Macau Government Tourism Office said in a statement.Clearing debris after the explosion.Ritchie B Tongo/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is unclear what caused the blast, the fire department said. Video shared online by the Taiwanese station TVBS News shows an explosion in the middle floors of the building that sent debris and dust into the street. The station also aired clips from inside the building, showing shoppers reacting to a convulsion nearby and scrambling to evacuate the building.President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan, writing on his Facebook page, called for a prompt investigation into the cause of the accident. He said that the health ministry was coordinating medical resources to provide care to the injured.The explosion comes less than two months after nine people died in Taichung in a large fire at a food-processing plant that was under construction. An initial investigation by the city’s fire bureau in December found that the blaze was caused by welding sparks that ignited on paint and rapidly spread through insulation materials in the building, the Taipei Times reported.Claire Fu More

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      China Holds War Games in a Warning to Taiwan’s Leader

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      The drills were seen as a response to a speech by President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan, who said last week that China had “no right to represent” the island.China began holding military drills in areas surrounding Taiwan on Monday, days after Beijing accused the self-governing island’s president of promoting independence in a National Day address. China said its army, navy, air force, rocket force and other forces were taking part in the drills to test their ability to fight alongside each other, and to send a warning to Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory. It did not say when the exercises would conclude.“This is a powerful deterrent against the separatist activities of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces and a legitimate and necessary action to defend national sovereignty and maintain national unity,” said Senior Col. Li Xi, a spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, which oversees an area including Taiwan, according to state media. In a social media post, the Eastern Theater Command said it was “ready to fight at all times.”Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, in a statement, expressed “strong condemnation for such irrational and provocative behavior” and said it had dispatched troops to respond to the Chinese drills. Experts in Taiwan said the scale of the exercises was not immediately clear, given that no prior notice had been given and few details had been made public. A map posted by Chinese state media depicted the drills as being conducted in six large areas encircling Taiwan. China called the exercise “Joint Sword-2024B,” suggesting that it was a continuation of a two-day exercise in May, called “Joint Sword-2024A,” that was held after President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan was sworn in. Beijing dislikes Mr. Lai, accusing him and his party of seeking independence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Lawmakers Visit Taiwan and Vow Support in Face of Chinese Military Drills

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      A bipartisan delegation promised to stand by the island’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, after Beijing surrounded the self-governing island with naval vessels and aircraft.After China performed two days of military drills intended to punish Taiwan, Representative Michael McCaul of Texas on Monday stood alongside the island nation’s newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, and issued a promise.“The United States must maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or coercion that would jeopardize the security of the people of Taiwan,” Mr. McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “That is what we stand for, and that is what we continue to say.”Mr. McCaul, a Republican, traveled this week to Taipei with a bipartisan delegation of other American lawmakers in an attempt, he said, to show that the U.S. government stood in lock step with Mr. Lai and Taiwan.The trip, which will last through the week, comes at a fraught time: Just days after Mr. Lai was sworn into office and vowed in his inaugural address to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty, China responded by surrounding the self-governing island with naval vessels and military aircraft. Before the lawmakers arrived, the Chinese government had publicly warned them to “seriously abide by the one-China policy” and “not to schedule any congressional visit to Taiwan.”Just a few days ago, China “conducted two days of military drills in the Taiwan Strait to express their displeasure with President Lai,” Lin Chia-lung, Taiwan’s foreign minister, told Mr. McCaul at a news conference on Monday. “You can say in this critical time, it is a powerful display,” Mr. Lin added.Even as many Republicans in Congress balked at providing continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine, support for Taiwan has remained a largely bipartisan endeavor. A number of conservatives have argued that the United States should pull back its investments in Ukraine and instead bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region. In April, the House voted to approve $8 billion for Taiwan in a lopsided 385-to-34 vote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      China Launches Military Drills Around Taiwan as ‘Punishment’

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      China said the sea and air drills were meant as a “stern warning” to its opponents after Taiwan’s new president asserted the island’s sovereignty in defiance of Beijing.China launched two days of military drills starting Thursday surrounding Taiwan in what it called a “strong punishment” to its opponents on the self-governing island, after Taiwan’s new president pledged to defend its sovereignty as he took office.The drills were the first substantive response by China to the swearing in of President Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing dislikes, in Taipei on Monday. Mr. Lai’s party asserts Taiwan’s separate status from China, and in a high-profile inaugural speech on Monday, he vowed to keep Taiwan’s democracy safe from Chinese pressure.China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, has mainly responded to Mr. Lai’s speech with sharply worded criticisms. But it escalated its response Thursday by announcing that it was conducting sea and air exercises that would encircle Taiwan and draw close to the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen, Matsu, Wuqiu and Dongyin in the Taiwan Strait.China did not say how many planes and ships it was deploying in the exercise, but the last major drill in multiple locations around Taiwan that China has conducted was in April of last year in response to the visit to Taiwan by the former House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.“Such exercises put pressure on Taiwan and its outlying islands and have threatened the regional stability and increased the risks of conflicts,” said Ou Si-fu, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei, which is affiliated with Taiwan’s defense ministry. Li Xi, a spokesman of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, said the exercises served as “strong punishment” for “Taiwan independence forces,” according to Chinese state media, and “a stern warning against the interference and provocation by external forces,” a reference to the United States.Even as he pledged to protect Taiwan, Mr. Lai had sought to strike a conciliatory note in other ways, signaling that he remained open to holding talks with Beijing — which China had frozen in 2016 — and to resuming cross-strait tourism. But China took offense to Mr. Lai’s assertion that the sides were equal — he had said that they “are not subordinate to each other” — and his emphasis on Taiwan’s democratic identity and warnings against threats from China.After the speech, Beijing accused Mr. Lai of promoting formal independence for Taiwan and said the new president was more dangerous than his predecessors. Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, said this week: “The ugly acts of Lai Ching-te and others who betray the nation and their ancestors is disgraceful,” according to China’s foreign ministry. “All Taiwan independence separatists will be nailed to the pillar of shame in history.”Taiwanese officials and military experts have been expecting China to make a show of military force after Mr. Lai’s inauguration. Ma Chen-kun, a professor at Taiwan’s National Defense University, said that the pressure from the People’s Liberation Army was likely to continue, including around the Kinmen and Matsu islands, which are Taiwanese controlled islands close to the Chinese mainland.Chris Buckley More

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      New Taiwan President Lai Ching-te Faces Big Challenges

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      President Lai Ching-te has vowed to stay on his predecessor’s narrow path of resisting Beijing without provoking it. It won’t be easy.Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, was sworn into office on Monday, facing hard choices about how to secure the island democracy’s future in turbulent times — with wars flaring abroad, rifts in the United States over American security priorities, and divisions in Taiwan over how to preserve the brittle peace with China.Mr. Lai began his four-year term as Taiwan’s president in a morning ceremony, ahead of giving an inaugural speech laying out his priorities to an audience outside the presidential office building in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital.He has said that he would keep strengthening ties with Washington and other Western partners while resisting Beijing’s threats and enhancing Taiwan’s defenses. Yet he may also extend a tentative olive branch to Beijing, welcoming renewed talks if China’s leader, Xi Jinping, sets aside his key precondition: that Taiwan accept that it is a part of China.“We’ll see an emphasis on continuity in national security, cross-strait issues and foreign policy,” said Lii Wen, an incoming spokesman for the new leader, whose Democratic Progressive Party promotes Taiwan’s separate status from China.But Mr. Lai, 64, faces hurdles in trying to hold to the course set by his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen.Unlike Ms. Tsai, Mr. Lai is less seasoned in foreign policy negotiations, and has a record of combative remarks that can come back to haunt him. He also must deal with two emboldened opposition parties that early this year won a majority of seats in the legislature — a challenge that Ms. Tsai did not face in her eight years as president.Preparations for the inauguration at the presidential office building in Taipei on Friday.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taiwan, on China’s Doorstep, Is Dealing With TikTok Its Own Way

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      The island democracy was early to ban TikTok on government phones, and the ruling party refuses to use it. But a U.S.-style ban is not under consideration.As it is in the United States, TikTok is popular in Taiwan, used by a quarter of the island’s 23 million residents.People post videos of themselves shopping for trendy clothes, dressing up as video game characters and playing pranks on their roommates. Influencers share their choreographed dances and debate whether the sticky rice dumplings are better in Taiwan’s north or south.Taiwanese users of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, are also served the kind of pro-China content that the U.S. Congress cited as a reason it passed a law that could result in a ban of TikTok in America.One recent example is a video showing a Republican congressman, Rob Wittman of Virginia, stoking fears that a vote for the ruling party in Taiwan’s January election would prompt a flood of American weapons to aid the island democracy in a possible conflict with China, which claims it as part of its territory. The video was flagged as fake by a fact-checking organization, and TikTok took it down.About 80 miles from China’s coast, Taiwan is particularly exposed to the possibility of TikTok’s being used as a source of geopolitical propaganda. Taiwan has been bombarded with digital disinformation for decades, much of it traced back to China.But unlike Congress, the government in Taiwan is not contemplating legislation that could end in a ban of TikTok.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou to Visit China

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      A rare visit to mainland China by Ma Ying-jeou, who’s now in the opposition, is a chance for political messaging on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.As tensions fester between China and Taiwan, one elder politician from the island democracy is getting an effusive welcome on the mainland: Ma Ying-jeou, a former president.Mr. Ma’s 11-day trip across China, which was set to begin on Monday, comes at a fraught time. Beijing and Taipei have been in dispute over two Chinese fishermen who died while trying to flee a Taiwanese coast guard vessel in February, and China has sent its own coast guard ships close to a Taiwanese-controlled island near where the men died.Taiwanese officials expect China to intensify its military intimidation once the island’s next president, Lai Ching-te, takes office on May 20. His Democratic Progressive Party rejects Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, and Chinese officials particularly dislike Mr. Lai, often citing his 2017 description of himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan’s independence.”On the other hand, China’s warm treatment of Mr. Ma, 73, Taiwan’s president from 2008 to 2016, seems a way to emphasize that Beijing will keep an open door for politicians who favor closer ties and accept its conditions for talks.“Beijing’s policy toward Taiwan will definitely be using more of both a gentle touch but also a hard fist,” Chang Wu-yue, a professor at the Graduate Institute of China Studies of Tamkang University in Taiwan, said in an interview about Mr. Ma’s visit.Mr. Ma with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Singapore in 2015.Fazry Ismail/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ¿Quién es Lai Ching-te, el próximo presidente de Taiwán?

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      Lai tiene la reputación de ser un político hábil y trabajador que empatiza con las necesidades de la gente común y corriente en Taiwán.En 2014, cuando era una estrella política en ascenso en Taiwán, Lai Ching-te visitó China y fue interrogado en público sobre el tema más incendiario para los líderes en Pekín: la postura de su partido sobre la independencia de la isla.Las personas que lo conocen afirman que su respuesta, cortés pero firme, fue característica del hombre que fue elegido presidente el sábado y que liderará Taiwán durante los próximos cuatro años.Lai se dirigía a profesores de la prestigiosa Universidad de Fudan en Shanghái, un público cuyos miembros, como muchos chinos continentales, creían casi con toda certeza que la isla de Taiwán le pertenecía a China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Taiwan Loses Ally Nauru After Electing President Beijing Loathes

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      The tiny Pacific island of Nauru severed relations with Taiwan, a move that boosts China’s regional sway and was seemingly timed to Taiwan’s contentious recent election.Just two days after Taiwan elected as its next leader Lai Ching-te, whom Beijing sees as a staunch separatist, it lost a diplomatic ally in its rivalry with China. Nauru, a tiny freckle of land in the Pacific Ocean, announced that it would be severing diplomatic relations with Taiwan, effective immediately.The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it welcomed the decision by Nauru and is ready to establish relations with it. Taiwan’s foreign ministry indicated that it had no doubt that Beijing had orchestrated the Pacific island’s shift, stating that “China has been actively courting Nauru’s political leaders for a long time, and using economic inducements to bring about a change of direction in the country’s diplomacy.”A Taiwanese deputy foreign minister, Tien Chung-kwang, told a briefing in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, that China had orchestrated Nauru’s severing of relations to happen in the immediate wake of Taiwan’s election on the weekend.“The intent is to strike a blow against the democracy and freedom of which the Taiwanese people are so proud,” Mr. Tien said. He said Taiwan had pre-emptively severed relations with Nauru after learning of its impending shift in loyalties.Such moves from Beijing have been widely expected in Taiwan in the wake of the victory for Mr. Lai, whose Democratic Progressive Party has campaigned on policies to distance the self-governing island democracy from China. Beijing claims Taiwan is its territory, and Chinese officials harbor a particular dislike for Mr. Lai, whom they call a pro-independence threat. Mr. Lai has said he wants to protect Taiwan’s current status as a de facto independent democracy.Nauru is the latest small nations to abruptly break relations with Taiwan, joining such countries as Honduras and Nicaragua in switching diplomatic allegiance to China. And it is one of a growing number of Pacific island nations that China has aggressively courted in its bid to dominate the region.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More