Nuclear Phase-Out Policy Launched Amid Rising Energy Security Concerns

Tsai's government legislated a policy to make Taiwan "nuclear-free" by 2025, shutting down reactors as their operating licences expired without replacement, driven partly by anti-nuclear sentiment following the 2011 Fukushima disaster in neighbouring Japan. Energy analysts and, eventually, the opposition Kuomintang increasingly argued the policy left Taiwan dangerously exposed given rising Chinese military pressure, since a heavier reliance on imported liquefied natural gas is more vulnerable to a Chinese blockade than domestic nuclear generation would be.