Local Plate Tectonics

The island of Taiwan rests right on top of two convergent plate boundaries,  those being two separate interactions between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate. Both of these boundaries contain subduction zones, however, the polarities of each subduction are the opposite of each other despite occurring between the same two plates (Taiwan Tectonics and Seismicity, 2005). To the southwest of the island, the Eurasian Plate slides under the Philippine Sea Plate moving east, which is the likely cause for both Taiwan's mountains as well as the Mariana Trench. To the east of the island, the Philippine Sea Plate slides under the Eurasian Plate moving north, the interaction causing the Ryukyu Trench to form from the plate's subduction. Taiwan is literally right in the middle of these two boundaries, but if you know plate tectonics the description of one of them should raise some questions. 

The eastern boundary containing the Ryukyu Trench also has its own notable qualities, the most well-known being that it's one of the most active collision zones in the world. Due to the scale of its subduction, it possesses some of the most active continent/oceanic plate interactions that scientists have studied.  The largest earthquake to happen along this boundary struck on the twelfth of March in 1966 and had a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale (Earthquakes in Taiwan, 2023). With these readings, it should be no surprise that the Ryukyu Trench is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which contains most of the world's other large tectonic interactions. With Taiwan being placed right between both of these enormous tectonic collision spots, it means the region is a hotspot for research on our earth's tectonic plates.