Tokyo’s support for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) wafer fabs in Kumamoto Prefecture bears “tremendous significance” on future industrial partnerships between the two countries, Vice President and president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday.
Lai made the remarks during a meeting with Tsuneo Kitamura and Iwao Horii, two lawmakers in Japan’s House of Councilors, at the Presidential Office in Taipei.
With TSMC’s first fab scheduled to open on Saturday, Lai thanked the Japanese government and parliament for their support, which allowed the fab to be completed in one year and eight months.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office
Taiwan’s largest contract chipmaker earlier this month announced that it is building a second fab in the prefecture, Lai added.
“We believe these projects bear tremendous significance in terms of future industrial partnerships between the two countries and how we can jointly face the challenges and opportunities presented by the ‘smart era,’” he said.
Other Taiwanese semiconductor firms, such as United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) and ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), are also investing in Japan, and should also find great support from Japanese officials and lawmakers, he said.
Kitamura and Horii have been paying attention to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and, with their extensive experience, should contribute greatly to issues relating to defense, national security and diplomacy, he added.
Taiwan will continue to need the support of the two Japanese lawmakers to help maintain peace and stability in the region, he said.
“Taiwan on Jan. 13 accomplished a historic mission, with the people using their vote in the presidential election to decide the direction that the nation is heading. They decided to continue on the path to democracy and the world to make Taiwan stronger,” Lai said.
“I hope that Taiwan and Japan can build on their foundation and bolster ties through various types of partnerships,” he added.
Kitamura told Lai that former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe had promoted an Indo-Pacific strategy that values freedom and liberal democracy.
Taiwan and Japan need to work more closely together on security, economics, trade, tourism exchange and social welfare issues, with economic and trade relations between the two countries being the most important, Kitamura said.
“We hope that Vice President Lai, as an old friend of Japan, will continue to promote exchanges among the two nations’ lawmakers once you are sworn in as president. Under your leadership, the exchanges and partnerships between Japan and Taiwan will continue to develop and move forward through the work of the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association,” Kitamura said.
Aside from thanking President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Lai for conveying their condolences on the death of Abe’s mother, Kitamura also thanked them for expressing their sympathies to people affected by a series of earthquakes on the Noto Peninsula, as well as for the generous donations from Taiwanese.
The donations during such a difficult time again showed that Taiwan and Japan are true friends, he added.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
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