Taiwan and Japan are quietly building a more integrated supply chain for national security, with cooperation on semiconductors and drones becoming the basis for long-term resilience.
Last week in Tokyo, Chiang Zhen-wei (江振瑋), chief executive director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ drone diplomacy task force, signed a letter of intent between Taiwan’s Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Academy and the Japan Drone Consortium to advance “non-red” supply chains and certification, and promote training and capacity building.
The letter of intent is the latest effort by Tokyo and Taipei to establish a more integrated and resilient supply chain.
In recent years, memorandums of understanding and agreements have been signed across industries and research centers, focusing on semiconductors and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to reinforce national security.
Strengthening supply chains has become an increasingly central priority for many countries. Taiwan and Japan’s partnership seeks to address this challenge directly.
In 2024, Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, a joint venture majority-owned by TSMC, opened a semiconductor fab in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture. The fab represents one of the cornerstone initiatives in Japan’s semiconductor revival, embedding Taiwan more deeply into Japan’s national security planning. A second fab is currently under construction.
In parallel, drones are becoming a second layer in building this resilient “non-red” supply chain. Across more than 15 agreements involving industry groups, companies, and research institutes, Taiwan and Japan are building a cooperative framework for their drone industries.
A milestone was the memorandum of understanding signed between the Japan UAS Industrial Development Association and the Taiwan Excellence Drone Industry Business Opportunities Alliance on June 4, 2025, which aimed to deepen industrial collaboration.
Tokyo is increasingly open about Taiwan’s importance to its own security, creating a more favorable environment for collaboration.
Serious challenges remain. Yet Tokyo and Taipei are quietly but steadily building the frameworks needed to ensure that critical supply chains remain operational amid growing regional tensions.
Semiconductors Move Fast, Drones Move Slowly
Supply chain resilience is currently developing at two speeds.
On one side, the semiconductor sector is backed by serious investment and concrete developments. On the other, drone cooperation is growing, but the pace and maturity of the ecosystem have not yet allowed for breakthrough developments.
Beyond the Kikuyo fab, Taiwan-Japan semiconductor cooperation has continued to expand. In March 2026, Kumamoto Prefecture, Kaohsiung City, and the US state of Arizona signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding to strengthen collaboration in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
Japan is also an essential partner for Taiwan’s semiconductor sector. JSR Corporation is a key supplier of photoresists, a central material for semiconductor production, and plans to build a plant in Taiwan to supply TSMC.
As a result, the semiconductor sector is taking the shape of a trusted network built around resilient supply chains.
This security-driven approach fosters growing interconnection and mutual dependency, tying the national security of Taiwan and Japan more closely together.
By contrast, the drone partnership remains at a much earlier stage.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched its drone diplomacy push only recently, and the various agreements and memorandums of understanding signed so far have yet to materialize into concrete policy alignment with other countries.
According to Taiwan’s customs statistics, drone exports to Japan between 2023 and May 2026 amounted to NT$5.3 million (US$167,000). In 2025, an estimated 45 drones were delivered to Japan, while three were exported from Japan to Taiwan. By comparison, Taiwan exported 31,711 drones to Poland and 70,372 drones to the Czech Republic in 2025.
This gap can be explained by several factors.
First, Japan still lacks the ecosystem and scale needed for mass production, which makes it harder for Taiwanese firms to find partners for technology collaboration and component supply.
Second, drone certification rules differ between Taiwan and Japan, raising compliance costs, limiting market entry, and complicating procurement.
While progress is needed to create a “non-red” drone supply chain between Tokyo and Taipei, the environment being shaped by state-led initiatives and industry groups reflects a serious commitment to this shared objective.
The letter of intent signed last week seeks to address several of these issues, especially divergent certification systems.
Regulatory harmonization has also been identified as a key element by Iwata Kakuya, executive director of Japan’s largest drone industry association, the Japan UAS Industrial Development Association, who has called for deeper industrial collaboration between the two countries.
Continuous collaboration between Taiwanese and Japanese firms can solidify this partnership and elevate both countries as trusted partners in the global drone supply chain.
Building a Non-Red Supply Chain
The current dynamic between Taipei and Tokyo is particularly favorable for deepening supply chain integration.
This momentum remains limited, however, by several structural constraints.
China’s threat to Taiwan discourages some countries from tying their own security too closely to Taiwan’s. In recent years, the US has also pressured Taiwan to shift more semiconductor capacity overseas, raising questions about how much semiconductor leverage Taipei can retain.
While Japan is not expected to apply similar pressure, the uncertainty surrounding Taiwan does not favor deeper supply chain integration.
Japan has also changed its legal framework for exporting weapons, but Taiwan remains excluded from the process. These restrictions on defense collaboration limit the expansion of the drone industrial partnership.
Finally, Taiwan’s drone budget was severely affected by cuts in the special defense budget passed in May. New discussions are taking place over a dedicated drone bill and special defense funding that could sustain Taiwan’s drone industry and promote indigenous production suitable for both national needs and international cooperation.
These structural constraints are unlikely to disappear in the short term, and they will continue to test the resilience of the emerging framework between Taipei and Tokyo.
Yet political rapprochement between the two capitals and China’s continuous coercive operations across the region are reinforcing the shared threat perception that transformed the semiconductor sector into a resilient network of trusted partners.
The drone industry may follow a similar path.
Taken together, developments in semiconductors and drones show that Taiwan and Japan are working toward a more resilient and cooperative supply chain, one that reinforces each country’s strengths and ties their national security more closely together.
