概要

In order to complement the economic transition, the New Southbound Policy was officially launched in September 2016 by Taiwan's government to enhance cooperation and exchanges between Taiwan and 18 countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australasia and New Zealand. This policy focuses on education, agriculture, culture, tourism and other people-to-people interactions beyond trade and investment.
In the process of economic development of Asia, Taiwan has played an important role by acting as a resource consolidator and a provider of capital and technology over previous decades. As a result, Taiwan has established close and long-term economic and trade ties with the countries of Southeast and South Asia. Meanwhile, Japanese transnational corporations also have longstanding and extensive production networks in those countries. If Taiwanese and Japanese firms can collaborate with each other, it can benefit both sides as well as the host countries. The author will present possibilities of Japan-Taiwan alliance on business development and innovation activities through selected case studies in various sectors like machinery, textiles, food processing, electronics and so forth. The finding illustrates that collaborations can happen in several forms: subcontracting production networks, technology licensing, personnel mobility, and emerging of Taiwan-Japan co-owned startups. During the process of collaborations, non-firm actors like universities and intermediaries organizations can play important roles as knowledge providers and facilitators.