Kaohsiung has taken another step in advancing trilateral city cooperation among Taiwan, the United States, and Japan. Following Mayor Chen Chi-mai’s recent visit to the U.S., during which Kaohsiung signed a trilateral MOU promoting economic exchange with the State of Arizona and Kumamoto Prefecture to form a strategic semiconductor partnership, the city has quickly expanded that momentum. On the first day of his return to Taiwan on March 20, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai welcomed San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and Kumamoto Mayor Kazufumi Onishi to Kaohsiung, where the three mayors signed the Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Establishment of Cooperation in Start-up Sectors among Kaohsiung City, the City of San Antonio, and Kumamoto City.
Both the U.S. and Japanese mayors attached great importance to this milestone of trilateral cooperation. Mayor Jones, newly in office and representing Kaohsiung’s sister city of San Antonio, led a 15-member delegation, including a city councilor and industry representatives, on her first visit to Kaohsiung. Mayor Onishi also led a delegation to attend the signing in person. The ceremony was witnessed by Jonathan Hwang, Political Section Chief, American Institute in Taiwan Kaohsiung Branch Office, and Masafumi Oku, Chief of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Kaohsiung Office.
Under the agreement, the three cities will work together to support startups and small and medium-sized businesses. It also signals Kaohsiung successfully expands international cooperation from strengthening semiconductor supply chain resilience to building cross-border startup networks, highlighting the city’s strong momentum of advancing industrial transformation and international engagement.
Mayor Chen warmly welcomed the delegations and noted that, since Kaohsiung and San Antonio established their sister city relationship in 1982, the two cities have shared a deep bond for over 40 years, while ties with Kumamoto have steadily deepened since the establishment of a friendship-city relationship in 2017, with ongoing exchanges in culture, education, and industry. In 2024, Kaohsiung and Kumamoto also signed a bilateral MOU on startup cooperation. Mayor Chen emphasized that this new trilateral agreement among Kaohsiung, San Antonio, and Kumamoto marks a significant step forward, as it not only brings Taiwan, the U.S., and Japan into closer partnership but also strengthens city-level ties through concrete collaboration and deepens the shared values of freedom and democracy.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones noted that her first visit to Kaohsiung left a strong impression, particularly in the city’s transformation and development, while praising the city’s governance achievements. She noted that the two cities share more than four decades of sister-city ties, as well as common values such as freedom, human rights, and democracy. Building on this foundation, she expressed support for expanding cooperation into areas including the economy, security, and industry. She also highlighted San Antonio’s growing strengths in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotechnology, and aerospace manufacturing, and looked forward to more concrete collaboration to address global challenges and supply chain issues.
Mayor Kazufumi Onishi noted that Kumamoto has been actively promoting startup development in recent years. In June last year, the city was selected by Japan’s Cabinet Office as one of the “Startup Ecosystem Hub Cities” and has since been advancing initiatives to support international expansion. He added that Kumamoto has maintained close ties with both Kaohsiung and San Antonio across areas such as education, culture, and tourism, and that the 2024 MOU with Kaohsiung opened the door to deeper cooperation in startups and economic exchange. The new trilateral agreement, based on the foundation of existing trilateral collaboration, he pointed out, will further strengthen collaboration by enabling the three cities to share resources and foster intercity links, thereby jointly facilitating the development of innovation-driven industries.
Director-General Chang Yen-ching of the Department of Administrative and International Affairs indicated that the agreement not only deepens Kaohsiung’s partnerships with its sister and partner cities but also establishes a framework for a cross-border coordination mechanism in technological innovation. It marks a closer partnership among Kaohsiung, San Antonio, and Kumamoto in science and innovation, and lays a solid foundation for future collaboration.