Japan-Taiwan Association Representative Katayama Kazuyuki will step down, and former Greek Ambassador Ito Koichi will take over.

The representative of the Taipei office of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, Japan’s window to Taiwan, is about to be replaced. The Sankei Shimbun reported that current representative Kazuyuki Katayama will step down in late November and will be replaced by Koichi Ito, who has served as ambassador to Greece and minister to China. He is scheduled to arrive in Taiwan in early December to take up his new post. Ito once served in Taiwan, and this personnel arrangement comes at an important time when Taiwan-Japan relations continue to deepen and the two sides promote cooperation in economic security.

Sankei quoted multiple Taiwan-Japan relations sources today as saying that the 67-year-old Koichi Ito will succeed Kazuyuki Katayama and serve as the representative of the Taipei Office of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association, which is equivalent to the ambassadorial level. However, this personnel has yet to be officially announced.

Ito graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo and came from the Chinese training group known as the "China School" of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has rich experience in Chinese affairs and Asian diplomacy. He served as the general affairs director of the Taipei Office of the Exchange Association from 2005 to 2008, and is no stranger to Taiwan's political and economic situation and Taiwan-Japan relations.

Ito has since served as the Regional Policy Section Chief of the Asia and Oceania Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Consul General in Guangzhou, and the Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to China. In January 2024, Ito became the Ambassador to Greece until he resigned in October this year. His return to Taiwan this time will be his second posting to Taipei after 18 years of breach of contract.

The current representative, Kazuyuki Katayama, is also a senior diplomat. He entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983 and has more than 40 years of diplomatic experience. He has been stationed in the United States, China, Belgium and Malaysia, and has served as consul general in Detroit, Shanghai and ambassador to Peru. In November 2023, he became the representative of the Taipei Office of the Exchange Association, which has been about 3 years.

During Katayama's tenure, economic, trade and personnel exchanges between Taiwan and Japan continued to expand. TSMC, the global leader in wafer foundry, will start mass production of its first factory in Kikuyo Town, Kumamoto Prefecture in 2024, and the second factory will start construction in 2025. The total number of visits between Taiwan and Japan in 2025 will exceed 8.21 million, setting a record high.

In addition, the report also pointed out that Taiwan and Japan are currently negotiating through window agencies between the two places to discuss a comprehensive trade framework covering cooperation in strategic industries such as artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors, as well as economic security. The content is similar to the "Enhanced Trade Partnership Agreement" (ETP) signed by Taiwan and the United Kingdom in 2023. It may be signed at the earliest at the regular Taiwan-Japan trade and economic meeting in December.

At a time when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attaches great importance to economic security and the situation in the Taiwan Strait continues to attract international attention, Ito's experience in diplomacy with China and his background in being stationed in Taiwan have attracted special attention. In the future, how to deepen bilateral cooperation in semiconductor, AI and supply chain under the framework of informal diplomatic relations between Taiwan and Japan, while coping with the diplomatic challenges brought about by the China factor, will become an important issue for the new representatives.