Ancestral temples fight for their roots

Chang Kuei-yu kneeling in front of a Hsinchu Science Park Bureau official while speaking during a protest against the expansion of an industrial park for advanced chip manufacturing at the Longtan district of Taoyuan, in Hsinchu, Taiwan. — Reuters

WEARING rain ponchos and holding photos of their ancestral temples near Hsinchu, Taiwan’s semiconductor capital, 40 residents braved lashing winds in early October to protest plans to take their rural land for cutting-edge chip production.

Two weeks later, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, dropped plans to build a factory as part of the science park expansion in the bucolic Longtan district nearby – a development that heartened protesters and laid bare one of Taiwan’s increasingly fraught “five shortages”.