Taiwan's land squeeze pits advanced chips against ancestral temples

Longtan residents take part in a protest against the expansion of an industrial park for advanced chip manufacturing in Taoyuan, near the presidential office in Taipei, Taiwan September 12, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

HSINCHU/LONGTAN, 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".