On October 19, the Hoover Institution's Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region held a joint event with National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, to discuss how to deepen U.S.-Taiwan cooperation in semiconductors.  

Taiwan is one of Asia’s most prosperous and successful liberal democracies, the world’s leading innovator in and producer of semiconductors, and a trusted partner in critical supply chains. While Taiwan stands at the center of the global semiconductor economy, its lack of diplomatic recognition and formal alliances contributes to its existential vulnerability to being invaded or otherwise involuntarily absorbed into the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

This event brought together participants from the Hoover Institution to discuss these issues with Taiwan counterparts, and to consider the recommendations of a new Hoover Institution report entitled “Silicon Shield: US- Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security.” The report is available for free download at the project website. 

For more on this topic, see the Hoover Institution's Working Group on Semiconductors and the Security of the United States and Taiwan. Some of the report chapter authors have also participated in podcasts about the report, which you can listen to here: 

Matt Turpin, on mitigating China's non-market behavior in semiconductors
Chris Ford, on how the United States can reduce vulnerabilities in semiconductor supply chains 
Mary Kay Magistad, on the future of U.S.-China competition
Glenn Tiffert, on why China struggles to produce advanced semiconductors

In addition, in July 2023, the report's editors appeared in Washington DC for a launch event. 

Participants
Terry Tsao is a seasoned executive and industry leader, currently serving as the Global Chief Marketing Officer and President of Taiwan at SEMI. In his current capacity, Terry Tsao assumes the responsibility of directing corporate marketing strategies of SEMI, encompassing various critical areas such as strategy formulation, association operations, product marketing, and market communications. Moreover, he leads the SEMI Market Intelligence Team, driving data-driven insights and actionable intelligence within the organization. In his leadership position for SEMI Taiwan, Tsao oversees all aspects of activity planning, product offerings, and service content. With over 16 years of experience at SEMI, Tsao has significantly advanced Taiwan's semiconductor community and spearheaded crucial policy initiatives within the global semiconductor industry. Prior to his current position, Tsao held dual roles as the President of SEMI Taiwan and the President of SEMI Southeast Asia, leveraging his extensive experience to drive advancements in the semiconductor industry across multiple regions.

Tain-Jy Chen is a senior professor of economics at TSE, and also a professor emeritus of National Taiwan University. In addition to teaching, he has previously served as the president of Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, a think tank specializing in economic policy studies, and also in the Taiwan government, as the minister for Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) and National Development Council (NDC). This experience gives him wide exposures to policy formations and implementations. As an economist, his research interests are in economic development and trade policies. He earned a Ph.D. degree in economics in 1983 from Pennsylvania State University. He has published extensively in academic journals, mostly in the fields of trade, investment, and industrial development. His recent work focuses on industrial development of China and the US-China trade war.

Kuo-Chun Yeh is a professor at the Graduate Institute of National Development, a researcher at Center for China Studies, and Coordinator of China Research Program, National Taiwan University.  He is Secretary-general of the Chinese Association of Political Science (CAPS Taipei).  Since 2021 he has been an EU Jean Monnet Chair focusing on the EU-China industrial competition.

Burn-Jeng Lin is a Distinguished Senior Professor at National Tsing Hua University, a position he has held since retiring as Vice President of TSMC in 2016. He joined TSMC as a senior director in 2000 and became Vice President in 2011. Prior to that, he founded and led Linnovation, Inc. From 1970 to 1992, Dr. Lin worked at IBM, where he held various technical and managerial positions and was the first person to propose immersion lithography, a technique that eventually became viable in the 1980s. Dr. Lin is an IEEE Life Fellow and SPIE Fellow and was elected to the membership of the United States National Academy of Engineering in 2008 and as an Academician of Academia Sinica in 2014. He received a B.S. from National Taiwan University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University.

FEATURING:
Larry Diamond - Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
James O. Ellis - Annenberg Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Kharis Templeman - Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution
H.-S. Philip Wong - Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to a book talk on Divided Allies: Taiwan, the United States, and the Hidden History of the Cold War in Asia, with Hsiao-ting Lin on Thursday, June 1, 2023 from 4:00 - 5:00 PM PT.

Register here to attend this virtual talk. 
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Professor Lin’s book explores the challenges which faced the United States and Taiwanese alliance during the Cold War, addressing a wide range of events and influences of the period between the 1950s and 1970s. Tackling seven main topics to outline the fluctuations of the U.S.–Taiwan relationship, this volume highlights the impact of the mainland counteroffensive, the offshore islands, Tibet, Taiwan’s secret operations in Asia, Taiwan’s Soviet and nuclear gambits, Chinese representation in the United Nations, and the Vietnam War. Utilizing multinational archival research, particularly the newly available materials from Taiwan and the United States, it reevaluates Taiwan’s foreign policy during the Cold War, revealing a pragmatic and opportunistic foreign policy disguised in nationalistic rhetoric.

About the Speaker
Hsiao-ting Lin is a research fellow and curator of the Modern China and Taiwan collection at the Hoover Institution, for which he collects material on China and Taiwan, as well as China-related materials in other East Asian countries. He holds a BA in political science from National Taiwan University (1994) and an MA in international law and diplomacy from National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1997). He received his DPhil in oriental studies in 2003 from the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on modern Chinese and Taiwanese politics, history, and ethnic minorities, including Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan (2016); Modern China’s Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West (2011); and Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928–49 (2006).

[This talk was cancelled and will be rescheduled at a later date.]

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to The World’s Most Dangerous Place? Assessing the Prospects for War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, May 4, 2023 at 12:00 PM PT. 
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In recent years, numerous analysts have warned of an increasing risk of war in the Taiwan Strait. Others, however, have argued that military conflict remains unlikely, and that the risk of war should not be over-hyped. Drawing from his recent book, Scott Kastner outlines a framework through which to assess the prospects for military conflict between China and Taiwan. Drawing on international relations theory, Kastner outlines several causal pathways through which a Taiwan Strait conflict could occur, and assesses how broad trends in China-Taiwan-US relations are affecting the likelihood of these different scenarios. He concludes with policy suggestions for how actors in Beijing, Taipei and Washington could mitigate the risks of a war in the Taiwan Strait.

This talk will draw from Prof. Kastner's new book, entitled War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait, available from Columbia University Press, November 2022. 

Speaker Bio
Scott L. Kastner is a professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. He graduated from Cornell University and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. His books include Political Conflict and Economic Interdependence across the Taiwan Strait and Beyond (Stanford University Press, 2009); China’s Strategic Multilateralism: Investing in Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2019; with Margaret Pearson and Chad Rector); and War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait (Columbia University Press, 2022).

Join the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, together with the Program on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region at the Hoover Institution, on Wednesday, March 8, from Noon–1 PM Pacific, for Semiconductors and Geo-technology: ‘Know-how’ is Power, a discussion with Dr. Chun-Yi Lee, Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, and Director of the Taiwan Studies Program, at the University of Nottingham. The session will be moderated by Charles Mok, visiting scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi).

Geopolitics is conventionally understood as a struggle for power. The focus of geopolitical analysis is typically on states; power is understood in terms of states’ economic and military strength. In the era of globalisation, production relies on complex supply chains. While this paper focuses on the production of a hi-tech product—semiconductors—it argues more generally that technology production and supply chain ‘know how’ is implicated in geopolitical power. Through an elaboration of the concept of ‘geo-technology’, this paper argues that a consideration of technology production capacity (or ‘know-how’) can enrich conventional understandings of geopolitics.

The US, Taiwan and China play different roles in the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. The leading semiconductor designers are based in the US, while the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) produces most of the world’s high-end chips. China, on the other hand, is an economic and manufacturing powerhouse, but remains at the low end of the manufacturing supply chain. This paper argues that the US and Taiwan have significant leverage in the production of semiconductors, granting them geopolitical power. It therefore asks if Taiwan, and the US, can use their technological 'know-how’ to gain further leverage in the geopolitical tug of war with China. Data of this paper will come from semi-constructed interviews in Taiwan and Japan, approximately twenty elite interviews from technology policy analysts, policy makers and high-skilled engineers, along with relevant policy analyses. The paper aims to explore the link between human talents in the semiconductor supply chain and geopolitics.

This session is part of the Winter Seminar Series, a series spanning January through March, hosted at the Cyber Policy Center with the Program on Democracy and the Internet. Sessions are in-person and virtual, with in-person attendance offered to Stanford affiliates only. Lunch is provided for in-person attendance. Registration is required. 

About the Speaker
Dr. Chun-Yi Lee is Associate Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations, and Director of the Taiwan Studies Program, at the University of Nottingham. Her first book, Taiwanese Business or Chinese Security Asset?, was published by Routledge in 2011. She is currently working on her second monograph, on semiconductor manufacturing and geopolitics. She is editor in chief of the on-line academic magazine, Taiwan Insight, and co-editor of the ‘Taiwan and World Affairs’ book series with Palgrave.

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to a talk by Caitlin Talmadge, associate professor of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, entitled Then What? Assessing the Military Implications of Chinese Control of Taiwan on Friday, March 3, 2023 from 12:00 - 1:15 pm PT. To attend, register at the event page. 

Talk Abstract
​The military implications of Chinese control of Taiwan are understudied. Chinese control of Taiwan would likely improve the military balance in China's favor because of unification's positive impact on Chinese submarine warfare and ocean surveillance capabilities. Basing Chinese submarine warfare assets on Taiwan would increase the vulnerability of U.S. surface forces to attack during a crisis, reduce the attrition rate of Chinese submarines during a war, and likely increase the number of submarine attack opportunities against U.S. surface combatants. Furthermore, placing hydrophone arrays off Taiwan's coasts for ocean surveillance would forge a critical missing link in China's kill chain for long-range attacks. This outcome could push the United States toward anti-satellite warfare that it might otherwise avoid, or it could force the U.S. Navy into narrower parts of the Philippine Sea. Finally, over the long term, if China were to develop a large fleet of truly quiet nuclear attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines, basing them on Taiwan would provide it with additional advantages. Specifically, such basing would enable China to both threaten Northeast Asian sea lanes of communication and strengthen its sea-based nuclear deterrent in ways that it is otherwise unlikely to be able to do. These findings have important implications for U.S. operational planning, policy, and grand strategy.

Speaker Bio
Caitlin Talmadge is associate professor of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, as well as Senior Non-Resident Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, and Research Affiliate in the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During fall 2022 she also holds the Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the United States Library of Congress.
 
Professor Talmadge’s research and teaching focus on deterrence and escalation, U.S. military operations and strategy, and security issues in Asia and the Persian Gulf. She is author of The Dictator’s Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes (Cornell, 2015), which Foreign Affairs named the Best Book in Security for 2016 and which won the 2017 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. In addition, she is co-author of U.S. Defense Politics: The Origins of Security Policy (fourth edition, Routledge, 2021), and she is currently writing a book with Professor Brendan Green on nuclear escalation risk in the emerging deterrence environment.

​On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution
invites you to US Cities and States in Taiwan’s Quest for International Space on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 from 4:00 pm - 5:15 pm PT. Register at the event page. 

Talk Abstract
While Taiwan’s struggles to retain its shrinking list of diplomatic allies are well documented, its attempts to strengthen its international position via paradiplomacy—formal diplomacy with states, cities, and other subnational governments—have received less attention. Taiwanese officials are adept at forging such paradiplomatic agreements, and Taiwan represents a disproportionately large share of instances of paradiplomacy involving US cities and states. This talk describes the primary forms that US-Taiwan subnational diplomacy has taken since the 1970s, the reasons why cities and states engage with Taiwan, and the ways in which US-Taiwan subnational diplomacy is being challenged by pressure from the PRC.

Speaker Bio
Sara Newland is assistant professor of government at Smith College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She conducts research on local governance in mainland China and Taiwan and on subnational diplomacy between the US, China, and Taiwan. Her work has been published in Governance, Pacific Review, China Quarterly, and the Journal of Political Science Education. She is a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on US-China Relations and a member of the US-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group.

On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to Narratives of Civic Duty and Taiwan’s Democratic Trajectory on Thursday, January 26, 2023 from 12:30 - 1:45 pm PT. To attend, register at the event page. 

In her newly-published book ​Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia, Aram Hur investigates the impulse behind a sense of civic duty in democracies. Why do some citizens feel a responsibility to vote, pay taxes, or take up arms for one's country? Civic duty is typically seen as the result of culture or character. Rather, Hur finds that it emerges from a force long seen as detrimental to democracy: strong national attachments. National stories—the folklore of the national people—embed relational legacies with the state that can harness, stunt, or even subvert the nation’s powerful pull toward civic duty. The talk focuses on the case of Taiwan and how its diverse national stories have shaped its democratic past and future.

Aram Hur is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on nationalism and democracy in East Asia, with special attention to issues of identity change, integration, and democratic support in the Korean peninsula and Taiwan. She is the 2021 Korea Society Sherman Emerging Scholar and a 2018-19 CSIS U.S.-Korea NextGen Scholar. She is the author of Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia(Cornell University Press, 2022). She holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and BA with honors from Stanford University.

On November 29, I'm going to speak about the Taiwan local election outcomes at the Hoover Institution. The event is virtual; online attendance is free and open to the public. Register at the event page. The abstract is below. 

In anticipation of this talk, I've attempted to keep track of the candidates and campaigns in each county and municipality on this blog; you can find the details here:

Part 1. The Six Special Municipalities
Part 2. North and Central Taiwan
Part 3. The South, East, and Offshore Islands
Part 4. Concluding Thoughts
Local Elections Update, One Month Out 

Update: The CEC official election results for the 2022 local elections are available here.

On behalf of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region (PTIP) and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to Taiwan’s 2022 Local Election Results: What Happened and What It Means on Tuesday, November 29, 2022  from 4:00 - 5:15 PT.

On November 26, 2022, Taiwan's electorate will go to the polls to select 22 mayors and county executives, several hundred council members, and thousands of other local offices. Voters will also decide on a constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 20 to 18. This talk will cover the results of the elections and discuss the implications for Taiwan's future, including cross-Strait relations, local governance, party politics, President Tsai Ing-wen’s last 18 months in office, and the race to succeed her in 2024.

On behalf of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to How the Ukraine Crisis Shapes Taiwan’s Public Opinion -- and Beyond​ on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 from 4:00 - 5:00 PST.

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s response has changed the calculation of war strategies and US involvement worldwide. On the other side of the world, a potential 2027 China invasion of Taiwan looms over the stability of East Asia, and public opinion in democratic Taiwan plays a crucial role in its own choice of security strategies. How does the Ukraine crisis influence or shape the Taiwanese people’s preference for security and foreign policies? How might the US response and presence in Europe and East Asia play a role in Taiwan? In this talk, Dr. Austin Horng-En Wang traces and analyzes public opinion in Taiwan before and after the start of the Ukraine crisis and explains how the changes across subgroups are likely to impact the upcoming elections in Taiwan and the future of the US-Taiwan relationship.

Featuring Austin Horng-En Wang, Assistant Professor University of Nevada, Las Vegas, followed by a conversation with Kharis Templeman Research Fellow Hoover Institution.

Dr. Austin Horng-En Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research focuses on political psychology, public opinion, and the politics of East Asia. His research articles can be found in the Journal of Peace Research, Social Media + Society, Asian Survey, and Political Research Quarterly, among others. He is the recipient of The Wilson Center 2021 China Fellowship, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation 2020 Scholarship, and Global Taiwan Institute 2019 Scholarship.​