Asia Report #59 | November 21, 2022

A high-tension visit by U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in early August 2022 led to the People’s Liberation Army Navy holding exercises near Taiwan and firing live missiles near the island. Chinese military escalation and stern diplomatic warnings to the U.S. came in the midst of final deliberations of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS act) in Washington. A week after Speaker Pelosi’s visit, President Biden signed the measure into law, providing over $50 billion to help develop and produce semiconductors while encouraging U.S. companies to cut China out of their semiconductor supply chains.

To explore these issues and how heightened tensions are likely to affect Taiwan and its economy and security, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies hosted a conference on Taiwan’s New Security Challenges: Economic Security and Military Security. The Asia Report from the first panel on economic and high-tech security may be found here. This Asia Report focuses on Taiwan’s changing military security challenges and assesses how cross strait, defense and US-Taiwan relations factor into possible responses. The video of the entire conference may be found here.

The speakers included Elbridge Colby, Co-Founder and Principal of the Marathon Initiative, Robert Sutter, Professor of Practice of International Affairs at the Elliott School of George Washington University, and Jacob Stokes, Fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). The panel was moderated by Deepa Ollapally, Associate Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University.

Read the full Asia Report here.