US-China Summit Ends With Little Impact, Experts Warn Taiwan's Chips Are Key Chess Piece

The political dynamics following the US presidential election have gripped global geopolitical nerves, as the highly anticipated new round of the Trump-Xi meeting recently concluded. Analyzing this crucial dialogue between the world's two largest economies, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research President Lien Hsien-ming recently pointed out that the summit overall presented a pattern of loud thunder and small raindrops, with its outcome entirely in line with prior expectations. While the US and China each harbored their own calculations and motives on core issues such as the war in Iran and Taiwan's status, the talks failed to achieve substantial breakthroughs given the intractability of deep structural contradictions, with both sides maintaining their established competitive tension.

Lien further noted that within the macro chess game of US-China rivalry, Taiwan plays an indispensable and crucial role. In particular, Taiwan's absolute advantage in the global semiconductor supply chain directly impacts the outcome of the US future artificial intelligence race. For the US government, a stable supply and manufacturing capability of advanced chips is of vital importance, serving as the cornerstone for maintaining its global technological hegemony. Without Taiwan's powerful and robust wafer foundry and manufacturing capacity, the US would face extremely formidable challenges in seizing and maintaining its leading edge in this century's AI race, keeping Taiwan at the core focus of the US-China tech war and geopolitics.

Looking back over the past few years, the competition between the US and China has long extended from mere trade friction into deep confrontation spanning technology, finance, supply chains, and geopolitics. Through export controls, the CHIPS Act, and alliance strategies, the US continues to contain China's development in the semiconductor and AI sectors; meanwhile, China seeks breakthroughs in its domestic market, critical minerals, and regional influence. Against this backdrop, whenever the top leaders of the US and China meet, high hopes are placed on them to put the brakes on the tense international situation. However, judging from the actual interactions and final outcome of this Trump-Xi summit, while both sides demonstrated a willingness to dialogue to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control, they refused to yield on substantial interests and core values, resulting in the absence of the breakthrough progress anticipated by various sectors.

Among numerous divergences, the Taiwan issue and regional security remain the most sensitive red lines in US-China relations. For Beijing, the Taiwan question is the core of its core interests and allows no interference from external forces; for Washington, based on geopolitical and democratic alliance considerations, maintaining Taiwan's security and peace across the Taiwan Strait aligns with its national interests. More importantly, as Lien analyzed, Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing prowess has risen to the level of a global strategic asset. From advanced processors required for AI servers to various high-end computing chips, a vast proportion of global production capacity is concentrated in Taiwan. This irreplaceable industrial cluster effect makes Taiwan the most critical battleground in the US-China tech hegemony contest, elevating the situation in the Taiwan Strait beyond a mere regional issue to a direct impact on the lifeline of the global tech industry.

Looking ahead to the future landscape of international trade, economy, and technology, although the Trump-Xi meeting did not bring substantial solutions, the posture of maintaining contact itself carries a certain stabilizing signal. As AI technology advances by leaps and bounds, computing power has become a primary indicator of national competitiveness, and US demand for advanced chips continues to grow unabated. This means Taiwan's strategic position in the international supply chain will remain difficult to replace in the short term. Nevertheless, caught in the cracks of the intense US-China competition, Taiwan must also prudently navigate various external variables and continuously strengthen its own R&D capabilities and industrial resilience. How to steadily act as a trustworthy partner in the global tech ecosystem while ensuring national security will remain an important issue for Taiwan to confront in the future.

(Source: Central News Agency)