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Publish Date：2026/07/20
Modify Date：2026/07/20
Strategic Opportunity in Strategic Abandonment: Taiwan’s Semiconductor Diplomacy in the Era of Trump 2.0
Date: 2026/07/27
Time: 14:30
Location: 1F conference room, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica
Speaker: Devin Sullivan
Moderator: James Lee
Abstract:
The shift from Biden's multilateral, values-based approach to Trump's transactional bilateralism has forced every major power in the Indo-Pacific to recalibrate its economic relationship with Taiwan simultaneously. Trump has delivered more materially than Biden — record arms sales, a historic semiconductor investment agreement, and defense spending commitments Taiwan's government could not have achieved on its own. But the framework has changed: Taiwan is now treated as a trade counterparty rather than a strategic ally, and that distinction is being read carefully in Tokyo, Brussels, New Delhi, and Beijing.
This presentation examines how those capitals are responding and what it means for Taiwan's semiconductor diplomacy. Japan and the EU are deepening ties with Taiwan while hedging against uncertainty. India represents an underexploited partnership opportunity. Southeast Asia is drifting toward China. And Beijing, offered newly approved US chip exports, chose instead to accelerate domestic alternatives — a signal that Taiwan’s “silicon shield” is eroding faster than most analysts assume, and that the danger window of the late 2020s to early 2030s is opening on schedule.
