Tech Retrospective

Last week, ReGen 250 — the 501c3 non-profit with which the TEA Collaborative is associated — celebrated its 10th Anniversary. To mark the occasion, it’s timely to cast an eye back and quickly survey the road traveled to fix where the TEA Collaborative stands today.

We’ll cover the tech perspective, the energy & environment perspective and the PRC planning ambitions perspective in separate T-series, E-series and A-series posts this week.

My focus on technology issues, especially supply chain issues for advanced ICT (information and communications technology) products involving the U.S.-China-Taiwan triangle, was most intense prior to the founding of ReGen250 in 2011. Some highlights include:

• Three-time Invited Congressional Commission Expert Witness at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s Public Hearings on Global Supply Chains and Cross-Straits Security Issues (109^th, 108^th, and 107^th Sessions of the U.S. Congress)
• Director and Head of Partnership Development, Asia at the World Economic Forum  (with strategic focus on ICT, Energy, Transportation, Finance industries)
• Author of The Politics of Greater China’s Integration into the Global Info Tech Supply Chain in The Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 13, No. 40; and of Taiwan’s FTA Prospects from the Global IT Supply Chain Perspective in Economic Integration, Democratization and National Security in East Asia, edited by Peter C.Y. Chow
• Green Team Leader on Cross-Straits Economics, U.S. Dept. of Defense/Defense Intelligence Agency Strategic Coercion Wargame convened by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)
• Invited Non-Governmental Expert Participant, Asian Scenario Seminar Game at the Army War College, Carlisle, PA
• Co-organizer of The Role of Taiwan in the Post-WTO Global Supply Chain Workshop at the 19^th Modern Engineering & Technology Seminar
• Official Host (“Ambassador”) for the Taiwan Delegation at World Congress on Information Technology XV in Austin TX
• Featured Speaker & Seminar Consultant – RAND Corporation, MITRE Corporation
• Keynote/Plenary Speaker at large scale media (Forbes, BusinessWeek, Reuters, The Economist Conference Group) and investor (Berkshire-Hathaway-themed 3^rd Annual Global Investment Conference, China’s Financial Markets Conference, New York Cleantech Investors Forum, National Association of Business Economists/NABE) conferences
• Moderator at Fabless Semiconductor Association and Wharton China Business Forum annual conference events
• Advisor on Global Business Outreach, The Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania
• Invited Think-tank Speaker: CSIS, AEI, Heritage, Brookings, etc

For the TEA Collaborative, this perspective has been brought to bear in a number of recent posts:

• Timing Matters — situates Taiwan’s role in the global supply chain for microchips and other advanced ICT products
• U.S./China Tech De-Coupling: 4 Levels of Risk — assesses the Trump Administration’s fitful tech policy toward China
• Fiddling Around with U.S.-China Tech – brings perspectives from the boardroom, the cultural sidelines and from history in reviewing Trump Administration tech policy toward China
• TikTok Endgame Against the Timeclock – surveys tensions between the U.S. and China as relates to social media companies in general and TikTok in particular
• Taiwan Straddles U.S.-China Microchip Supply Chain Fault-line – takes a sounding of Taiwan’s position as supplier of 40% of the world’s chips and 80% of the world’s most advanced chips
• 21^st C. Tech Tug-of-War between China and the U.S. – takes a look at what it will take for the U.S. to compete more effectively against China to retain tech preeminence in the 21^st century

This are representative of the most consequential questions and challenges underlying U.S.-China relations at the present moment. They are at the core of the whole-of-government policy review towards China now being coordinated by Kurt Campbell and the National Security Council. Ironically, these issues were dismissed by the American Enterprise Institute when Ambassador Jim Lilley introduced me to AEI for a day-long series of interviews preparatory to a possible appointment back in 2002. AEI’s conclusion at the end of the day as their senior leadership explained their decision not to make an offer? These were all questions which the free market would sort out and there’s no role for AEI or policy makers to play. Ideologically consistent perhaps but hardly prescient.