The U.S.-China AI Race is Changing the Stakes for Taiwan

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald J. Trump are scheduled to meet again in Washington in September when Xi arrives for a reciprocal state visit. When the two leaders met in Beijing in May, China placed the relationship with Taiwan front and center in their discussions.

Before Trump had left the Great Hall of the People, where bilateral talks were taking place, Chinese state media reported that Xi had warned of a conflict over any mishandling of “the Taiwan question,” describing it as “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) will likely be at the top of the agenda when Trump and Xi meet next week. Ahead of Xi’s scheduled visit, the United States and China are expected to hold their first official bilateral dialogue on AI as a follow-up to an agreement in May over the importance of safety measures.

But whether policymakers in the United States realize it yet, they will find it increasingly difficult to separate the competition with China over global AI dominance from the Taiwan Strait issue.

Read the full article by our Policy Fellow Sherry Hsiao on the Council on Foreign Relations website: https://www.cfr.org/articles/the-u-s-china-ai-race-is-changing-the-stakes-for-taiwan