Commentary The importance of Taiwan as a global manufacturing and innovation hub for semiconductors, or microchips, and other high-tech inputs crucial to major U.S. goods producers and defense firms was recently highlighted in an event hosted by the Global Taiwan Institute, a think tank dedicated to Taiwan policy research. With the theme “Opportunities and Challenges in US-Taiwan Cooperation in the High-Tech Supply Chain,” the event, held last, week also addressed increasing geopolitical tensions between authoritarian China and democratic Taiwan, and the economic and security implications of a potential hot conflict, which Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council stated, “would not be localized in any way.” During the event, Stephen Ezell, Vice President of Global Innovation Policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), said, “There’s one industry that’s more important than any other to the US-Taiwan relationship and, of course, that’s semiconductors.” “Semiconductors, or integrated circuits, are …