Taiwan has appointed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. founder Morris Chang as its special envoy to next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where the presidents of the US and China are likely to meet for the first time in almost a year.
It will be the fifth time that Chang has represented Taiwan at the meeting, according to a statement from the Taiwanese Presidential Office. The summit will be held this year in San Francisco from November 11 to 17.
The 92-year-old chip pioneer told local media that he had interacted directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the conference last year, although the two did not discuss issues relating to the Taiwan Strait.
Teams from both the US and China have been scouting venues for Xi to meet with president Joe Biden on the sidelines of this year’s summit, although officials in Beijing have not officially signed off on the meeting, Bloomberg News reported. If it goes through, it would mark the first time that the leaders of the world’s two largest economies have spoken since the G-20 Summit in Indonesia last November.
Taiwan is one of the most critical points of tension between the major powers, whose relations have been further strained since an alleged Chinese spy balloon floated over America earlier this year. Another key concern has been US export restrictions aimed at limiting China’s access to advanced chips, a move that TSMC has so far said has a “limited and manageable” impact on the Taiwanese company.
