Taiwan; US-China talks; Beautiful China; Cars; Red Sea
Summary of today’s Essential Eight:
Taiwan elections - Former President Ma Ying-jeou may have hurt the KMT’s prospects with comments he made in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle in which he sounded almost more like a Beijing official than a former Taiwan President. We will find out soon enough, as there is only one more day until the election.
More US-China talks - Liu Jianchao continued his US trip, meeting in New York with some financiers and business executives and then coming to DC to meet with principal deputy national security advisor Jon Finer. Commerce Secretary Raimondo had a call with Minister of Commerce Wang, in which he unsurprisingly complained about US tech restrictions and specifically the US “restricting third-party exports of lithography machines to China”. Now we wait to see how Beijing reacts to the Taiwan election and whether or not the US and China have managed expectations well enough that any reaction is not enough to upset the delicate stabili…