The DSET Economic Security Program was recently invited to attend a conference hosted by Security & Defence PLuS (S&D+) — a trilateral university collaboration among the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia — held in Phoenix, Arizona. Non-resident Fellow Chris Chih-Hua Tseng represented DSET at the event, sharing insights on semiconductor economic security as a panelist on the Critical Infrastructure and National Resilience panel session.
The S&D+ initiative is a flagship program under the PLuS Alliance, a global partnership framework jointly established by Arizona State University (ASU), King’s College London, and the University of New South Wales. The program plays a pivotal role in supporting AUKUS-related research, education, and policy advocacy.
This conference was held under the theme “Emerging Voices Series: Strategy, Security & Defence”, bringing together established experts and emerging voices for in-depth dialogue on security, defense, and strategic affairs. Distinguished guests in attendance included Dr. Lily McElwee, President and CEO of the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations (PCFR); U.S. Representative Congressman Greg Stanton (Arizona’s 4th Congressional District); Paul Rennie OBE, British Consul General in Los Angeles; U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General (Ret.) Jennifer M. Short, and representatives from multiple industries, government, think tanks, and academia.
The Critical Infrastructure and National Resilience session, in which Tseng participated, was moderated by Dr. Alicia Ellis, Director of the Global Security MA Program at ASU. Other panelists included Ali Torabi, CEO of Lawrence Semiconductor; Josh Lane, Vice President of Business Development at Utility Engineering; and Dr. Deniz Berfin Karakoc, Assistant Professor at ASU’s School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence. The session covered topics ranging from semiconductor, energy infrastructure, natural resource management, all the way to agriculture and food security.
During the session, Tseng shared key insights on economic security, drawing upon a range of DSET’s recently published reports — including The Great Siege, Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom, The Rise of CXMT, and Economic Security Challenges from Malaysia–China Economic Cooperation and Data Center Development — to illuminate the dynamics of China’s industrial policy and the ongoing restructuring of the global semiconductor supply chain. Tseng emphasized the critical role of export control policy in supply chain governance and the maintenance of U.S. technological leadership, as well as its implications for state capability, state-firm relations, and capability building on the local level.
In his closing remarks, Tseng underscored that resilience strategies under an economic security framework must move beyond a self-sufficiency mindset, focusing instead on strengthening the ability of the United States and its allies to recover swiftly in the face of disruption, and placing greater emphasis on multilateral cooperation — spanning technological collaboration to strategic partnerships.
Other sessions at the conference explored topics including the landscape of leadership, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region in response to China’s threat, and AI and emerging technologies. Against the broader backdrop of U.S.-Taiwan technology cooperation and Taiwanese investments in the Phoenix metropolitan area, deepening Taiwan-U.S. cooperation and safeguarding the Taiwan Strait consistently emerged as central themes across multiple sessions.
