From April 20 to 21, 2026, Min-yen Chiang, Deputy Director of the Economic Security Research at DSET, was invited to Bratislava, Slovakia, to attend the “CEEasia Forum 2026.” This year’s forum, themed “Geo-tech frontiers: Europe’s strategic stakes in the Indo-Pacific,” focused on the technological, security, economic, and geopolitical challenges facing Europe in the Indo-Pacific region. The forum was co-organized by the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA), gathering representatives from European policy circles, research institutions, media, and industry.
In the first day’s panel discussion, “Chip alliances: Building resilient semiconductor supply chains with Indo-Pacific partners,” Deputy Coordinator Chiang engaged in in-depth exchanges with policy, research, and industry figures from Central and Eastern Europe on issues such as chip cooperation, supply chain resilience, and cross-regional collaboration. During the discussion, Deputy Director Chiang approached the topic from a historical context, pointing out how the logic of local competition within China’s semiconductor policy continues to drive capacity expansion at the institutional level, further leading to predatory competition in the international market. He also used several specific cases to illustrate that the spillover effects of China’s semiconductor policy not only impact regional supply chains but also put immense pressure on European and American semiconductor companies.
Min-yen Chiang further pointed out that in the face of supply chain restructuring and rising geopolitical risks, Taiwan-Europe semiconductor cooperation should be advanced from a more strategic perspective; in particular, Europe must confront the structural problems formed by the dependence of its automotive industry and its supply chain on China. Taking the Nexperia case as an example, European policymakers should seize the opportunity to actively consider how to integrate the role of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry into the overall layout of Europe’s semiconductor strategy, seeking a more pragmatic and feasible path for supply chain cooperation among democratic countries.
The session was moderated by CEIAS researcher Filip Šebok, with other panelists including Professor Jiří Háze from the Advanced Chip Design Research Center (ACDRC) in the Czech Republic and Professor Martin Weis from the SK CHIPS Competence Center.
In addition to semiconductor supply chain issues, the “What’s next for transatlantic coordination on China?” session focused on how Europe and the United States can continue to deepen coordination on their China policies. The session was moderated by CEIAS Executive Director Matej Šimalčík, and panelists included Member of the European Parliament Miriam Lexmann, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) Foreign Policy Advisor Sandra Oudkirk, Dimitar Lilkov from the European research institution Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, and Stephen Nagy from the Canadian think tank The Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
Current policy coordination, strategic integration, and institutional dialogue across the Atlantic are facing unprecedented challenges, making European discussions on Indo-Pacific strategy and China policy particularly important.
Overall, this year’s CEEasia Forum focused not only on semiconductor supply chains but also covered EU-ASEAN cooperation in a changing international order, the convergence of Chinese and Russian Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), Europe’s role in global AI competition, and human rights issues following the Indo-Pacific pivot.
