2017 US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference

The US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference 2017 was held October 15-17, 2017 in Princeton, New Jersey. This was the sixteenth annual event in a series of ongoing conferences addressing the future of U.S. defense cooperation with Taiwan, the defense procurement process, and Taiwan’s defense and national security needs.

This year, the conference opened with a policy discussion on the Trump Administration’s current and future policies in Northeast Asia from a variety of regional perspectives, and will examine its potential impact on Taiwan defense affairs in the short, medium, and long term. We then discussed the threat and response options for Taiwan, and how the island could exploit its adversary’s weaknesses in both traditional and emerging domains – covering air, land, and sea, as well as cyber and space. The final two sessions extrapolated on those responses, and examined their potential implications on developing business opportunities for the defense and security industries in both Taiwan and the United States.

Keynote speakers included senior representatives from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense and from the U.S. government.

Conference sessions at the US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference feature a moderator and several speakers on the panel, and some sessions may include additional commentators. Each speaker gives a short presentation on the session topic from his or her own viewpoint and expertise. Those presentations are then followed by a moderator-led discussion among the panelists, as well as a moderator-driven question and answer period with the attendees. This format offers the maximum amount of time for exchanges among the panelists, as well as between the panel and the audience, allowing the sessions to become a forum for substantial and valuable interaction and discussion.