NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stormed through South Korea like a rock star, setting off a media frenzy. Before that, he spent 14 days in Taiwan — the island where he grew up — putting on a one-man show that generated its own storm of buzz. Sharp-eyed local political commentators zeroed in on one telling detail: across five separate visits, Huang never once met with Lai Ching-te.
They say this was no accident. It was a deliberate move to sidestep political entanglement — a clear signal that the mainland Chinese market remains firmly in his sights. Some analysts go further, arguing that Huang simply does not regard Lai as someone who is building Taiwan up. The mainland's Global Times weighed in too, calling Huang's conduct a weighty "non-spoken statement."
Five visits. No meeting with Lai Ching-te. Commentators say Huang is avoiding the "independence" camp — with the mainland market firmly in mind.
The record backs this up. Since Lai Ching-te assumed office as Taiwan's leader, Huang has visited the island multiple times without engaging with him in any form. Back in 2023, when Tsai Ing-wen was still in office, Huang appeared at the same venue during COMPUTEX Taipei — though no formal meeting took place.
When a reporter asked what he thought of Tsai, Huang offered a brief "She is fantastic" and nothing more. Even then, the distance from the Democratic Progressive Party's leadership was unmistakable.
Taiwanese political commentators offer varying interpretations of Huang's repeated snubs. Former legislator Shen Fu-hsiung believes Huang is steering clear deliberately. Shen argues that Huang has never stopped eyeing the mainland market and remains confident that Beijing will eventually come back to embrace NVIDIA. That calculation, Shen says, is precisely why Huang refuses to court political trouble.
Political commentator and online personality Kuo Cheng-liang takes a different view. He suggests Huang is unwilling to meet Lai not for strategic reasons, but because he does not see Lai as someone who is building Taiwan. "This," Kuo says flatly, "is Lai's greatest crisis."
Kuo also notes that Huang does not keep all Taiwanese politicians at arm's length. His clear favourite is Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an, with whom he has met three or four times and built considerable rapport. Chiang is a rising figure within the Kuomintang, has previously visited the Chinese Mainland, and holds a position on cross-strait relations that is diametrically opposed to Lai's. Huang's choice to associate with Chiang sends its own signal on where he stands on the question of unification versus independence.
Huang is a tech titan who has already committed to building AI and supercomputing infrastructure in Taiwan on a major scale. Lai naturally regards him as enormously important — a meeting would undoubtedly burnish Lai's own profile. Yet to Huang, such an encounter would be a "kiss of death," something to be studiously avoided. The situation has the flavor of an old Chinese saying: the goddess is willing, but the king has no such dream.
Legislator Wang Hung-wei believes Lai clearly wants very much to meet Huang, and may feel considerable regret that it has not happened. In a recent television interview, Lai floated the idea of inviting Huang, on his next visit, to tour a power plant alongside Taiwan Power Company Chairman Tseng Wen-sheng. The move was widely read as an attempt to engineer a face-to-face encounter.
Lai wants the meeting. The power plant invite is his play to make it happen.
The backdrop matters here. During Huang's visit, a journalist asked him about the government's claim that power supply would be problem-free by 2032. His response was a flat "Maybe" — a tone that conveyed unmistakable skepticism. Lai promptly extended the power plant invitation, seemingly hoping to use the Taipower chairman as a bridge to bring about a "Lai–Huang summit."
The scheme seems unlikely to succeed. Huang is a shrewd operator, and his sights are set firmly on the vast mainland market. He knows he cannot afford a political misstep. When larger interests are at stake, he is not about to walk into a trap.
The mainland's Global Times also picked up on this dynamic. In a commentary, it noted that while Huang has repeatedly and publicly acknowledged Taiwan's pivotal role in global tech manufacturing and the AI ecosystem, he has conspicuously avoided Lai Ching-te and kept a deliberate distance. The paper concluded that, in the eyes of those with genuine global industry standing, political theatrics are no substitute for governing competence, and cannot buy future development.
The commentary called Huang's refusal to meet Lai a weighty "non-spoken statement" — a phrase that hits the nail squarely on the head. Make no mistake: Jensen Huang may be a tech figure, but his political acumen is anything but low.
What Say You?
** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **
America's press-freedom myth just took a serious hit. The Justice Department has subpoenaed four New York Times reporters over an alleged violation of federal criminal law. The FBI has opened its own investigation. Both moves target the paper's exposé on inadequate anti-missile defenses aboard the president's new plane.
Defense Secretary Hegseth unveils "mole-hunt squad," vowing to root out leakers feeding reporters.
The White House has long nursed grudges against the press. Now, in a fury, it has escalated from threats to outright intimidation, deploying subpoenas and detentions alike. As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. Someone inside government must be leaking, and that conviction pushed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to announce a special task force. Working hand-in-hand with the Justice Department, the task force aims to root out the "moles."
The showdown between the White House and the press is only heating up, and the real fireworks may still lie ahead.
Trump's sudden switch to the old Air Force One after NATO sparked media exposés, igniting his fury and a subpoena crackdown.
The Plane-Swap Spark
The trigger behind this clash was the so-called "plane-swap incident." After Trump wrapped up the NATO summit in Turkey, his security team abruptly switched him onto the old Air Force One for departure. He skipped the new plane gifted by Qatar entirely, and that alone raised eyebrows.
The New York Times soon reported why. The new aircraft's missile-defense systems were inadequate, the paper said, posing a security risk that forced officials to fall back on the old plane. The White House flatly denied the report, and Trump reportedly flew into a rage. The Justice Department wasted no time, issuing subpoenas to the paper's reporters almost immediately.
There is more to this story. FBI agents reportedly showed up at the New York Times offices before the story even went to print. They demanded the paper pull the piece and reveal its sources.
The paper's leadership flatly refused. In response, the Justice Department broke with convention. Rather than identifying the leaker first, it went straight after the reporters with subpoenas, escalating pressure on the press.
This is not the first time the White House has tried to put reporters in the hot seat. Back in April, a US Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iranian airspace and the pilot went missing after ejecting. Both the New York Times and Axios covered the story.
Iran's military happened to launch a massive search operation around the same time. Whether the two events were connected remains unclear. Still, Trump was quick to blame the media, threatening to jail both the reporters and the leaker.
The White House apparently could not find hard evidence, so it ultimately took no action. That failure only deepened its resentment toward the press, and officials waited for the right moment to strike back hard. This time, the plane-swap incident gave the administration its pretext to wield the legal hammer, and it is determined to teach reporters a lesson they will not forget.
The Pentagon's "Mole Hunt"
The crackdown on "moles" by the Defense Department and the Justice Department has also ramped up. Hegseth posted a video on X yesterday announcing that the Pentagon has teamed up with the Justice Department to form a special task force. Its mission: hunt down whoever has been feeding information to the media, and anyone caught with solid evidence will face the full force of the law.
He said the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel can now require any department unit to hand over information and records tied to leak investigations within 48 hours. Full cooperation is mandatory, with no room for delay or evasion. He also issued a stern warning, declaring that "access to confidential and secret information is a sacred trust, and those who betray that trust will be met with the full force of the law".
Both Hegseth and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche are die-hard Trump loyalists. That alone signals this crackdown comes directly from Trump himself, and it is designed to make heads roll, with some officials facing criminal charges. Even without hard evidence, suspects are still likely to be pushed out of their jobs.
The Pentagon has done this before. Last year it investigated several leak cases, resulting in a number of officials being suspended, including Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick and Senior Adviser Dan Caldwell. Both have since quietly disappeared from their posts.
A Hunt That Cannot Succeed
Some analysts point out a hard truth. Hegseth may be on the warpath, but the Pentagon's "mole problem" could prove impossible to fully stamp out. Since Trump's return and Hegseth's takeover of the Defense Department, internal personnel purges have stirred up widespread resentment, making it easy for reporters to find disgruntled insiders willing to talk. With so many potential leakers around, there is no way to seal every crack.
Hegseth himself is not exactly clean either. Shortly after taking office, he got caught up in the "Signalgate" scandal, leaking secret plans for a US strike on Houthi forces in a group chat. That controversy caused quite the uproar. Having broken the rules himself, how can he expect his subordinates to keep their mouths shut without complaint?
Perhaps the funniest comment came from a netizen who suggested the task force should start by investigating the bartender at Hegseth's favorite watering hole. Given his well-known fondness for drink, the odds of him spilling military secrets over a few rounds are hardly low. In the end, they might just discover that the real "leaker" was Hegseth all along.
