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Hoover Daily Report | May 14, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

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  Welcome to "the Hoover Daily Report". Ideas Advancing
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  Freedom. It's Thursday, May 14th, twenty twenty six .
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  Today, Elizabeth Economy speaks with a seasoned former diplomat about what might
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  happen during and after the ongoing summit between President Trump and Xi
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  Jinping in China; Niall Ferguson explains why Taiwan remains the central issue in
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  the US-China relationship; and Drew Endy and Erik Malmstrom share experiences and
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  takeaways from a recent Hoover summit on biotechnology leadership and security.
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  Summit Season: Reading the Room in Beijing.
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  For the latest episode of China Considered, Senior Fellow Elizabeth
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  Economy sits down with Sarah Beran, a veteran US Foreign Service officer who
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  served across six administrations, most recently as senior director for China and
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  Taiwan at the National Security Council under President Biden. Beran traces her
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  career from post-9/11 stints in the Middle East and South Asia to today,
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  discussing how working outside of China early in her career gave her a sharper
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  sense of how third countries assess their own interests when caught between
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  Washington and Beijing. With experience across multiple administrations, the two
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  touch on the contrasts between Republican and Democratic approaches to China
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  policy, with Beran arguing that the ideal sits somewhere in between. The two
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  conclude by considering the Trump-Xi summit and what possible outcomes we may
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  or may not see.
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  Trump Wants Détente. Xi Wants Taiwan.
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  Writing for The Free Press, Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson explains why the central
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  issue at the ongoing summit between President Trump and Chinese autocrat Xi
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  Jinping will be Taiwan. Ferguson draws on his
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  Hoover colleague Eyck Freymann’s new book
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  Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China
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  to explain how the United States can sustain deterrence against a Taiwan
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  invasion by China. Ferguson warns that with US munitions stockpiles depleted, Xi
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  may choose to move on Taiwan before the much-discussed target date of 2028.
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  Ferguson also suggests that US leadership in AI technology could encourage Xi to
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  act sooner rather than later, as US offensive cyber capabilities may continue
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  to outpace China’s defenses. Ultimately, the historian concludes, much depends on
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  “how close to the brink” Xi Jinping is willing to go to forcefully incorporate
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  Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China.
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  Seeing Through the Molecular Curtain.
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  In a new interview, Science Fellow Drew Endy and Veteran Fellow Erik Malmstrom
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  discuss a recent conference convened by Hoover’s Bio-Strategies and Leadership
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  Initiative, which Endy heads. “The Bio Leadership Summit was an opportunity for
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  us to convene 350 biotechnology leaders. It’s the first time we’ve held such an
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  event at Hoover. It is an unbelievable event,” Endy said.
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  The gathering also featured a live biosensor demonstration monitoring the
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  air for pathogens. Explains Malmstrom, “Right now, when you go into a building,
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  you do not know if there are pathogens floating around. We take 25,000 breaths a
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  day and breathe 2,000 gallons of air per day. Not knowing what we’re breathing is
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  problematic and unacceptable. Our biosensor is intended to break this black
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  box and provide a rapid, autonomous, accurate way of detecting pathogens in
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  the air. In layman’s terms, it’s like a smoke detector for pathogens.”.
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  The Unseen Costs of a Universal Basic Income.
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  At Defining Ideas, Research Fellow David R. Henderson argues that it’s premature
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  to panic about predicted job losses caused by artificial intelligence that
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  would lead to demands for a universal basic income. Such a government-issued
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  basic income would not only be ruinously expensive but would also deprive the
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  future of the creative industry of vast numbers of workers, he writes. Referring
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  to a key insight of economist Frédéric Bastiat, he points out the folly of
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  responding only to what is “seen” and neglecting to analyze what is “not seen”:
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  in this case, the products and services that would never exist if workforces were
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  idled en masse. Familiar economic transformations of the past—the shift
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  from horses to tractors, and from hand weaving to industrial milling—dovetail
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  with very recent examples, he says, citing the fact that software jobs,
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  instead of being wiped out by AI, have grown. Starbucks is pulling back from
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  automation to restore the human touch, Henderson adds.
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  Higher Minimum Wages Aren’t Closing Racial Gaps.
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  The effects of minimum wages have been studied for many years, and research
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  strongly indicates that low-skilled workers feel the sharpest effects of
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  being priced out of the labor market. New research focuses on the disproportionate
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  impact of minimum wages on low-skilled black workers, economist David Neumark
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  explains in Freedom Frequency. In fact, after an analysis of federal, state, and
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  local minimum wages, Neumark finds that “minimum wage effects not only are
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  ineffective at closing race disparities but they make them worse, as the adverse
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  effects of minimum wages by and large show up only for blacks, and not for
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  whites.” He says the effects of these disparities spill over across communities
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  with a largely black population: “Low employment in a neighborhood could lead
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  to harmful effects for all residents—not just for the workers without jobs.”
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  Neumark adds that he does not believe minimum wage laws are meant to
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  discriminate against black workers (nor did Milton Friedman), but that “blacks
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  appear to bear the cost” of carrying them out.
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  This Month in Hoover History: Getting Global Monetary Policy on Track.
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  The Hoover Institution held the 2024 edition of its annual conference on
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  monetary policy from May 2 to 3, 2024. That year, the key policy issues were
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  largely international, with special discussions of economic conditions in
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  Europe and Asia.
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  That’s your Hoover Daily Report for Thursday, May 14th, twenty twenty six.
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  Each weekday, we bring you research, analysis, and commentary focused on
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  public policy, national security, and the ideas shaping American society and
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  government.
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  The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is grounded in constitutional
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  principles with a commitment to sustaining the safeguards of the American
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  way of life.
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  Thank you for listening.
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  For links to all the articles and interviews mentioned today, visit
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  hoover.org slash, HDR.