This week, Taiwan got some of the best economic news it's seen in years. Real wages grew at their fastest pace for any first quarter in eleven years. The island's weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index was upgraded — again. TSMC shares, despite a brief wobble over an Apple-Intel report, are still up over 45 percent since January. And the Taiex — Taiwan's benchmark stock index — has surged over 44 percent since the start of the year.

By any measure, Taiwan is thriving.

But this week also brought something else. A US president landed in Beijing for the first time in nearly a decade. Two leaders sat down for two hours in the Great Hall of the People. And when they came out, China's state media had one message above all others: Taiwan is the most important issue in the US-China relationship. Handle it wrong, Xi told Trump, and the two countries could face clashes — even conflict.

The economic numbers are real. The warning is also real. And both of them are pointing at the same underlying question — one that nobody in the celebration is asking loudly enough.

How secure is Taiwan's prosperity when the terms of the world it depends on are being renegotiated in a room Taiwan wasn't invited into?