The Taiex — that's Taiwan's stock market index, the number that tracks the combined value of all the companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange — cracked 45,000 points on Monday, then 46,000 by Thursday. Both of those were all-time records. The economy is now expected to grow by more than nine percent this year — that's roughly three times what forecasters predicted just six months ago. And on Thursday, a global ranking put Taiwan fourth in the world for economic competitiveness — its best-ever result, behind only Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland.

So by every measure that usually gets reported, this was Taiwan's best week in years. Maybe longer.

Except — there's a scoreboard, and then there's the game being played underneath it. Which is exactly what we're looking at this week.