The Busan silence: how great-power pragmatism is rewriting Taiwan’s future

When Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump met in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, they spent nearly two hours discussing rare earths, fentanyl and trade. Taiwan, the one issue most likely to bring the world’s two largest powers into direct conflict, never came up. That silence was the message.
It revealed how both leaders prefer to manage rivalry through quiet understanding rather than confrontation. The approach reduces the risk of war but narrows Taiwan’s options. The…