It is a wild economic success, but is racked by eye-popping imbalances.
It is one of the richest countries in the world,
with an output per person higher than Australia, Germany or Japan after adjusting for the cost of living,
but has the world's most undervalued currency, according to The Economist's Big Mac index.
It is on a roll, but risks a messy correction.
Economic management does not usually involve many Shakespearean dilemmas,
but Taiwan's quandary is genuinely wrenching:
the CBC, its central bank, is naturally reluctant to abandon the policies that have made the country so wealthy,
yet clinging to them is clearly unsustainable.
At first glance, there is only good news.
The world is buying Taiwanese computer chips as fast as TSMC and other local manufacturers can make them.
Exports of chips and servers have soared by 300% over the past five years—and were high to begin with.
This surge has yielded stratospheric trade surpluses.
In October Taiwan's monthly goods-trade surplus reached a record $22.6bn, or 31% of GDP at an annualised rate.
The current-account surplus, which includes the trade balance and other income that flows across borders,
has swollen to 16% of GDP so far this year, up from 10% in the 2010s.
Typically, when a country's exports surge, its currency will strengthen,
since foreigners will need more of it to pay for the goods they are buying.
This process can be economically harmful:
in the 1970s The Economist coined the phrase "Dutch disease" to describe the economic malaise in the Netherlands,