On Taiwan, the Trump-Xi summit offered more than optics

The international media consensus following the Beijing summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump was predictable: grand on optics, short on substance.

Dismissing it on those grounds misses the deeper story of how the summit marked a turning point in how Washington and Beijing manage their rivalry, particularly over Taiwan.
To understand where this relationship is going, a brief historical detour is in order.

In April 2001, then US president George W. Bush...