Message:

The triumph of the Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou in the recent presidential election in Taiwan augurs a welcome reduction in tensions with mainland China. The winner’s 17-point margin of

victory also reaffirms a virtue of democratic accountability: a free people’s power to change leaders when those leaders and their policies lose the confidence of the electorate.

There is a danger that Beijing will view Ma’s victory merely as a rejection of his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, and his pursuit of formal independence. China’s leaders are sure to be gratified that only 35 per cent of Taiwan’s voters said yes to a referendum, proposed by Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party that called for the island to seek United Nations membership under the name Taiwan.

China did not win the election in Taiwan. On the contrary, the voters of Taiwan were showing their neighbours on the mainland what they are missing by living under an unelected authoritarian regime. By cracking down recently on dissent in Tibet — instead of granting that region genuine autonomy within China — Beijing has only damaged its case for reunification with Taiwan. And if China’s rulers want someday to lure Taiwan into rejoining the motherland, they will first have to allow their citizens to choose their own government. — The Boston Globe