Test in Taiwan

Democracy has produced a government more favorable to Beijing -- which now must deliver on the promise of better relations.

THE VICTORY of Ma Ying-jeou in Taiwan's presidential election was welcomed in most places outside the country but nowhere more than in Beijing. For eight years, China's Communist leaders have simmered over the sometimes provocative antics of outgoing president Chen Shui-bian, who campaigned for Taiwan's independence. Beijing's own threats and military provocations only bolstered Mr. Chen; its denial of democracy in Hong Kong and recent repression in Tibet further reduced the already small support in Taiwan for reunification with the mainland. Mr. Ma nevertheless won a convincing victory on a pragmatic platform of improving economic relations and lowering military tension across the Taiwan Strait while deferring the question of sovereignty indefinitely.

The result is good news for friends of Taiwan, including the United States, who want to preserve its vibrant democracy while avoiding the war that China continually threatens -- a conflict for which the People's Liberation Army has been ostentatiously preparing in recent years. But it also poses a direct test to Chinese President Hu Jintao, even as he celebrates the alternation of power that he won't permit in his own country. Mr. Ma's mandate is founded on his promise to deliver tangible benefits from better relations with Beijing, including direct airline flights, an economic accord protecting investments, more tourist visits by mainlanders to Taiwan and a peace accord under which China would withdraw the thousands of missiles it aims across the strait.

It now will be up to Mr. Hu to show that Beijing can strike such deals with Taipei without demanding that it sacrifice its de facto independence. Mr. Ma has said he doesn't expect the sovereignty question to be settled in his lifetime (he is 57); he offers only a return to a 1992 formula under which the two governments stipulated there was only "one China" but agreed to interpret that principle differently. The president-elect hasn't hesitated to criticize Beijing's human rights record. He attends yearly memorials to the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and has criticized the repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. He recently denounced the ongoing repression in Tibet, supported the Dalai Lama's call for autonomy and suggested that Taiwan might boycott the Olympics.

Such positions offer a tantalizing glimpse of how a genuinely democratic government in Beijing might behave. In the meantime, Mr. Hu will have to show that he can do business with such a confident and independent partner. If the accords Mr. Ma seeks are reached, both countries will benefit, and security in East Asia will be broadly enhanced. If Beijing does not deliver, Taiwan's democracy may produce very different results in the future.