Taiwan Election Piles Pressure on Delicate U.S.-China Ties

Taiwan’s election of the presidential candidate China most distrusts places in danger a fragile detente between Washington and Beijing, threatening one other flare-up between the world’s largest financial and army powers.

Voters on Saturday gave the Democratic Progressive Party 4 extra years in energy, this time by selecting as president-elect the present vice chairman, Lai Ching-te, whom China condemns as an inveterate agitator for Taiwan’s independence—an final result that Beijing has vowed to stop, by pressure if vital.