For the US, Saturday’s Taiwan election results signal the continuation of heightened tension with China over the issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty. In some ways, President-Elect Lai Ching-te and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) made the election into a referendum over whether Taiwan should draw nearer to the US or China.

Lai’s victory signals four more years of efforts to emphasize the island’s ties to the US and to seek closer cooperation between Taipei and Washington. This will be the case regardless of who wins the US presidential election in November.

Expect the US to continue its strong, bipartisan support for Taiwan – a posture reinforced by the presence of a bipartisan coalition of former senior officials who met with Lai and Vice-President-elect Hsiao Bi-khim in Taipei on Monday.

In fact, support for Taiwan is one of the few policy issues on which there is agreement between Republicans and Democrats. Further efforts to sell weapons and provide military support to Taiwan are likely to be a congressional priority, even during a contentious election year in the US.

Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have evinced strong support for Taiwan, with Biden even declaring four separate times that the US would defend Taiwan if it were attacked by the People’s Republic of China or PRC (a position repeatedly walked back by members of Biden’s own administration). And policymakers in Congress have proposed legislation that would impose significant economic sanctions on China if it were to engage in efforts to take the island by force.

Overall, Taiwan’s voters chose continuity over change by delivering a victory to Lai and the incumbent DPP. The DPP’s victory means that it will be the first party to hold the presidency for three consecutive terms since Taiwan began directly electing its president in 1996.

Lai’s results largely mirrored those found in the last public opinion surveys published almost two weeks ago, reflecting the reality that there were probably very few votes up for grabs in the stretch run leading up to Saturday’s election.

Taiwan’s voters largely overlooked concerns about a sluggish domestic economy in favor of the DPP’s skeptical view of China’s ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. But it was not a complete victory for President-Elect Lai. His administration will have to deal with a divided legislature where his own party did not come close to reaching a majority, allowing the two major opposition parties — the Nationalist or Kuomingtang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) — to come together to block his initiatives and generally make life for his administration more challenging.

As is the case in many recent Taiwan presidential elections, voter turnout was almost 72% – slightly weaker than in 2020 and markedly lower than the high-water mark of approximately 80% in 2004 – but still a strong affirmation of the island’s system of democratic governance.

Taiwanese officials were able to announce election results within a few hours after the polls had closed and conducted an election generally free of accusations of fraud, foul play, or external influence (despite significant PRC efforts to influence the electoral result in the lead up to the balloting).

China continues to view Taiwan as an existential issue over which there can be no negotiation. Shortly after Lai’s victory, in fact, Beijing’sTaiwan Affairs Office shrugged off the result, repeating its assertion that “Taiwan is China’s Taiwan” and that Lai’s election “cannot change the basic pattern and development of cross-strait relations.”

Xi and his underlings will likely use the four months between now and Lai’s inauguration on May 20 to make their displeasure known to residents of Taiwan through continued military incursions into the island’s waters and airspace, disinformation activities, and efforts to place economic pressure on the island.

These actions are intended not just to impact people on Taiwan but to signal the PRC’s position to the US and the rest of the world. The PRC will also continue to diplomatically isolate Taiwan, something that continued this week when the small Micronesian country of Nauru announced it was switching formal relations from Taiwan to the mainland – for the second time. And it is these activities, coupled with America’s ongoing support for Taiwan, that will likely accentuate tensions between the US and China as Lai takes office, and beyond.

Lai is a particularly vexing problem for Xi and the Chinese Communist Party because he has long been disliked by Beijing, which has called him both a “troublemaker” and “separatist” who wants to push Taiwan toward formal independence; a claim that Lai himself denies, saying that there is “no need to declare independence” because Taiwan has already been operating for years as an “independent sovereign state.”

Lai will pursue the status quo for Taiwan once he takes office and has expressed a willingness to engage in dialogue with the mainland so long as it happens on mutually agreeable terms – something that Beijing is unlikely to accede to. After all, voters on Taiwan reaffirmed his (and the DPP’s) views on cross-strait relations, and polling trends leading up to the election suggest that increasingly Taiwan voters view themselves as “Taiwanese,” an identity separate and apart from “Chinese” that makes “reunification” with the mainland even more challenging.

While some had hoped that Saturday’s elections would ease tensions across the Taiwan Strait and between the US and China, the reality is that the results affirmed the status quo. What Taiwan’s elections did demonstrate, once again, is the power of democracy there and that the people’s voice – even if it continues to support the uneasy balance between the island and mainland that has existed for decades – remains the loudest of all.

Why these Taiwanese Americans flew home to vote.

"I shouted his [William Lai's] name so much on the night of the election, I lost my voice the next day," says Nancy Yang, who flies home to Taiwan from San Francisco every four years so she can vote.

William Lai Ching-te won Taiwan's presidential election on Saturday, giving his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) a third, unprecedented term. And Ms Yang is one of a few thousand Taiwanese living overseas who returned last week to vote in an election that China had framed as a choice between war and peace.

In Taiwan, where voters must cast their ballots in person, many travelled to their hometowns - even Mr Lai went to Tainan in southern Taiwan to vote. Others, like Ms Yang, flew across the world.

"The rallies, the noise - you feel the excitement being here," she says. "You feel like you're making a difference on the ground."

It's unclear how many of the voters were Taiwanese Americans, but some 4,000 citizens living abroad registered to vote, according to the Central Election Commission. Relations with China were a major factor for the Taiwanese watching from afar, and especially those who live in the US, which has long been Taipei's most powerful ally.

"China thinks it owns Taiwan. We don't think so. We don't belong to you," Ms Yang had declared the night before the election, when the BBC had met her while she was volunteering at a DPP rally. Clad in the party's green varsity-like sweater and surrounded by green and pink flags, she was all smiles, talking to voters and other volunteers.

The former IT manager has lived in the Bay Area for 40 years. She said this election felt different, compared to the last one in 2020: "This time we had three parties, and it was a close race."

The DPP was battling dissatisfaction over poor wages and high cost of living, while emphasising the threat that China posed. The main opposition Kuomintang or KMT campaigned on better relations with Beijing, while the third player, the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), positioned itself as an alternative to the other two, especially on improving cost of living.

The TPP did far better than polls suggested, emerging as a serious future contender - evidence perhaps of how much the economy weighed on the minds of voters here, unlike those who live on the other side of the world.

"It's not the outcome that we are satisfied with," says Jason Hsu, an advisor to the KMT and a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.

Mr Hsu is at Taipei's Da'an Forest Park - the soft strings of a guitar and the calming Tai Chi exercises are a contrast to the energy of the election from the previous night.

Next to him is Jen Tsao, who travelled from her home in San Francisco to vote, and Chiaoning Su, who teaches journalism and communication at Oakland University.

Ms Tsao supports the KMT, which is traditionally seen as being closer to Beijing, and Ms Su voted for the DPP.

They weren't all happy about the result. But they were all proud of the way the world saw Taiwan.

"This is something we fought for. We enjoy it, we celebrate it, but we can also lose it… it's hard-earned," Ms Su says, explaining that it was the reason she picked the DPP.

Ms Tsao says the election is an opportunity for her to come home and soak up the atmosphere and excitement. She says several of her family and friends also flew from the US to vote: "We do appreciate the process of democracy. That's the main difference between Taiwan and China."

Taiwan's is a young democracy - this is only the eighth presidential vote since 1996 - and its elections are joyful.

On Saturday, millions of Taiwanese went to the polls, including parents who brought their children, many too young to vote themselves. But they said they wanted them to experience the polling stations. First-time voters spoke of their thrill. Still others turned up with their pets in tow, taking advantage of the sunny, clear skies.

The rallies were like carnivals - a mix of motivational speeches, music and chants, sometimes all at once, in a sea of flags. Some enthusiasts added their own personal touch to the party colours. But the euphoria aside, there was also anxiety and urgency.

Ms Yang said China's warnings in the lead-up to the vote filled her with dread: "Taiwan needs strong leadership to protect it. To keep it safe. We feel that very strongly."

But she adds that the fraught situation has also put the island on the geopolitical map, not least because it's a vibrant democracy and the world's largest producer of semiconductors.

"Twenty years ago, people didn't know much about Taiwan. When I talked to someone about it, they thought I was talking about Thailand. Now they know. I feel so proud. I feel like America recognises how important Taiwan is and its responsibility to protect it."

Ms Su says Taiwan is now a "key word" in international news. And China's authoritarian grip over Hong Kong, which has firmed since Taiwan's last election, convinced her she had to vote: "We are sending the right message to the international community that we want to safeguard our way of life. And we want to keep fighting for democracy."

Ms Tsao, who voted for the opposition KMT, is worried Mr Lai will inflame an already tense relationship with Beijing, pushing Taiwan closer to a confrontation no-one wants.

"I think the current government has not done a very good job to protect the best interests for our people. So, I wanted to be here [and voice my concern]."

Mr Hsu agrees. He congratulated Mr Lai but also warns of a "very tumultuous four years" ahead.

"But I think the victory really belongs to the people of Taiwan - we've made a choice."

Taiwan keeps choosing democracy — and rejecting China

China has tried the velvet glove. China has tried intimidation and coercion. China has tried political warfare. Nothing has worked. Taiwan’s people keep delivering election results that are anathema to Beijing.

On Saturday, voters in the island democracy elected Lai Ching-te to the presidency. Lai, the current vice president, now leads the Democratic Progressive Party, which emphasizes Taiwanese identity and is skeptical of closer ties with China. The current president, Tsai Ing-wen, also of the DPP, has described Taiwan as “an independent country already” under the name “Republic of China (Taiwan).” Lai has vowed to stick to that formulation, which is consistent with the decades-old status quo, though he raised some eyebrows several years ago by referring to himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence.”

Beijing warned last week of “the extreme danger of Lai Ching-te’s triggering of cross-strait confrontation and conflict.” More than 40% of Taiwanese voters shrugged their shoulders and cast their vote for him anyway.

Beijing may take some solace in the fact that Lai won only a plurality of voters. Had Hou Yu-ih and Ko Wen-je, of the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party, respectively, formed a unity ticket — as they attempted and failed to do in November — the results may have been different. Both the KMT and the TPP are more amenable to closer ties with China, and the KMT has long been the Chinese Communist Party’s main dialogue partner in Taiwan. Beijing would have been content with a victory by either.

But if the opposition had won, strong anti-unification sentiment would still drive Taiwan’s politics. The last period of cross-strait detente, during the presidency of the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou, ended in 2014 with the Sunflower Movement. A student-led occupation of the legislature sparked the mass protest, which involved hundreds of thousands of marchers opposing passage of a cross-strait trade agreement. The movement put the brakes on tightening ties with China. In the lead up to Saturday’s vote, Hou, the KMT candidate, had vowed not to pursue political talks with China.

Even if Hou wanted to — and Beijing would have ultimately pressured him to do so — there’d be little domestic support for the effort. Three decades of public polling show shrinking support in Taiwan for unification and the development of a distinct Taiwanese identity.

Indeed, Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to have concluded some years ago that uncoerced unification was not in the cards. After voters handed the KMT a stunning victory in the 2018 nationwide elections for municipality and county leaders (roughly akin to American midterms in political significance), public approval ratings for Tsai and Lai, who was then the premier, hit a record low. A path seemed to open for the KMT to retake the presidency 14 months later.

Xi blocked that path. Delivering a speech in January 2019 to mark the 40th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan,” Xi offered more restrictive terms for unification than previous leaders had, eschewing past promises that Taiwan could maintain its military and political institutions. He continued pushing a one-country/two-systems approach to unification — the arrangement under which Hong Kong had maintained political autonomy and personal freedoms — even as his crackdown on Hong Kong mounted.

Tsai deftly cast herself as a defender of freedoms that China was intent on crushing, and she marched to an easy reelection in 2020.

Xi’s approach to cross-strait relations in recent years, which has featured tough rhetoric, military intimidation, economic coercion and political interference, suggests that advancing unification by winning hearts and minds in Taiwan is of little interest to him, perhaps because he knows that, absent fundamental political change in China (and maybe even then), such cooperation will not be forthcoming.

The turnout in Saturday’s election — nearly 72% — provides ample evidence of the Taiwanese people’s commitment to their democracy, even if they have different ideas about how to best protect it.

Perhaps not this year, and perhaps not even this decade, a crisis is coming. Not because Taiwan has elected Lai, but because Taiwan has rejected China — and Beijing sees no practical way to change that. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The world may find out sooner than anyone would like.