Voters in Taiwan will go to the polls Saturday to elect a president and vote on a referendum on communist China. The campaign has been lively, featuring charges of corruption and a debate over the island’s relations with the mainland. The challenger, Lien Chan of the Nationalist Party, would probably seek closer ties with mainland China, while the incumbent, Chen Shuibian of the Democratic Progressive Party, is favored by voters who want a harder line against the communist camarilla in Beijing. Some favor declaring independence and making a clean break with Red China, which claims Taiwan as its own.

President Bush, as we’ve noted before in these columns, has been less than helpful to the cause of freedom in East Asia by chiding President Chen for the referendum.

The thing for Americans to keep in mind about Saturday’s election, though, is that it is an election, with important national issues freely and openly debated. In Taiwan’s giant communist neighbor, national issues aren’t settled with real elections.

So whatever the outcome on Saturday, Taiwan will be the winner for having shown the world — including its communist neighbors and Taiwan’s allies in the American Congress and among the American people — that its leadership and policies are determined at the ballot box, not by force or in secretive party conclaves.