Taiwan’s election of the presidential candidate China most distrusts puts at risk a fragile detente between Washington and Beijing, threatening another flare-up between the world’s biggest economic and military powers.

       Voters on Saturday gave the Democratic Progressive Party four more years in power, this time by choosing as president-elect the current vice president, Lai Ching-te, whom China condemns as an inveterate agitator for Taiwan’s independence—an outcome that Beijing has vowed to prevent, by force if necessary.

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