HO CHI MINH CITY — Sure, the election of the next president of the United States will be the most closely watched election in Asia or anywhere else this year. America, for all its stumbles, is still the No. 1 superpower: So whomever the American voter picks, the world is stuck with.
But there's another power — up and coming, predicted to become superpower No. 2 before long — that we will all watch closely: China. It doesn't, to speak of, have direct elections of any vast significance; nor (at least not yet) does its annexed Hong Kong.
Another orbiting territory does hold elections — real ones, fiercely fought, as if the people have never known anything else. And one was held there just recently. The result offered dramatic and historic significance. It is Taiwan, the island off mainland China.