Taiwan Voters Defy Beijing in Electing New Presidentthedigitalchaps

TAIPEI—China’s least preferred candidate won Taiwan’s presidential vote on Saturday, extending the dominance of a ruling party that Beijing has denounced as a separatist force and raising the specter of four more years of geopolitical tensions around the island democracy.

Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te claimed 40% of the vote in a rare and volatile three-way race, beating out second-place finisher Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, by nearly 7 percentage points.