Commentary: Will Taiwanese voters choose closer ties with China over democratic freedoms?

As Taiwanese voters prepare to go to the polls Saturday to elect their next president, they are choosing between two candidates who take fundamentally different positions on an issue whose implications go far beyond Taiwan: how to preserve a country's democracy and freedom while maintaining economic relations with a neighboring giant that wants to subsume it.

With only 2% of Taiwanese supporting immediate unification with China, this is the dilemma that every student, business owner and political leader on the island faces as the