HONG KONG - Like Quebecers, Taiwan's 21 million people are coming face-to-face with a long-standing identity question. In Taiwan's case, the issue is whether it is independent or a part of China.

As the Asian island state prepares for parliamentary elections in December and a presidential ballot early next year, the challenge is how to express Taiwan's sovereignty without goading China, less than 200 kilometres across the Taiwan Strait, into an invasion.

For nearly 40 years, the Communist regime in Beijing has regarded Taiwan as a rebel province that must be rejoined with the mainland.

Recent sparks of independence sentiment in Taiwan, including President Lee Teng-hui's much-publicized visit to his U.S. alma mater, Cornell University, have angered Beijing, making the island's future perhaps the most flammable threat to political stability in the vital Far East region.

Lee's visit to Cornell was the first time a Taiwanese head of state had visited the United States with official blessing and it sent Beijing, quite literally, ballistic.

China responded with belligerent missile tests just off the island's coast and by briefly breaking off diplomatic relations with the United States, Taipei's longtime backer.

But Taiwan's burgeoning economic strength and moves toward political liberalization might have put it nearly beyond the grasp of Beijing if China does not wish a major international incident.

The December parliamentary elections in Taiwan and the presidential elections in March will firmly establish the island state as a democracy. The votes will show the Taiwanese have firmly left behind the military regimes that governed since the rag-tag remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's Koumintang nationalist army fled to the island when the Communists won Beijing in 1949.

More than that, Taiwan is an Asian and a world-class economy. It is second only to Japan in its foreign currency reserves, $100 billion U.S. As a pleasant place to live, it ranks 13th. It's per capita annual income is $11,000 U.S. (Canada's is $19,000 U.S. and China's $435 U.S.). It is also the second largest investor in China - after Hong Kong - with $20 billion U.S. in 15,000 projects.

"The problem is not to declare the independence of Taiwan," opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Peng Ming-min said yesterday. "The issue is to make the world recognize that fact."

That is not so easy. Taiwan continues to be the world's only unrecognized state. Since 1971, it has been Beijing - not Taiwan - that has represented China at the United Nations.

As elections approach, Taiwan voters appear divided on the question of future relations with the mainland, and the candidates are treading a careful line on that most sensitive issue.

Lee, the favorite to win with public-opinion polls giving him 35- per-cent support, adheres to Koumintang official policy of eventual reunification with China. But he has also done everything he can to try to get Taiwan international recognition as a nation state.

In 1994, he took a "holiday" touring Southeast Asia when he met many heads of state. And his visit to the United States gave Taiwan's aspirations for independence worldwide publicity.

Last week, in what has become an annual affair, Taiwan sought recognition from the United Nations. With two dozen supporters, it asked the UN to consider the island's "exceptional situation." Taiwanese officials likened the situation to the old divided Germany and the currently divided Korea, where in both cases the two halves had UN seats.

But China rallied its supporters and the motion was defeated.

"The question of Taiwan is purely an internal affair of China in which no other country has the right to meddle or interfere," said Qin Huasun, China's UN delegate.

When the elections come in Taiwan, the signs are that the people intend to speak carefully with their ballots. A poll by the mass circulation China Times published yesterday shows that 60.7 per cent of those interviewed like the status quo, which can be defined as real independence while holding out a lure to China for eventual reunification.

Like Lee, the leadership of the increasingly powerful opposition DPP has taken an ambiguous stance on the question of the island state's future.

It, therefore, seems likely that it will be personality rather than clear policy that determines who will lead Taiwan as it continues to grapple with its identity crisis in the years ahead.