There is no sense in Taipei that the mainland is about to attack within years, let alone weeks. Taiwan, independent in all material respects, is unlikely to formally break away just yet. It takes all day to travel from one capital to the other, via Hong Kong. But real distance between the mainland's 1.2 billion people and Taiwan's 22 million is the 50 years of unrelenting propaganda and posturing, threats and bullying, cruelty and inhumanity that have characterised both regimes. Taiwan has emerged only in recent years from a harsh military dictatorship under the Kuomintang into a vibrant democracy about to be put to a singular test.
People care about politics in Taiwan and they worry about their democracy.
Voting is not compulsory, but more than 80 per cent of voters turned out in the 1996 poll. Of five presidential candidates, only three have a real chance of winning. The latest poll shows the KMT candidate, Vice-President Lien Chan, has 24 per cent support, slightly behind Mr Soong on 26 per cent and just ahead of the Democratic Progressive Party's Mr Chen on 22 per cent. The two other candidates have less than 3 per cent support between them. This leaves around 25 per voters undecided and means, just two weeks out, the result is virtually unpredictable.