AS A CANDIDATE FOR THE LEGISLAtive Yuan, Vincent Siew is as solid as they come. Until last week, when he resigned to focus on the election, the 56-year-old former diplomat and minister of economic affairs headed the council that formulates Taiwan's China policy. The leaflets he distributes in his south-central Taiwan hometown of Chiayi show him shoulder to shoulder with Bill Clinton at the 1993 Seattle meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Given Siew's connections in Taipei, few voters doubt he can deliver on campaign promises of a high-tech industrial park, a baseball stadium and a pair of new colleges for Chiayi, making his candidacy one that would be hard to beat almost anywhere.

Except in Chiayi, where representatives of the ruling party--even native sons--aren't particularly popular. In 1947, when troops convoyed from mainland China slaughtered thousands of Taiwanese to put down an island-wide revolt against the Kuomintang-appointed (KMT) provincial government, some of the worst carnage occurred in Chiayi. That event has rumbled ever since along the societal fault line that separates the locally born from the mainland newcomers, who have dominated the island for five decades. Siew's challenger, legislator Chai Trong, is seen by constituents as being on the right side of that fault line. Chai has made a campaign pledge to hold an island-wide plebiscite that could include a proposed name change from Republic of China to Republic of Taiwan. Considering the ultra-edgy context of cross-straits relations, the voters of Chiayi have a stark choice between Siew's barrel of pork and Chai's ideology. No one quite knows which they'll choose.

Set for Dec. 2, the legislative elections--the second to choose a full parliament since the original mainlander members were forced to retire in 1992--have an air of portentousness that surpasses even the anticipation surrounding the first ballot. Important issues that were kept in the closet during the decades of one-party rule by the Kuomintang have cascaded out, as happens when a country quickly converts from a dictatorship. But a single issue is predominant--and that is Taiwan's distinct identity. A mere four months ago, the People's Liberation Army of China test-fired missiles into the waters north of Taiwan in a gesture of anger after Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui made a private visit to the U.S. Now candidates openly in favor of political independence are standing up as they never could before, and their campaign speeches are getting microscopic attention on the mainland. "We hope Taiwan will realize that our tolerance level has limits," warns an official in Beijing. "The moment Taiwan declares independence, the PLA will move in without hesitation."

That possibility has made nearly all candidates in this historic, emotional and tight race weigh their rhetoric carefully. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party, for instance, has traditionally stood for Taiwan's independence, a cause that was illegal until 1992. But its candidates are avoiding the term, saying Taiwan already enjoys "sovereignty." They hope that euphemism is understood by enough supporters to win at least 60 of the 164 seats being contested.

Lee and his KMT are hard-pressed to find any code word subtle enough to describe their China policy. The KMT's decades-long insistence that Taiwan would someday reconquer the mainland evolved in 1991 to a more moderate stand: now the party says unification is its eventual goal, but at the same time Lee has steadily moved to the center of the issue, trying to assuage China while satisfying his own people's demands for more international recognition. On the stump, the President talks about "stability," a call to voters to recognize his difficult juggling act. Many will, but probably not as many as in the last election. KMT leaders admit they may lose as many as seven of the 92 seats they now control in the Yuan, giving the party a mere two-seat majority.

The third major contender is the KMT-breakaway New Party, which has no need to obscure its call for Taiwan to join with China eventually. Analysts expect the party, whose supporters are chiefly mainlanders who view Lee Teng-hui as too soft on the independence issue, to take 15 to 20 Yuan seats. The group received a boost this month when two renegade KMT vice chairmen, Lin Yang-kang and Hau Pei-tsun, began stumping for its candidates.

If the flowering of Taiwanese democracy has been chilled by a wind from the mainland, it has hardly been arrested. There are fears that the new legislative Yuan will be so divided between the KMT and the pro-independence legislators that the fistfights and furniture throwing that enlivened the rubber-stamp parliaments of the past will give way to genuine chaos, making it impossible to set a coherent China policy. And in the days leading up to the balloting, there are even concerns that China may provoke violence to derail the electoral process. "China says openly that it will interfere in the electoral process," notes Bertrand Tsai, a political scientist at National Taiwan University. "That interference may take the form of giving financial support to the New Party, or it could mean sabotage and assassinations."

China's real fear is the presidential election, Taiwan's first, scheduled for March. The missiles launched toward the island were intended by Beijing to scare the KMT from nominating Lee and to rattle the average citizen who supported him, a move that backfired. Even though Lin and Hau, the renegade KMT officials, have teamed up to run against Lee, he is expected to win the elections easily. Then Lee, a native Taiwanese, will face a legislature filled with locally born politicians, some elected on promises of pursuing independence. None of that can be a pleasing prospect to the men of Beijing. Asks Taiwan's government spokesman, Jason Hu: "Do you think they will be happy with the first direct presidential election in 5,000 years of Chinese history?"

--Reported by Sandra Burton and Donald Shaprio/Taipei and Jaime A. FlorCruz/Beijing