The unexpected defeat of President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence forces in Saturday's legislative election in Taiwan has created a situation that may finally be conducive to the resumption of cross-strait talks.
Mr Chen has repeatedly said that he will do whatever the 23 million people of Taiwan want. That being the case, he should now scrap his announced intention to rid government agencies and state-owned corporations with names that link them to China, such as China Airlines and China Steel Corporation. This is all part of a campaign to 'de-Sinicise' Taiwan, getting rid of anything that connects it to China and separating it from the mainland.
If, as had been widely predicted, pro-independence legislators had gained a majority in the Legislative Yuan, then Mr Chen would have had a mandate to proceed with his plan to draft a new constitution, have it approved by a referendum in 2006 and come into effect in 2008 - a process that Beijing has dubbed a timetable for Taiwan independence.
The fact that there is now an anti-independence majority in the legislature - consisting of the Kuomintang and its allies, the People First Party and the New Party - makes it much more difficult for Mr Chen to implement such a programme.
If Beijing had decided after a pro-independence triumph that it had no choice but to deal with the Chen government, it would have been acting from weakness, not strength. However, holding a dialogue with a weakened Chen regime is something else. Talking to Mr Chen when he is still encumbered by a KMT-led legislature is ideal, from Beijing's perspective.
There is little point procrastinating because, in three years, there will be another election for the legislature, and there is no way of telling whether the KMT and its allies can maintain their slim majority.
After all, even though the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and its ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, failed to gain a majority, both parties managed to increase the number of votes they received compared with three years ago, and the DPP even won two additional seats. If Beijing does not seize this opportunity, three years from now it may well be faced with both a DPP president and a DPP-controlled legislature.