Conventional wisdom has it that the Taiwanese people's ingrained communist phobia is often one of the most important factors in the island's elections. But there are now signs of a positive atmospheric change in cross-strait relations following Saturday's presidential election.
Results of opinion polls conducted in the 10 days before the election - which were only released after the ballots had been counted - revealed that a spate of controversies connected to Beijing during the last lap of the contest had no significant impact on voters' decisions.
The riots in Tibet could have played into the hands of the Democratic Progressive Party, by scaring voters away from the Kuomintang. But slogans such as 'Today's Tibet, tomorrow's Taiwan' seemed to have little effect in swinging votes towards the ruling party.
Reiterations by Premier Wen Jiabao that the principle of 'one China' must prevail in cross-strait relations have apparently had no negative impact on the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou, whose advocacy of a 'cross-strait common market' was vehemently attacked by his opponent, Frank Hsieh Chang-ting, during the campaign.
The Beijing factor carried less weight given the enormity of people's aspirations for a change of government following eight years of misrule by president Chen Shui-bian. Humiliated in the 2000 and 2004 elections, the KMT has learned to play smart; it neutralised the DPP's smear campaign against Mr Ma and his more mainland-friendly economic strategy.
The fact that the Beijing fear factor has paled clearly shows that change is in the air.