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Washington, March 18 (CNA) Taiwan's newly elected president Chen Shui-bian is better positioned to cut a deal with mainland China than his predecessors, said an Asian affairs expert in Washington on Saturday.

Robert A. Manning, director of Asian Studies at the US Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Chen may face "dicey" domestic politics after garnering only 38 percent of the vote, he is "better positioned to cut a deal" with the mainland than President Lee Teng-hui and other previous national leaders.

Manning said that although Chen's Saturday victory indeed has made Beijing politicians jittery, and posturings by both sides of the Taiwan Strait are expected after the election, he estimated that cross-Taiwan Strait relations will still develop toward the direction of "mutual dialogue."

In a telephone interview with the CNA, Manning said Chen's winning the election does not necessarily mean that Taiwan is going to declare independence, citing that Chen has categorically kept his distance from President Lee on the cross-strait relations issue, and Chen has repeated his "central" perspective, or "third way" policy, on Taiwan's relations with the mainland.

Manning added that Chen expressed long before election day his willingness to travel to the mainland to meet Beijing leaders for talks on the one China policy if elected. Chen also guaranteed that if elected he will not order an amendment to the Constitution nor call for a plebiscite -- lines that Beijing has drawn which Chen does not intend to cross, Manning said.

On Beijing's worries that Chen may say one thing and do another, Manning said it is still too early to worry about things like that.

Manning said that in this historical election, the ruling Kuomintang, despite its huge assets and resources, lost to both the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and the independent group led by KMT outcast James Soong. This outlines a new era for Taiwan's democratization, and was a manifestation of a deepening of the democracy of Taiwan, he added. (By Jay Chen and Deborah Kuo)