TAIPEI, Taiwan — What a difference a phone call makes.

In Taiwan — rendered nearly invisible in global affairs by decades of accommodation to Chinese pressure — the reaction to the call between President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan and President-elect Donald J. Trump late last week has been broadly positive, if tinged with caution.

Ms. Tsai took office in May with a mandate to reduce Taiwan’s economic reliance and close political ties with Beijing.

China claims Taiwan as its territory and threatens to use force if Taipei officially acknowledges its de facto sovereignty. At her inauguration, Ms. Tsai said she wanted to improve relations with China, while also deepening ties with the United States and Japan.

Ms. Tsai has moved her party, the Democratic Progressive Party, away from its pro-independence roots to a more nuanced form of Taiwan nationalism. The party’s charter still features a clause advocating eventual official independence in the form of a Republic of Taiwan, although in July Ms. Tsai proposed replacing the clause with language that favors maintaining the status quo.