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| Formation |
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|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | Republic of China (Taiwan Area) |
| Website | taiwan |
| Legislative branch | |
| Legislature |
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| Meeting place | Legislative Yuan Building,Taipei |
| Executive branch | |
| Leader | Premier |
| Appointer | nominated by thepresident |
| Main organ | Executive Yuan |
| Departments | 35 |
| Judicial branch | |
| Court | Judicial Yuan |
| Seat | Taipei |
| Government of the Republic of China | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 中華民國政府 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 中华民国政府 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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TheGovernment of the Republic of China[note 1] is thenational authority whose actual-controlled territory consists ofmain island of Taiwan (Formosa),Penghu,Kinmen,Matsu, andother island groups, collectively known asTaiwan Area orFree Area. Aunitary state, the ROC government, under thecurrent constitutional amendments, is run by ade factosemi-presidential system, consists of the presidency and five branches (Yuan): theExecutive Yuan,Legislative Yuan,Judicial Yuan,Examination Yuan, andControl Yuan. Thepresident is thehead of state, with thepremier as thehead of government, currently ruled by theDemocratic Progressive Party (DPP) since 2016. Since the 2005 amendments of the Additional Articles of the Constitution, the Legislative Yuan has been thede factounicameralparliamentary body of the country.
Originally established in 1912 inNanjing, the Government of the Republic of China relocated several times beforefinally moving toTaipei,Taiwan, in 1949 because of its military losses in theChinese Civil War. Up until the 1990s, the government has historically been dominated by theKuomintang (KMT) under theone-party stateDang Guo authoritarian regime, before evolving into a multi-party democracy aftermartial law and the climate ofWhite Terror gradually ended. This government was the internationally recognized official government of Chinauntil 1971 by theUnited Nations anduntil 1979 by theUnited States.
The government formally consists of the presidency and five branches of government, modeled on Sun Yat-sen's political philosophy ofThree Principles of the People.
Office of the President | President | National Security Council | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Executive Yuan | Legislative Yuan | Judicial Yuan | Examination Yuan | Control Yuan.svg) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In practice, the system resembles asemi-presidential system with a uniquely strong presidency, as the president may appoint thepremier, thehead of government, without the consent of the legislature. The president, however, shares limitations found in other semi-presidential systems, including the lack of a strongveto and no direct control of most administrative policy.
| Category | Name | Role | Leader | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Chinese | |||||
| Presidency | President | 總統 | Head of state,Executive | Lai Ching‑te | .jpg) | |
| Vice President | 副總統 | Hsiao Bi-khim |  | |||
| Office of the President | 總統府 | Advisory and administrative agencies to the President | Pan Men-an |  | ||
| National Security Council | 國家安全會議 | Joseph Wu |  | |||
| Five Yuans | Executive Yuan | 行政院 | Executive,Cabinet | Cho Jung-tai |  | |
| Legislative Yuan | 立法院 | Legislature,Parliament | Han Kuo-yu |  | ||
| Judicial Yuan | 司法院 | Judiciary,Constitutional court | Shieh Ming-yan(acting) |  | ||
| Examination Yuan | 考試院 | Civil service commission | Chou Hung-hsien |  | ||
| Control Yuan | 監察院 | Auditory | Chen Chu | .jpg) | ||
The leadership of the country consists of the two top officials that is directly and jointly elected by citizens of the Republic of China residing in theTaiwan Area.
Under the president, two advisory and administrative agencies are established to support the work of the president.
The Executive Yuan is led by the premier. However, the ROC's political system does not fit traditional models. The premier is selected by the president without the need for approval from the Legislature, but the Legislature can pass laws without regard for the president, as neither the president nor the premier wields veto power. Thus, there is little incentive for the president and the legislature to negotiate on legislation if they are of opposing parties. During the tenure of the pan-Green's Chen Shui-bian the continued control of the Legislative Yuan by the pan-Blue majority caused legislation to repeatedly stall, as the two sides were deadlocked. There is another curiosity of the ROC system; because the ROC was previously dominated by strongman one-party politics, real power in the system shifted from one position to another, depending on what position was currently occupied by the leader of the state (Chiang Kai-shek and later his son,Chiang Ching-kuo). This legacy has resulted in executive powers currently being concentrated in the office of the president rather than the premier.
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The mainlegislative body is theunicameral Legislative Yuan with one hundred and thirteen seats. Seventy-three are elected in single member districts; thirty-four are elected based on the proportion of nationwide votes received by participating political parties, and six seats are reserved to represent aboriginal groups. Members serve four-year terms. Although sometimes referred to as a "parliament", the Legislative Yuan, under Sun's political theory, is a branch of government, while only theNational Assembly of the Republic of China, which is now abolished, with the power to amend the constitution and formerly to elect the president and vice president, could be considered a parliament. However, after constitutional amendments effectively transferring almost all of the National Assembly's powers to the Legislative Yuan in the late 1990s, it has become more common for newspapers in Taiwan to refer to the Legislative Yuan as the nation's "parliament" (國會,guóhuì).
The Judicial Yuan is the ROC's highestjudiciary. The President and Vice-President of the Judicial Yuan and fifteen Justices form theCouncil of Grand Justices. They are nominated and appointed by the President of the Republic, with the consent of the Legislative Yuan. The highest court, theSupreme Court, consists of a number of civil and criminal divisions, each of which is formed by a presiding Judge and four Associate Judges, all appointed for life. In 1993, a separateconstitutional court was established to resolve constitutional disputes, regulate the activities of political parties and accelerate the democratization process. There is notrial by jury but the right to afair andpublic trial is protected by law and respected in practice; many cases are presided over by multiple judges.
Capital punishment is legal. Efforts have been made by the government to reduce the number of executions, although they have not been able to completely abolish the punishment. As of 2006, about 80% of Taiwanese want to keep the death penalty.[2]
The Examination Yuan is in charge of validating the qualification of civil servants in the Republic of China. As a special branch of government under theThree Principles of the People. The concept of the Examination Yuan is based on the oldImperial examination system used in Imperial China.
Based on the traditional Chinesecensorate, the Control Yuan is an investigatory agency that monitors the other branches of government. It may be compared to theCourt of Auditors of the European Union, theGovernment Accountability Office of the United States, a politicalombudsman, or a standingcommission for administrative inquiry. Before the 1990s, it was theupper chamber of thetricameral parliament.
The Government of the Republic of China was formally established in 1912 inNanjing, withSun Yat-sen as President of theProvisional Government of the Republic of China under theProvisional Constitution of the Republic of China. This government moved toBeijing in the same year withYuan Shikai as president, and continued under his successors as the internationally recognized government ofChina until 1928. In theRepublican period, there were a series of governments, sometimes in rivalry with each other. TheNationalist government, led by theKuomintang (KMT), was originally formed as a rival military government under Sun Yat-sen inGuangzhou in 1917. After Sun's death in 1925,Chiang Kai-shek led theNorthern Expedition (1926–1928) to unify the country and established the capital in Nanjing. This government gained diplomatic recognition but did not control all the territory of theQing dynasty. The essentially one-party rule functioned under Sun'sThree Principles of the People, which provided for a transitional period of "tutelage", but drew more political parties, including theChinese Communist Party into aUnited Front during theSecond Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). The Tutelage Constitution of 1931 was replaced by theConstitution of the Republic of China in 1947.[3]
The first Chinese national government was established on 1 January 1912, in Nanjing, withSun Yat-sen as the provisional president. Provincial delegates were sent to confirm the authority of the national government, and they later also formed the first parliament. The power of this national government was limited and short-lived, with generals controlling both central and northernprovinces of China. The limited acts passed by this government included the formal abdication of the Qing dynasty and some economic initiatives. The parliament's authority became nominal; violations of the Constitution byYuan Shikai, who became president in March 1912, were met with half-hearted motions of censure, and Kuomintang members of the parliament who gave up their membership in the KMT were offered 1,000British pounds. Yuan maintained power locally by sending military generals to be provincial governors or by obtaining the allegiance of those already in power.
When Yuan died, the parliament of 1913 was reconvened to give legitimacy to a new government. However, the real power of the time passed to military leaders, forming the warlord period. The impotent government still had its uses; whenWorld War I began, several Western powers and Japan wanted China to declare war onGermany, in order to liquidate German holdings. Nevertheless, it was widely seen as weak and unstable.
There were also several warlord governments and puppet states sharing the same name. See also:Wang Jingwei Government,Warlord era,Chinese Soviet Republic.
After the successfulNorthern Expedition led by the Kuomintang (KMT) and its leaderChiang Kai-shek, the KMT managed tounify China nominally and established theNational Government of the Republic of China (also known as theNationalist Government;traditional Chinese:國民政府;simplified Chinese:国民政府;pinyin:Guómín Zhèngfǔ) with its capital in Nanjing, whose authority was maintained till thefull-scale outbreak of theSecond Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
Known as theNanjing Decade, the government ruled as aone-party state, as laid out by Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" and his policy ofDang Guo (literally: party-state). The first stage was military unification, which was carried out with the Northern Expedition. The second was "political tutelage" which was a provisional government led by the KMT to educate people about their political and civil rights, and the third stage was constitutional government. The KMT considered themselves to be at the second stage in 1928. Although the Nanjing decade was far more stable and progressive as compared to the Warlord period which preceded it, it was still marred with widespread violence, official corruption and the ongoing civil war with thecommunists.
With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the invadingImperial Japanese Army managed to capture Nanjing on 13 December 1937. The Japanese then proceeded to sack the city, andmassacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians. With the fall of Nanjing, the government was forced to move first toWuhan, until the city fell on 27 October 1938. It retreated further inland toChongqing, which was the wartime capital until 1945. Although Chongqing was located in the inland western province ofSichuan, it was nevertheless heavily bombed by Japanese warplanes many times during the course of the war.
With the end of the war, the National Government moved back to Nanjing. The Kuomintang then proceeded with the drafting of a new constitution for China, which were boycotted by the communists. TheConstitution of the Republic of China was adopted by theNational Assembly on 25 December 1946 and went into force a year later. The constitution was seen as the third and final step in Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" - constitutional government. From then on, the government was known simply as theGovernment of the Republic of China (traditional Chinese:中華民國政府;simplified Chinese:中华民国政府;pinyin:Zhōnghuá Mínguó Zhèngfǔ). Chiang Kai-shek was also elected as the1st President of the Republic of China under the constitution by the National Assemblyin 1948, withLi Zongren being elected as vice-president. Chiang and Li inaugurated at the Presidential Palace in Nanjing on 20 May 1948, formally marking the transition from political tutelage to constitutional government.
However, in 1946, thecivil war with the communists led byMao Zedong resumed despite mediation by theUnited States. Stretched and exhausted due to the long war with the Japanese, the Kuomintang-led government faced a disciplined and ever growing communist Red Army, which numbers grew in strength and was renamed as thePeople's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1946. Althoughgovernment forces were numerically superior and were equipped with modern weapons, they eventually lost due to low morale, defections, poor discipline as well as popular discontent with the ROC government due to skyrocketing inflation, corruption and administrative incompetence. The constitution was also superseded by theTemporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion, which were a series of temporary constitutional provisions mainly to increase the powers of the president and suspended the two-term limit. The temporary provisions were passed by the National Assembly on 10 May 1948. Under intense pressure to take responsibility for the government's bleak outlook during the course of the civil war, Chiang resigned as president on 21 January 1949. The presidency was passed on to Vice-President Li Zongren, who was however unable to govern effectively due to Chiang pulling the strings behind government as Director-General of the Kuomintang.
With the fall of Nanjing to the PLA in April 1949, the ROC government moved south toGuangzhou, and then to its wartime capital of Chongqing, and finally toChengdu. Sensing that he would eventually lose the mainland to the communists, Chiang secretly started preparations to move the government to the island of Taiwan, which was placed under the ROC's control on 25 October 1945. Taiwan was seen as a safe haven for Chiang due to it being separated from the mainland by the 180 km or 110 mi-wideTaiwan Strait. During that period, more than two million civilians, military personnel and government officials left the mainland for Taiwan. Chiang then declared Taipei as the provisional capital of the Republic of China on 7 December 1949, and left Chengdu for Taipei by air three days later when the city fell to the communists.
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Based on theConstitution of the Republic of China, thehead of state is thepresident, who is elected by popular vote for a four-year term on the same ticket as the vice-president. The president has authority over the five administrative branches (Yuan): theControl,Examination,Executive,Judicial, andLegislative Yuans. The president appoints the members of the Executive Yuan as thecabinet, including apremier, who is officially the president of the Executive Yuan; members are responsible for policy and administration.
Originally, theNational Assembly of the Republic of China was elected in mainland China in 1947 to officially carry out the duties of choosing the president, to amend the constitution, and to exercise the sovereignty of the citizens, but in fact, the Assembly's role in Taipei seemed to reconfirm the executive powers of President Chiang Kai-shek. The National Assembly was re-established on Taiwan when the government moved. Because it was impossible to hold subsequent elections to represent constituencies in mainland China, representatives elected in 1947-48 held these seats "indefinitely." In June 1990, however, the Council of Grand Justices mandated the retirement, effective December 1991, of all remaining "indefinitely" elected members of the National Assembly, Legislative Yuan, and other bodies. In 2005, the National Assembly permanently abolished itself by ratifying a constitution amendment passed by the Legislative Yuan.
Amending the ROC constitution now requires the approval of three-fourths of the quorum of members of the Legislative Yuan. This quorum requires at least three-fourths of all members of the Legislature. After passing by the legislature, the amendment needs ratification in areferendum from at least fifty percent of all eligible voters of the ROC regardless of voter turnout.
| Previous: Nationalist government of theRepublic of China | Government rulingTaiwan,Penghu,Kinmen,Matsu 1947–present | Incumbent |
| Government rulingmainland China 1947–1949 | Next: Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China 1949–1954 | |
| Representative forChina in theUnited Nations 1947–1971 | Next: Government of the People's Republic of China 1971–present |
