The Government of the Republic of China was formally established in 1912 in
Nanjing, with
Sun Yat-sen as President of the
Provisional Government of the Republic of China under the
Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China. This government moved to
Beijing in the same year with
Yuan Shikai as president, and continued under his successors as the internationally recognized government of
China until 1928. In the
Republican period, there were a series of governments, sometimes in rivalry with each other. The
Nationalist government, led by the
Kuomintang (KMT), was originally formed as a rival military government under Sun Yat-sen in
Guangzhou in 1917. After Sun's death in 1925,
Chiang Kai-shek led the
Northern 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 the
Qing dynasty. The essentially one-party rule functioned under Sun's
Three Principles of the People, which provided for a transitional period of "tutelage", but drew more political parties, including the
Chinese Communist Party into a
United Front during the
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). The Tutelage Constitution of 1931 was replaced by the
Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947.
1912–1928 The first Chinese national government was established on 1 January 1912, in Nanjing, with
Sun 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 northern
provinces 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 by
Yuan 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 1,000
British 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; when
World War I began, several Western powers and Japan wanted China to declare war on
Germany, 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.
1928–1949 After the successful
Northern Expedition led by the Kuomintang (KMT) and its leader
Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT managed to
unify China nominally and established the
National Government of the Republic of China (also known as the
Nationalist Government; ) with its capital in Nanjing, whose authority was maintained till the
full-scale outbreak of the
Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Known as the
Nanjing Decade, the government ruled as a
one-party state, as laid out by Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" and his policy of
Dang 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 the
communists. With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the invading
Imperial Japanese Army managed to capture Nanjing on 13 December 1937. The Japanese then proceeded to sack the city, and
massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians. With the fall of Nanjing, the government was forced to move first to
Wuhan, until the city fell on 27 October 1938. It retreated further inland to
Chongqing, which was the wartime capital until 1945. Although Chongqing was located in the inland western province of
Sichuan, 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. The
Constitution of the Republic of China was adopted by the
National 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 the
Government of the Republic of China (). Chiang Kai-shek was also elected as the
1st President of the Republic of China under the constitution by the National Assembly
in 1948, with
Li 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, the
civil war with the communists led by
Mao Zedong resumed despite mediation by the
United 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 the
People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1946. Although
government 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 the
Temporary 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 to
Guangzhou, and then to its wartime capital of Chongqing, and finally to
Chengdu. 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 -wide
Taiwan 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.
Since 1949 Based on the
Constitution of the Republic of China, the
head of state is the
president, 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): the
Control,
Examination,
Executive,
Judicial, and
Legislative Yuans. The president appoints the members of the Executive Yuan as the
cabinet, including a
premier, who is officially the president of the Executive Yuan; members are responsible for policy and administration. Originally, the
National 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 a
referendum from at least fifty percent of all eligible voters of the ROC regardless of voter turnout. ==See also==