Taiwan was previously led by the
emperor of Japan during
colonial rule by Japan from 1895 to 1945, represented by the
governor-general of Taiwan. After the outbreak of the
Wuchang Uprising against
Qing rule in 1911,
the revolutionaries elected Sun Yat-sen as the "
provisional president" () of the transitional government, with the Republic of China officially established on 1 January 1912. But Sun soon resigned from the provisional presidency in favor of
Yuan Shikai, who assumed the title "Great President" () in March 1912. Yuan induced the
Last Emperor to abdicate, ending thousands of years of imperial rule in China. The 1913 Constitution called for a strong
presidential system with notable
checks on the president by the
National Assembly. However, Yuan soon began to assert dictatorial power, ignoring the National Assembly and later abolishing it altogether. In 1915, Yuan proclaimed himself
Emperor of China in a largely unpopular move and was forced to retract his declaration shortly before his death in 1916. With Yuan Shikai's death the
Warlord Era began. Vice President
Li Yuanhong succeeded Yuan as president and attempted to reassert the constitutional government, but was soon forced to resign by military strongmen. The presidency, though leading an internationally recognized government, was thereafter to be headed by a series of prominent warlords. This presidency ended in 1928 when the
Northern Expedition, led by the
Kuomintang (KMT), succeeded in
conquering North China. Sun Yat-sen established a rival (military, not constitutional) government in
Guangzhou in 1917 and took the title of "Generalissimo of the Military Government" (). He was ousted in 1918 but returned again to Guangzhou in 1921. Claiming to restore the
Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China, he summoned the members of the original parliament to elect him as president, but since there lacked a quorum, he took the title of "Extraordinary President" (). Sun, again expelled from Guangzhou in 1922, returned in 1923 to take the title of "Generalissimo of the Military Government." Sun died in 1925 with no clear successor and leadership of the government, now named the
National Government, rested in a series of
Leninist-style dual party and state committees, the most powerful of which was the policy-making Central Executive Committee of the
Kuomintang. The government was organized into five branches, with the
Executive Yuan, headed by the premier, holding primary administrative authority. The "Chairman of the National Government", though not given specific presidential powers, took on the functions of a
de facto head of state and its official English translation was "President of the National Government of the Republic of China". This form of government under the KMT lasted through the Northern Expedition, which moved the capital to Nanjing and gave the National Government domestic control and foreign recognition, and the
Second Sino-Japanese War, during which the Japanese established a puppet
"Reorganized" National Government with almost the identical organizational structure, until the promulgation of a new Constitution in 1947. Following the Chinese victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War, the National Government under
Chiang Kai-shek was restored in Nanjing and the KMT set out to enact a
liberal democratic constitution in line with the last stage of Sun Yat-sen's three stages of national development. The new
Constitution of the Republic of China, promulgated on 25 December 1947, established a five-branch government with the office of president () as head of state. On 20 May 1948, Chiang Kai-shek was formally elected by the
National Assembly to be the first term president. After the KMT lost mainland China in the Chinese Civil War, the government was evacuated to Taiwan, where the term limits for the president specified in the 1947 constitution were suspended after 1960. In 1954, as the term of the first National Assembly were about to expire, the Judicial Yuan ruled that the expired seats of the National Assembly would continue in power until the respective delegate region elections could be held. This largely froze the membership of the National Assembly mainland delegates and prevented local Taiwanese from widespread legislative and assembly participation in the expired mainland seats until the early 1970s. The members of the National Assembly continued in their office until 1991, and continued to elect Chiang Kai-shek as president until his death in 1975. Presidents were elected by the National Assembly until the first
direct presidential election in 1996, while the term length was shortened from six to four years. File:1911年中华民国临时大总统选举1.jpg|Official results of the election announcing Sun's election on November 10, 1911. File:West_Garden_Hall,_Nanjing,_Aug_2016.jpg|The West Garden Hall in
Presidential Palace, Nanjing, was the office of the provisional president in 1912. File:原段祺瑞执政府.jpg|After
Yuan Shikai's
Peiyang Government took control of the ROC, the house in Peking was the office of the president. File:National Government of the R.O.C.jpg|The
Presidential Palace in
Xuanwu District,
Nanjing, housed the office of the chairman of the National Government of the ROC in 1927–1937. File:Tzu-chao Building.jpg|The Presidential Building in
Presidential Palace, Nanjing, was the office of the president of the ROC after the
1947 Chinese Constitution, until the Government of the ROC fled to Taiwan in 1949. == Timeline of presidents ==