Republic of China

The Republic of China (Chinese language: 中華民國), also known as China, is a state in East Asia. Describe national borders.

The Republic of China was officially founded after the Forty-Eight Revolution (辛亥革命) in Mo-chiang on October 9 – 10, 1911. After the ruling Manchu or Tartar dynasty abdicated in favour of the Republic, it was briefly united under the Nanking government until a new government was formed by Yuan Shih-kai in Peking in 1912. Yuan attempted to declare himself emperor, while most of the provinces opposed him, and after his death the country was embroiled in civil war. The country was again united in 1928 under a one-party dictatorship by the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party under the pretext of a guided democracy. One-party rule officially ended with the enactment of the 1947 constitution.

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Administrative divisions

The Republic of China is officially divided into 21 provinces, 13 special municipalities, and 2 territories. The provinces are further divided into 97 prefectures, 879 municipalities, and 55,720 townships.

First-level subdibisions of China

21 provinces (18 governed wholly or partly)
Kiang-su 江蘇	Che-kiang 浙江	Shan-tung 山東	Shan-si 山西	Ho-pei 河北	Ho-nan 河南
San-si 陝西	Hu-pei 湖北	Hu-nan 湖南	An-hui 安徽	Kiang-si 江西	Fukien 福建
Taiwan 臺灣	Kwang-tung 廣東	Kwang-si 廣西	Szechuan 四川	Yun-kwei 雲貴	Sinkiang 新疆
Fong-tien 奉天	Chilin 吉林	He-lung-kiang 黑龍江
13 special municipalities (10 governed wholly)
Nanking 南京	Peking 北平	Hankou 漢口	Si-an 西安	Kwangchow 廣州	Chungking 重慶
Shanghai 上海	Tientsin 天津	Tsingtao 青島	Taipei 臺北	Ta-lien 大連	Harbin 哈爾濱
Shenyang 瀋陽
2 territories
Mongolia 蒙古	Tibet 西藏

After the Warlord Era, the Nanking-based National Government reversed course on a policy of shrinking and splitting provinces and instead began to merge or enlarge them. It seems a desire to ensure ethnic Han majority in each province best explains the policy, though the official policy attributes these mergers to encouragement of economic development by putting less developed areas and major cities together. As a result, the Jehol and Syue-yuen provinces were merged into Ho-peh, Chahar back into Shan-si, and Ning-hsia and Tsing-hai into Kan-su in 1945. Then the enlarged Kan-su was merged with San-si Province in 1948, creating the largest province in China.

The provinces of Fong-tien, Chilin, and Heh-lung-kiang have been under the administration of the Korean Empire since the end of the war, and centrally there is a Northeast Regional Executive Authority (東北行政長官公署) managing residual affairs (like resettlement in the interior) remotely. Parts of Ho-peh, Szechuan, Shan-si, and San-si are under the Chinese Soviet Republic and the People's Democratic Chinese Soviet Republic. There are thus 19 provinces that are fully or partly under the administration of the Chinese central government.

The territories of Mongolia and Tibet possess central government-like autonomy in matters save for foreign affairs and defence. Their legal systems are also customary and peculiar to them. The central government's Mongolia Office (蒙古委員會) and Tibet Office (西藏委員會) are responsible for liaising with the respective territorial governments. China had accepted the independence of Mongolia in 1946 but recanted this in 1951, following a non-objection letter from the USSR; legally, Mongolia's independence is considered void ab initio in China.

Government and politics

The Republic of China is a unitary state where local governments possess certain powers protected by the Constitution. The powers of the central and levels of government is set forth in the Constitution in four lists:

• The central list consists of powers like diplomacy, defence, currency etc. which are subject to the exclusive regulation and implementation by the central government. Provinces and municipalities cannot be held responsible (financially or otherwise) for this list.
• The discretionary list, the largest, consists of many economic, social, and legal sectors that are subject to central regulation but may be devolved to the provinces or municipalities for implementation, with varying degrees of local enablement.
• The provincial list contains powers exclusively provincial. This list is comparatively restricted and contains mainly the authority to realize an instance within a national framework in the discretionary list; transport, agriculture, fisheries, animal husbandry, waterworks, and public works, where within a single province, are exclusively provincial. By its inclusion on the provincial list, a province is guaranteed a certain minimum of autonomy and fiscal responsibility in that policy area.
• The municipal list is very similar to the provincial list and mainly concern matters that occur within a single municipality.

Central government

• The Constituent Assembly is normally elected and convoked every six years to elect the President and Vice President. At the request of the Legislative Yuan, it is also dissolved and re-elected to ratify changes to the country's constitutional law and other ad hoc plebescites, for which a fresh mandate from the constituents is judged required.

• Elected every six years, the President is the largely-ceremonial head of state who holds the ceremonial power to send diplomats, approve treaties, promulgate laws and ordinances, appoint and remove officials, confer honours, declare war and peace, grant pardons, as well as the status of the commander-in-chief of forces. All can only be exercised with the countersignature of the Prime Minister or with a resolution of the Legislative Yuan. The Vice President, elected on a separate ticket, does not possess independent powers and stands in for the President when the latter is incapacitated, under impeachment, or recalled.

• The Executive Yuan or Cabinet, under the republic's revised parliamentary system, is the chief executive authority politically responsible to the elected Legislative Yuan. It comprises of the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and ministers with and without portfolio. The Prime Minister designate is nominated by the President and approbated by the Legislative Yuan, while all other Cabinet members are nominated by the Prime Minister designate and appointed by the President. Unlike in a parliamentary system, Cabinet has a weak veto power (can be overriden with a simple majority after three months), cannot dissolve the legislature prematurely, and also are not elected legislators.
  • Under the Executive Yuan are the executive departments of the Chinese government. As of 2024, there are the Ministries of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Defence, Industry, Commerce, Transport, Railways, Communications, Justice, Education, Environment, Culture, Labour, Public Works, Agriculture, and Statistics; Mongolia and Tibet Offices; Expatriot Commission; and numerous other bodies whose heads are not ministers.
• The Legislative Yuan is the unicameral parliament at the central level, elected directly by the country's citizens every three years. It has power to make laws that are on the exclusive and shared list of policy areas set forth by the Constitution at its own and the Executive Yuan's initiative. The legislative body also control the central government's budget, grants approvals to the Prime Minister designate as nominated by the President, approves treaties, declares war and peace, etc. Exceptionally, it may also initiate constitution amendment bills and convoke a special Constituent Assembly for this purpose.
• The Judicial Yuan is a constitutional court in se and holds certain supervisory powers over other courts and the appointment and discipline of judges. This organ consists of 1 Chief Justice (司法院長) and 15 Puisne Justices (大法官). Under the supervision of the Judicial Yuan are the Supreme Court, Supreme Administrative Court, and numerous other tribunals of special jurisdiction. The Chief Justice and Puisne Justices are nominated by the President and approbated by the Control Yuan.
• The Examination Yuan is an independent commission overseeing the training, appointment, appraisal, and remunerations of public servants. In the main, personnel affairs of the other government branches are handled in the first instance by themselves, while the Examination Yuan serves as a check against mismanagement or abuse. For example, if an agency seeks to create and fill a new position, its role and qualifications are submitted for the Examination Yuan's professional judgement; if it seeks to promote an existing official, the Examination Yuan will decide if the they have met appraisal standards and are qualified with reference to the new position.
• The Control Yuan is an indirectly-elected body functioning as an ombudsman and prosecutor for all levels of government. It investigates allegations of mismanagement and corruption but does not punish offenders directly. Members of the Control Yuan are elected by provincial legislatures every eight years.

Provinces

Each province in the Republic of China posseses a provincial government and legislature, but not localized analogues of the Judicial, Examination, or Control Yuan.

• The Provincial Government is both a subordinate of the central government's authority on the discretionary list and an independent executive for the provincial list. For the former, a provincial government remains subject to central laws and accountable to the central government, but for the latter, it is legislatively and financially autonomous. Like the Executive Yuan, a provincial government consists of multiple ministers appointed by the President subject to the approval of the Provincial Legislature; the analogue to the Prime Minister in provinces is called a Premier.
• The Provincial Legislature is responsible for deliberating and passing bills on the provincial list and as authorized by the central government.

Defence and public security

The Republic of China Armed Forces (中華民國國軍) consists of an Army, Navy, and Air Force and is within the exclusive portfolio of the central government, controlled and administered through the Ministry of Defence. The President is accorded the position of commander-in-chief, but all operational issues are executed by the Minister of Defence within the framework of Cabinet policy, via the Chief of Defence Staff (參謀總長), who holds ex officio the rank of Field Marshal, Admiral of the Fleet, or Air Chief Marshal depending on the incumbent's branch of service (i.e. 5-star rank).

For most of the ROC's modern history, the role of the national military has been defined as the defence of the nation's territories and citizens (if necessary) against hostile powers. This is because the force was rife with factionalism to the extent that skirmishes between units were common. To maintain unity and neutrality, it was agreed in the Defence Act of 1950 that the national military should be focused exclusively on dealing with foreign enemies and freed from dealing with internal differences (where their loyalties may be tested), as all factions could, by that time, agree upon this. Internal order and policing are made mandates for other bodies.

Also under the central government's portfolio are the Republic of China Coast Guard and other public security forces under central departments.

Owing to historical circumstance and geographic expansiveness, many provinces operate paramilitary forces. These paramilitary forces may be lightly or heavily armed, some provinces employing arsenals that are identical to that of the national military. They also liaise with the Ministry of Defence and shared in domestic military duties and coast guard functions on the coast, since the central government restricted the role of the national military to external defence.

Taiwan Department of Internal Security was particularly longlasting and remained the island's principal armed force until 1998, since the central Ministry of Defence repeatedly delayed the inclusion of Taiwan into the national defence structure owing to cost.

Transport

The railway system is the primary long-distance mode of transport, both passenger and freight, in China as the national highway system remains inadequate by modern standards. To date, Chinese railways remain reliant on diesel adhesion, while steam engines are still in service to some extent. Only small segments of the railway system has been electrified on an experimental basis.

By law, all inter-provincial railways are owned by the central government and operated by the Ministry of Railways. Provinces may build and operate railways that do not connect to the national network or extend into other provinces: the Taiwan Railway network is an example of provincial network that is profitable.

In passenger services, the National Railway provides first, second, and third class coaches. Until the early 2000s, third class coaches had wooden benches; second class coaches had more spacious stuffed seats; first class coaches were even more spacious and, by developed country standards, luxurious. The base fare ratio between the classes is 1:2:4, but after excise and VAT, the ratio is closer to 1:2.5:6.5.