Talk:President of the Republic of China

the Yuan Shikai and Warlord gov't (1913 - 1928) isn't recognized by the current Taiwanese gov't. It was a different polical organization from the current ROC. So should its presidents be part of this list? -- voidvector

well maybe we're not talking about only the current Taiwanese government, but rather the ROC regime?

The ROC-KMT doesnt recognize the warlord government but it was internationally recognized as the legitimate ROC government. On the other hand, no foreign nation recognized the ROC-KMT until they took Beijing in 1928.--Countakeshi 01:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

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There is some recent (June 2004) disussion at Talk:Chiang_Kai-shek#Presidential_navigation_bar about redoing the list of "presidents" that is relevant here. --Jiang 23:37, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What fills the gap between 1928 and 1948

Somebody must be claiming the sovereignty of whole China before and during WWII. Also the Japan-backed governments in Manchuria and Northern China claimed part of China.

see List of leaders of the Republic of China. This article should really be rewritten to reflect that. --Jiang 20:15, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From Oct 10, 1928 to the current constitution, the title Chairman of the National Government was commonly (perhaps exclusively) translated as "President" by foreign press. I am not sure if this was officially endorsed or simply not objected to by the ROC at the time. This is similar to President of the Executive Yuan being translated as "premier". Also compare with State Chairman of the PRC officially being translated as President of the PRC. In this light, should we include the 1928 to 1949 heads? --Countakeshi (talk) 01:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Update. I'm in the opinion that Chairman was officially translated as President. Letters by Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt are addressed to Lin Sen and Chiang Kai-shek as President of the National Government of the Republic of China. These formal correspondences must have been done after contacting embassy or foreign ministry officials. One PRC government website also uses "President Lin Sen". This might actually be the precedent for the PRC's current translation of State Chairman into President.--Countakeshi (talk) 06:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

We should discuss this, then. john k (talk) 07:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion of including the chairmen who served under the 1928-1947 Organic Law (the Political Tutelage era). The books and articles from that era seem to unanimously use "president". Finding an officially translated document or quote by an ROC official from that era will settle the matter.--Countakeshi (talk) 10:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The Potsdam Declaration uses President of the National Government of the Republic of China, so it appears to be the official translation. I'm going to update the article accordingly. --Countakeshi (talk) 01:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Taiwan and Mainland

(Deleted what essentially amounted to little more than opinions.)

President of Taiwan

I have make this term bold because it is another name for president of ROC. However, someone keeps changing it back.--Jerrypp772000 23:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

No it is not a term for the President of the Republic of China. He is the President of the Republic of China, not Taiwan. There is no need to make it bold. -Nationalist 00:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is. It is known as President of Taiwan outside of ROC!--Jerrypp772000 00:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[1], yay, TingMing agreed for me to move!--Jerrypp772000 01:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Please do not move this page without consensus and do not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point.--Jiang 05:04, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

They were no Presidents between 1927 and 1948?

--Damifb 20:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Removed statement about "President of Taiwan" not being prevalent

I removed the statement "[The usage] President of Taiwan ... is not prevalent in Taiwan itself", but I forgot to put the link to the table in the summary. Please see Talk:Premier of the Republic of China#Tables. — Sebastian 09:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Remove statement about premier

Removed the statement about that premier's powers were reduced out of fear that the DPP would control the legislature. I don't recall this as a major reason for the constitutional changes and it doesn't make sense because by centralizing power with the President, the change made it easier for the DPP to take popwer.

Roadrunner (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The fall of the DPP

Uh oh. The KMT have taken over the Taiwanese government again. These grubby nationalists will stop at nothing to portray Taiwanese people, society, culture, politics etc etc as somehow connected to Chinese people, society, culture, politics etc etc. I am afraid that this development will only reinforce the perception that Taiwan is somehow a break-away or 'rebellious' state. As everyone knows, the KMT has no real interest in promoting Taiwanese identity as a legitimate national identity; in fact, it were able to suppress it it would have done so long ago. So the bottomline: this article needs to mention more about the changing dynamics of the Taiwanese presidency with respect to notions of Taiwanese identity (including how views on it have changed since 1949). Also, a separate article on 'President of Taiwan (since 1987)' should probably be created. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.105.145.175 (talk) 11:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

But what exactly would the "President of Taiwan" article be about?--Jerrch 18:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Merger

I think it would be better to merge this page with President of the Republic of China and create a section "Succession."--Jerrch 00:58, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree K.murphy (talk) 15:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Done.--Jerrch 18:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

"The government ... views itself as an independent sovereign country"

This statement is in error. The official position of the government of the ROC is still that Taiwan and the mainland are a single country, with the ROC as the rightful government of both territories. This is enshrined in the ROC constitution and has never been changed.

It is certainly true that most Taiwanese, including many members of the government (and the previous two presidents), view Taiwan as a de facto sovereign nation. But that is different from claiming the view as the ROC government's official position.

Semantically, I also think it's better to say that the ROC does not recognize the legitimacy (rather than the existence) of the PRC.

EDIT: In re-reading my comments it occurs to me I have oversimplified the issues involved and made a couple of dubious statements myself. Simply asserting that the ROC == Taiwan glosses over a whole plethora of issues, viewpoints and territorial questions.

The question comes down to territory. Though pretty much everyone in Taiwan agrees that the ROC is the legitimate government of a sovereign state, when it comes to drawing the national boundaries of that state, the opinions lie (pardon the pun) quite literally all over the map.

Though the ROC constitution makes general reference to the territories that were under ROC control at the time of its ratification, it never explicitly defines what those territories were. While (in addition to the mainland and Mongolia) they did include the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, significantly, they did not include the main island of Taiwan, which had been Japanese territory since 1895. (Chiang Kai Shek later repudiated the Treaty of Shimoneseki; at the time of ratification, however, Japanese sovereignty was not disputed.)

Since 1945 the ROC (and, ironically, the PRC) has used various combinations of the retrocession argument and repudiation of Shimoneseki to claim sovereignty over the island of Taiwan, though the ROC constitution has never been amended to include it (work was begun to do so, but the National Assembly, the agency responsible for such things, was abolished before work was completed).

Though nearly all Taiwanese (and, obviously the government itself) agree that the ROC is a sovereign state, there are at least three different understandings of what that encompasses (and herein lies the great gulf between the reunification and the independence forces in Taiwan).

Many reunificationists (mostly older Taiwanese, whose numbers are now dwindling) hold that ROC territory still includes the mainland, now (either since retrocession in 1945 or ab initio, depending on one's views of Shimoneseki) together with Taiwan. For these folks, the Republic of China is a sovereign, independent state whose territory includes the mainland. They would dispute that Taiwan is a sovereign state, as Taiwan is but a part of the larger state.

A broad swathe of Taiwanese, encompassing both reunificationists and pro-independence supporters, hold that since 1949 ROC territory has been (or should be) reduced to the territories now under its control. They are ready and willing to acknowledge PRC sovereignty over the mainland, but hold to ROC sovereignty over its current holdings. Since for this group ROC and Taiwan are co-extensive, they would hold that "the ROC is sovereign and independent" is equivalent to "Taiwan is sovereign and independent".

Of course the reunificationists in this group wish to see both sides reunified, though they differ on what the governement of the reunified territory should be. The independence supporters, OTOH, wish to see Taiwan continue as an idependent state; they argue over whether the ROC should be abolished in favor of a new government.

The official position of the government of Taiwan is, of course, that the ROC is currently a sovereign and independent state, but as far as I know there is no official government position on whether its territories include the mainland (and Mongolia) or are limited to its current holdings.

CNJECulver (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2010 (UTC)