That the political system is resistant to change means, for this article, that the only possibility for democratic government functionality for Taiwan is a change of constitutional regime to one that is parliamentary 1. A majority of political scientists and some politicians classify or claim its system to now be semi-presidential 2. Some political scientists claim that the classification of political systems is not trichotomic parliamentarian, semi-presidential, presidential but only dichotomic, and in such a case Taiwan also has to be classified or interpreted as either a presidential or parliamentarian system 6.
Maurice Duverger, the father of the concept of a semi-presidential government, asserts that a semi-presidential system is not a synthesis of a presidential system and a parliamentary system, but rather a system which—depending on whether the President has majority support in the legislature—reverts either to a parliamentary or to a presidential form of government 7. How could the government of Taiwan be classified?
What, if any, are the consequences of such classification? The second type of definition is one that combines formal constitutional arrangements with actual powers, or, more accurately, dispositional and relational properties A political regime is considered as semi-presidential if the Constitution which established it combines three elements: 1 the President of the Republic is elected by universal suffrage; 2 he possesses quite considerable powers; 3 he has opposite him, however, a Prime Minister and ministers who possess executive and governmental power and can stay in office only if the Parliament does not show opposition to them Sartori puts the emphasis of this definition on the power relationship between President and Prime Minister four of the five criteria , but it still focuses on the Constitution.
From this type of definition we have to class the respective governments by looking at the respective powers of the head of state and head of government. The direct election of the President is irrelevant for this definition This definition is concerned only with the real power characteristics of the respective system also referred to as relational properties. His proposed definition of semi-presidential regime based only on dispositional properties of the regime has only three criteria: a popularly elected President; a fixed term for the President; the President exists alongside the Prime Minister and a cabinet responsible to Parliament In his discussion of relational properties, Elgie, as other authors, mix the potential relational properties and their actual realisation.
They mix the power positions of players prescribed by the Constitution and the actual power positions in the system. Lijphart defines political systems on the continuum from majoritarian to consensual Only the constitutional regime can be defined and therefore the trichotomic classification of regimes is applicable only to the first part of the definition. The political system can be merely described or characterised, and therefore only the tendencies towards presidentialisation of a respective non-presidential constitutional regime parliamentary, semi-presidential can be observed.
He is, according to Article 2, paragraph 6 of AA, elected for a fixed term of four years. Both are responsible to Parliament Legislative Yuan according to Article 3, paragraph 2. The Legislative Yuan has the specific right to vote on a call of no confidence, which would remove the Prime Minister and cabinet. All the dispositional properties of the definition of semi-presidential constitutional regime are therefore met. He therefore has potential extraordinary powers. Again the Constitution prescribes him the power to initiate arbitration between the key players.
The Constitution, however, also stipulates in Article that the people have the right of initiative, but this has in no way affected the political reality, nor is there even a mechanism to exercise this right. It appears that the relational properties present in the Republic of China Constitution also prescribe for Taiwan a semi-presidential constitutional regime.
The situation was considered by President Chen to be temporary and he personally vowed to create a genuine coalition with the opposition parties after the Parliamentary elections However the Cabinet created after the parliamentary elections in was again composed mainly of politicians loyal to President. The attempts to include some opposition KMT politicians in the Cabinet on an official basis specifically the offer of the vice-premier position to the KMT have been blocked by the conditions the KMT put forward.
These conditions could have signalled a push towards a two-party coalition Cabinet, but were rejected by the DPP. Never during his time in office has President Chen made a concrete offer or has entered into formal consultations to create a coalition-government There were rumours in December in Taiwan that Chen was talking again about creating a coalition government, 34 but none of them proved to be true.
It was a logical outgrowth of the situation where the presidency and the ruling party chairmanship were dominated by one person as in the case of the Chiangs and Lee Teng-hui. The situation was changed by the presidential elections and Parliament has acquired a more important role.
This law has provided for the possibility of partisan negotiations in the legislature, when consensus over a Bill cannot be reached. However, this method is criticised because it lacks transparency of decision He was seen to be a reactive President in the first year of his presidency 39 , but later demonstrated his ability to influence policy-making even without a legislative majority.
He skilfully uses direct appeals to the public, thus setting a precedent for future Presidents to emulate Due to public pressure, Parliament has supported a watered down version of a referendum, allowing Chen to score a policy victory Chen is trying hard to maximise his powers by emulating his KMT predecessors. The condition of the domination of executive power is therefore met, even with an apparent tendency towards losing this dominance, especially in when opposition leaders made trips to the mainland , while opposition uses its tools and learns how to be effective.
The emergence of pan-blue and pan-green camps in the election has kept the Taiwanese party system close to real bipartism. The recent constitutional change 43 will probably lead the party system towards bipartism by its own inertia, as is already happening by the transfer of MPs from the PFP to the KMT.
The same thing happens around the world. China and Taiwan: The basics. Why do China and Taiwan have poor relations? China and Taiwan were divided during a civil war in the s, but Beijing insists the island will be reclaimed at some point, by force if necessary. How is Taiwan governed? The island has its own constitution, democratically elected leaders, and about , active troops in its armed forces.
Who recognises Taiwan? Only a few countries recognise Taiwan. Most recognise the Chinese government in Beijing instead. The US has no official ties with Taiwan but does have a law which requires it to provide the island with the means to defend itself. You might also be interested in This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
Related Topics. China Taiwan. Published 6 October. Published 22 October Published 20 March. Published 5 October. Taiwan neither had a part in the negotiations of this MOU, nor was it ever informed about the exact contents of this document that determines its status in the WHO, though an implementation document outlining the specific rules was leaked.
In the negotiation process, the U. Furthermore the U. In , Taiwan was invited for the fourth consecutive year to observe the WHA, which was held in Geneva from May 21 to Further criticism has emerged since. Citing the resolution WHA Needless to say, for Taiwan, being called explicitly a province of China is an important setback in its WHO participation. So far, however, none of these attempts to urge the WHO to reconsider its policy toward Taiwan have received an official response.
Hence Taiwan cannot be a party. This does not prejudice the fact that Taiwan works with the IHR, therefore is part of it, to which even the memorandum pays testimony. It may well be that this explains why the number of permissions granted to Taiwanese health experts to participate in WHO technical meetings remains conspicuously low. However, it appears likely that an official admission that the much-criticized MOU is still in place, after the Taiwanese government has celebrated the success of joining the IHR and observing the WHA, would amount to a considerable loss of face.
According to statistics presented by Taiwanese health officials during an interview in November , health experts from Taiwan applied for 16 technical meetings in , but initially WHO headquarters granted permission for attendance at only four of these meetings.
Approval was given in eight cases. Nine applications were rejected while the WHO did not respond to four applications.
They presented themselves as not aware that the WHO was still seeking consent from Beijing, while stating that after all, these were internal WHO procedures to which they did not have insight. With the MOU, Taiwan is disadvantaged in comparison to other observers in the organization in obtaining information and participating in meetings other than the WHA. Taiwan could claim, based on empirical evidence, that its exclusion from the WHO created a life threat for its population. This claim induced a number of countries, including the U.
Taiwan, based on its own domestic interests, is already a relatively responsible player in the matters addressed by these organizations, so not much obvious harm is done by leaving Taiwan excluded from the two bodies. China is too important to be provoked. China will only be pushed to loosen its stance if there is an important level of international pressure to give Taiwan limited rights to take part in any specific UN agency. Yet, even then, China will not allow such participation to become a precedent to be emulated freely by other organizations.
Furthermore, even when China consents to let Taiwan take part in certain organizations, it will dictate the framework of such participation, namely that Taiwan despite its presence is still a part, or even a province, of China.
As the WHO case shows, international governmental organizations are ready to comply with such Chinese demands. Moreover, China would need to realize that it is only hurting prospects for achieving its fundamental objective by alienating Taiwan and its voters through its heavy-handed approach to UN organizations.
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