Modern democracies are usually divided into a tripartite framework with an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch, dividing responsibilities between accountable government, legislative oversight and judicial authority, all in the hope of achieving good governance.
When US Federal Judge James Robart recently blocked US President Donald Trump’s executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering the US, it was an example of how the judicial branch supervises the government and stops it from abusing its powers.
The Republic of China (ROC) Constitution prescribes a five-branch framework, which perhaps could be called a “deformed” tripartite system with Chinese characteristics.
The five-branch system, which originated in China, is a continuation of the traditional Chinese system of government with two branches for assessing and supervising government personnel.
Nevertheless, the differences between the five-branch system and the three-branch system are relatively minor. There is nothing particularly clever about the five-branch system, as its main feature is merely that it separates the personnel issue and hands it over to the examination and supervisory powers.
The five-branch system is not an attempt to expand the Western triangular relationship into a pentagonal relationship; rather, it isolates the examination and supervisory functions in the triangular framework — executive, legislative and judiciary — and assigns them to personnel matters, thus creating another triangular framework consisting of the executive, the examination and supervisory branches.
It creates a main tripartite framework that divides responsibilities between the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and a minor tripartite framework for handling personnel assessment and supervision between the executive, examination and supervisory branches.
In theory, there is nothing inherently wrong with separating the assessment and supervisory powers. However, in practice, the Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan are not operating effectively and they have long been used to reward people for political services or as a tool in political warfare.
In addition, they have come to be seen as symbols of reactionary forces, opposition to reform and confused conservatism. As an example, the Examination Yuan is perhaps the strongest opponent of pension system reform for military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers.
It is clear that this five-branch system is inferior to the three-branch system and that it gives rise to many other flaws and irregularities. Furthermore, since there are no major differences between a five and a three-branch system, abolishing the Examination and Control branches to become a three-branch system — which is based on solid theoretical foundations and practical experience — would not have a big impact requiring a lot of systemic changes.
The five-branch system must be reformed and hopefully the Democratic Progressive Party administration will adhere to its pre-election views and abolish the Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan, and do so by allowing the general public to participate in writing a new constitution.
However, the Referendum Act (公民投票法) restricts the general public’s rights with respect to creating a new constitution. The government should start by amending the act.
That is the way to follow up on the promise to amend the Constitution and abolish the examination and control branches.
Hsu Ya-chi is youth convener of the Taiwan Solidarity Union’s Constitutional Group.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS