1948 Chinese legislative election

← 1918

21–23 January 1948

1969 →

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Chiang Kai-shek	Carsun Chang	Tseng Chi
Party	Kuomintang	Democratic Socialist	Youth
Seats won	716	17	6

The 1st Legislative Yuan election was held in China between 21 and 23 January 1948. This election, and the preceding 1947 National Assembly election are the first elections of under the newly ratified 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China. Under this constitution, the Legislative Yuan is a standing legislature when the National Assembly is not in session. At the time most of Chinese territory was under the control of the government of the Republic of China, using a direct voting system elected 759 Legislative Representatives. Using the Republic's then 461 million population^[1] to calculate, on average 600,000 people elected one representative in the Legislative Yuan. The election along with the one held for the National Assembly also made China the largest democracy at the time.

The newly elected Legislative Yuan met for the first time on 21 May. Over a year later, the Communists overran the mainland, forcing the Nationalist government to flee to Taiwan. To date, the 1948 election is the last contested election held on the mainland until 1992 in ROC-controlled Kinmen and Matsu; as well as 2012 in the communist-controlled city of Wukan, Guangdong during the Wukan protests.

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For those of you who are just starting to learn about the history of China in the first half of the 20th century, it can be a little bit confusing. So the goal of this video is really to give you an overview, to give you a scaffold, of the history of the first half of the 20th century in China. So as we go into the early 1900s, you have the end of imperial dynastic rule in China. This is a big deal. China has been ruled by various dynasties for multiple thousands of years. But as you get into the 1900s, the dynastic rule, in particular the Qing Dynasty, was getting weaker and weaker. It had suffered at the hands of the Japanese during the first Sino-Japanese War at the end of the 1800s. There was growing discontent amongst the opposition that the dynasty, that the emperors, were not modernizing China enough. Remember, this is the early 1900s. The rest of the world was becoming a very, very modern place. China in the 1800s had suffered at the hands of Western powers who were essentially exerting their own imperial influence in China. Many people felt that this was because China was not as modernized economically, politically, technologically as it needed to be. And so you fast-forward to 1911. You have what is known as the Wuchang Uprising, which led to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. By 1912, a Republic of China was established in Nanjing. So Nanjing right over here was where it was established. Beijing was, of course, the seat of dynastic rule in China. And the first provisional president of the Republic of China was Dr. Sun Yat-sen, right over here. And he actually did not directly participate in this final uprising that finally led to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty. He was actually in Denver at the time, Denver, Colorado. But he was a leading or one of the leading figures in the run up to this uprising, one of the leading figures who was providing opposition and had tried multiple times to overthrow the dynasty. Now along with Sun Yat-sen, he was essentially in cahoots with Yuan Shikai, who was a general in the old dynasty. And he has his own fascinating history. And Sun Yat-sen struck a deal with Yuan Shikai, who was very politically ambitious. Yuan Shikai said, hey, if I can get the emperor Puyi, who was the last emperor of China, if I can get him to officially abdicate, I want to become the president. So Sun Yat-sen agrees to this. So Yuan Shikai becomes the president of the Republic of China. But that wasn't enough for him. He declares himself emperor in 1915, which you could imagine did not make many people happy because they were tired of having emperors. And by 1916, he abdicates and he passes away, actually. And this actually begins a period of extremely fragmented rule for China. Even under imperial rule, the Chinese military was not one consolidated body. The military was controlled by various warlords in various regions that all had allegiance to the emperor. Once you have Yuan Shikai abdicating and then dying in 1916, and even prior to that, when he declared himself emperor, people did not want to pledge allegiance to Yuan Shikai. And so you had what is known as the beginning of the Warlord Era in China. And this is a fragmented period where you did not have any centralized leadership. This map over here shows kind of the rough picture of what the Warlord Era looked like. Each of these regions were controlled by a different warlord who was in charge of a different military. When this was going on during the Warlord Era, especially as we go back to the early '20s, in 1921 in particular, Sun Yat-sen hasn't given up. He goes to the south in Guangzhou and sets up, essentially, a revolutionary government, essentially a desire from there to try to consolidate power in China again and reestablish the Republic of China. So he goes there. But unfortunately he passes away in 1925 from cancer. And the hands or the power of the movement that he started, which is now being referred to as the Kuomintang-- Let me write that down. Essentially, the power there passes on to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. And Chiang Kai-shek, the reason why we say the power essentially goes to him is because he was in control of the major part of the military forces of the Kuomintang. And this is essentially the very nascent early stages of what would essentially be the Chinese Civil War because in the period from 1921 until Sun Yat-sen's death, you actually had a lot of collaboration between the Chinese nationalists, the Kuomintang, and the Soviet Union, and the Chinese Communist Party. They were trying to collaborate in order to think about how China would unify. But then once Sun Yat-sen dies and the power of the Kuomintang essentially goes into the hands of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, he starts to consolidate power. And right from the get-go, he doesn't antagonize the communists. But by 1927, he's starting to consolidate, he's starting to merge these various factions in the rest of China. So he's able to consolidate power. But he also starts to go after the communists. So Chiang Kai-shek, by '27, also starts to go after the communists. And the communists are saying, hey, we are the ones that really represent the spirit of what Sun Yat-sen represented, while the Kuomintang under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek said, no, no, no. We represent what Sun Yat-sen represented when he first established the Republic of China. And so in 1927, you have the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. This is when the Kuomintang, as part of its efforts to consolidate power, not only tries to consolidate power of the warlords, but also goes after the Communist Party. Now while all of this is happening, as we get into the early 1930s, Japan once again is trying to exert its imperial, its military, might on the Chinese mainland. They had already captured Formosa, which is now known as Taiwan, and Korea during the first Sino-Japanese War at the end of the 1800s. And then in 1931, the Japanese start to encroach on Manchuria. And this would essentially become a multi-year occupation and infiltration of Japan into China. And this continues all the way until 1937, when it becomes an official all-out war between the Japanese and the Chinese. And I have a map here that shows kind of the maximum Japanese control over this period. And so in east Asia between the Chinese and the Japanese, World War II was really just part of the Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese had already encroached on the mainland of China well before World War II had officially begun. Now while all this is happening, Japan is encroaching into Manchuria, in 1934, you have to remember, the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai-shek is going after the communists. And in 1934, he almost has them, or he does. The communists are nearly defeated. They're surrounded by the Nationalist Party. And this becomes what is a fairly famous event in Chinese history, the famous Long March, where the Chinese Communist Party, their military, is marched through extremely tough terrain all the way to the northwest of China. So this right over here is a map of the Long March. The Chinese Communist Party seemed to be on the ropes here in 1934. And it was during this Long March that Mao Zedong really started to exert and show leadership. The leadership during this Long March, during this retreat to the northwest of China, is really what allowed Mao Zedong to eventually take control of the Chinese Communist Party. Now as we fast forward, we know that the Sino-Japanese War-- you could view this as one theater, eventually, of World War II-- eventually the US goes in on the side of the Allies against Japan after Pearl Harbor. And then in 1945, you have the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic weapons, which essentially ends the Pacific theater. It's defeat for Japan, and Japan has lost World War II. And at this point, full-scale civil war between the two parties break out again. The Civil War started in 1927, and then it kept continuing. But then once there was a common enemy in Japan that was clearly aggressively trying to take over more and more of China's people, resources, exert its imperial influence, then you had the two parties kind of go into a low-grade war and say, hey, we need to fight these Japanese. But once World War II ended in 1945, once the Japanese were defeated, then you had full-scale civil war break out again between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang. And this is probably one of the biggest comebacks in history. This was the Chinese Communist Party that in 1934 and 1935 looked like they were on the ropes. They were forced into, essentially, retreat. They were able to come back. And in 1949-- and there's a lot of theories as to why they were able to pull this off. That they were able to get much more of the support from the rural population. They were more savvy about getting support generally than the Kuomintang. But we could talk about that in a future video. But by 1949, they were able to defeat Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, force the Kuomintang to retreat to Taiwan, establish government in Taiwan. And ever since then, you had the establishment by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 of the People's Republic of China.

Background

In 1928, the Nationalist government completed the Northern Expedition and after achieving unification in the name of China, initiated the "Political Tutelage" period and created the Legislative Yuan. But the Legislative Representatives at the time were not elected, but appointed by the Nationalist government for a 2-year term. There were initially 49 seats, but it was increased to the 194 seats before the Second Sino-Japanese War. However, during the Second World War, the 194 Legislative Representatives selected in 1934's terms were extended until after WWII in 1947.

On 1 January 1947, the Constitution of the Republic of China was published, and in the same year on 25 December promulgated. In April 1947, according to the Political Consultative Conference, the National Government was reorganized to allow other political parties (e.g. Youth Party, Democratic Socialist Party) to enter. In the beginning of 1948, according to the Constitution's Article 64, the first Constitutional Legislative Election was held. Because of the large size of the provinces, not all of the elections in the various provinces were held on the same date. The starting and ending dates were from 21 to 23 January.

Elected government officials under the 1947 Constitution of the Republic of China
Title	Role	Constitutional provisions	Amended provisions	First election
National Assembly delegate	Exercise political powers on behalf of citizens	Directly elected by citizens of county-level divisions	Institution de facto suspended, with its powers transferred to the Legislative Yuan and referendums	1947 Chinese National Assembly election
President	Head of state	Indirectly elected by the National Assembly	Directly elected by the citizens within the Free area	1948 Chinese presidential election
Legislative Yuan members	Legislature	Directly elected by citizens of provincial-level divisions	Directly elected by the citizens within the Free area	1948 Chinese legislative election
Control Yuan members	Monitoring authority	Indirectly elected by provincial legislatures	Parliamentary chamber de facto suspended. Appointed by the President and confirmed by the Legislative Yuan	1947–1948 Chinese control election

Because of the problems that took place during the 1947 National Assembly election (i.e. party candidates were not nominated by their political parties, but by self-gathering voter signatures), the Nationalist Party Central Government strengthened the requirements for party member candidates.

Election



Party		Seats
Party		Legislative Yuan
	Kuomintang	716
	Democratic Socialist Party	17
	Young China Party	6
	Independents	20
Total		759

In accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China, members of the Legislative Yuan shall be elected in accordance with the following provisions:

Those to be elected from the provinces and by the municipalities under the direct jurisdiction of the Executive Yuan shall be five for each province or municipality with a population of not more than 3,000,000, one additional member shall be elected for each additional 1,000,000 in a province or municipality whose population is over 3,000,000
Those to be elected from Mongolian leagues and banners
Those to be elected from Tibet
Those to be elected by various racial groups in frontier regions
Those to be elected by Chinese citizens residing abroad
Those to be elected by occupational groups

The number of women to be elected under the provinces, municipalities, and other items shall be prescribed by law. Based on the census calculations, at the time the citizen population of China numbered at 461 million,^[2] in this election 773 representatives were elected. Their numbers are as follows

Elected representatives from the provinces and municipalities: 622
Elected representatives from the Mongolian leagues: 22
Elected representatives from Tibet: 15
Elected representatives by various racial groups in frontier regions: 6
Elected representatives by Chinese citizens residing abroad: 19
Elected representatives by occupational groups: 89^[3]

Campaigning

Legislative Election and Recall Law, article XII, when generating the candidates for the election, once a candidate has over 3000 voters' signatures or has been nominated by the party as a candidate, they may begin campaigning. Those who have failed will not be allowed to campaign. Overseas Chinese and occupational groups can only campaign if they have the required number of voters. Because the constitution had just been promulgated, opposition was small, and most of the nominated candidates were from the Nationalist Party.

Election process

As a process of constitutional succession, before the establishment of the elected government, in accordance with the "End of Political Tutelage Procedure Law", the first Legislative and National Assembly election is to be organized by the National Government. In accordance with the "National Assembly and Legislative Yuan Election Ordinance" from 25 June 1947, the National Government are to establish general elections at the central government office and around the various provinces, municipalities, and counties. In 1948, from 21 to 23 January, the country's 47 provinces, municipalities, 18 Mongolian leagues, Tibetan area, domestic occupational groups, women's organisations, and overseas Chinese regions, making up nearly 200 million voters voted for their legislators. Because of the Chinese Civil War, the elections could not be held in Communist controlled areas, the National government, through the supplementary regulations, had the people living nearest to the areas elect representation for the areas.

Because the Chinese Communist Party refused to participate in the election, only the Chinese Nationalist Party, China Democratic Socialist Party, Chinese Youth Party, and other small party and independents participated. In the election, all citizens who had gone through citizen registration at least 20 years old could vote using the "radio, anonymous, secret" voting system. Not counting the small groups like the occupational groups and the ethnic minority groups, only those who were close to the ballot offices could participate. If using an average 30% between all of the provinces of citizens who have registered, it is estimated that 150 million people participated. Although the turn-out rate was low, this session of the Legislative Yuan and National Assembly remains to date the only session of the Greater China region that has been directly elected.

Also, Sinkiang Province had 6 seats, but 1 seat of the Yitaasan district was reserved to elected, so only 5 were elected from the province; Tibet Area originally was given 5 seats, but because the Kashag did not report the list on time, 3 of the Tibetan representatives in the capital filled in the seats, and Tibet had 2 vacant seats; Overseas Chinese citizens had 19 seats, but only votes from districts 6 to 13 were counted, electing 8 representatives with 11 vacancies. In total, there were 14 vacancies.

Aftermath

In 1948, 759 members were elected to the first Legislative Yuan under the rule of the recently promulgated Constitution of the Republic of China. The members convened of their own accord on 8 May in the National Assembly Hall of Nanking and held six preparatory meetings during which Ko Sun (son of Sun Yat-sen) and Li-fu Chen were elected president and vice president respectively. On 18 May, the first meeting of the first session of the first Legislative Yuan officially inaugurated 21 standing committees in operation.

1950

Owing to the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalists, led by the Kuomintang, and the Communists, led by the Chinese Communist Party, the central government was moved to Taipei in 1950. Of the 759 legislators, 380 followed the government to Taiwan. On 24 February of the same year, the remaining legislators gathered for its first meeting of the fifth session at the Sun Yat-sen Hall in Taipei. Before long the Legislative Yuan voted to revise its organization law and reduced the number of the standing committees to 12; at the same time, it set up other ad hoc committees. In 1960, the Legislative Yuan moved to its current location on Chungshan South Road.

1951

The term of the first Legislative Yuan members was supposed to have expired by May 1951, had it not been for a major national conflict that made impossible an election as required by law for the next Legislative Yuan. Accordingly, the Council of Grand Justices of the Judicial Yuan passed the No. 31 Interpretation of the Constitution to justify and legalize continuous performance of these members elected in 1948. During this extended tenure, however, 11 additional members were elected in 1969 to the Legislative Yuan according to the "Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion" to perform their functions together with those remaining members elected in 1948. This situation resulted in a de facto dictatorship led by president Chiang Kai-shek and his cabinet, which lasted until his death and continued under Yen Chia-kan and Chiang Ching-kuo. While the Legislative Yuan seldom rejected measures proposed by the Executive Yuan, it became on the few places where political dissension was formally permitted (as guaranteed by the constitution). Besides members of the Kuomintang, only members of political parties formed before 1948, such as (Chinese Youth Party and China Democratic Socialist Party) or independents were allowed to be candidates. Organized independents (tangwai, "who are outside the party") where not tolerated during this period of time.

1972

In December 1972, the Legislative Yuan was invigorated with 51 additional members of three-year term elected in accordance with the amended "temporary provisions." Subsequently, in December 1975, 52 members were elected and sworn in on 1 February in the following year. The election slated for December 1978 was suspended until 20 November 1980, because of the severance of diplomatic relations between the Republic of China and the United States of America. Yet the number of members elected in that election was increased to 97 in accordance with the "Election and Recall Law During the Period of General National Mobilization for the Suppression of Communist Rebellion". From then onward, 98 members in 1983, 100 members in 1986 and 130 members in 1989 were elected respectively and sworn in on 1 February 1984, 1987 and 1990.

1991

On 31 December 1991, all remaining veteran members elected in 1948 finally retired, and the legislative power was taken over by the 130 additional members elected in 1989.

National Assembly and Legislature Election Gallery

Because the election dates of the two elections are almost the same, it is difficult to determine which election is depicted in the pictures, as a result the pictures are placed together into the same gallery.

Boy Scouts standing in front the door of a polling office in Shanghai
Government officials explaining to people the rules of the voting process
A voter casting his vote
A group of professors of the Jiaotong University of Shanghai casting their votes
ROC soldiers in Nanking voting
A picture of city folks voting.
Commoners voting
Chiang Kai-shek voting as a commoner for Chen Yuguang
The Nationalist Party flag on the left of Sun Yat-sen's portrait has been replaced by the national flag, signaling the end of the political tutelage period.
Women from the farming villages also has received voting rights
Voting registration
President of the Examination Yuan Yu Youren casting his vote
Kuomintang party secretary Wu Tiecheng gets in line with commoners to vote

Previous and next legislative elections

There were some regime changes happened in China during the first half of the 20th century. Depending on the definition, possible previous and next elections for legislatures with similar functions are listed below.

Order	Election	Political entity	Note
Previous	1918 Chinese National Assembly election	Republic of China (1912–1949)	Elected the 2nd National Assembly under the Beiyang government
Next	1st National People's Congress	People's Republic of China	Elected the 1st National People's Congress
	1969 Taiwanese legislative election	Republic of China (on Taiwan)	Elected supplementary delegates served together with the 1st National Assembly
	1992 Taiwanese legislative election	Republic of China (on Taiwan)	Elected new delegates to form the 2nd Legislative Yuan

References

^ China's Population Reaches 461,000,000 The Washington Post (1877–1954). Washington, D.C.: 22 November 1947. p. 2.
^ China's Population Reaches 461,000,000 The Washington Post (1877–1954). Washington, D.C.: 22 November 1947. p. 2.
^ 《中華民國選舉概況》，中央選舉委員會，1984年6月，第562頁

External links

v t e Elections and referendums in the Republic of China (1912–1949)
Presidential elections	1911 1912 1913 1916 1918 1923 1948
National Assembly elections	1912 1918 1936 1947
Legislative elections	1948
Control Yuan elections	1947
Local elections	1946 1948
See also: Elections in China after 1949 Elections and referendums in Taiwan

This page was last edited on 20 August 2023, at 21:27