Does Taiwan’s Constitution Still Claim Mainland China?
The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no. Taiwan’s constitutional framework retains language and legislation that distinguish the Taiwan Area from the Mainland Area, but the ROC government does not exercise governmental authority over mainland China.
The key distinction is between a constitutional territorial framework, effective governmental control, and the current political position of Taiwan’s elected authorities.
The clearest historical evidence comes from the ROC Constitution, its Additional Articles, the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, and official statements from Taiwan’s former administrations.
What does the original Constitution say?
The 1947 Constitution was written for the Republic of China as a state intended to govern China as a whole.
Article 4 states that the territory of the ROC, according to its “existing national boundaries,” may not be altered except through the constitutional procedure specified in the original text. However, it does not provide a complete list of the territory’s components. In 1993, the Council of Grand Justices held that delimiting the national territory was a major political question beyond judicial review under the constitutional framework then before it.
This is important for two reasons:
The original Constitution did not simply replace its nationwide territorial framework after the ROC government lost control of mainland China.
The wording of Article 4 does not, by itself, provide a simple, exhaustive map of the territory claimed under the present constitutional system.
What changed in the constitutional reforms of 1991–1992?
The turning point came when Taiwan began dismantling the emergency constitutional arrangements associated with the civil war and adapting its institutions to the population it actually governed.
The 1991 Additional Articles introduced a constitutional framework centred on the Free Area of the Republic of China. Subsequent reforms established direct presidential elections and made further provisions for constitutional amendments and changes to national territory. The first direct presidential election took place in 1996.
The 1992 Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area then provided a statutory framework for managing cross-strait relations.
This did not amount to a straightforward constitutional declaration that mainland China was a foreign country. Instead, the ROC retained its constitutional identity while developing a special legal system for relations across the Strait.
What does “one ROC, two areas” mean?
Former ROC administrations explicitly used the formulation “one Republic of China, two areas.”
The Mainland Affairs Council explained in March 2012 that the formula reflected the ROC Constitution and the 1992 Act. It defined the Taiwan Area as Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other areas under the government's effective control; the Mainland Area referred to the territory of the ROC outside the Taiwan Area.
The distinction was between claimed constitutional territory and the territory over which the government actually exercised authority.
One Republic of China
The ROC's continuing constitutional identity and legal framework.Two areas
Taiwan Area: territory under the ROC government's effective control.
Mainland Area: territory outside that effective control, classified separately under the ROC's cross-strait legislation.
This was the ROC government's constitutional interpretation. It should not be confused with Beijing's position that Taiwan is part of the PRC, nor treated as a mutually agreed settlement of sovereignty.
Did former ROC administrations explicitly claim constitutional sovereignty over the mainland?
Yes. The historical record is clear on this point.
In a 2011 address, President Ma Ying-jeou stated that mainland China remained within the ROC's “existing national boundaries” under the 1947 Constitution, while explaining that the ROC government exercised governing authority only in the Taiwan Area. He described the cross-strait relationship as a special relationship under the ROC constitutional framework rather than a conventional relationship between two states.
In 2012, the Mainland Affairs Council similarly stated that the ROC Constitution's territorial framework included Taiwan and the mainland, while the government exercised authority only in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.
In 2013, the Council again described cross-strait relations as “one Republic of China, two areas,” while asserting that the ROC was a sovereign and independent country.
These statements establish what those administrations officially maintained. They do not, by themselves, establish that the PRC or other governments accepted the ROC's territorial interpretation.
Does this mean Taiwan's current government claims to govern mainland China?
That requires a distinction between the constitutional framework and the present government's political position.
The constitutional text and cross-strait legislation remain relevant, but an administration's interpretation and policy statements must also be examined in their own historical context. The “one ROC, two areas” formula was particularly prominent under the Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou administrations, though those administrations differed significantly in their broader approaches to national identity and cross-strait relations.
It would therefore be inaccurate to treat every historical statement by an ROC president as a complete description of the current government's political outlook. Equally, it would be inaccurate to say that constitutional reform simply erased all references to mainland China.
The enduring issue is that Taiwan's legal system evolved incrementally: it adapted governmental authority and democratic representation to the territory it controlled without replacing the entire constitutional framework.
What is the constitutional contradiction?
Three realities coexist:
Dimension | Position |
|---|---|
Constitutional continuity | The ROC Constitution remains in force, including Article 4's territorial language. |
Effective control | The ROC government does not administer mainland China. |
Cross-strait legal framework | ROC legislation continues to distinguish the Taiwan Area from the Mainland Area. |
These are not necessarily contradictory as a matter of legal description: a government can maintain a territorial claim without exercising control over the claimed territory. But they create a persistent tension between inherited constitutional language, political reality and competing claims of sovereignty.
The ROC framework is also not the same as Beijing's claim. The ROC's historical position centred on the continuity of the Republic of China; the PRC asserts that the People's Republic is the sole legitimate government of China and that Taiwan is part of China. The two governments' claims cannot be merged into a single agreed constitutional arrangement.
Historically, yes: the ROC constitutional framework retained a territorial claim encompassing mainland China, and former administrations explicitly described the arrangement as “one ROC, two areas.” The constitutional reforms of the 1990s did not simply remove the mainland from every part of the ROC's legal framework.
But three qualifications are essential:
A constitutional territorial claim is not the same as effective governmental control.
The former administrations' “one ROC, two areas” formula was an ROC interpretation, not an agreed cross-strait settlement.
The continued existence of constitutional language does not mean every present-day administration gives it the same political emphasis.
The central question is therefore not merely whether the ROC Constitution still contains a territorial claim. It is how that inherited constitutional framework should be interpreted in light of Taiwan's democratic development, its actual jurisdiction and the unresolved political dispute across the Taiwan Strait.
By Jugo Ikeji Uju
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