East Asian Heads of State and Government

This group holds heads of state and government of China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea and Taiwan. It covers constitutional monarchs, elected presidents and prime ministers, and paramount leaders who governed without holding a country's most senior formal title, such as a ruling party's own chairman. The region is kept separate from South and Southeast Asia and from the Middle East and Central Asia because its constitutional traditions, one-party structures and succession practices differ sharply from its neighbors.