The first time zone plan was proposed by the Central Observatory (now Beijing Ancient Observatory) of the Beiyang government in Peking (Beijing) in 1918.
The proposal divided the country into five time zones: Kunlun (UTC+05:30), Sinkiang-Tibet (UTC+06:00), Kansu-Szechwan (UTC+07:00), Changhua (UTC+08:00) and Chinghai (UTC+08:30).
These time zones were ratified in 1939 by the Nationalist government in the Standard Time Conference, hosted by the Ministry of Interior of Executive Yuan.
After the war in 1945, these five times zones were implemented national widely.
The term Changhua Standard Time (中原標準時間) was still used by the Government of the Republic of China on Taiwan until the early 2000s.