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Separate articles - PRC and China

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Why are there two articles? Is China not China? How a country evolves is irrelevant. We didn't start with 50 states; Germany wasn't Germany until Bismarck.--THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^TALK 19:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this question comes up all the time. The Talk:China page probably has the most recent discussion and was possibly close to resolving to one article before everything there got sidetracked by a disruptive troll intent on a separate issue. The reason for two articles is because of the historical strength of the KMT position (that China cannot mean PRC as long as the ROC exists) among early Wikipedia editors. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

It a very complex situation, not only here on Wikipedia, but also out in the world. Everyone has their own view of what China is. For my grandfather: China to him is the old Republic of China days with a hint of Empire and the old chinese customs and traditions; For my father (although never did like the communists at all): China to him is the People's Republic of China and the economic growth; For me, China is my cultural homeland (Chinese civilization) although my primary identity is Canadian and my loyalties lie only with Canada. Keeping the articles separate allows for more or less stable articles in the sense that the States are separated from the Land, the Culture, and the Civilization and allowing for most viewpoints to be respected and to a degree included. That's my 2₵. (and obviously someone might object or disagree with my points and they have every right to.) nat.utoronto 09:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I could be considered as a 'Chinese Canadian' - my parents are Chinese immigrants and I was born and lived here all my life. I never really thought of myself as a "Canadian patriot" -- (Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, as they say), instead I tend to think of myself as a world citizen. You could say my loyalty lies with the whole of mankind, not one country. Anyway, to answer the question, it's better to view the China article as one primarily talking about Chinese civilization. As said above, the motivation of KMT sympathizers may have something to do with it and wikipedia is by and large written by amateurs, so you're obviously going to find a lot comical decisions being made about how to arrange articles. 13:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pennstar (talk • contribs)

While I understand China can mean certain things to different people, I think almost anyone that actually searches for China casually on Wikipedia is probably focused on the country (and specifically the PRC). Those that want to find the Republic of China would probably search for the Republic of China specifically. At the minimum, a disambiguation page should be provided, rather than a redirect straight to an article on Chinese civilization. I am Iranian, and the article on Iran has to do with Iran the nation-state, whereas the article on Persia or the article on Greater Iran or Iranian culture are more appropriate for articles on "Iranian civilization." I don't really think this decision is wise. -Rosywounds (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

There have been many discussions on the China talkpage and there is no consensus to move the link "China" to a disabiguation page. As I've stated before, the current setup is the most stable we've had for months. nat.utoronto 23:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

A dab page has been rejected. But moving China elsewhere and making PRC=China has always had merit. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Merit, yes...consensus, no. nat.utoronto 00:09, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with User Rosywounds. "China" should be the article for the PRC. When I went to view the China article, I was highly surprised it did not link to the current internationally recognised Chinese State, as it would for most countries. I am not Chinese but it seems distinctly insulting to Chinese people that their State is not linked to "China". Largely the same problem applies in respect of the "Ireland" article. To read about the Irish State, one has to look up "Republic of Ireland" which is not even the name of the country. There will never be consensus on the China or Ireland articles. It's simply too political. To seek consensus is therefore not realistic. The net result is that Wikipedia looses credibility. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Redking7 (talk • contribs) 22:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The fact that "it's simply too political" is why the pages are arranged as they currently are today. There has been consensus on this issue before, and that consensus has been to set up the pages this way. What hasn't gained consensus are the motions to have China be the article for the PRC. You may think that it's "insulting" not to have it this way, but there are others who also think it's "insulting" the other way too (otherwise consensus on those motions would have already been gained). The current arrangement of the articles is the state that has been the most stable because it has been the best able to reflect the geo-political situation surrounding China in an NPOV manner. This has been the consensus. —Umofomia (talk) 23:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Umofomia. The way they are arranged is "too political"! It reflects clear bias against China and is highly POV. Ask the man on the street which country is China - not even you, I suspect, would say that he would point to Taiwan!. Its all pure nonsense. As for consensus: its not democracy - it allows minorities to be dictate things. Redking7 (talk) 20:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

As I had brought this up last week, I concur. Anyone that is looking up China is looking for the PRC. This arrangement was devised with politics entirely in mind; simply because you disagree with the Chinese (yes, Chinese) government does not mean you are right here. In colloquial speech, the PRC is China. In formal speech, the PRC would probably still gain more recognition as "China" than Taiwan or any other state. This arrangement is entirely political. Wikipedia is not an ideological platform either, or a democracy as the above user has pointed out. Moreover, this adds undue weight to Taiwan ("The Republic of China"), since virtually no major state or international entity in the world recognizes Taiwanese sovereignty entirely. Rightly so, Palestine does not redirect to the completely unrecognized Palestinian territories and the Tibet article refers to the region within China (yes, China), rather than the autonomous political region that wants independence. On the other hand, Israel links to the modern nation-state, instead of the Kingdom of Israel. Not only is this arrangement unjustified by common sense and Wikipedia policy, but it also isn't even backed up by precedents that have already been set in other nation-state articles! Putting the ROC on equal footing with the POC is not only impractical and unhelpful in terms of article organization, but is simply a complete violation of WP:undue weight and WP:POV in general. The world recognizes the PRC as China, even if there are many that find such recognition unfortunate. IMO, I can't even fathom how a consensus managed to pass this; this arrangement is simply silly. No colloquial and fully recognized nation-state's name redirects to a civilization page (particularly since these such articles are absolutely vital and receive a high number of hits) and, in case you didn't realize, the colloquial name of the Republic of China in the English language isn't even China; it's Taiwan, particularly in the post-Cold War context! Until this consensus is overturned, this page will continue to be bombarded by Wikipedians that are completely aghast as to how such a ridiculous article arrangement made its way through. -Rosywounds (talk) 06:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Please review the old talk page archive. Many of your points, have already been debated by quite a number of wikipedians in the past. At least 3 or 4 archives are filled with this discussion. Benjwong (talk) 06:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is china a communist country?

Someone please tell me!!!!!!!!!!

tell me

—Preceding unsigned comment added by The1edit (talk • contribs) 01:04, March 5, 2008

The People's Republic of China is only a communist state in name. nat.utoronto 01:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree with nat.u on this one. It is important to note that the term communism does not refer to a single political ideology, rather it refers to a spectrum of sociopolitical ideologies centered around communist/socialist economics. Schools of communism range in sociopolitical character from totalitarian (Stalinists, Trotskites, Leninist-Maoists and alike) to statist (Marxists) right through to anti-authoritarian in character (libertarian-communists, anarchist-communists, anarchist-collectivists and alike). However if one where to remove the communist/socialist economy of a so-called communist STATE (which by definition must involve one of the more authoritarian 'flavors' of communism) and replace it with capitalism (as has the 'peoples republic' of china) you would simply be left with fascism which is precisely what China now is. In fact many of the so-called communist states of the past century degraded (and pretty quickly at that) into a form of state capitalism not in keeping with communist ideologies (at least not to my mind) in part due to the many vagaries inherent of early Marxism (chiefly an adequate definition of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat') perhaps even to to a fundamental incompatibility between a presiding/authoritarian state and a truly free communist society (at least that's what we anarcho-communists hold to). Anubeon (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I want to share about the tibet invasion, and the violation on human rigths —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.39.0.158 (talk) 14:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

So get a blog. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest Blogspot or WordPress. nat.utoronto 05:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The People's Republic of China has a hybrid system... politically, it is very similar to other communist states, but it has a more open economy than the USSR, for example. Jekman (talk) 17:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese Characters not needed

My concern is that because Macau and HK are parts of China, we should add traditional characters as well. According to this kind of thought, then shouldn't we add Uyghur, Korean, Tibetan, and Mongolian as well because they are parts of China too? Unless there are Simplified Chinese characters on the Republic of China article page as well (because the Kuomintang still claims mainland China and even Mongolia as part of the ROC), there is no need for traditional characters. In addition, it annoys me that in both the HK and Macau articles, only Traditional characters are used, but when it comes to the People's Republic of China, there is a need for both "because of HK and Macau." Well, who governs who? The SARs govern the PR of China or the PR of China governs the SARs?Sky Divine (talk) 03:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. There is much more pressure from the traditional characters camp than the other way around. The same is with Hanyu Pinyin usage. Simplified characters and Hanyu Pinyin are mercilessly deleted on HK pages. --Atitarev (talk) 05:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the assertion that Traditional Chinese is not needed. The Hong Kong article, along the Republic of China, the People's Republic of China, Macau, and Taiwan articles all conform to the guidelines set out at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language)#Simplified and Traditional. nat.utoronto 05:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

And the "who governs who" argument is not relevant to this discussion as clearly simplified Chinese is not in official use within the SAR, while, traditional Chinese is in use within the People's Republic of China. nat.utoronto 05:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

So now what? Do we just go ahead and remove it? Sky Divine (talk) 03:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

No. we leave it alone. nat.utoronto 17:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The fight usually starts from the traditional camp side - they seem to be too protective. Nat, although trad. characters may be used, they are not official. The official script is only simplified. They don't seem to be that sensitive though about the usage of traditional script, as HKers and Taiwanese are. In my opinion, if PRC related pages may have trad. script (below the simplified), then other Chinese regions may also have simplified (below the trad.), as simple as that. --Atitarev (talk) 03:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese is in official use in the People's Republic of China as they are official in the Special Administrative Regions, while Simplified Chinese is restricted to only the mainland. That is the reason why both scripts are included in this article, but aren't included in the infoboxes of the articles Hong Kong and Macau. However, both scripts are included within the first paragraph of the articles per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language)#Simplified and Traditional. It's as simple as that. nat.utoronto 12:46, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

If there's a disagreement about whether or not to include Traditional characters in this article, then discuss it here. Please don't drag the disagreement to other articles.[1][2] There is a long established standard of not using Simplified characters on Hong Kong and Macau. If anybody would like to change that, please bring it up in discussion in their respective Talk pages instead of making the edit unilaterally. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"The long established practice" is in merciless deletion of any simplified characters in HK/Macau pages. That's my observation. --Atitarev (talk) 08:33, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That is partially untrue. They are merciless when it comes to the infobox, but according to a few dictionaries I have at home, the Traditional Characters and the Simplified Characters for the words "Hong Kong" and "Macau" are essentially the same. nat.utoronto 12:49, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Never mind about what I said about Macau, the "mén" part is written differently.... nat.utoronto 12:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I know. Not only Macau's last character but the full name for both is slightly different. To confirm my comment, see the last edit reversal on Hong Kong page (I haven't added the simplified version). It had 香港特别行政区 + 香港特別行政區. The simplified version was killed, as if it was damaging HK's image. I am not surprised somebody does the same thing with the PRC page, although I don't support this war.

In my opinion, the usage of both scripts should be equal and should be respected. Both are informative and useful. Deleting either just shows arrogance and personal preference. HK, Macau and Taiwan pages should have traditional at the top, the PRC the simplified at the top. How about having a vote on this? --Atitarev (talk) 23:38, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

No. Wikipedia is not a democracy. And I've said over and over again, the infobox includes only the scripts that are in official use (i.e. PRC infobox includes TC and SC as both are in official use within the PRC, HK, Macau, Taiwan, and the ROC infoboxes should only include TC as it is in official use while use while SC is not) TC and SC are to be included in the first paragraph of all the articles listed above. nat.utoronto 00:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Please provide reference that TS is in official use in the PRC. If it's not TS should be deleted from the PRC infobox. --Atitarev (talk) 01:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Find one here. Hope you guys can read it because it is in Chinese.Chris! _ct 03:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link but there is nothing to support your point, Chris, quite the reverse: 规范汉字是指经过整理简化的字和未经整理简化的传承字。 roughly the meaning is that the simplified characters are being the standard + the characters, which haven't yet been simplified (i. e. unchanged). (yet was used because another stage was planned but never carried out)--Atitarev (talk) 04:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The Macau government uses TC, so does the HK government, therefore, it is in official use in the PRC. Yes, there is a simplified portion of the HK website, however the characters used on the main intro page is Traditional Chinese Characters. As well, both SAR emblems only have TC Image:Coat of arms of Macao.svg and Image:Hong Kong SAR Regional Emblem.svg. nat.utoronto 03:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

For the people desperately trying to push simplified characters to HK and Macau pages, those character sets have NEVER been part of the territory's history. Traditional characters however was a part of PRC's history probably for its first 10 years. I have at least one source that claim the first truly successful communist party campaign to use full simplified character set did not take place until the 1974 Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius. If this holds true it gives you an idea of how unsuccessful simplified chars were for 2 decades. Benjwong (talk) 02:12, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Map of ethnic groups in China should be placed back

Someone removed this map from the Demographics section. I think it should be placed back (in the Demographics section) to show the ethnic diversity of China. --unsigned

Ethnolinguistic map of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan)

• This map isn't accurate (or very biased). Xinjiang should be 45-50% Han (all over the region, not just in some parts), but instead the map has it being mostly Turkic and Mongolian. Similarly, 80% of Inner Mongolia is Han, but the map has all of it under Mongolian. It's more of a historic populations map than an actual PRC ethnic composition map.--Naus (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Population density

Hello. It says it has a pop. density of 140 but this isn't correct. If you use the figures currently on his wikipage, you'd get 137. If you use the latest figured, you'd get 137.7 = 138. This can no way be 140 ;) Wob-Wob (talk) 09:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Municipality question

Hi, is an entire municipality of the PRC considered the actual city, or just the built-up, smaller, city like area within it? For example, do the towns in Jinshan District of Shanghai consider themselves to be part of Shanghai city or Shanghai municipality, and if so, would that make "Shanghai, China" actually "Shanghai, Shanghai, China"? The same for "Chongqing, Chongqing, China"? --Joowwww (talk) 21:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

environment

I've seen notes about the country's environmental challenges interspersed thoroughout the article, but no section devoted to it, which is certainly appropriate. What say to consolidating most environmental problems to a new section?--Loodog (talk) 20:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Macau and other parts of southern China in the Dutch Empire

Hello everyone! There is a discussion at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map, because user Red4tribe has made a map of the Dutch Empire (Image:Dutch Empire 4.png) that includes Macau and other parts of southern China. Would you like to comment? Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 15:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

New Map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dutch_Empire_new.PNG (Red4tribe (talk) 16:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Still OR, POV and unsourced. The Ogre (talk) 16:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/ all references listed (Red4tribe (talk) 16:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Still OR, POV and unsourced. Please discuss stuff at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map. This was just a request for comment, not a discussion. Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 16:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/ http://www.colonialvoyage.com/biblioDAfrica.html (Red4tribe (talk) 16:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

Still OR, POV and unsourced (yours is not not a credible source). Please discuss stuff at Talk:Dutch Empire#Request For Comment: Map. This was just a request for comment, not a discussion. Thank you. The Ogre (talk) 16:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.colonialvoyage.com/
http://www.colonialvoyage.com/biblioDAfrica.html (credible source) (Red4tribe (talk) 16:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC))

interwiki

Please add gd:Sluagh-Phoblachd na Sìne to this article, thanks --84.63.21.106 (talk) 09:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested move/RFC

• Talk:China/DiscussRM