Talk:Grades of the armed forces of China

June 2024

Some thoughts on various elements of the article:

1. Title

The title is "Unit Grade System of the Armed Forces of China". The capitalization implies that it is an official term, but this is not supported by the closest citation () which refers to it as "grade system" or less often "grade structure" (note lower case); "unit grade system" is not used. I have only seen "grade system/structure" in my limited, English-language, reading on the matter.

Another matter is whether "Armed Forces of China" is also an official term. A cursory Google search of

"armed forces of china" OR "chinese armed forces" pdf

turns up only "armed forces of China" and "Chinese armed forces" (again, note capitalization) in English usage, unless it's a title of a work or somesuch.

Unless "Unit Grade System of the Armed Forces of China", or some other term, can be verified as being official, I propose renaming the article to the shorter and less verbose "Grades of the armed forces of China". This would mimic titles for (at least some) rank article in the form "Ranks of ..."

2. Alternate titles for the "grade system"

All alternate English/Chinese names/synonyms (Duty Grade System, Post Grade System, Leader Grade System, Leader Level System, leader grade, etc.) should only be included if they have notable usage, backed up by citations.

There doesn't seem to be much variation in English use.

3. Section "Full Structure of the Armed Forces of China (by unit grades)"

This section should be trimmed down - and appropriately renamed - to broad overviews in prose of the organization of the Chinese armed forces at the highest grades. (The PLA has a high-level organization chart, but that is PLA-only. This article has to tie into other organizations like the PAP.) An all-in-one organization chart of the Chinese armed forces is probably not what this article needs, and is probably not something that would even be appropriate for a hypothetical high-level article about the Chinese armed forces. (A "complete" org chart would be broken up across multiple articles, with the various elements being connected by web links.)

Note the grades of individual organizations in their respective articles if they exist or are notable enough. And of course, the additions should be accompanied by citations (something that is not the case in this article.)

4. Problems with verification

So lots of cases of failed verification, synthesis, and original research. I can't say how much since many sources are in Chinese and difficult for me to understand.

Examples:

• in the first section ("Basic structure and role of the grade system", which should just be renamed to "Overview") the first two paragraphs are practically unsupported by sources. The only source pertains to the last sentence of the second paragraph.
• the Civil and Korean War parts of the "History" section do not seem to verify against the sources provided.
• the data in Table 3 does not seem to verify against the source; if it does it really isn't obvious

There's also a great many Chinese-language self-published blogs being used. It would be easier to detect those if the references included the names of the authors and the publishing websites (instead of just the website's URLs.)

5. Other

References need dates added.

There are practically duplicate references, like:

References

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Those are the "major" things that I've noticed so far.

@Arrorro, any thoughts? You likely have a better feel for the article than I do, especially the Chinese-language sourced parts. - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 05:28, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

The Grade's the Thing

First, thanks for the attention and advise, it is very helpful to have detailed feedback on stuff you've working on for a while, and cannot see the trees for the forest (sic).

Title: Honestly, I have zero idea of what the ideal title is for this. The grade system is not an "official" system like a protocol list (the protocol priority is expressed in the idiosyncratic order in which institutions are listed. So, the Eastern Theater Command has seniority over the Western). It is, however, part of military law, and a common knowledge concept that they don't even bother explaining in detail in the Chinese Wikipedia. It is clearly a parallel to the system used in the civilian bureaucracy (Sub-ministerial agencies, etc, which are literally "Ministerial office deputy grade" agencies). The English literature is all over the place in terms of translation. The most popular is just "grade", or "level", or the perhaps more explanatory "leader grade", which I don't like it as it ignores the point that the grade is attached to the unit, not only its leader (it's clearer in Chinese how the grade is a thing for both the unit and the office holder). "Chinese military unit and leadership organizational doohickey"? I sincerely do not know.

That long Bureaucratic Order of Battle is, in a way, the point of the article. I started by translating the list from the Chinese wikipedia, then realized it made no sense to a Western audience without explaining what the grades actually mean. I think it does help clarify the very obscure structure of agencies other than field units. There are several lists in the English wikipedia of field units, the fun fighting ones, but the poor boring bureaucratic agencies tend not to be covered. I actually think that an Armed Forces of China whole list IS useful as a way to get a sense of the structure of the whole massive thing. Breaking it up by service or something is fine by me, though. But oh lord, it's so much work to reformat and reconfirm. I will confess that I am personally motivated by a hatred of red links. I intend to eventually fill every single red link in that list even if it's only a stub, so help me general Guan Yu.

I'll get back to you on the other points (capitalization: Germanic bad habits do stick).

Arrorro (talk) 07:13, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

I'll get to work on the refs soonish, but it will take a while. Anything to do with the Chinese armed forces is a sourcing quagmire. Some of the sources I use are inherited from the Chinese Wikipedia, they seem more forgiving other there. Some are all my own fault of mine. If any source is objectionable, let me know and I will try to dig an alternative (and probably fail). But it will take time (It's gonna take patience and time. To do it to do it to do it riiiiight)

Sorry for any problems with dates, etc, I tend to use the automatic citation app, and the poor thing doesn't seem to deal with Chinese very well. Ditto for the duplicate sources. As for the Armed Forces and Unit System thing, I tend to overcapitalize on account of not being a native English speaker and catching some bad habits from other languages. Although in this case, I sort of assumed that Wikipedia used Title Capitalization like journal articles. Rusty on Wikipedia editing rules because of a long exile on account of being on the wrong side of the Great Firewall.

The bold for non-headline organizations is a habit in the Chinese Wikipedia I didn't know was deprecated in the English one. The more I think about the title, the more I lean towards biting the 5.8mm bullet and just go for "Leader-grade system of the Chinese armed forces/armed forces of China/armed forces of the People's Republic of China", whatever fits the naming conventions these days (I am so old, I remember when the wumao got angry if you DIDN'T refer to Taiwan as the "Republic of China") My heart still doesn't like leader grade and would prefer "Organizational grade structure, unit grade", or something unit-centered. When even dance troupes (when they still had them) received a grade, I feel the translation should indicate how the grade marks the orgs' nature. Arrorro (talk) 16:39, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

1. Title

I like "Grades of the armed forces of China" as the title because it mostly avoids judging - or requiring us to judge - which term is "correct". The only salient term used is "grade", which is an existing term used to describe military organization. "Organizational grade structure" seems redundant. Sort of like "ranks", "grades" already imply some sort of structure/levels/organization. Various notable synonyms can always be included/explained in the lede (or even expanded to its own section), so there's no pressure to overload the title

6. Lede

With that title, the lede might (emphasis on might) look like:

The organization of the armed forces of the People's Republic of China is based on grades. Each organization, billet, and officer has a grade. Grade assignments flow from the organization's grade. For example, the grade of a unit commander billet is the same as the unit's, and the officer in that billet receives that grade. An officer's authority and career progress is indicated primarily by grade. From 1988 to 2021, a range of officer ranks could be found at each grade. The 2021 reforms associated each grade to one rank.

A second paragraph might describe the notable synonyms. I would caution

A final paragraph might be:

The grades are aligned with those used by the civil service.

Only the second paragraph would need robust referencing; the rest should mirror/summarize the content in the body.

3. Section "Full Structure of the Armed Forces of China (by unit grades)"; scope of the article

I actually think that an Armed Forces of China whole list IS useful as a way to get a sense of the structure of the whole massive thing

I think that's far beyond the scope of this article. This article is about what grades are and how they work.

Expand org charts - to one or two levels of subordination - in other articles (theater commands, major headquarters or admin bodies, etc.). That's how it's done elsewhere on Wikipedia. That also minimizes duplication and resulting maintenance required.

Also, a number of the red-linked article seem of marginal notability, or at least not notable enough to have their own articles. Most would be better as subsections of their parent organization articles. (For example, "bureaus of the CMC Joint Staff Department"; just have subsections for each bureau in the JSD article.) Subsections can always be expanded into their own articles later if the amount of content calls for that.

4. Problems with verification

Sources I would consider questionable include:

• https://www.163.com/dy/article/DSK9E0PQ0523K0V6.html
• https://www.163.com/dy/article/HO7TAM1L0543GX5X.html

These look like self-pub blogs by non-experts, or otherwise not writing for a reputable publisher. - RovingPersonalityConstruct (talk, contribs) 20:23, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Okay, we have a plan. Doing it step by step.

Actually, the second half (which as a said, was the original article), the usefulness in the Chinese wikipedia is that the grade of every organization linked to the table at the same level, allowing for comparison of other units at the same grade. I like that.

But never mind that, this is a good segue for another issue. Some of the Ordbats in the theaters are out of date, the ones in the individual services's theaters are more up to date. Not surprising if you think about it, the editors willing to curate that data will be the gear heads with interest in the details of one of the services (plane guys/gals, boat guys/gals), and the overall theater is neglected. I was thinking of putting the large units (group army level) at the Theater page and the details (down to brigades and divisions) on the service theater pages. But then I remembered, isn't there a wikitrick to clone a section, so that if you edit that it will update in all other pages? I seem to remember seeing that once. Have you heard of it? I'll look in the help pages, but I suck at... well, everything. It would simplify the update issue and concentrate the fights of whether the PLAAF has 40 or 400 J-20s on one or two pages only.

Arrorro (talk) 07:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)