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Naming convention link

The banner at the top of this talk page includes Talk:Republic of China/article guidelines, which includes the sentence "# Remember to adhere to the naming conventions listed here: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Republic of China, Taiwan, and variations thereof", but the referenced section does not appear to exist. Was this naming convention repealed? Can someone more knowledgeable fix the link?--Boson (talk) 10:51, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussions about the article name basically led to the conclusion that the existing guide was rubbish and no longer represented consensus (if it ever had), hence it was removed recently. Given that it suggested that "Taiwan" was only to be used in respect of specific references to the main island itself and pretty much never for the broader geopolitical entity, it was clearly a nonsense formulation, and one that would become even more absurd if the proposed move/switch above goes ahead. I guess we need a new one. Broadly, that should be the opposite of the old one - Taiwan should be the preferred term for the state as a whole, even often when used in direct contradistinction to (mainland) China; with references to Taiwan island and Republic of China only when more geographic specificity is required or more technical, political issues come up in a formal context respectively.N-HH talk/edits 11:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. The "existing guide" was attacked because it insisted on WP:NPOV which in turn meant Wikipedia not supporting PRC claims to ROC territory (and vice versa). There was no consensus for its removal. The attackers are now calling for "Taiwan" over here because it is more suggestive of provincial status subordinate to Beijing.--Brian Dell (talk) 09:29, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

How strange. One of the major objections to this move is that it supports "Taiwanese independence", which would be the opposite to suggesting it is subordinate to Beijing. This clearly demonstrates why we should ignore what political implications we think titles will have. CMD (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. And @Brian Dell, I know perfectly well why I, at least, objected to those guidelines - as do you, because I explained it above, and on previous occasions. It was simply that they flew in the face of usage elsewhere - it had nothing to do with trying to subvert npov or taking sides in the real-world political dispute. Please don't try to suggest that I'm either wrong or lying, at least about my own motives. Nor, as it happens, do I detect such naked politics behind the actions and statements of others who opposed them. In fact, it's quite clear where the politics is actually coming into this broader debate from.N-HH talk/edits 13:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I stand by my contention that you mischaracterized NC-TW when you claimed that, under NC-TW, Taiwan was to be used "pretty much never..." Besides calling for the PRC to go under "C" and the ROC to go under "T" when "alphabetizing countries," the old NC-TW guideline said "Republic of China" should be used in "political contexts" involving descriptions of "the existing governments or regimes" particularly when "imprecise" terms would be problematic. This is a minority of contexts. "Taiwan bought such-and-such" or "So-and-so visited Taiwan" were not precluded by NC-TW. I grant that the possibility that the call for ROC usage was either too broad or was in practice being applied too broadly. But you declared the entirety of NC-TW "rubbish" when the primary focus of NC-TW is to warn POV pushers against advancing claims by either the ROC or the PRC to territory controlled by the other (note its placement in the "Political NPOV" section). If the point was not to attack this primary raison d'être of NC-TW a rewording or rephrasing could have been proposed instead of deletion.--Brian Dell (talk) 21:44, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

You're still making inappropriate assumptions about the motivations and intentions of people involved in the action. I think most participants would agree that the goal was to remove material that did not reflect consensus, and replace it with material that did. From what I can gather, you would have preferred the section remain in the guideline and be re-written inline, whereas other editors preferred the section be removed, a discussion held over how to fix it, then have it reinserted once it did reflect consensus. Your accusation that people wanted to open the door for POV pushers and to attack the section's purpose is completely unfounded given there's a discussion going right now on what would be a suitable replacement here, in which you can plainly see the people you accuse of wanting to effectively kill off the guideline are participating (and in some cases supporting the proposed new text). But you know this because you've participated in that discussion yourself, so why you continue to mis-characterise people's intentions is beyond me. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 22:13, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

(@Brian Dell - EC) And you never said above that I "mischaracterised" the guideline, so I don't see how you can now "stand by" that contention; indeed, this is the first time you've made that accusation. What I was responding to was your equally unevidenced claims about people's motives - that they attacked it because they disliked its insistence on NPOV and that their aim was to encourage usage that implied Taiwan's subordination to Beijing. I objected to that because it is an untruth. As to the new, mischaracterisation point, I don't know if we're looking at different things. This is the one I was referring to. The rival claims and equal status points are simply the first paragraph of the guidelines. But there's then ten times as much text following, about other matters. Your quote, from the introductory points there, does indeed pretty much deprecate using Taiwan in the general way the rest of the world uses it in 2012, ie for the state. The convention also does that explicitly in the next sentence- "the side-by-side usage of the terms "China" and "Taiwan" in a political context (phrases such as "China warns Taiwan") should generally be avoided". Then, in the columns, it is very clear that "ROC" is to be used for the state and that "Taiwan" should only be used to refer to geography and the main island itself. That's the thread that runs through the old guidelines, and, yes, I and others have a problem with it. I see neither mischaracterisation of the guidelines nor base motives on the part of those opposed to them here. And, btw, I agree that any new guidelines should almost certainly have an NPOV guarantee of some sort. N-HH talk/edits 22:26, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

If you are entitled to allege where the "politics is actually coming" from I'm equally entitled, no? I responded to your statement that I not "suggest" that you're "wrong" by explaining in more detail why your "rubbish"ing of NC-TW remained "wrong" in my view. You repeat your contention that under NC-TW it was "very clear" that "'Taiwan' should only be used to refer to geography..." but it was, in fact, far from clear that usage was so restricted. There was indeed a "thread" running through the "old guidelines", but the theme was more oriented towards protecting Republic of China-related articles from POV editing in a background where the PRC does not recognize its existence, than trying to indiscriminately stamp out the use of "Taiwan." This theme is now absent from proposed replacements I've seen.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:54, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Er, but I only said that in response to your original accusation about politics. So, no, you're not "equally entitled". For want of a better phrase, you started it. As for the guideline content itself, you and I must be reading different things. Under the columns for ROC, ROC(T), Taiwan etc, ROC comes first. That column says to use ROC "When referring to the state in article space", among other occasions. It then offers occasions when it calls for ROC(T), again focusing on references to the state. Then, thirdly, it offers the time when you should use Taiwan - in only three cases, without mentioning "state" once. Namely for "a geographic location on the island", "an origin in the context of a geographical location" or "a subect specific to the island of Taiwan". Could that be more clear and more "wrong", when compared to real-world common use? N-HH talk/edits 01:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If you feel you are entitled to the last word on the matter, fine, you can have it. To focus on the issue, I don't agree that the "only" you find in the text actually exists. What was restricted by an "only" was the use of "Taiwan province," not "Taiwan." If someone means to say "use X only if Y" instead of "use X if Y" he or she will use "only" or similarly restrictive language. This isn't to say that stuff like "referring to the state in article space after appropriate disambiguation has been given" couldn't be reworded or eliminated (obviously the meaning of this must be limited since otherwise other specific points like "When referring to the pre-1949 Republic..." would be rendered redundant, already covered by the broad point) but to say the most consequential restriction in NC-TW was "Text should not imply that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China. Text should not imply that mainland China, Hong Kong, and/or Macau are part of the Republic of China." NC-TW appeared under a "Political NPOV" section, note a "Names..." section.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:18, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm just trying to clarify that politics has nothing to do with it for me. I'm not that fussed or insulted at the end of the day, but it's just wrong, and it seems rather pointless for you to keep insisting on it. I note as well that others have taken you to task on this accusation. Thanks for stopping. Given that the NC stands for "Naming Convention" I also don't quite get your insistence that the main focus of the convention was that one sentence on NPOV in susbtantive text, rather than names and terms. The title and the content - including the parts I highlighted - make quite clear what the main bulk of the convention was looking at. Also I don't see the absence of "only" as being quite as significant as you're trying to make it out to be in terms of drafting. The "use A if B, use X if Y"-type construction we have there doesn't need an "only", except for emphasis or to outright exclude the occasional deviation that most rules will sensibly allow for otherwise. It's implicit. As it is that WP should strive to maintain NPOV. Anyway, this is all rather moot, as we've since moved on. N-HH talk/edits 15:44, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

This discussion doesn't belong on this page, but I don't see how the rewritten guidelines should be any different from the rewritten "China" guidelines implemented shortly after the merge of People's Republic of China into China. That is, we will allow Taiwan to be used as a conventional short form (as opposed to the explicit prohibition under the old guidelines) in most contexts, while suggesting the use of Republic of China in contexts where doing so would be more accurate, as it done in scholarly reliable sources.--Jiang (talk) 11:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Boson's issue was that the 4th entry of Talk:Republic of China/article guidelines/list points at a section that no longer exists. Perhaps that entry should be removed until replacement guidelines achieve consensus. Kanguole 11:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. John Smith's (talk) 12:00, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Locator map

Location of the Republic of China in Southeast Asia

Location of Wuchiu (right) and Kinmen (left)

Can anyone help edit the first map to the right, which is currently displayed in the infobox of this article? The island of Wuchiu isn't highlighted in this map. Jeffrey (202.189.98.141) (talk) 19:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Someone else just highlighted it.C933103 (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for telling. It's funny that Kanguole amended it but didn't respond here. Jeffrey (202.189.98.132) (talk) 08:55, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

Main page: Talk:Taiwan/Archive 20

To stop any more tampering with the requested move discussion, I have moved it to Talk:Republic_of_China/Archive_20, which has been protected from editing until the closing admins have processed it.--Aervanath (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

ANY EDITOR WHO TRIES TO REVERT THIS WILL BE BLOCKED FROM EDITING WITHOUT FURTHER WARNING. I hate to be so heavy-handed, but this is not a normal situation.--Aervanath (talk) 23:45, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Materialscientist has also offered to block any of those edit warring, however now that the archive is protected, there will not be more edits happening there. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Further more discussions related to Requested Move (February 2012)

Responses to the closing comments

• "WP:NPOV Is the proposed title a point of view in favour of ROC nationalists, ROC reunificationists or the PRC?" Shall we add Taiwanese independence advocates, and the US State Department (which is bounded by its Taiwan Relations Act and the Three Joint Communiqués)? (202.189.98.136) (talk) 12:54, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Jeffrey. The proposed move is in the hands of the admins now. They will make their decision based on the discussion that is now closed. You can shut up take a break about it now instead of saying the same old things. --Taivo (talk) 15:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Taivo, telling someone to "shut up" is not WP:CIVIL. However, Jeffrey, he is correct that it is way too early to respond to the "closing comments"; these are just our drafting notes, they are not binding in any way, shape or form and it is not appropriate to start responding to them. Please wait until we are done with our deliberations. Thank you, --Aervanath (talk) 20:14, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

It's Graeme's suggestion at /Archive 20 that comments should be made here. Jeffrey (147.8.202.204) (talk) 07:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Good idea 202, I have been writing a summary of the arguments, but we do not want any new ones added! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I see. Jeffrey (147.8.202.204) (talk) 07:12, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks to the closing administrators for deliberating out in the open. I think this kind of transparency will deliver greater credibility to the decision that will ultimately be made. I would have preferred to see the same for the China move.

However, I do not feel that the mandate of the closing administrators extends to recommending a specific course of action on the future of similarly named articles or the usage of text within articles, e.g. what to do about WP:NC-TW for content guidelines. Your mandate is to determine whether this proposal should be enacted or not - be it fully or partially based on your best judgment. It is perfectly fine to decide that the severity of the dispute means that "no consensus" cannot be the answer, but when you decide something needs to be done about other articles that are not part of the proposal I think you are overreaching. There is no need to assert authority when it is not needed. The move from People's Republic of China to China has not caused major content changes or article naming disputes aside from the two articles that were merged. I see no need to preempt a conflict. Editors are free to propose their own RM's on a case-by-case basis. Even suggesting that there needs to be further discussion on this issue will stir up more trouble than what it is worth. This RM was disruptive enough. Please note the intent of the drafters of the move proposal (Jpech95 and myself included).--Jiang (talk) 02:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Judging by my own opinions at least (and from what Graeme and jc have said), I don't think you need to worry about us overreaching on our decision.--Aervanath (talk) 05:41, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

The draft closing statement leaves the CONTENTFORK issue to normal editing, which is understandable given the limited discussion of the content part of this proposal.

Thinking ahead to how this might be done after these moves, it seems that for the article then at "Taiwan" to have the coverage suggested by the draft while avoiding content forking, we'll need to merge essentially all of the content of the article then at "Taiwan (island)" into the new "Taiwan" article. Kanguole 09:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Some historical background: in 2003, the China article was rewritten from scratch so as not to focus on the PRC and China (with its countries infobox and template) was moved to People's Republic of China. In 2011, People's Republic of China was moved back to China, and China was moved to Chinese civilization and almost immediately ceased to exist as an article. Also in 2003, I cut the countries infobox and template from Taiwan and pasted it at Republic of China, editing the scope of both articles. The edit attribution history is therefore slightly different from the China articles. As a result of the current move proposal, Taiwan (island) will most likely cease to exist. Its function will only be a repository of the page history of the Taiwan article (which before mid-2003 held the countries template), while the new Republic of China article will not have much of a page history. When I rewrote the Republic of China article, it covered both pre-1949 and post-1949 entities as a hybrid historical and existing countries article. It is only in the last couple years that the article has shifted to focus solely on Taiwan making a move in this case (as opposed to a pure content shifting appropriate here). Make what you will of this, in considering where the edit histories should reside. This is especially since Taiwan (island) will be turned into a redirect to Taiwan or Geography of Taiwan in a short while.--Jiang (talk) 14:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

If Taiwan (island) does become a redirect back to this page or another page, then a note will need to be put at the top of this talk page and the talk page of that redirect to the effect that it cannot be deleted in order to preserve the attribution history. I think that's the simplest way to accomplish that. (I make no judgement on whether or not that's what should be done; as an editor, I don't care, and as a closing admin of the requested move discussion, it's not part of our decision.)--Aervanath (talk) 15:05, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Remove Requested move box?

Considering the time for comments is now closed, shall we remove the 'requested move' box from the top of the impacted articles? LukeSurl ^{t c} 23:05, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes.--Aervanath (talk) 23:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done--Aervanath (talk) 09:41, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Final closing statement

After extensive and thorough analyses of the lengthy discussion on this topic, it has become clear that the weight of policy-based argument comes down squarely on the side of renaming the article currently at Republic of China to Taiwan. As a consequence of this, the article currently at Taiwan will be moved to Taiwan (island). An article narrowly formulated about the government of Taiwan and its history can be created at Republic of China. This decision explicitly does not include any other articles. While there was some incidental discussion of what impact this move might have on other article's names, there was no consensus determined for that.

The most important policy cited in this discussion has been WP:Neutral point of view, one of the five pillars upon which Wikipedia is based. Unfortunately, all possible names of these articles carry some political baggage. So deciding on a name purely on such a basis is impossible. Using the guidance given by Wikipedia's policy on Article titles, specifically Wikipedia:Article_titles#Non-neutral_but_common_names and Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names, it is clear that we should use the most common name in reliable, 3rd-party English sources to determine the proper name for this article. It has been objected that "Taiwan" is not the official name of the country, but Wikipedia:Article_titles#Common_names is quite clear that the common name should take precedence over the official name where they differ and the official name does not approach the common name in wider usage. The 3rd-party sources cited by the nominators, including many respected news organizations, clearly establish that "Taiwan" is the common name. Indeed, the usage by the Taiwanese government itself is somewhat mixed. No compelling reason has been given to ignore our usual rules and use the name less commonly used in English. This name is not a recent phenomenon; the use of "Taiwan" instead of "Republic of China" has increased over the years to the point that the phrase "Republic of China" is confusing to the average reader.

Two further objections should be noted:

One, the former guideline currently residing at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)/Taiwan, which, before, was part of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese), would seem to argue against this title. While the process to remove this section from the guideline was flawed, it was always worded as a content/style guideline, and not a naming convention. Even were it a proper naming convention, it is clear from the recent move of the China article, the discussions here, and the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) that it no longer enjoyed the consensus and approval of the community.

Two, it was argued that this move would end up creating unacceptable duplications of content across the various related articles. These arguments were not convincing, as this problem can be solved through the normal editing process, as it has on many other occasions on other articles.

Further, a note on the behavior of some editors in this discussion. This discussion saw blatant sock puppetry, inappropriate canvassing on this wiki, other language wikis, and off-wiki forums, as well as probable meat puppetry. As a result of the canvassing, there were many non-editors who came here for the express purpose of voting on this measure. However, Wikipedia discussions are not votes, and as such we, the closing admins, have ignored any editors who came here with nothing constructive or policy-based to contribute beyond a mere vote. We also note the many, many instances of disappointingly uncivil, obnoxious, and outright offensive behavior towards other editors in this discussion which do not meet the standard of conduct expected among Wikipedia contributors. As such disruptions can result in binding sanctions, such as from a community-wide WP:RFC or the committee of arbitrators, we strongly recommend that from now on, contributors to Talk:Taiwan and related pages hold themselves to even higher standards of civility than they might normally. It has been said so many times on this wiki that it has become almost cliché, but we implore contributors to these talk pages to respond to the statement, not to the person, whether the contributor be a registered user or not. We would also caution editors who are involved in these discussions that it is inappropriate for them to close discussions and determine consensus from those discussions; even if well-intentioned, this creates an appearance of bias which can be avoided. An uninvolved editor or administrator can always be called on to evaluate consensus.

Finally, we urge editors to not be over-bold in making drastic changes to pages on these topics in the days ahead, in order to let tensions cool; seek consensus first for large changes such as (but not limited to) mergers, further moves, or large-scale content revisions. We hope that with this decision, the community can move on from this debate and continue the process of improving these articles to the high level we always aim for.

Endorsed:

1. --Aervanath (talk) 00:08, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
2. --Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:42, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
3. -- jc37 23:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

ZH template at beginning

I just did that few days before, but someone removed that, claiming that there are already language infobox. But the China article also have the the zh template stating its Chinese name after its name at the intorduction paragraph together with a language infobox at the side. Should this article have the zh termplate or not? C933103 (talk) 04:03, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm confused. Are we talking about "zh infobox" or "zh template"? HiLo48 (talk) 04:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

typo corrected. should be zh template. C933103 (talk) 04:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

If it is in the infobox it doesn't need to be in the lead. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Firstly, {{zh}} is not a infobox. Now I don't think these two articles should use {{zh}} in the lede because: 1. This information is already contained in (to great depth) in {{Infobox Chinese}} 2. It does slightly clutter the long introduction. 3. These two English terms are not in any form a romanisation of the native name. GotR ^Talk 04:35, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Max archive size

Given that the naming discussions are over, and regardless of the move outcome, any further discussion regarding this issue will be unproductive for a long while, I feel it would make do to reduce the max archive size here, Talk:China, Talk:Chinese civilization, and Talk:Taiwan. Preferably all to the 100–150 KB range; 256 KB is too large to navigate IMO. If one does happen to sprout up, however, this can be easily reverted. Opinions? GotR ^Talk 05:30, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Since there have been no responses in over 12 hours on what is normally an active page, I will reduce all archives to 150 KB. GotR ^Talk 19:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Redirects under discussion

Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 March 22 – I've nominated three redirects that lead to this article for deletion. Feel feel to participate in the discussions. Also, can someone please go under the redirects in this list. It appears as if some of those redirects were meant to lead to Republic_of_China_(1912–1949) instead of Taiwan. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

first line question

The move itself is fine as I've really never heard the country called anything else. The first line though... I'm not sure of the usual protocol in handling the name order on the first line here at wiki. Here we have Taiwan (blah blah blah), officially the Republic of China (ROC). Is that the way it is normally done for the first line? BLP is often different in that it would have the article title at Taiwan but the first line would read: Republic of China, commonly called Taiwan. It would then use Taiwan throughout the article. Is the way it is now the most acceptable way we do it here? Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:58, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

That's the normal 0rder for countries here - see France, Germany, Iran etc, although I have seen some exceptions. I do think though that Taiwan needs to be used more throughout the article now, other than in more historic and legalistic contexts, given its the title. More problematic in the first sentence in my view - without wishing to wander off topic for the thread - is the "sovereign state" description, which is and always has been dubious; or at least debatable. N-HH talk/edits 21:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Using "Taiwan" throughout the article instead of just the title header is what many of the pro-move camp said did not need to happen after move; that "Republic of China" will still be represented throughout. Now you're saying "Taiwan" should be used more throughout? "President of Taiwan" is just around the corner for Ma Ying-jeou. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "many" said any such thing, nor what value that would have even if they had done - this isn't a game of promises or about bargaining and haggling; nor is it a democracy where what the majority say counts. In any event, I know that I repeatedly and consistently said that "Taiwan" should of course be used more in article text, and that it would be odd to have one terminology for the main article title and another for references elsewhere, eg in text, which of course it would. I and others also said it would not change in every instance or every context, which of course it should not, not least more historical ones. Anyway, the President of Taiwan may well need to be referred to and named as such, if that is indeed the common name. If Ma Ying-jeou can cope with the rest of the world doing it already, I'm sure he'll cope with WP doing it as well. You might have to as well. N-HH talk/edits 20:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

What do you propose? That we rename all references to ROC? Taiwan Navy? Taiwan Air Force? Taiwan Army? I accept the WP:COMMONNAME but where is the common sense? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 21:07, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

WP policy on common name is not some arcane and irrational piece of legislation - it's simply an elucidation of the common sense principle that we call something by the name that it is generally known; which comes with the logical corollary that we do not call things by names that they are not known by. The same exact principle that led to the change to "Taiwan" for modern references to this state/country will lead us to not call, for example, Sun Yat-sen the first "President of Taiwan". N-HH talk/edits 06:24, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

The subject of the opening sentence should correspond with the article title. If the formal name is a variation of the common name, it can be used as the subject. But that is not the case here. There should normally be only one name in the opening. The circumstances are unique here as the name is a political issue, at least in terms of internal Taiwanese politics. The "official name, commonly called common name" format pollutes many openings on Wiki, but it is poor writing style. It's usually the result of editors who lost an RM screwing up the opening. See WP:BEGINNING. Kauffner (talk) 08:33, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on Template:Republic of China (Taiwan) topics

I've started a discussion at Template talk:Republic of China (Taiwan) topics#Content duplication with Template:Taiwan topics regarding the future of this template, particularly as it relates to Template:Taiwan topics. Any input there would be appreciated. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 22:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

History section

On another talk page, an editor has mentioned that the History section of this article is no longer appropriate. One model for a structure is that used in the History chapter of the Republic of China Yearbook, which has three sections:

• Birth of the Republic of China
• History of Taiwan
• The ROC on Taiwan (1945–)

though chronological order would suggest swapping the first two sections. The additional material needed is currently at Taiwan (island)#History.

Kauffner has also suggested moving History of the Republic of China to Republic of China, which I agree with. Kanguole 10:14, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm honestly not clear what this article should cover: everything about the Republic of China, the competing claims of PRC and ROC over the province, the geography of the island, Fujian and Taiwan provinces, ROC but only after 1949, the Japanese occupation as Formosa, some combination? I agree with the suggestions of Kanguole and Kauffner but that may just be because I (politely!) disagreed with the consensus that Republic of China = Taiwan. RevelationDirect (talk) 10:40, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the history section of this article is no longer appropriate. The birth of the ROC is not actually terribly relevant to Taiwan (no more so than Japanese history). It would be better covered on the China article or elsewhere. Of course the KMT coming to Taiwan is a different story. John Smith's (talk) 10:43, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Should there be a short intro (in two or three paragraphs) of the first four decades of the ROC, followed by the relocation to Taipei? Jeffrey (202.189.98.142) (talk) 16:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed there should be something on the ROC pre-Taiwan if only to provide context to the modern Taiwan/ROC - that section should of course then include a headline link to the possibly renamed History of the Republic of China and to Republic of China (1912–1949), as it does currently, where most of the detail can reside. However, it should probably be fairly brief and quite a bit less than we have now; with by contrast, quite a bit more on the history of Taiwan island itself (and the other, smaller islands now associated with it). It's tricky, as there's a two-track backstory here, but we need a better balance. At least it seems there's broad agreement on how to work this one. N-HH talk/edits 16:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

ps: on any rename of the "History .." article, I'm kind of agnostic. I think it's probably OK at that title, since technically/theoretically, this article is about the modern ROC even if it's not at that specific name. Equally, a rename could merely reflect a "France/French Republic" and "French Fifth Republic" split, as was noted at one point in the move discussions. N-HH talk/edits 16:30, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

They should be treated like a separate country page. Then all the history pages should follow. It could look something like this to be consistent. Benjwong (talk) 18:29, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

• Taiwan

History of Taiwan

Aboriginal history

Small mention of ROC 1912-1949

Focus on post 1949 history on Taiwan island

• Republic of China 1912-1949

History of Republic of China (1912-1949)

Founding of ROC

Sino japanese wars etc

Civil war etc

End of ROC on mainland

I think that a chronological organization will be easiest for readers. It's true that there are two parallel strands, but only for the period 1912–1945. I'd suggest something like:

• Taiwan to 1945 (main article: History of Taiwan)
  • Prehistory
  • Dutch and Spanish colonies
  • Zheng family
  • Qing rule
  • Japanese rule
• Origin of the Republic of China (main article: Republic of China (1912–1949))
  • Establishment of the ROC in mainland China
  • Chinese Civil War and World War II
• Republic of China on Taiwan (main article: Taiwan after World War II)
  • Martial Law Era
  • Post-Martial Law

Kanguole 11:29, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

So do you see Republic of China (1912–1949) as a history page or a country page? I see it as a country page. Benjwong (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that article does cover more than history. Is that a problem for the history section of this article? Kanguole 21:54, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

It's currently written as a country article but it should be rewritten as a history article, titled History of the Republic of China (1912-1949), with anything falling outside of that time period offloaded to other articles. Here's how I think it should be organised, based on names used in the bottom template:

• History of Taiwan
  • Prehistory of Taiwan
  • Kingdom of Middag
  • Dutch rule
  • Kingdom of Tungning
  • Qing Dynasty rule
  • Republic of Formosa
  • Japanese rule
  • After World War II

• History of the Republic of China
  • History of the Republic of China (1912-1949)
  • Taiwan after World War II

This arrangement groups Taiwan's country and island identities together, and separates Taiwan's government, the ROC, into its own thread. Taiwan is then maintained by the main article History of Taiwan, which does not mention the ROC prior to 1949. ROC is then maintained by the main article History of the Republic of China, which does not mention Taiwan prior to 1949. They then share the common history covered by Taiwan after World War II.

This structure is similar to other country histories, like History of Germany and History of France, which covers the country/territory of Germany and France independently of the governments that ruled them. Taiwan's ROC rule would be handled in a similar manner to France and Germany's Roman rule in that both governments existed prior to ruling the country, but this history (History of Taiwan, History of Germany, History of France) only covers the period in which their respective governments actually ruled the area (ie. ROC from 1949 onwards) without delving into the origins of that government, which is left for its own history articles (ie. History of the ROC). – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that the 1912-1949 article should be rewritten as a history article. It's current setup is similar in purpose to the Republic of Formosa article. That aside, are you suggesting two different first level sections? CMD (talk) 23:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

For distinction purposes, I'm using 'Taiwan' to refer to the country and island, and 'Republic of China' to refer specifically to the government. The reason I think it should be rewritten is that the ROC from 1912-1949 is not a different entity to the ROC from 1949 onwards. Their territory drastically changed but the current ROC isn't a successor government to the former ROC, it's the same government. It differs from the Republic of Formosa in that the RoF as a government had a distinct end, beyond which none of its structures or control remained in effect anywhere. The ROC is obviously different in that respect.

To answer your question, I think ROC and Taiwan should have separate top level articles. History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China are both top-level articles, not child articles. Each of the indented items I listed would exist (as they currently do) as their own articles, but referenced by sections in their respective top-level articles (eg. a section header in the History of Taiwan article called 'Prehistory', followed by Main article: Prehistory of Taiwan and then a brief summary of what the main article describes. They would both link in the same way to Taiwan after World War II so that we've got the least amount of duplication - History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China would both have brief summary paragraphs on the 1949-present period, and both would refer to Taiwan after World War II for the detailed content of that period. Then to update the overlapping modern history of Taiwan/ROC we'd only need to do so in one article. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:43, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

I expanded somewhat on my view of how things could be here on a user talk page. I wasn't sure if it wouldn't be too verbose for the discussion here but I'll link it in case anyone else is confused by what my suggestion entails. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:29, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

RFC on the use of Taiwan/Republic of China at Talk:Taipei

Due to objections, an RFC has been started at Talk:Taipei#RFC on Taiwan/Republic of China, relating to whether Taipei should be referred to as the capital of Taiwan or as the capital of the Republic of China. All editors are invited to participate in the discussion. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 01:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Long name?

Should the constitutional name "Republic of China" not be used in the infobox? I know the English usage by the government is "ROC (Taiwan)", but the constitutional name remains the Republic of China just as it stands. --Tærkast (Discuss) 11:25, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

No. This smells like thin end of the wedge stuff from someone who hasn't accepted the decision to move. Drop this stupid game now! HiLo48 (talk) 11:28, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not appreciate attacks on my person. This was uncalled for. I was asking a simple question with no malice intended. And if you recall, I did in fact support this move, I was the first one in fact.--Tærkast (Discuss) 11:38, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

IMO, the long form name of a country is what its foreign ministry and official press agency say it is. Constitutional interpretation is best left to the specialists. An article on a church would not list Biblical passages that the organization is not living up to. Kauffner (talk) 12:25, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm with TaerkastUA on this one. I haven't seen any sources that note "(Taiwan)" as part of the long name, rather it seems like it's used to present the shortname with the long name. CMD (talk) 12:37, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I was just reading Chapter 1 of the ROC Constitution which is why I brought it up. I mean, as I said I know "(Taiwan)" is used pretty frequently, but it appears to remain just ROC in constitutional law.--Tærkast (Discuss) 13:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry TaerkastUA, but with so many posters, many with totally non-memorable IP addresses, there's no way I'm going to remember who posted what, and when, in that now largely incomprehensible Move thread. (And there's no point in looking. Several of my own posts are now either not where I put them or are gone completely.) Where is the Wikipedia policy about using constitutional names in Infoboxes? And who defines what a constitution is? HiLo48 (talk) 16:58, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

There's no policy, but the established practise is to have the infobox in country articles headed by the official name of the country in its official language(s) and English. CMD (talk) 17:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

That isn't an excuse HiLo48. Jeffrey (202.189.98.142) (talk) 22:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

"And who defines what a constitution is?" - are we really having this argument? A constitution is the basic law of a sovereign state, and has the word "constitution" in the title written in some language. That's all there is to it. We don't need an expert with a magnifying glass to figure out what is and isn't a constitution. Pic related, this guy is the person who defines what a constitution is. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:45, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I suppose you could say it's debatable. I think the paranthetical common name is a little unecessary in the template, considering that would be where the offical name of the country would be. China does not have "People's Republic of China (China)", Burma does not have "Union of the Republic of Myammar (Burma)", and so forth. And from what I undertsand, the infobox is supposed to give the offical name, I mean, hell, look at House of Lords. JPECH95 20:37, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I asked you before what arguments you have against a "President of Taiwan" article. As you can see above, there's already a push to begin to remove all references to "Republic of China". Would you care now to share what arguments you have against "President of Taiwan" in this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk • contribs) 21:11, 23 March 2012

The arguements would probably not be too valid but although yes, it common usage you would most likely refer to Ma Ying-yeou as the President of Taiwan, that is not his offical title. And I can agree with what Belinsquare said below me, the first presidents of the country have never set foot in the island, and they held the same office Ma does. Now my argument doesn't extend to saying "President of Taiwan" in the article (although I personally would like to see it first be mentioned as President of the ROC and thereafter as the "President") but to rename the article President of the Republic of China to President of Taiwan, that's a bit much, because that is specifically government related, and in my opinion the common name arguement isn't as strong for that because you can redirect directly (you couldn't redirect Taiwan to ROC, because Taiwan had its own article, although even if it could, I had my arguements against that anyway) and how many people really look at the article compared to those who are looking for the country? So, that's my arguement against it. It's specifically a government role, and I don't think the same "common name" should be applied unless its an extensively long name (such as the Prime Minister of the UK). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpech95 (talk • contribs) 23:46, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

The reason I got involved in the "common name" move discussion was that I saw an article about the recent elections in one of my country's major papers, highly regarded as a source here, and came here to learn more. The newspaper article told me who won the Taiwan election. It mentioned that the president was China friendly. And you all know which China they meant. For presidents now and in the future the name Taiwan has to accepted, just as it's now accepted here as the name of the state for this article. You may continue to argue about at what point in the past this changed, but it has changed. HiLo48 (talk) 00:03, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

President of the ROC can never be named to President of Taiwan because, from List of Presidents of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen, Yuan Shikai, Li Yuanhong, Feng Guozhang, Xu Shichang, V.K. Wellington Koo, Tan Yankai and Lin Sen have never ever placed their feet in Taiwan. If someone manages to successfully move the article to President of Taiwan under the argument of WP:COMMONNAME (hurr BBC and CNN call them that! lol xDDDD) and "we should make everything else uniform", then that day is the day when Wikipedia goes full retard. The move from ROC to Taiwan is understandable and I can overlook that, but a move for any governmental or judicial articles would be completely stupid. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:41, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it "retard" but of course the president shift would not happen as described (ie en masse, going all the way back to the early 20th century), for the precise reasons you set out. The common name argument would be opposed to such a change, not in favour of it. I don't know why people don't understand that and need to erect strawmen of this sort. N-HH talk/edits 06:28, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we should look at the constitution. But we don't rely on press releases. We should at least rely on the names that they use when they sign a treaty, or when they receive an ambassador. Jeffrey (202.189.98.142) (talk) 22:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The form Republic of China (Taiwan) is not an an official name followed by an explanatory common form in parenthesis. It is the country's long-form name as it is given by the government, foreign ministry, president's office, press agency, and central bank. Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is the legal name of the bank. I don't see how you can interpret "(Taiwan)" as merely explanatory in that context. Kauffner (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

On the name of the Central Bank: that's the trace of Chen's presidency. But they didn't manage to change the name of the country. In the other cases, it's more like explanatory. Jeffrey (202.189.98.142) (talk) 22:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

None of these sources state that the official long name includes parenthesis, they just use it to identify the country. The banks legal name may have changed (and that is indeed an interesting point), but I would hesitate to say that the country's official name has completely changed without very strong evidence. CMD (talk) 02:08, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

The phrase "Republic of China (Taiwan)" is also used to identify the nationality of the postage stamps. Here is the 2012 Year of the Dragon issue. For a non-English speaking country, the press agency, in this case CNA, is the place to go for an authoritative translation of some officialese phrase. If we go by the World Factbook, there is no long form name and we have to leave this space blank. Kauffner (talk) 05:13, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Yep, the bullshit has returned. Illogical discussion with branches all over the place. IP editors. Editors with names using non-English characters. Very difficult to follow for us admittedly linguistically narrow plain English speakers, but hey, this is ENGLISH Wikipedia. The original topic has already been lost. Crap coming from all directions. I just knew the political barrow pushers weren't going to be able to stay silent for long. Couldn't you guys wait just a little bit, and put your RATIONAL brains in gear before posting? This is a really bad look for Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 08:06, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Is "HiLo48" an English name or an English word? Jeffrey (202.189.98.142) (talk) 16:02, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Idiotic question. HiLo48 (talk) 18:09, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

There's obviously griefing on both sides, you can't really point the finger and say either of you is at fault, because from what I can see, you're both part of the problem. Jeffrey, please refrain from the strange parallels. HiLo48, this is Wikipedia, not a Cronulla nightclub; there are elderly people out and about and it would be great if you didn't culturally enrich your vocabulary like you have done. It doesn't matter whether you're right or wrong, WP:CIVILITY is policy. You're risking yourself getting blocked; don't go under the impression that you're invincible and over the law. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 18:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Don't patronise me, and please quit with the moralistic lecturing. Although some here may actually call me elderly if they really knew my age, I know exactly what I'm doing. Normal conversational processes do not work with the political bigots on this topic. I suspect that's because of both linguistic difficulties and an almost total absence of rational thought about the result of a war 60 years ago. Being a little less civil at least points out to these folk that what they're doing looks like bullshit to objective observers, even if they don't will never see it that way themselves. Superficial niceness achieves nothing with that audience. HiLo48 (talk) 22:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

HiLo, I'm going to be blunt with you. If somebody proposed banning you from Taiwan-related talk pages, I would support it. Your posts are rarely helpful; in fact they are usually damaging, and contrary to the goals of the Wikipedia project as a whole. Mlm42 (talk) 22:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

• Support I favor "Republic of China" in this official legal infobox per JPECH95's actual comparison to Burma and the House of Lords. I don't think a parethetical with Taiwan is needed but neither would I get into a knife fight over the difference. Also, please take any musings about how we know whether something is a constitution over to Talk:Constitution of Canada. (They could frankly use the excitement much more than we could.) RevelationDirect (talk) 10:55, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

• Are you responding to HiLo48? Jeffrey (202.189.98.142) (talk) 16:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

"Republic of China (Taiwan)" is being used based on the rationale that foreigners do not know what "Republic of China" stands for. There are no reliable sources suggesting that this is the "conventional long form." In official contexts, it is "Republic of China". "Republic of China (Taiwan)" shows up in layman's publications. If you simply look at a website to determine what the "conventional long form" is, you are engaging in original research.--Jiang (talk) 03:15, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

And as for those laymen, they shouldn't be reading an article like this. The Web site of the "Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)" is good enough for them. If anyone is still confused, we can refer them to the "Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) ". Kauffner (talk) 03:35, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Jiang, when are you going to post a Request to Move this article back to Republic of China? HiLo48 (talk) 03:42, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

HiLo, when are you going to stop being a jerk? Jiang has a point; it's not clear why "(Taiwan)" is often added.. it seems possible that it's there to avoid confusion, but it isn't actually part of the official name. I don't know how one could determine this one way or another.. Mlm42 (talk) 03:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

HiLo48, thanks for the suggestion, but given that I helped draft and supported the recent move proposal, doing so would suggest that either my account has been compromised or that I have some sort of bipolar disorder.--Jiang (talk) 04:38, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Kauffner, you're citing the same source twice. Please refer to the actual text of the Constitution [1]. Nowhere is the form "Republic of China (Taiwan)" used. The form "Republic of China (Taiwan)" was started by Chen Shui-bian around 2007 specifically for use on websites in both English and Chinese. In 2008, Ma Ying-jeou ordered "Taiwan" removed from the Chinese version but retained in the English version with the explanation that foreigners get confused easily. Again, this is specific to government websites and a few publications geared towards foreigners. If you need convincing, I will spend some time to pull up the old news articles, dated May 20, 2008.--Jiang (talk) 04:38, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

That Ma has publically endorsed the phrase would seem to be an additional reason to use it. Easily confused foreigners may read Taiwanese government Web sites, but not Wikipedia? Making common sense deductions from authoritative sources is hardly the same as OR. If you take the OR argument to its logical conclusion, we'd have to leave the space for "conventional long form" blank. That's what the World Factbook does. That wouldn't inform or serve anyone. Kauffner (talk) 15:41, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

That would only be a reason to suggest in a Manual of Style that "Republic of China" be explained the first time it is being used in any article to avoid confusion. It is also reason to title this article Republic of China (Taiwan) instead of Republic of China. It is not a reason, as repeatedly pushed by a banned user, to change every instance of "Republic of China" and "Taiwan" to "Republic of China (Taiwan)" in bolded text with flag icons throughout the entire text. Imagine that. Explain this article on the same website, which uses "ROC" throughout, not "ROC (Taiwan)" or "ROC(T)" which would suggest that "Republic of China (Taiwan)" had some official status. The World Factbook and State Department did at various times list "Republic of China" as the official name, but removed it for policy reasons. Use other encyclopedias, like our friend, the Britannica, as a guide.--Jiang (talk) 17:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

The long name should be official. That is "Republic of China" without "(Taiwan)" SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

I'm sure the usage of "Republic of China (Taiwan)" can fit under the names section, whilst retaining the official constitutional name in the infobox. --Tærkast (Discuss) 18:36, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

That seems fine too, as long as the infobox remains as-is. Jumping back to a question HiLo48 originally asked, it is standard procedure to use the constitutional name in the infobox, even if there is no actual policy. If we had a policy for every single tiny thing, then Wikipedia would get pretty WP:KUDZU-ish. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

• We have a lengthy "names" section that includes obscure names like "State of Taiwan." Not one English-language cite is provided for this supposed name! Yet "Republic of China (Taiwan)", the long-form name of the country as it appears in the official press and on every government Website, appears nowhere in the article. I checked one of the non-English "State of Taiwan" cites. It gives the name as, "República de China (Taiwán)".[2] Kauffner (talk) 04:48, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

"the state" disambiguator

I'm going to be pedantic here and point out that the hatnote "This article is about the state." is still ambiguous in light of the Republic of Formosa. Slightly more detail in the summary description would seem to be required. Thoughts? --Cybercobra (talk) 00:03, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it. I think readers will assume we're discussing the present state. CMD (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure the current version, as switched here, is much better. It is both incorrect in that this article is not simply about the Republic of China - it is also about the longer history of Taiwan - and repetitive in that it mentions the ROC three times, including at the start of both of the two lines of the hatnote. Could we try "country", which is less assertive about the contentious issue of sovereignty or statehood? N-HH talk/edits 11:05, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that "country" would be a better phrasing and also less contentious. Now that the move has happened (for better or for worse), I think the scope should be gradually tweaked to focus on the modern ROC and the island's history, with the pre-1949 ROC content detailed in a separate article (and briefly summarised here). Using "the Republic of China" is not entirely accurate, and stylistically doesn't seem consistent with the more descriptive / explanatory hatnotes in other articles. wctaiwan (talk) 17:03, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the word "country" is more contentious than the word "state." How about "current state" instead? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ngchen (talk • contribs)

How is it more contentious? I really don't mind either way (I first added "state" before it was replaced with "Republic of China"), but I'm puzzled as to why there is a meaningful difference aside from that "country" seems less rigidly defined and thus less likely to provoke arguments.

I thought about adding "present-day", though I think that's just awkward. The whole point of the hatnote is to make the scope clear and to link to other similarly named or related topics, not to achieve absolute unambiguity—and really, as Chipmunkdavis said above, who would assume we are talking about the Republic of Formosa? wctaiwan (talk) 16:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if we need to direct people to the disambiguation page at all. All the topics there are aspects of "Taiwan", and they should all be at least introduced in this article. Kanguole 15:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we do. The disambiguation offers quick assistance to those who are looking for the word as used in another sense (e.g. referring to the island), and gives an overview of topics tied to the word "Taiwan". wctaiwan (talk) 16:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Trash talk in the lede

This is currently in the lede: The PRC "threatens military action upon Taiwan if a Republic of Taiwan is declared." Is this really the right place for trash talk? This kind of propaganda is put out for domestic consumption. (See, we are so great that we can keep Taiwan from declaring independence.) Beijing may attack when military circumstances are favorable, but certainly not before. After all, they accepted Hong Kong only because the British made a big fuss about the lease expiring. Kauffner (talk) 00:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Lead needs editing to reflect recent changes

The second paragraph of the lead, which briefly covers the history of the ROC, needs to be edited to include a sentence on Japanese Rule of Taiwan before the ROC relocation. Until this is included - and I feel that it could be tactfully inserted by a better editor - the lead doesn't adequately summarise the content of the article and appears to be stuck before the name of the article was changed and the focus was shifted away from just the ROC. I think this needs to be done soon. Perhaps some other parts of the lead can be tweeked? There is no mention of any culture or geography in the lead. -- Peter ^{Talk page} 20:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

User:Jpech95/taiwan

Because the proposal has been implemented, I feel that the pages and subpages on my userspace pertaining to Taiwan are now useless and I am looking to delete them. However, if there is anyone who would not like me to for whatever reason, please respond here or on my talk page. If there are no problems, I will delete them after Easter. JPECH95 22:13, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we could keep User talk:Jpech95/taiwan for the record.--Jiang (talk) 01:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Fine with me. JPECH95 02:27, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Jiang. Jeffrey (talk) 02:35, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

The section on culture

To repeat what I have said at Talk:Taiwan (island) at 22:30, 23 March 2012: The culture section shouldn't be moved (from Taiwan (island) to Taiwan). The culture of Taiwan is noticeably different from the rest of the ROC. Those faraway islands weren't part of the Japanese colony and received no Japanese influence, and on some islands they have languages different from Taiwanese or Min-nan (e.g. Puhsien in Wuchiu, Mindong in the Matsus). Jeffrey (talk) 23:45, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

We already have an article at Culture of Taiwan, which is summarised in the Taiwan#Culture section. The content at the former Taiwan island article was redundant and was thus removed. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

This country isn't confined to Taiwan with the Pescadores. Jeffrey (talk) 01:37, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Nobody has said it is. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 05:59, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

The geography section

Null removed the links to the geography sections of Kinmen, Matsu Islands and Wuchiu with the edit summary "rm unrelated articles, section deals with Taiwan and Penghu islands only".[3] Please note the fact that this country isn't confined to Taiwan with Penghu. Jeffrey (talk) 23:53, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

The geography section deals only with Taiwan and Penghu. You can't have a 'main article' on a topic that isn't addressed at all. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:58, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

The geography section should be expanded to give those islands due weight, i.e. a very brief mention. Kanguole 00:18, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Kanguole. The scope should expand. CMD (talk) 00:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

The same is true for some other sections, for example history. Jeffrey (talk) 01:38, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

A brief mention would be reasonable, but it doesn't rise to the level of 'main article' links in my view. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Following this country move, Geography of Taiwan should also cover those islands. If that's done, only the single main is needed (and that is the main which is actually the main). CMD (talk) 13:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Since when is WP:COMMONNAME overriding WP:DUE?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Too Soon to be moving the Taiwan article anywhere. - jc37 06:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

• Taiwan → Taiwan, Island Country
• Taiwan Island → Taiwan

– The island country is not a dominant definition of Taiwan among authoritative dictionaries. Taiwan Island is the primary topic as seen in dictionariesSkyfiler (talk) 04:47, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, this is rubbish. This is disruptive editing. Can this editor somehow be taken to task for both incompetent editing (look where this is placed!) and just plain wasting everybody's time? HiLo48 (talk) 04:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Having made that post elsewhere in the article, I must note that this incompetent, disruptive editor has now very unethically moved my post (which highlighted its location!), and his own garbage, to an even more stupid place. HiLo48 (talk) 05:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

And now it's been moved again. It's still in the wrong place, because it's been placed in front of some posts that were made before this ridiculous move proposal was made. So even before discussion has started, just as in the previous discussion a POV pushing editor has completely screwed up the thread. HiLo48 (talk) 05:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME should not be used to take over a subject that means something else just because it is a common name of a subject. WP:COMMONNAME only deal with contexts when the subject is called, however does not deal with disambiguation. The Taiwan Island has a common name Taiwan too and is more suitable for the primary topic. Look the definitions in authoritative dictionaries:

• Merriam-Webster's:Taiwan is an island[4]
• The American Heritage Dictionary:Taiwan is an island[5]
• Oxford Dictionary Taiwan is an island country[6]
• Britannica: Taiwan is an island [7]

We can't redirect Taiwan to the country per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:DUE.

--Skyfiler (talk) 03:41, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The RM discussion has only very recently finished, and the close pretty much established that in this context, preference for the common name trumps arguments opposing using Taiwan to refer to the ROC. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to your arguments, but we can't constantly be having this debate or edit warring over the multitude of POVs. I would advise correcting obvious inaccuracies (e.g. using Taiwan to describe pre-1949 ROC) and respecting the consensus on more nuanced things and matters of opinion, at least for now. wctaiwan (talk) 04:08, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The common name is irrelevant here. Common name only say how you choose names on one subject. It does not say you can choose which subject is covered under an ambiguous title. Almost every article in the disambiguation page has the same common name. Other policies apply but definitely you can't cite common name policy here. Do you mean I can ask the geography folks to take over the article just because the Taiwan Island has this common name?--Skyfiler (talk) 04:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I have huge problems with the form of English used by some posters on these topics, and that last post is a classic example. I think the question at the end is meant to make some sort of a point, but it doesn't to me. Look, the decision has been made. The place some want to call Republic of China IS to be called Taiwan here. Stop wasting everybody's time! HiLo48 (talk) 04:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am not saying that the consensus is correct (nor am I saying it isn't). What I am saying is that the consensus (or rather, the closing admins assessing the consensus) says that the common name argument applies (and by closing in favour of moving, that the ROC is the primary topic for Taiwan), and I don't think it's helpful to raise a new debate on the exact same issue so soon after one has just finished. wctaiwan (talk) 04:27, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Definitely unhelpful, and it's about bloody time the hardcore lovers of the ROC name accepted the umpires' decision and stopped sneakily taking every opportunity to destructively move little bits of the article back towards the form they want. HiLo48 (talk) 04:34, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry this is not a common name issue like ROC vs Taiwan, this is Taiwan Island vs Taiwan, Island Country, a disambiguation issue. You are not reading my post.--Skyfiler (talk) 04:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I have already said that I have difficulty seeing the point of your post. I AM "reading" your post. That non-standard grammatical form highlights the issue here. Too many people who don't speak common idiomatic English, and with incredibly biased POV barrows to push, are trying to win this war by attrition. If you cannot use clear enough English to be easily understood here, your view probably doesn't belong on and is irrelevant to English Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 04:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• Procedural oppose and speedy close: By explicitly displacing the original article (moved to Taiwan (island) and subsequently made a redirect), the closing admins of the recent RM discussion have determined that consensus is for having an article on the ROC as a country (not just the government and political history, as evidenced by "an article narrowly formulated about the government of Taiwan and its history can be created at Republic of China") at this title. I am not strongly opinionated on this particular issue, but as I have said above, we can't constantly be having a debate on this. wctaiwan (talk) 05:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
  • The discussion was about agreeing on the name of ROC, not on the primary topic of Taiwan. Article titles are often different from the agreed name if ambiguity exists. Do you think Orange should be redirected to Orange (colour) just because we all agree Orange is the color's name, regardless what people may call a fruit?--Skyfiler (talk) 05:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
• Procedural oppose and speedy close: WP:PRIMARYTOPIC was considered in the move discussion. The fact that one island makes up the vast vast majority of the territory and population of a country means they are often treated as one. Half you examples above note Taiwan is officially called the Republic of China. In addition, Taiwan Island is a redirect, making half the proposal meaningless. CMD (talk) 05:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
• I have inquired regarding a Speedy Close at WP:ANI. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose what kind of weird disambiguation are you suggesting? Where does Wikipedia use ", Island Country", and why is it capitalized? Further, there is no article at Taiwan Island, indeed, Taiwan (island) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) hasn't existed for about a week. (it was split and merged away) 70.24.248.211 (talk) 06:11, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Third para in lead - POV etc

Due to the PRC's political pressure in the United Nations, since 1971 the Republic of China is not recognized internationally as "China" and a sovereign state by the majority of countries but only 23 small countries, and it is known as "Taiwan". The inability of ROC to be recognized as "China" caused its citizens to have a national identity crisis, where some citizens refer to themselves as Taiwanese while others refer to themselves as Chinese, especially those who support eventual Chinese reunification. The issues of national identity and Taiwan independence versus reunification color the politics of Taiwan and created a social and political division among its citizens.

The opening line here is pretty POV - yes, political pressure has and continues to play a part, but surely a rather important factor is that the ROC hasn't ruled the mainland since 1949? I'm going to change this so it simply states the fact that ROC does not hold China's UN seat, without speculating as to why. Also "identity crisis" is slightly dramatic language. I'm putting a note on talk as although I can't see that changing/trimming this is controversial, I'm sure some people will. N-HH talk/edits 14:51, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I was actually thinking about rewriting that. In this current shape, I don't think it's... careful, enough, to be in the lead and without sources. Several issues:

• It's not just PRC's pressure in the UN. It's PRC's pressure, period. Bilateral relations are a particularly significant example—PRC will not establish ties with any country that has ties with the ROC. (I don't have time to look for a source now, but at least there is no nation with ties to both.)
• With some of its allies, the ROC formally represents China (or so I thought), so "and it is known as "Taiwan"" is not entirely accurate.
• The national identity issues do not come just from the lack of recognition of the ROC, as China or otherwise. Many are bitter about the White Terror-era KMT rule, the KMT's imposition of its own values (prohibiting children from speaking Taiwanese / Min-nan in schools, etc.) and perceived favouritism of Waishengren, for example. I think it's good to mention it, but the current chain of reasoning, without sources, simply isn't good enough.

I don't really have the time to work on it, and really, I would prefer just removing it instead of letting it sit there if no one else wants to fix it. If it's going to be fixed, we need sources—these are not plain, obvious facts. It should be carefully worded and based on multiple reliable sources. wctaiwan (talk) 15:09, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Agree with all those points, which articulate and square up with all the things that were bothering me. I hope what I did here has helped deal with most of those - I took out the "known as Taiwan" from that bit, as it seemed a bit of a random non-sequitur there; as I did the bit about national identity issues simply following from non-recognition, since, as you say, surely it's more complicated than that. I also tried to put the chronology (civil war ... UN seat etc) in one paragraph, and the more thematic things about sovereignty claims and identity in the next one. As you also say, the PRC pressure AFAIK comes mainly in terms of bilateral relations, especially now. There wasn't before and still isn't anything in the lead about that - but I'm minded to think that bids to explain the causes of all these issues are best avoided in the lead. It'll end up with interminable haggling over POV and politics, and way, way too much detail. Let's just say what the situation is, and leave the whys and arguments for the body. N-HH talk/edits 15:21, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

It's a large issue to mix up political-talk with normal talk anyway. I don't think the country is known as "Taiwan" by anyone because of the PRC's political pressure. It's known as Taiwan for completely unrelated reasons, which are probably due to the stalemate of the civil war and the acceptance of communist China feeding into the ever-adapting English spoken by the public (my rough unresearched speculation). I doubt the identity crisis is linked to external political pressure either (unless we include indirect pressure via diplomatic pressure on domestic political parties). It reads much better now, good job. CMD (talk) 17:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Phrasing about military action

As this has gone through a few reverts, I think a discussion is warranted. The article currently says "the PRC ... threatens military action upon Taiwan if a Republic of Taiwan is declared", while a previous version had "the PRC ... threatens military action upon Taiwan if it declares formal independence". I think the current version is not entirely accurate and prefer the second one, as PRC threatens military action for any form of Taiwan independence movement, whether it's a "Republic of Taiwan" or "two Chinas" or whatever (see Article 8 of the Anti-Secession Law), but clearly others disagree. Thoughts? wctaiwan (talk) 02:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Do we have a reliable, RECENT source that "PRC threatens military action...."? It is, after all, written in the present tense. HiLo48 (talk) 02:35, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

See the linked PRC law. (Unless 2005 is not considered recent. But the law has certainly not been repealed.) wctaiwan (talk) 02:38, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

That's good, but should we stick to the exact wording (assuming translation is good) of "non-peaceful means" rather than "military action"? Leave it to the reader to interpret the meaning. HiLo48 (talk) 02:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The laws says, the "Central Military Commission shall decide" what response to make. The CMC always decides. So what's new? Kauffner (talk) 02:54, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Alternatively, we can have "the PRC ... has not renounced the use of force should Taiwan declare formal independence", which is sometimes used by local media here (I find "non-peaceful means" euphemistic and "force" to be a fair synonym). I think that's a fairly accurate representation of the current situation. The PRC has not actively threatened military action in a good while (what with the improvement of cross-strait relations under the current KMT administration), but they have never renounced its use, either, and it remains highly relevant in political dynamics and other things. wctaiwan (talk) 02:56, 5 April 2012 (UTC) Amended wording to add "formal", which I missed the first time. wctaiwan (talk) 03:06, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I just think it's safer to use the exact words, rather than reinterpreting even so slightly. HiLo48 (talk) 02:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"declare a Republic of Taiwan" is more precise than "declare formal independence". What exactly does "declare formal independence" mean? The ROC government has explicitly claimed to be an independent sovereign state. The difference would be that they would have to stop claiming to be China. The phrase "declare formal independence" does not quite capture this, and implies that the ROC claims not to be sovereign, so I changed it.--Jiang (talk) 03:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The law refers to "Taiwan independence", nothing about any "Republic of Taiwan." But of course Taiwan has already applied for UN membership under the name "Republic of China (Taiwan)". All we do summarize what the law says, whether it makes any sense or not. Kauffner (talk) 03:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The law actually says to act on "Taiwan's secession from China". "Declare formal independence" and "declare Taiwan independence" are different phrases with different meanings. The latter is okay, but Taiwan would appear twice in the same sentence, while "declare independence" on its own would run into the same problems as "declare formal independence".--Jiang (talk) 04:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

At the risk of stating the obvious, if the law refers to Taiwanese secession, why can't the text just read "the PRC ... threatens military action upon Taiwan if it attempts to secede from China"? – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 06:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Or, even closer, ""the PRC ... threatens non-peaceful action upon Taiwan if it attempts to secede from China"

"non-peaceful means" is a clunky circumlocution, and "secede from China" implicitly accepts the PRC's framing of the situation (namely that Taiwan is part of their territory), which we shouldn't do in Wikipedia's neutral voice. If we're going to use the PRC phrasing, we should put it in quotes. Alternatively we could rely on third-party discussion of that law, e.g. "Beijing's assertion that it had the right to use force to prevent Taiwan independence."[8] Kanguole 10:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"non-peaceful means" may seem a clunky circumlocution, but it's what the source says. HiLo48 (talk) 17:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The ROC cannot secede from the PRC because the ROC is the rightful ruler of China and therefore the ROC government cannot secede from itself; just like the USA did not secede from itself, though the CSA did. A ROT could declare independence from the ROC just as the ROC declared independence from the Qing Dynasty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 14:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Very silly and unhelpful post. Stop fighting a war that was lost over 60 years ago and begin looking to the present and future, not backwards. HiLo48 (talk) 17:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you think I was talking about? I'm seriously considering registering and asking that you be banned from Taiwan talk pages. The only contributions you're making at this point is to tell people how stupid they are.

I described the post as silly and unhelpful, not the poster. (BTW, please do register. It would be nicer for all of us.) HiLo48 (talk) 00:06, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

You're right. Go ahead and call it silly; it just shows that you have no clue what you're talking about because my post is about the present. http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aIPL&ID=201203220046: "To Taiwan, whose official title is the Republic of China, "one China" means the Republic of China. To mainland China, where the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the PRC is the sole Chinese government on earth." Stunningly superficial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 13:22, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought the original wording (subject to preferring "against" rather than "upon", which I'll change anyway as presumably uncontroversial) was fine, ie with its reference to declaring "formal" independence. What we have now about becoming "constitutionally independent" slightly clashes with the fact that Taiwan is de facto independent, and certainly is run under an entirely separate constitution (ie that of the ROC). I certainly agree though that the "Republic of Taiwan" version is too specific and limiting. N-HH talk/edits 16:12, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The Taiwanese government already uses "Taiwan" or "Republic of China (Taiwan)" in most contexts. The only sense in which Taiwan is not independent already is that the yearbook is still "The Republic of China Yearbook". So if Taipei comes out with a "Taiwan Yearbook" does this law kick in? A "war of the yearbook" would be pretty ridiculous, so I assume not. But then we are left with the conclusion that the law has no practical significance. Kauffner (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

That seems to be the case for all practical purposes, except here on Wikipedia where such synthesis is not allowed. I'm sure some clever wording could get around that though. HiLo48 (talk) 00:10, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

I have attempted an improvement, using:

Furthermore, [the PRC] has not renounced the use of force as a counteraction to Taiwan independence, or in the case that peaceful reunification of the two countries becomes impossible.

This is worded to be close to the Anti-Secession Law, linked above, so that inaccuracies about what the PRC means by its threats can hopefully be avoided. I'm somewhat squeamish about the use of the word "reunification", but since there's no neutral term for that one and it's what Wikipedia uses, I think it's as good as it gets. Thoughts? wctaiwan (talk) 01:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I know "Taiwan independence" is the name of our article, but it reads oddly, especially in prose. Plus I do think we need some additional note there such as "full" or "formal", since Taiwan is already pretty much de facto independent. I'm going to add that again as part of a few tweaks. Happy to consider the best way to phrase it. N-HH talk/edits 14:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The lead, and changing all the way back back to ROC and PRC one small step at a time

There's a slow edit war underway over the first sentence of the lead, with some editors with an obvious political interest in the matter wanting the lead to say something like "Republic of China, often referred to as Taiwan" rather than "Taiwan, officially known as Republic of China". Various bits of policy are cited, proving absolutely nothing to me. Other small changes are happening, such as using PRC and ROC instead of the recently agreed China and Taiwan. I see these as sneaky reversions by those unhappy with recent decisions, but I'm wondering what to do about them.

We have agreed on China and Taiwan as the names. To use other names now is confusing, and presumably politically motivated. I don't want confrontation, but I do want firm decisions to stay implemented. HiLo48 (talk) 00:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Keep bringing diffs to the talk pages. Show the trends so others dont have to dig through tumultuous and chaotic histories. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

I'm no expert on this "diffs" stuff. It's one of those ugly bits of Wikipedia I've never mastered. (And don't believe I should have to. If that complexity allows the sneaks to do what I think they're doing, it needs to be simplified.) But my first point should be bloody obvious to any competent reader of the history. My fundamental question is, how much do we allow changes from "Taiwan" and "China" to "ROC" and PRC"? My inclination is to say hardly ever and in fact we should be moving the other way. Can someone convince me the answer should be otherwise? HiLo48 (talk) 01:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

When governments are being referred to, e.g. "representatives of the PRC and ROC met in Singapore to discuss a new policy to replace the 1992 Consensus" refers to governments, "competitors from China and Taiwan were amongst a few of the medal winners within the 1997 Somalian Cycling Championships" does not. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, regarding "And don't believe I should have to." - you're a Wikipedia editor, and you're not new, you should eventually familiarise yourself with diffs for the long term; otherwise, it's just like saying, "even though I'm a neurosurgeon, I don't believe I have to familiarise myself with the locations of the branches of the internal carotid artery, I shouldn't have to, even though I'm responsible for poking into people's brains". -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the United States and the United Kingdom, in the first sentence, they will list their full name then list their common names. The Admins changed the title as per WP:COMMONNAME which applies to article titles, not to the body of the article itself. As this article should not be any different than any other country article, the article should start with "Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 20:50, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The UK and US are actually exceptions rather than the rule. Vastly more country articles use the construct 'X (officially Y)', such as Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Croatia, Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, Italy, Iran, Iraq, Malta, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Samoa, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Tonga and Vanuatu. Just to name a few. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The lead and English

While WP is welcome to all, and I hesitate to lay into people on account of their use of the English language, it is a little galling to find perfectly reasonable content and copyediting mucked up within a matter of hours by people inserting phraseology such as -

• "As of now the Republic of China still remains formal diplomatic recognition with 23 sovereign states".
• "It also proclaims to use military forces to prevent any form of Taiwan independence if permanent separate of two countries becomes possible".
• "The Cross-strait relations between ROC and PRC as well as the issues of national identity within the country color the subjects in dispute of Taiwan".

Fine, sometimes decent content is added and points made in less-than-perfect English, which can be tidied up later. But please do not amend or change existing perfectly literate and grammatical content and make a mess of it. N-HH talk/edits 23:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I totally concur. There's a couple of languages other than in English which I can successfully read (slowly), write very broken and ugly versions of, and be understood in by speakers of the language if I use it very carefully. But there's no way I would rate myself competent to contribute to the Wikipedias in those language. I'm a bit arrogant at times, but not that arrogant. I wish those here with similar skill levels in English would gain that perspective too. HiLo48 (talk) 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"People's Republic of China" vs. "Republic of China" distinguish hatnote

Methinks that "People's Republic of China" and "Republic of China" (which redirects here), differing by only a single prefixed word and the former having been created as a successor of the latter, are sufficiently confusable to an uninformed, naive searcher to merit a disambiguation hatnote (as was present when this article was titled Republic of China). MichealJS evidently disagrees. Anyone else care to weigh in? --Cybercobra (talk) 14:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally, although clarity and comprehensiveness is laudable, I think the less clutter in hatnotes the better. Are that many people who originally got here by typing in "Republic of China" - who will be a pretty small proportion anyway of course compared to those who would have typed in Taiwan - who were really looking for China and ended up in the wrong place? Even there are quite a few, there are links to China/PRC pretty quickly in the main body of the lead, which is probably enough. Kind of easy either way though. And maybe people who got here via iffy links and bad terminology in other articles might be more baffled and need more help. N-HH talk/edits 14:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The use-case I that was particularly in mind for the original hatnote is someone reading a history book or article when there was only the ROC. If they were hoping to find out about that (nation/)state in the present-day, there are two possible answers. But if we want to discount this, it is covered in the lede and is admittedly a somewhat obscure case. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Claim to China and the constitution

Despite the edits I have made removing the link between the constitution and the claim to China, I found out today that I may have been wrong, at least to a certain extent—Article 4 of the constitution states that "the territory of the Republic of China according to its existing national boundaries shall not be altered except by resolution of the National Assembly". This has been superseded by additional articles, which changed the process for territory alteration but kept the "the territory of the Republic of China, defined by its existing national boundaries, shall not be altered unless..." wording (phrase differences here exist only in the translation).

Apparently, one scholarly interpretation of the "existing national boundaries" is to regard it as the boundaries when the constitution was passed (or when the ROC was founded, or some other time when the ROC was still on the mainland). By this interpretation, since the national territory was never altered, it still includes the mainland under the constitution. Other interpretations exist, but I was not correct in thinking that it's definitely not in the constitution (the Constitutional Court denied a request to define the national territory of the ROC). I still don't think this line of reasoning is straightforward enough to a reader with no prior knowledge that they would not be led to think that the constitution makes a concrete claim. On the other hand, the source provided by 31.205.41.175 (talk · contribs) in this diff is pretty unambiguous, and it was published by the Government Information Office. wctaiwan (talk) 16:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

So in short, both claim each other's territory in addition to their own, both acknowledge that the other side de facto governs part of their claimed territory and neither recognise the other as a sovereign state. I think this position can be distilled into a usable form in the article easily enough, in the appropriate section. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 02:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

ROC as multi-party democracy

As according to the Constitution of the Republic of China, Chapter 1, Article 1, the ROC is a democracy: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Republic_of_China. Taiwan is the common name, not the country name.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk • contribs)

The statement "Taiwan is the common name, not the country name" shows a complete lack of understanding of the idea of names. Taiwan is the common name of...the country. CMD (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

When talking about official government, the formal name should always be used. All the links in that sentence leads to articles with "Republic of China" in them because they are talking about official government. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.141 (talk) 14:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

There is no guideline that says official names should be used when discussing government. The articles are titled with Republic of China due to the old way this article was named, not because of their particular topic. (Note that I'm not advocating a change, just noting why they are named as they are. CMD (talk) 14:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Based on your argument, why do we even have "ROC" in the article? Why not just change everything to "Taiwan"? Taiwan is not a country, it does not have a Constitution and therefore no government; when people on the island vote, they vote for the President of the ROC, National Assemblymen of the ROC, they do not vote for members of government for Taiwan. There has been no declared "Republic of Taiwan".

We could say the same about Greece, yet our article on Greece doesn't replace every mention of government with "Hellenic Republic". CMD (talk) 15:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

This isn't Greece, this is about the Republic of China. Greece does not have external and internal sovereignty issues that make being precise in wording much more important when talking about the ROC. Apples and oranges argument. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 16:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

From the beginning of its existence, the Hellenic Republic has been the government of Greece. This is not true of the Republic of China which started as the government of China, not Taiwan. For the first 1/3 of its existence, the ROC was the government of China, not Taiwan. Only for the latter 2/3 of it existence has the ROC has been the government of Taiwan, and even during that time it has kept longing to once again be the government of China. So while Greece is an intrinsic part of the identify of the Hellenic Republic, this is not so of the Republic of China's relationship with Taiwan.

We don't normally think about the distinction between the country and its government because the two are usually tightly bound. But the ROC has not been tied to only one home so it makes sense to allow for the difference between the government and the country. We should continue to use "Republic of China" for government institutions. Readin (talk) 16:45, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Even taking that on board (and I think there's a strong case for using current terminology) that argument doesn't apply to the IPs chosen sentence. Multi-party democracy has only been around from the 1980s, so probably for more or less all of the existence of the current political system, the country has been known as Taiwan. CMD (talk) 17:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

That has absolutely no bearing on the fact that Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou were all elected as President of the Republic of China (as per the ROC Constitution) and that they were all Commander-in-Chiefs of the ROC Navy, ROC Army and ROC Air Force because "Taiwan" as a country simply does not exist. To say that they were elected as President of Taiwan isn't being an encyclopedia, it's a historical fiction.

I see that Ohnoitsjamie has unilaterally blocked those of us with IP addresses from updating in favor of using "Taiwan" instead of "ROC" before it we could discuss the matter. Is there a way to appeal this move? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 16:52, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The protection would not have been necessary had you stopped edit warring and sought a consensus on the matter. If a consensus is achieved here, the appropriate changes can be made. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 16:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see your talk page. You've essentially taken a side on this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 17:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Reverting it back would also be taking a side for that matter. I've protected it at the version that seemed to have the current consensus (i.e., it's been you edit-warring versus multiple editors). OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:13, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

My reverts are and have been concensus. Current concensus is that "ROC" should be used when talking about the government and the military. "multi-party democracy", "presidential system" describes the government, ergo, the sentence should lead with "ROC". I'm not changing the rest of the paragraph where it isn't specifically talking about the government. If you look at the links "multi-party democracy" and "presidential system", they lead to articles with "Republic of China" in them, that's consensus and the correct wording. How do I appeal your unilaterally taking a side? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 17:19, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you that ROC should be used for government stuff (see my comment above), but stopping edit wars is something adminstrators do. It's just part of the way Wikipedia works. Admins usually don't get involved much in the discussion - they just want everyone to play nice - so I doubt Jamie was trying to take a side. And trying to persuade him your side is right most likely won't work either. Work on persuading your fellow editors instead. Readin (talk) 17:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"The Republic of China government on Taiwan" would be a more NPOV term and conforms to the rest of the article which talks about the Republic of China on Taiwan. Taiwan's ROC government makes it sound like Taiwan is the country and the ROC is only the government, which is incorrect. It sounds like saying "The USA's Democrat controlled government". The ROC is the country and Taiwan is the island/land they control/govern. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 21:40, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not "my side". It's concensus. Anybody reading through the article can clearly see that when talking about the government, the article uses "ROC". I'm asking him to adjudicate based on the currently existing consensus. By keeping it "Taiwan" instead of the original wording, he's unilaterally affirming a concensus that does not exist: that the article can use "Taiwan" when talking about the government. Some editor will, inevitably, use this to start changing ROC Navy-->Taiwan Navy, President of ROC --> President of Taiwan. Again, I'm not asking him to "take my side". I'm asking him to revert "Taiwan" to the original text ("ROC") as per CURRENT concensus until a new concensus can be reached. Following current concensus is the best way for him to not take sides.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 18:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

My involvement in the discussion which led to the article being renamed to Taiwan began with the world's media discussing the elections a couple of months ago for "Taiwan", not the "Republic of China" or "ROC". We renamed the article on the basis of that kind of common usage. It's therefore perfectly valid to use the name Taiwan for government matters in the article. It won't confuse anybody. It may upset those who don't like the name change at all, but frankly, that's irrelevant. HiLo48 (talk) 22:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

As noted above, if we were to follow your line of thinking, we'd have to call Yuan Shi-kai President of Taiwan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 23:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

You're slowly starting to understand. That's EXACTLY what the world's media did, what brought me here, and what led to the renaming of this article. The country is called Taiwan in common English usage, and this is English Wikipedia. Please stop fighting a war that was lost 60 years ago. It helps neither Wikipedia nor your cause. HiLo48 (talk) 23:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

You still don't understand. Do you know who Yuan Shi-kai is? I'd stop discussing this with you if I wasn't worried that your misinformation on these subjects will proliferate and become truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 23:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

My apologies. No, I didn't know who Yuan Shi-kai WAS. I've now looked it up and realise that you've raised a total irrelevancy, again from history. This is about the present. There's been so much bullshit posted on these pages I should be used to it, but each bit of bullshit can be different, I now acknowledge. HiLo48 (talk) 23:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Yuan Shi-kai was the 1st President of the Republic of China, Ma Ying-jeou is the current President of the ROC. If we were to call Ma Ying-jeou President of Taiwan, how would any reader know that President Ma holds the same office as President Yuan? Instead of just calling what I'm saying as b.s., how about you address why it's b.s.? Why and how is it irrelevant? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 23:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Because the world's media called Ma Ying-jeou "the newly elected president of Taiwan". HiLo48 (talk) 23:43, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ma patently holds a very different office from that held by Yuan, despite the shared title. Kanguole 17:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

VP Joseph Biden holds a patently different office than VP John Adams despite the shared title. What's your point? In fact, it could be argued that George Washington held a different office than Barack Obama. One thing is that George Washington was president over 13 States, Barack Obama is president over 50 States. The power they held in office is quite different too. The sameness is that they were Presidents under the same Constitution of the United States of America that has seen updates throughout history. The same can be said of President Yuan and President Ma; they are still Presidents under the same Constitution of the Republic of China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 21:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

A better comparison would be between Chiang Kai-shek and Ma Ying-jeou himself, since they were both Presidents under the same 1947 Constitution while Yuan was not. In addition, Chiang was president when the ROC was in power in the mainland as well as in Taiwan after the KMT retreated to Taipei. So does that mean that Chiang ceased to be ROC president when the government relocated to Taipei in December 1949? I didn't know the old gimo changed the title of his front door after he fled to Taiwan. Could someone kindly share a picture of it? To HiLo48, please keep your comments civil and respectful, no matter how others' opinions and arguments might differ from yours. Raiolu (talk) 05:41, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I have changed the wording back to using "Taiwan". I don't think it's the government that is a multi-party democracy: It's the country / political system, which encompasses the government, the opposition, the processes, etc. On balance I think "Taiwan" is more appropriate than "the ROC" here, as the time period is recent, so the usage would be supported by international media, but even "the ROC" would be better than the somewhat contrived "Taiwan's Republic of China government".

In addition, I have removed a reference to the "presidential system", which is a matter of scholarly and political debate (as the system has characteristics of a parliamentary system in its division of powers) and not mentioned in the body or the linked main article. If English RS consistently refer to the ROC government as such, it should be added back. wctaiwan (talk) 02:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

What you're saying in your first paragraph makes no sense. If the government isn't a multi-party democracy, what is it? It's like saying that a human isn't male but the person is.

I do, however, agree that the ROC isn't a truly presidential system. In a presidential system, the president is head of state and the head of government (cabinet). In the ROC, the president is the head of state and then chooses a premier that becomes the head of government (cabinet). The ROC is a bit more like the French Republic in that regard than it is like the United States of America. The ROC is a semi-presidential system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 02:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm a little divided on this. The government is a group entity that administrates the country, and generally is a subset of that country. Democracy is a process that specifically involves the country participating in the selection of its government at any given time. I don't think it's strictly correct to say 'The Taiwan government became a democracy' but I can sympathise with IP's unease at the phrase 'Taiwan became a democracy'. Perhaps something in the middle ground, like 'Taiwan's government adopted a multi-party democratic model'? It's a little more complex but I think it captures the nuance of the line a little better. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 03:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If it's really a problem, then something like "the country adopted a multi-party democratic system" would work. I don't think it's correct to say "X government became a democracy" as in many uses of the word the term government refers merely to the executive, rather than to the system it's in. Replacing "Taiwan" with "the country" here would not only make the naming a complete non-issue but actually improve prose. Taiwan is currently used 542 times on this article! CMD (talk) 07:33, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems fine to me with the simpler version, as is. We'd do the same for any other country, eg "Britain introduced universal suffrage", "The US has a presidential system". For modern, non-technical references, we've surely settled now for "Taiwan". I note the IP is using the old claim that political references have to use ROC, as eg the president article does; but of course as everyone else has long worked out, there's a lot of "ROC" about elsewhere on WP due simply to the fact that for some reason the trend went that way for a while (we're now, finally, starting to put that right in line with the rest of the world). Also, as the IP does realise, there are specific issues with articles where there's more history; but that doesn't apply to this page or contemporary text references to Taiwan itself, since we name countries by their modern, short-form name. (I don't know the best answer for the president, flag etc pages: while arguably they should stay as " .. of ROC", more informal in-text references to modern presidents should probably prefer "Taiwanese" or "of Taiwan". But that's another story). N-HH talk/edits 12:19, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

This article represents the whole of Taiwan, including the government and the armed forces. As such, accuracy in naming in each portion of the article is of the utmost importance. This an encyclopedia folks, not a journalism article. Journalist articles must represent facts but they also play fast and loose with terms and wording, usually for space. Encyclopedias, by nature, must adhere to a stricter standard of rules when using terms and wording of sentences. Again, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a journalism article.

wctaiwan, I see you reverted Cybercobra's edit. As I mentioned above, your reasoning makes no sense. Can you please answer my question? If a government is not a multi-party democracy, what is it? How would you describe a government if it is not a multi-party democracy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 13:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't revert Cybercobra, only Readin's attempt at a compromise. (My latest reverts were of Mistakefinder's edits, and my rationales are in the edit summaries. If you object to those, feel free to bring them up—I do try to work by WP:BRD.)

As I said above, a government is not a democracy, a country / its political system is, whether that goes by the common name of Taiwan or the formal name of the ROC. A government can be of a presidential system or a parliamentary system and many other things, but it can not be a democracy, because democracy is not so much a description of the government itself, but one of the process by which the government is chosen.

Having looked things up to make sure I'm not mistaken, I note that some use the word '"government" to describe the political system. But even then, using the state as the subject would be clearer than using "government" as a shorthand for "system of government". Please also be less confrontational. I would certainly try to address any legitimate doubts others have about my edits. wctaiwan (talk) 14:24, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

(@IP) It's not just the media that refer to Taiwan these days, although it does and that does count, especially in terms of top-end media such as the FT, the Economist and New York Times etc. Other encylopedias, formal documents, journals and reference works all do as well, and it's about time people stop pretending that this is about WP dumbing down or that individual, anonymous WP editors are somehow much cleverer and being more accurate than all such sources. And if you think "a government" can be "a multi-party democracy", I'm really not sure you should be commenting with such conviction on issues of English language terminology. N-HH talk/edits 14:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

See Merriam Webster link below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 17:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I like Readin's compromise; I think it addresses the issue of clarity as well as common naming conventions. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 14:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it's unecessary clutter to talk about "Taiwan's Republic of China government". Taiwan on its own is fine, clear and unambiguous; as well as being what every serious media and reference source would most commonly say. There's no need to compromise and end up with something garbled and clumsy just because we have one or two editors complaining. It's a classic example of "I don't like it" and editors trying to use WP to circumvent what the real world decided long ago and get undue acknowledgement of a minority view or terminology here by the back door, which they often do by wangling an idiosyncratic compromise that trades on the good faith of other editors. Also, as noted and as a matter of basic English, a government per se cannot be a multi-party democracy. N-HH talk/edits 14:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you're attacking motives (which is pretty much indistinguishable from attacking the person) rather than arguing the point. Readin (talk) 15:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/government. As a matter of basic English, it is definition 5a and 5b. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 15:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with N-HH on the compromise attempt. Saying "Taiwan's Republic of China government" seems oddly specific, and makes it seem like this is in contrast to Taiwan's other government(s). I don't think it's fair to say that the government issue is basic English, as it is used both ways (which is perhaps a cultural thing. Many English speakers come from democracies where the government is contrasted with the opposition. This may not be the case in countries with different systems of government), but I do agree we'd be using it in the wrong sense in that compromise. CMD (talk) 15:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I am arguing the point primarily, as should be obvious from what I have said - there is simply no need to create a wholly original and convoluted form of language when we already have a simple and clear option in front of us, that the whole rest of the world would happily use. But also, yes, I am very much attacking the motives. I've seen this over previous geographic/political naming issues, and there's a rather obvious pattern that becomes clear once you've seen one or more of these disputes. You lose good faith pretty quickly - not only in the arguments being made, and why they are being made, but in terms of how WP discussion and more formal processes deal with them. I would maintain as well btw that the "X's government is a multi-party democracy" is simply and uncontroversially bad English in most cases, at least without "system of" in front of it or some better variation thereof. The M-W cite - which, unsurprisingly, at 5 a & b is discussing the process of governing, not the wider political system or the process of choosing a government in the first place (sorry, you really can quit arguing about the English language with me IP) - doesn't contradict that. It's genuinely a basic language issue, not simply about political or structural differences in different cultures or countries. Anyway, semantics aside, I guess there's agreement on that in this context, as most of us have said. N-HH talk/edits 21:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

"System of" would be more accurate, however, if we are trying to simply things, "the Republic of China is a multi-party democracy" is also correct. If you were to use "system of", we'd have to say "Taiwan is a multi-party democratic system of government." In which case, we can just as easily use "The ROC is a multi-party democratic system of government." I'm not going to stop arguing with you, because they're both correct. And even if I am wrong about my sentence usage (I'm not), it doesn't change the fact that "ROC" could be used just as well (and more accurately and congruent with the rest of the article when talking about the government) than "Taiwan" in that sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems like most of the people are willing to see a compromise; I'll include myself in that (one of the edits I made was to change it to "Republic of China (Taiwan)" as per their government site). The 2 people who are unwilling to compromise is you and CMD. What can we do to "bring you to the table", so to speak? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 21:56, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd prefer the construct 'Taiwan adopted a multi-party democratic system of government' personally, because the context is that the country made the determination of how its government would operate, rather than the government self-determining its own structure. 'Taiwan's Republic of China government' is strictly correct but very awkward and I don't believe it should be used in that form in any way.

On a passing note, I'm not sure why dictionaries are being used on the matter of naming. Dictionaries may well contain entries for country names but they're notoriously bad at defining proper nouns and I'm not sure why some of them even bother. You wouldn't open the dictionary to look up the definition of company names like Symantec or Microsoft, nor would you skim the dictionary to see what 'Jimmy Wales' or 'Bill Gates' means either. The purpose of a dictionary is to define common words (as distinct from proper words) and their reliability is based on that purpose. I wouldn't consider the dictionary a reliable source for any other purpose. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

There is no need for a "compromise" that would add needless complexity when we have a perfectly good, simple, clear option that is by far the most commonly used and understood in the real world. Indeed, such a purported compromise is arguably worse than going the other way entirely (see one of the secondary conclusions to be drawn from the Judgment of Solomon). And we do not have "most people willing to compromise". We have two people, out of thousands of readers and editors, complaining and trying to impose one or other obscure or wholly invented alternative and trying to shoehorn some glimpse of their arcane and confusing preferences onto the page, one third party in good faith offering brief approval to the idea of compromise and that's it. Everyone else has either edited or commented in favour of the simple and overwhelmingly standard "Taiwan" for this modern reference to the modern state. We're done. It's trolling to fight this battle again and again over every single mention of the modern country name, possibly made worse by the bid to present it as being about "compromise" when it's nothing of the sort. N-HH talk/edits 11:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

ps: and I agree with CMD entirely about the problems with relying solely on dictionaries for proper nouns. Someone was quite focused on them on another page re Taiwan vs ROC (I can't recall which). N-HH talk/edits 11:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It is as I predicted. There's no need for you to compromise because Ohnoitsjamie blocked the article at its present state and basically affirmed your opinion instead of followed current consensus that "ROC" be used when talking about the government.

Ohnoitsjamie: I appeal to you again to revert that part of the article to its original text that conformed to CURRENT concensus until such time as a compromise can be reached; at the moment, you have unilaterally affirmed a non-existing concensus. I will say again: I am willing to compromise.

Where was this current consensus formulated? We have rough ideas, but so far as I know most everything is in flux. CMD (talk) 13:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's in the article. Everywhere that the government and military is talked about uses ROC. When it's not about the government or military, Taiwan is used. This is the formulation that Jpech came up with when he originally wrote about the article that received concensus and approval from 3 Admins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 14:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

No article is ever set in stone, and as well know, we are even more in a state of flux with the issues here. The move was about the article title and the broad principle, not an unyielding and permanent commitment to the verbatim draft model presented at the lead. As the move confirmed, the trend is clearly in favour of Taiwan for most contemporary, non-legalistic references and for rolling back the previous trend, which was out of sync with the real world, of splattering "ROC" everywhere; and on this specific point, the current last para of the lead, which uses "Taiwan" rather than "ROC" when talking about the present, not only follows the title of the article, which itself has broad consensus, but has specific consensus among those commenting here. There's plenty of ROC in the lead, as is appropriate when talking about the pre-Taiwan republic. Nowhere was it agreed to use ROC whenever we're talking about government or politics. You've just made that up because it's what you want.

And stop pretending to be the reasonable one here by repeatedly saying you're offering a "compromise". What you're calling for is no different from someone who battled to have the Bill Clinton article moved to William Jefferson Clinton, and then, when everyone threw that one out, simply moved along to battling across multiple articles to have WJC nonetheless used in article text or clogged up talk pages demanding a "compromise" of saying something absurd like "Bill (short for William) Clinton (middle name Jefferson)". N-HH talk/edits 15:25, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Reassessment of this article

I've nominated this article for Good article reassessment due to the recent changes. See the assessment page. -- Peter ^{Talk page} 16:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that reassessment is warranted, but I think it's premature at this point. It may even be a quick-fail under criterion 5 (stability). Kanguole 16:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I see delisting is your aim. That's probably warranted too – the original assessment was fairly cursory anyway, and the article has shifted (and is still shifting) focus in connection with the move. Kanguole 17:24, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't think it was a GA even before the move, so reassessment is not a bad idea. CMD (talk) 17:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I left a comment at the reassessment page, I think the article should be summarily delisted until it stabilises. A full reassessment in its current state would be wasted effort since I'm confident that once it stabilises, it will be in a noticeably different form. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 00:13, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Country data/Flag icon links

I've got no response so far for requesting to move the country data and flag icon links to "Taiwan", now that "Republic of China" is no longer the article's title. --Tærkast (Discuss) 15:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

"Sovereign state" in first sentence

Oddly, despite all the energy vented by some on whether the name switch to "Taiwan" was WP breaching NPOV by implicitly supporting independence, this rather more substantive and explicit assertion has gone unchallenged by the same people. However, it seems, as noted in passing previously, to be extremely problematic; not least because later in our own lead we correctly and explicitly note that ROC/Taiwan - subject to any technical or esoteric distinction between the two - is recognised as such by only 23 countries. How about a change to "island country", which not only skirts the sovereignty issue but also helps cope with and clarify the island vs state argument that gets a few people very worked up? More fully, and perhaps more controversially, we could try "Taiwan .. is an island country and de facto sovereign state in East Asia"? N-HH talk/edits 15:57, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see "island country" as an improvement. "Island country" also implies "sovereign state" but adds that the state's territory is defined by one or more islands. The term "sovereign state" is a legal one, and it would be a good idea to reference reliable sources justifying how Taiwan objectively meets the criteria of statehood under customary international law, with a footnote to further elaborate on this point. "Island country" not only fails to "skirt the sovereignty issue" but further implies permanent geographical separation from China and is less neutral in my opinion. --Jiang (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

But without a seat at the UN and recognition by most of the world - whatever the reasons for that - the claim of sovereignty and/or statehood is at best debatable, at worst downright inaccurate. Words such as country and state are fairly grey and malleable of course - maybe coming from Britain, I see the word "country" differently, given the fact that the UK is made up of things commonly referred to as countries, but which are not independent or sovereign. To me, it implies a geographic and political distinctiveness, but not outright separation, which seems to fit this situation pretty well, although I appreciate it reads differently to others, and I'm not insisting I'm right on this point. Americans and others for example might, even if only sub-consciously, think of state as referring as much to a sub-division. I'd guess that country is possibly more common terminology than state for Taiwan in profiles and real-world sources, which of course are what really matters. Any other options? Island state (ie without the explicit claim of sovereignty)? I think the inclusion of island as an adjective is both informative and fair, as Taiwan's territory is indeed defined by one or more islands. N-HH talk/edits 17:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Trying to play semantics with country vs sovereign state won't solve any problems. Quite often they're directly equivalent, and that's probably how it would read in this situation. We face the same problem with either (I don't really mind which is used, I only note it doesn't by itself fix any issues). Usually in situations with unrecognised/mostly unrecognised states, it's simple enough to just call them "self-declared states", but due to the government's continuity from being a normal recognised state I don't think that works here. We could call it a rump state, but I don't think that'll be accepted by many, and could actually conflict with the idea of a modern Taiwanese identity. Taiwan is a sovereign state per the declarative theory of statehood, and I think it's probably a good idea for the article to follow the reality on the ground rather than political ideals. As some consider recognition to be a key part of sovereignty though, I'd support island state, with state pipelinked to sovereign state. Many sources describe it as an island country, and I agree it's a fair description. This would drop the explicit note of sovereignty without claiming anything otherwise, and hopefully the second paragraph can explain the situation to readers. CMD (talk) 17:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed that this is all getting a bit academic, and that broadly "country" carries the same meaning as "sovereign state" - even if to some people it can mean slightly less in some contexts - such that a direct swap wouldn't improve much. Mea culpa. Given that, I'm thinking the best solution is to drop the sovereignty claim, leaving simply "state" or "island state". Most country articles don't feel the need to assert it specifically in the opening sentence, even where - or admittedly perhaps because - it's more obvious. Yes, the claim of sovereignty can be backed up here, and Taiwan is certainly more than simply a self-declared and unacknowledged state such as Azawad for example, but it remains a controversial and contested point (including in definitional terms, not just because of the politics). Would this be a better link though (haven't read it in detail)? N-HH talk/edits 17:42, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I think "country" is more offensive (for those who would be offended in the first place) than "sovereign state." While "country" can mean a non-sovereign political entity, the what else it refers to will imply a separate ethnic and national identity, connotations that do not exist with the term sovereign state. The term "sovereign state" only implies a certain legal personhood, that could very well be a result of an unresolved civil war, as opposed to something ingrained and permanent. I'll try to dig up some references to be placed specifically after that term.

"State" is fine, but "island state" (with emphasis on the territory) runs into further problems by implying some sort of separateness from China.--Jiang (talk) 21:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I think the point to be made here is to emphasize the legal term, as opposed to replacing the legal term with a political term, which can then be open to all sorts of disputes. The legal scholarship (coming from the United States, at least) does not seem to doubt that Taiwan is functionally a sovereign state.--Jiang (talk) 21:24, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

What might or might not be "offensive" to some - unless it genuinely is, by any accepted standard - is neither here nor there. Adding more references that assert "sovereign state" doesn't help much when we are talking about contested descriptions - you can find 100 that say one thing, 100 that say another, and I am really not sure that there is unanimity as to Taiwan's "sovereignty" or formal "statehood", among US scholars or otherwise. What is needed is something that is clearly and broadly agreed, or attributed to each position; or something that is less assertive to start with. I also find it extremely odd that you claim that such a subjective and contentious description as "sovereign" can pass so long as you can rustle up a few references, whereas the manifestly obvious adjectival description of "island" is to be deprecated on NPOV grounds. Surely the former description expresses a separateness from China above and beyond visible geography? N-HH talk/edits 23:11, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, of the four sources currently cited, two are unverifiable online. This one says nothing explicit about sovereignty; and this one appears to be some obscure Singaporean academic perambulation and essay of unclear provenance and authority that says, by the POV admission of its own author, 'I argue that the ROC on Taiwan has been a sovereign State since its creation in 1912 and was never "succeeded" by the PRC'. None of this, unsurprisingly, seems to be definitive to the point where we can insert "sovereign", unqualified, into the first sentence of an encyclopedia entry. N-HH talk/edits 23:52, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

You can look up the books on Google Books. That's where I got them, but I presume it would not be appropriate to link them here. The first link is not mine - it was meant to show that Taiwan belongs to East Asia. The second link, which I dug up, is to an article in the Michigan Journal of International Law. All academic writing is meant to make an argument one way or another. NPOV does not apply to our sources, and there is no requirement that they do so.

Per WP:DUE, please provide reliable sources arguing contrary to what is being asserted here, and we will try to move from there. Again, I have to emphasize that this is strictly an issue of checking off the legal criteria, not the varied conceptions of what should be the case. And to clarify, the term needs a footnote explanation. --Jiang (talk) 00:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you guys agonise over this so much. We have settled on the non-precise but very common name of Taiwan for the entity's article name. Why not settle on the non-precise but very common description of country for it? As already noted for the UK and some other places, country is a flexible term anyway and can mean more or less what the reader wants it to mean. HiLo48 (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings on this, but I think 'sovereign state' flows better than 'country' here. I made the argument somewhere during the Taiwan move that Taiwan fits the definition of a sovereign state based on the declarative theory (linked by CMD above) which is used in two of the major international treaties on statehood. To me, 'country' seems to imply non-trivial recognition and international legitimacy which is something Taiwan has yet to achieve. It seems like an awfully minor point to dispute, but I've come to expect that from some who opposed the original move. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 01:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Taiwan is a country. The ROC is a sovereign state. Since the title of the article is "Taiwan", I think "country" is the better word to use. However since the ROC and Taiwan articles have merged, either "sovereign state" or "country" will do.Readin (talk) 14:09, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I propose a footnote to qualify the term being used per WP:DUE, perhaps "The term 'sovereign state' is used here to indicate that Taiwan meets the criteria of statehood laid out under the Montevideo Convention, which is a statement of customary international law.{insert reference here} The PRC and {insert other parties here} as well as international organizations such the United Nations and {insert other organizations here} have made statements explicitly denying that Taiwan is a legal personality under international law.{insert references here, perhaps elaborate on the 'other criteria' used by these parties}" --Jiang (talk) 01:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 01:18, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Sounds complicated. HiLo48 (talk) 01:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just drop the explicit claim to sovereignty? As for sources contesting it, I don't know if this will come up for other people via ths link, but here's one. It actually makes the observation that most literature does not regard Taiwan as technically sovereign. I know "sovereign" is only one word, but it's a big claim, both in political and technical terms. And @Jiang, NPOV very much does apply to our presentation of sources. Selecting ones that agree with one POV and then saying material is "sourced" and therefore unimpeachable is one of the more subtle ways content here gets bent while giving the appearance of being in line with policy. N-HH talk/edits 13:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think using a note sounds like a good idea. Also see my suggestion below. -- Peter ^{Talk page} 14:15, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

There seem to be two definitions of "sovereign". There is the common definition going back hundreds of years that means "One that exercises supreme, permanent authority, especially in a nation or other governmental unit, as: a. A king, queen, or other noble person who serves as chief of state; a ruler or monarch. b. A national governing council or committee.", "A nation that governs territory outside its borders.", "Self-governing; independent", "Having supreme rank or power", "(Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a person exercising supreme authority, esp a monarch", "supreme in rank or authority" [9] "one possessing or held to possess supreme political power or sovereignty", "one that exercises supreme authority within a limited sphere", "an acknowledged leader", "possessed of supreme power", "enjoying autonomy" [10]. Then there are the more recent legal definitions including the Montevideo Convention - a seemingly honest attempt to precisely define the term for use in diplomacy. Even more recently there is this other legal definition includes this idea of recognition by incumbent sovereign nations. In other words, the existing sovereign nations decided that since sovereignty implied certain rights, it would be a good idea to give themselves veto power over who is and is not "sovereign".

Should we be using the well known common usage of the word, or should we be using the recent political fashion of making the word mean something different in certain legal circles for political advantage?

I think in this case we should use the common usage of the word "sovereign". People who know that usage will not be mis-informed, and people who know the recent legal interpretation of the word are surely already aware of the ROC's status since it is at this time one of the primary targets of that usage. Readin (talk) 14:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I would argue that the fact that we can expend so many words debating what we might mean by sovereignty, and chucking contradictory sources as to whether Taiwan is sovereign or not backwards and forwards at each other, does rather suggest that it's untenable to have it there in the first sentence as an unadorned and unqualified statement of purported fact. Also, as I said, most other country articles don't make the explicit claim, so it seems odd that this one does. Can we not simply take it out so that it says "state"? That's more accurate by virtue of being a broader description, less POV one way or the other, and yet no less informative (and of course, not having it there is not meant to imply that Taiwan is not sovereign, it just leaves the question to one side). N-HH talk/edits 12:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if this was proposed, but how about we use "partially recognised sovereign state"; Taiwan meets all of the criteria of a sovereign state, it just isn't officially recognised by many nations. This seems NPOV to me. -- Peter ^{Talk page} 14:09, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, I don't think it's worth discussing whether to use 'country' or 'state', both words effectively mean the same thing. -- Peter ^{Talk page} 14:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

But they don't mean the same thing. England is a "country" under UK law, but the sovereign state is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In addition, whenever I drive from Canberra to Sydney, there is a sign saying "You are now leaving Ngunnawal Country", however the Australian Aboriginal "country" of Ngunnawal does not have a representative within the UN. "Country" can be a vague term that can be stretched to fit whatever phallus it needs to fit atop of, whilst the term "sovereign state" cannot be similarly stretched, as it has legal and political definitions. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:45, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Why do you redirect Republic of China to Taiwan

You know Republic of China once ruled the Mainland from 1912 until 1949. Then it moved to Taiwan as it failed to rule the whole China. So the item Republic of China can mean such a period that Mainland of China was ruled by it, that is, China from 1912 to 1949. Sky6t (talk) 00:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

So I think that it had better be a disambiguation page. Sky6t (talk) 00:43, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

(comment deleted by author) Readin (talk) 02:23, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The move proposal, as well as the move decision, called for implementing an article in place of the redirect. That has not been done yet. see Talk:Republic of China--Jiang (talk) 03:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

There is already an open RM for this:

• (Discuss) – Republic of China (disambiguation) → Republic of China Kauffner (talk) 02:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Hence why this article has the hatnote ""Republic of China" redirects here. For other uses, see Republic of China (disambiguation).", which in turn links to Republic of China (1912–1949), the article specifically covering the mainland ROC period. --Cybercobra (talk) 02:38, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Straight ROC links lead here too though. Either those links need to be made more specific in the articles in which they appear if necessary - which some people seem to be helping to sort out - or something done with the main ROC target. I'm slightly wary of having a full page under the basic ROC title (and always have been) since it suggests somehow that Taiwan is not the current manifestation of the ROC. N-HH talk/edits 12:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's stop putting any modifiers in front of the word state

This argument of whether Taiwan is a sovereign state or a so-called partially recognized state is getting tiresome. Frankly, it feels like the term "partially recognized state" is a term coined in Wikipedia. Most other nongovernmental almanacs and encyclopedias do not list Taiwan as part of a separate Apocrypha section in their list of countries. Just simply refer to Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) as a state without any modifiers. The lack of modifiers is a good compromise between competing factions endlessly debating what type of state Taiwan is. Allentchang (talk) 13:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that if no one will be happy if we put the words "sovereign" or "partially recognized" in front of the word "state," then let's just simply place nothing before the word "state." I remember that about seven years ago we got rid of those modifiers, but since I "disappeared," it looks like everyone's placing modifiers in front of state again. Allentchang (talk) 13:49, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree that we shouldn't be going into contentious detail in the lead. The body of the article is the place to explain the issues more fully. Kanguole 13:52, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Is Taiwan a Sovereign State?

Considering that Taiwan is not recognized as a 'Sovereign State' by most nations in the world, and that only three or four rather insignificant nations in the world even maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, is it right to even call it a Sovereign State on this article?

I suggest that we refer to Taiwan as a Renegade Chinese Province or at least as a Disputed Territory. We could refer to it also as an Autonomous Region since that is what it is. But Sovereign State??? Sonarclawz (talk) 09:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The Montevideo Convention's definition of a sovereign state is not dependent on recognition. It's actually possible to be a sovereign state even if there are no other states at all recognising it. 'Renegade Chinese Province' will never fly, that's blatant POV side-taking. I have no opinion on the other two suggestions you made, but will note that our choice of what to call Taiwan is less about supporting or opposing Taiwanese independence and more about what the majority of high quality reliable English-language sources call Taiwan. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 10:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not arguing whether we should call it Taiwan or ROC. I'm arguing about the grounds on which Taiwan can be called a 'Sovereign State' if virtually no one sees it as such. In fact by not recognizing Taiwan, most nations in the world are actually tacitly supporting the Chinese view that it is an 'Autonomous Region'. As per the Montevideo Convention a 'sovereign state; must satisfy 1) a defined territory; 2) a permanent population; 3) a government and 4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states. Taiwan falls flat on condition 4. It is patently unable to enter into relations with any country as it is not seen as sovereign state.

I propose to carry out the relevant changes in the article. Sonarclawz (talk) 11:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Please join the discussion at #"Sovereign state" in first sentence. We will state whether Taiwan satisfies the Montevideo Convention based on reliable sources. I'm afraid your interpretation is quite different from most of what is available in the literature. In short, "autonomous region" is a definite no. Please refer to our policy WP:OR, in particular WP:SYN. --Jiang (talk) 11:44, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Sonarclawz - You're playing obvious POV games here. Forget "Sovereign state" if you wish. I don't think it's very natural anyway. The general public never uses such terminology. The simple solution is "country". It's a wonderfully vague term, with no precise definition. It works for the UK, for Great Britain, and for Scotland. It can work for Taiwan too. Won't upset anybody. (Well, only the extremists.) Please don't use a silly term like "autonomous region. That would just be foolish, AND POV.HiLo48 (talk) 11:49, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hilo48, funny how POV is only raised on Wikipedia by people who are opposed to the POV suggested. But no matter. Jiang, I'm discussing the word' state' in 'sovereign state'. I assume that Taiwan is sovereign if it hasn't been occupied by anyone. But is it a 'state'? Does Tibet also qualify for 'State'? I mean it has a defined territory, a permanent population, a government that lives in exile in India, and as much capacity to hold diplomatic relations with other nations as Taiwan has. Similarly, is Azad Kashmir also a 'sovereign state'? Was the Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka also a sovereign state for the brief period that the LTTE ousted the Sri Lankan government from there? Isn't the basic requirement of a 'state' its own recognition by a wide cross section of the world's governments?? For that matter, is Sealand a 'state'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sonarclawz (talk • contribs) 14:33, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

WTF? HiLo48 (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

There's no point looking just at "state", because it's meaningless alone. Most often it's just a shorthand for sovereign state. If it is defined as you did, by territory population and government, than any political division is a state.

Now is Taiwan a (sovereign) state? To your examples, neither Tibet nor Azad Kashmir claim to be independent, so they don't fit the definition. Tamil Eelam quite arguably was, in the same way Abkhazia and Somaliland are now. They are states by the declarative theory of statehood. Sealand doesn't really exercise any sort of statehood attributes (no real land, population lives in England), and is not treated seriously at all, like other Micronations. CMD (talk) 14:46, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Despite not receiving de jure recognition from many states around the world, Taiwan does have de facto trade and diplomatic links with most other countries in the world through its economic and cultural centers. Taiwan ROC also has a history of a stable and autonomous government and hence qualifies as a sovereign state. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 15:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Isn't that what we call original research round here? Anyway, the term can mean slightly different things and have different criteria for fulfilment; nor will you find consistency among serious sources (I found one academic analysis, posted above, that in fact went the other way and made the explicit statement that most authoritative sources do not consider Taiwan as sovereign). Given all that, I'm fine with just leaving the slightly looser "state" without any explicit claim of sovereignty, whatever we might mean exactly by it. As noted previously, most other country pages don't feel the need to have such an explicit claim, so it seems odd to have one here. Doing without "sovereign" doesn't mean we saying it's definitively not - sometimes ducking the issue is the best option, especially in a lead. N-HH talk/edits 16:14, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I am certain that one can find sources to back up the assertions which I have made above. But yes, I agree, we should follow the standard wording (as far as possible) for pages on countries. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 16:27, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

There are definitely sources that say Taiwan is sovereign, and would possibly use exactly that reasoning; but there are others that say the opposite, because they take a different definition of sovereignty and/or weigh the evidence differently. We shouldn't be plumping for one set over the other. That's the point (as it often is on WP for such qualitative or subjective judgments/descriptions, but just as often ignored, as it happens). As for standard wording for other places, I have noticed a couple of pages - eg South Korea - where "sovereign" is used, but I'd guess the logic there is that the name itself there could theoretically be taken, by those unfamiliar with the place, to refer to a region within a sovereign state rather than an actual sovereign state. It doesn't seem to be the usual thing to do. N-HH talk/edits 16:41, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Current timeline in the history section

Currently the visual timeline within the history section refers to everything on Taiwan prior to the 1620s as "prehistory". Doesn't this disparagingly imply that the Taiwanese Aborigines in the 1600s were "stone agers" or something along those lines? Prehistory implies that there is no civilisation, and the link to Prehistory of Taiwan itself leads to an article discusses the Paleolithic era (50,000 BC to 10,000 BC). I'm pretty sure some different wording would be more suitable. Furthermore, I think the Kingdom of Middag should be within the timeline as well. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 18:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

"Prehistory" just refers to a time where there was no recorded history of the area. The term is correct, since AFAIK, the Taiwanese aborigines had no indigenous writing system. I don't detect a value judgment in that term. Shrigley (talk) 18:52, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

When the word "prehistoric" is used, the first thing that comes to mind are Jurassic dinosaurs from 200 million years ago. Regardless of the technicalities and definitions of the word, that's how things work within people's minds. The linked article, Prehistory of Taiwan, specifically focuses on a timespan tens of thousands of years before present, and has no mention of anything after 1 AD. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 19:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like the "Prehistory of Taiwan" article needs some work. Shrigley is right that "prehistory" means "before written records were kept". Readin (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

The Kingdom of Middag article is completely uncited. Is there any information at all about them before David Wright's account from the 1650s, listing them as one of 11 "shires or provinces" of the plains? Kanguole 04:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

That article is uncited, true; I guess the article can always be improved. The Chinese Wikipedia article at zh:大肚王國 cites the following references:

• 中村孝志，《荷蘭時代台灣史研究下卷 社會·文化》，板橋市:稻鄉，ISBN 957-9628-60-2
• 翁佳音，〈被遺忘的台灣原住民史——Quata（大肚番王）初考〉《臺灣風物》42卷4期
• 郭弘斌,台灣原住民的語言,台灣人的台灣史,2003.

I haven't looked into the topic in much detail yet though. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:35, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

None of those references seems to support information about Middag before the 1650s; the first was added attached to a description of Wright's account in this edit. Regarding the title, I agree with Shrigley that it means nothing more than "before history", but since the timeline is about rule, perhaps "Aboriginal chiefdoms" would be more specific. Kanguole 01:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Timeline

Someone added a timeline that compares Taiwan and mainland China histories. It was removed with the explanation that comparing the two is "anachronistic and wrong". If this article were solely about the country Taiwan I would agree. But it has been merged with the Republic of China article and thus mainland China's history is an integral part. I think the timeline provides a valuable visual insight into the history showing strengths of arguments both anti-Taiwan freedom and pro-Taiwan freedom. One the anti side the timeline shows that the Qing dynasty controlled Taiwan for a longer time than any other colonial master. On the pro side we see that the ROC take-over of Taiwan was more of a move than a unification as there were very few years where both Taiwan and China were ruled together by the ROC. The timeline makes this information clear in a way that sentences and numbers don't.Readin (talk) 23:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that such a timeline is great for showing the historical background to the unification/independence debate. It's not so much ammunition, but something I can use to easily explain to an outsider why people disagree. (So maybe it can somehow be added to one of the articles dealing with that issue, if it's an angle that has been employed by RS.) But honestly, I'm not sure this article is the right place for it, as Taiwan's history is much more than just the unification/independence debate. You mention that mainland China's history is an integral part of this article—I actually don't think it should be that way, now that the article is titled "Taiwan".

In my opinion, this article should deal with the history of Taiwan pre-ROC rule and the history of the ROC on Taiwan, while giving brief summaries of what is fully explained in History of the Republic of China, Chinese Civil War, etc. I slightly oppose the inclusion of the timeline as it is, though a timeline showing just Taiwan might be a nice overview. wctaiwan (talk) 02:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Though it has been established by community WP:CONSENSUS that "Taiwan" is the WP:COMMONNAME of the "Republic of China" via the Requested Move discussion, the topic of the article is still about the Republic of China, which although mostly deals with Taiwan within the modern era, also deals with the historical mainland ROC. So far, all that has been established is that since nowadays the ROC is located (mostly) on Taiwan, the article should be called "Taiwan"; it has not been established, per community consensus, that the article no longer deals with the historical ROC. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Then can we gauge consensus on that? The direction of the article certainly seems to be moving toward covering Taiwan's history, which I think is proper, as using Taiwan to describe pre-1949 ROC is plainly wrong (a concern brought up in the RM, I believe). Pre-1949 ROC should be summarised to provide context, but not covered in detail. I think the best way is to have Taiwan's history section cover the history of Taiwan (pre-1949 regimes and post-1949 ROC), History of Taiwan being the main article of that, and have History of the Republic of China cover ROC's history as a state that began on the mainland and is now located on Taiwan. wctaiwan (talk) 04:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to start up an RfC. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 05:09, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this article ought to focus on Taiwan (with a brief summary of the ROC on the mainland for context). I don't think that mainland China's history should be part of this article, but surely we can agree that it is the single most important piece of context for the history of Taiwan. The question of Taiwan's status is also central to the article, and permeates much of the writing about the history of the place. Would it help to adjust the thickness of the bars to distinguish topic from context? Kanguole 12:02, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Eh, this is way hair-splitting and IMO unnecessary, if others think that the timeline is appropriate. It's just that if asked, I don't think it should be included. That said, it may still be useful to see whether others agree with the view that the history section should focus on Taiwan (as it does now), and not ROC's history as a state. wctaiwan (talk) 12:53, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

This article isn't about the Republic of Taiwan, which does not exist. It is about the Republic of China which currently governs Taiwan; "Taiwan" is just a common name that we are using, but this article is still about the Republic of China. This is not a journalism article covering current new, folks. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia and Encyclopedias cover the past and the present.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 18:53, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of the move/merger is that this article covers both the country Taiwan (the place, people and cultures including those that pre-date the ROC takeover and even the ROC founding) as well as the ROC government (the institutions, structures and people that now govern Taiwan). That's why the history section includes parallel histories of Taiwan and the ROC from 1912 to 1945. Readin (talk) 00:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I just spent some time digging up the original decision. It says, "...it has become clear that the weight of policy-based argument comes down squarely on the side of renaming the article currently at Republic of China to Taiwan. As a consequence of this, the article currently at Taiwan will be moved to Taiwan (island). An article narrowly formulated about the government of Taiwan and its history can be created at Republic of China."

A strict following of this would be strange because the earlier Republic of China article was already narrowly tailored to the government and its history. Further, the article that was at Taiwan covered far more than would be found in a typical article about geography. Editors seem to have figured this out and the Taiwan article we now have is a merger. It is about the state or government that rules Taiwan. But like most articles that deal with states, it is also about the place and people ruled by that state including their history that pre-dates the state.

The Republic of China is, so far as I know, unique in modern history in that it has ruled largely disjoint places and done so for decades. For nearly 40 years it ruled mainland China, and for nearly 70 years it has ruled Taiwan. The 1912 to 1949 era of mainland China relates to the ROC because the ROC was the ruler there at that time. The 1912 to 1949 era relates to this article because most articles that cover a state include the history of the location and peoples prior to the state's rule. We need to cover both. Readin (talk) 01:17, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

For the reason explained above, I'll put History of Republic of China back in as one of the main articles for the History section of this article.Readin (talk) 01:17, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Koxinga's areas of control

File:Four Princes of Southern Ming Dynasty.jpg

Four Princes of the Southern Ming Dynasty

Regarding this edit summary by Kanguole: "Zheng regime wasn't the Ming dynasty" - Koxinga's regime on Taiwan was a Ming loyalist regime fighting against the Qing, and an extension of the Southern Ming Dynasty. Koxinga did not only control territory on Taiwan, but in Fujian as well. I don't think it would be illogical to have the Ming and Tungning having the same colour. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Koxinga (as his name implies) was not part of the Zhu family and has no right to the Ming Dynasty name; he could not, in sanguine terms, succeed as an Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. They should be different colors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 02:44, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Leadership often changes in ways that have nothing to do with "right". Readin (talk) 04:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The Chinese Wikipedia articles at zh:明鄭, zh:明鄭時期 and zh:南明 seem to fully associate Koxinga with the actual Ming, despite not actually being an imperial ruler or sharing the imperial surname. Would a land conquered by a subordinate of the Ming be considered Ming land, or territory not belonging to the Ming but rather a subordinate loyalist faction? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:28, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

When Koxinga set up his own kingdom he was no longer subordinate to an existing Ming government. He could not claim to be the Ming government himself because he didn't inherit the title nor did he take over the institutions. As for the time when the Ming government did still exist (even if largely exiled) one could argue that since Koxinga was still loyal to the Ming that it was Ming territory. However arguing against that is the fact that the Ming government never took effective control of Taiwan. Were orders given by the Ming central government and then followed in Taiwan? I'm not an expert on the period but my understanding is that Koxinga ruled the non-aboriginal portions of Taiwan without guidance from the Ming government. I.e. the Ming central government was never able to rule Taiwan. Readin (talk) 16:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The timeline distinguishes between the Ming and the Qing which makes sense for a variety of reasons. The governments grew from different bases of countrol, and the governing apparatus of one was not an inheritance from the other. The two can be fairly called different states rather than simply one group of leaders replacing another. I think the same is true of the Ming and Koxinga. Koxinga may remained loyal to the Ming, but his government was not the Ming government. The Ming government and the emperor to which he swore loyalty had been separated from Koxinga and he was unable to help that government. In setting up his own kingdom he was not perpetuating that ruler or that governing institution. Readin (talk) 04:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The maps show that Koxinga controlled only a small portion of Taiwan (the same was likely true of the Dutch, and from what I understand it the Japanese who were first to extend control over all the aboriginal territories). If we're going to have a timeline, perhaps we need to have some way of indicating this shared control between the aborigines and whatever other power was colonizing the place. Readin (talk) 04:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It's true that there's a pattern of gradual expansion and encroachment running through the Dutch, Tungning, Qing and Japanese periods, but these subtleties are difficult to show graphically, particularly with the simple timeline template. (Similarly the ROC didn't control large parts of the mainland at various times between 1912 and 1949.) But the periodization is fairly standard across accounts of Taiwanese history, and the named entities were in some sense dominant in each of those periods. I think we just need to have appropriate wording in the caption. Kanguole 22:00, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello everyone, sorry for taking so long to post here, I've been busy. The timeline drew my eye because of the weird formatting that ensued while the page was loading (not that this is that important). It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it helps too much here. If it is intended to try and show the shifting ROC, then it isn't that effective. There's no reason for it to extend so far into the past if that is the case. The template uses the term "Mainland China", which means a different thing for each entry there. Contrasting Taiwan with a Mainland China was the anachronism I meant in the edit summary. Mainland China is a specific term for non-HK/Macau PRC. It simply isn't a term for any of the other entries in the timeline. The historical contrast with Taiwan and the mainland is probably not apt to. The histories weren't especially linked, but the timeline makes it seem they were. In addition, how are the events that are shown chosen? How is the Keelung Campaign of the same prominence as the Second World War, and how does it have more prominence than the shift of Taiwan to democracy, or the election of the first-nonKMT government? In the end, I think our prose should explain the situation to the reader, not images. We spent ages discussing the title of this article, with many arguments that such a long and complex history shouldn't be simplified into the article title "Taiwan". While that was not a strong argument in regards to article titling, it is a good point that we should avoid oversimplifying if we don't have to. This timeline I feel may slightly oversimplify, and isn't that useful. CMD (talk) 14:18, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Any historical discussion by necessity involves some simplication. For example, when we say the Qing ruled Taiwan we really mean that the Qing ruled the civilized portions of Taiwan. And by the "civilized portions" of course we are using an imprecise definition (how do you define "civilized" and having done so how do you determine if the patch of trees between the road and the farm is "civilized" if there is no human there?) I think meaning of "mainland China" is clear enough in this context.

When I first saw the timeline I fretted over the question of how far back the timeline should be extended also. 1500 seems to too conveniently maximize the length of Qing domination as a portion of the timeline (in case you haven't noticed I'm a raving supporter of a free democratic Taiwan) and I wondered if that was the fairest way to do it. Chopping the timeline at 1912 would show how long Japan ran the place and highlight the movement of the ROC from China to Taiwan. However the article isn't just about the ROC - it is about Taiwan. Leaving out Taiwan's longer history would not be right. How about extending it back even farther - perhaps to the beginning of civilization in China? That would make it clear that for most of Chinese history Taiwan has been completely separate and show the bogusness of claims about Taiwan "always being an integral part of China". However, the article isn't about China. It is about Taiwan. Extending back to the beginning of Taiwan's recorded history - with a little extra to show the aboriginal past, just makes too much darn sense. It would be good though if we could graphically depict that the line extends in both directions. Right now it looks like the aboriginal history only goes back as far as 1500.

The other issues can be hashed out I thnk. Readin (talk) 15:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The aim of the timeline is to present a visual overview of the History section, giving the reader an idea of the relationships of the various events that are detailed in the text. The term "mainland China" or "Chinese mainland" is widely used in a geographical sense in historical accounts of Taiwan spanning the entire period; Hong Kong and Macau are irrelevant in this context. The mainland is indeed closely connected with the history of Taiwan: Koxinga, the Qing and the ROC, as well as the ancestors of 98% of the population, came from there during this period, the Dutch only came to Taiwan because the Ming drove them out of Penghu, and the current PRC rule casts a massive shadow. As for the apparent prominence of the Keelung Campaign, it's just that the 20th century has been so eventful. A timeline does involve simplification, as does any summary, but it's a stretch to call it "wrong", and it is still a useful introduction. The history section is indeed bloated, but the solution is more summary material and less detail (primarily in the ROC sections). Kanguole 15:38, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem I have isn't HK/Macau (they are indeed irrelevant) but the idea of a "Mainland China" in the first place, which necessitates that it is in opposition to the other bits of China. While the history is now linked - that's not even remotely deniable - it wasn't for the vast majority of history.

I don't understand why we have to emphasise the length of Qing (or any) rule. Each period of rule was what it was, and that's going to be the same no matter what point we cut a timeline at. Extending history back is quite pointless and undue, as there's no reason to present ancient China's history here.

And why contrast only with Mainland China? Why not Japan, since it was part of their empire? I understand that a contrast with China (my Japan comparison was not a serious suggestion) makes some sense because the current state was founded on the mainland in 1912 (even if it has changed significantly since then), but does that one historical point justify the creation of an entire timeline? Does the timeline even help this?

This all goes back to what the timeline is for. I said it was "wrong"; that was itself an oversimplification, so I apologise for that. However, the point behind that was that I don't think it helped. While this is an electronic encyclopaedia, it is still meant to focus on text, on what is written. The history section of this article is meant to by itself be a short overview, written with WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. We shouldn't be creating an overview of an overview, especially if it doesn't have that much of a rationale for existing.

I'm very surprised there hasn't been the chorus of voices here that popped up during the move request. The timeline here presents everything they argued against: It ignores the fact that the ROC has more than one island and presents a sharp cutoff date for ROC rule. I'm not saying those are strong arguments, but the ideas behind them are worth considering.

While it's there, it shouldn't link to "Republic of China", as that's circular. Taiwan after World War II would be a better link. CMD (talk) 16:13, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I've explained above why the history of the mainland (of which the timeline includes only the barest outline) is particularly relevant context to the history of Taiwan throughout this period. And I've described the purpose of the timeline; in short, visual aids can be a useful supplement to text. You also seem to have misunderstood the point Readin was making about the start date (cf. How to Lie with Statistics).

Regarding the name, as I said "mainland China" is widely used by historians. Would "Chinese mainland" be better? I'm pretty sure that plain "China" would get a lot of objections. Kanguole 17:06, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I noted that the history of the mainland is relevant, and that you present this as a supplement. I disagree that the relevance justifies a timeline going back to 1500 with the vague undefined area of mainland china, which was a different area under each ruling dynasty (better word?). In addition, the timeline doesn't express this relevance at all, it just shows an overlap with the Qing and the quick shift of the ROC. Qing rule isn't any more relevant than subsequent Japanese rule, and the ROC shift is far better explained in prose.

This appears at the top of the history, before the reader has started reading any of the prose, so the timeline won't supplement the understanding of the transfer of the ROC to the reader (but will cause a huge whitespace for any reader with a monitor larger than mine). I understood Readin's point, I was using the evidence for that point to make a different point; that the arbitrary start date runs into some sort of problem no matter where it is placed.

At the moment, Chinese mainland would be better, as it isn't the same as an actual term, but I'm sure it's as objectionable as just "China" but in the opposite direction. CMD (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, "Chinese mainland" then. The timeline doesn't explain the relevance, but then it doesn't have to do everything; the text makes it clear. The rest has already been answered. Kanguole 18:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

True, the timeline doesn't have to do everything, but what does it do? You said it was meant to "present a visual overview of the History section, giving the reader an idea of the relationships of the various events that are detailed in the text" that would supplement the text. You haven't explained why there's a need to present an overview of an overview, something not done on any other country article as far as I've seen, and definitely not any of the higher quality ones. Nor have you explained why certain random events are chosen to be shown above the timeline. The timeline doesn't give much of an idea of relationships between events either, firstly because not many events are shown, but most importantly because it's not designed to link events, but to show blocks of rulers. Then there's the simplification issue. Readin made quite a good point above about how some simplification was important, and that argument is good in regards to the Qing, due to their effective control over some of the island and the uncontested claim. However, it doesn't explain the earlier parts. The Dutch never ruled all of Taiwan, yet they are shown to. It's also weird to display them while relegating Spain to a note; both Dutch and Spanish trading posts were established at roughly the same time, and the Spanish presence lasted about half as long as the Dutch one did (although they didn't rule the whole island either). Also strange is separating "Tungning" into two lines, it's needed for formatting, but not very good for readers. And while on formatting, this timeline creates a large whitespace if I extend my window just slightly wider than my screen, and when I shrink my window the bars drift out of sync, so it's not great on the WP:ACCESS front either (it's more readable than I expected on the mobile version, but the formatting is unsurprisingly strange). You're right that the text makes it clear. The text makes it so very much clearer. In fact, the text makes the situation very clear on its own, without running into any of these problems. We should simplify when we have to (as Readin notes we must), but not when we don't have to. We don't need this timeline, and it does nothing the text doesn't do on its own. CMD (talk) 23:33, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

From what I remember reading about the Dutch period, and what the Wikipedia article suggests, their control extended far beyond having a single trading post. Readin (talk) 02:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

True, they controlled more than a single trading post, but as far as I have read that is how their presence began. Their control extended around the southern coast of the island at the very least, although I don't know what the height of its extent was. The Spanish were on the north, so the Dutch weren't there for at least 18 years. CMD (talk) 11:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I think CMD makes enough good points about weaknesses of the timeline that we should remove it from the article at least until it has been substantially reworked and improved. We can also keep it here while we discuss whether it belongs and if so, where. Readin (talk) 02:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC) {{Horizontal timeline}} Some changes I think need to be made before we put it back on the main page:

• It should not be at the top of the history section (as per CMD's comments).
• Either remove the Keelung event or add more events (again per CMD's comments).
• The far left and right of the timeline should not have solid black lines. The ROC and PRC extend indefinitely to the future, but the black lines indicate a definite stopping point. Similarly the Ming and the aborigines extend into the past beyond 1500 but the timeline suggests they do not.

Readin (talk) 02:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

• The top of the history section is the logical place for it, as that is the section of which it is an overview. Some people find graphical overviews useful; clearly some don't.
• Whether the Keelung Campaign is there or not is of little consequence. It's just that there aren't a lot of events before the 20th century apart from transitions of power.
• The template doesn't provide a means to turn off the left and right borders. That would need some template hacking. Kanguole 10:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Two extra rows should be added for Kinmen and the Matsu Islands respectively. Three separate rows may be needed for Wuchiu, the Pratas Islands, and Taiping Island. Jeremy (talk) 17:51, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Scope of the history section & reorganisation

So far I see three views on the scope of the history section (please do point out any misunderstandings):

1. Have this article cover the history of Taiwan, with pre-1949 ROC only summarised to provide context and detailed in another article (my preference).
2. Cover both the history of Taiwan and the full history of the ROC, since this article is also about ROC as a state, with Taiwan as the common name.
3. Focus on the history of the ROC, on the basis that this article is about the ROC, and "Taiwan" is used only as a common name.

I can not agree with the third view, as I think Taiwan's history before start of ROC rule is just as relevant to Taiwan as a whole compared to the history of the ROC on the mainland prior to 1949. However, I am fine the second approach (which is sort of what the article has now) if that's what others prefer. But I think the current organisation is slightly messy: It goes from talking about Japanese rule to talking about the establishment of the ROC with no explanation. If we're going with the second approach, I propose reorganising the history section into 3 subsections, roughly: 1. Taiwan prior to 1949 2. The ROC prior to 1949 3. Government on Taiwan. I don't think too many changes would be needed for that, really, seeing as the subsections are already pretty clearly divided.

So I want to ask other editors: 1. What should be the scope of the history section? and 2. If it covers both, should it be split up into 3 subsections? wctaiwan (talk) 05:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC) Changed from bullet list to ordered list. wctaiwan (talk) 06:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I personally prefer #2, but do agree that currently the formatting is quite strange. If anyone has ideas on how to clean it up, I'm all ears. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:19, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Option 1 (Could you number them please?) is consistent with treatment of virtually all other country articles. That should be our approach here. HiLo48 (talk) 06:34, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

However our case is special. Name me another country that began on one geographical area, and somehow ended up in a completely different place. Byzantine Empire doesn't count. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:46, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I really don't care about what you describe as "our case". Such language encourages me to look for a desire in you to impose a political POV on the article. Every country is special in its own way. My view is clear. No matter how the present rulers got there, a country is a geographical entity. We don't include British history in the Australia article. HiLo48 (talk) 06:58, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Cool -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 07:03, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I took "our case" as meaning "the article we are all discussing and trying to improve here". There's no call to side-track the discussion with accusations of political POV-pushing.

Personally I favour #1, but #2 wouldn't be completely unreasonable. Kanguole 10:28, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I also took "our case" as meaning "the article we're working on" and did not detect any bias in Benlisquare's comment. If if there was POV in his comment, questions of POV should be directed at the comment rather than the editor. Every editor has POV. If you think a comment is unhelpful due to POV, explain why the comment is bad. There is no need to attack the editor. Readin (talk) 17:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

One thing I will declare with no doubt at all in my mind is that it's common for posters on Taiwan related articles to not properly read others' posts. (Perhaps I am guilty myself sometimes too.) I did NOT say that I saw POV. I said that the language used encourages me to look for POV. Clearly there are people from many different cultures posting here. Some have very limited awareness of the linguistic styles and habits of of those other than their own. We all need to be very careful with our use of the English language here, and to fully and carefully read each others' posts. HiLo48 (talk) 20:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I think #2 is fine, and we're already doing that. But we need to expand the post-1949 section or contract the pre-1945 ROC section to get better balance. Despite there being 60 years since 1949 and only 30 years of ROC history prior to 1945, the pre-1945 ROC section is about the same size as the post-1949 section. And recent history usually includes more details than older history (note that the 33 years between 1912 and 1945 are as long as all the pre-1945 Taiwan history put together). A couple topics that look like they could use a little more information are the expulsion from the UN and actions of opposition movement that pushed for democratic changes. Readin (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we should expand the post-1949 sections – the history section is already too long for an overview article; if anything they should be trimmed. I'd rather replace the two pre-1945 ROC sections with one section of a few paragraphs. Kanguole 21:23, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I would be interested to know which history (histories?) Taiwanese children learn as their own in schools. But I don't think there is much of a difference between #1 and #2. This article is only really supposed to offer summaries, and we need some pre-retrocession ROC history for the post-retrocession history to make any sense. I can't imagine what covering "the full history of the ROC" would require, since it was a rather short-lived regime (on the mainland). Shrigley (talk) 14:13, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

In high school, we had one semester of Taiwanese history (from prehistory to today) and one semester of Chinese history (again, from prehistory to today, touching on some of PRC). As you can see, that'd have been a cursory overview in either case. (My middle school education wasn't in Taiwan, and I have no real recollection of what I learned in primary school.) I would consider what the article has right now to be a variety of #2. If we're going with #1, the parts not directly related to Taiwan would probably be trimmed further so as to only give context to ROC on Taiwan. wctaiwan (talk) 14:40, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

From what I can gather from that account, I think we can't really firmly say that within the Taiwanese curriculum, "Chinese history" (specifically relating to the mainland) is something considered domestic. I mean, they teach the Three Kingdoms of China in Japan during high school as well, and quite a damn lot of it. I've met exchange students from Tokyo who know more about events, battles and personas of the Three Kingdoms than I do. We can't really assume anything from this alone. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 15:38, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The ROC Yearbook does #2, with the 3-part organization wctaiwan suggests. Kanguole 16:09, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh wow, that's nice. #2 would be quite close to how the ROC/Taiwan Government explains its own history. For this article, as long as the three sections are clear and distinct, it should turn out fine. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The ROC yearbook does it slightly different by putting the pre-1945 ROC history before the pre-1945 Taiwan history. This makes since as the ROC yearbook is a KMT document heavy in KMT propaganda and naturally puts a higher importance on the KMT government than on the Taiwan. I think wctaiwan's proposal of putting pre-1949 history first makes more sense because the pre-1949 Taiwan history starts with pre-history long before the 1912 beginning of the pre-1949 ROC history. Readin (talk) 17:29, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The ROC yearbook is from an official ROC website http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/, not from the KMT website. So your comment about it being KMT-centric is your own POV. It's official ROC. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, it is "in the business" of reporting on history, not re-writing it. This article is about the ROC, common name Taiwan. This is not an article about Taiwan.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 20:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The ROC in Taiwan has been controlled by the KMT for over 60 years. Even when the president was DPP, the other four branches of government (legislative, judicial, examination, and control yuans) were dominated by the KMT. In many cases, and I think this is certainly one of them, a document from the ROC government can be considered a document from the KMT political party. Readin (talk) 15:23, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

To add more detail to the answer to Shrigley's question, people I know in their 40s who grew up in Taiwan say they learned a lot of Chinese history and very little Taiwanese history (they can be pretty lousy tour guides since they don't know about Taiwan's historic sites). This of course was part of the KMT's efforts to sinicize Taiwan. When the DPP had the presidency they tried to add more Taiwanese history to the mix. I'm not sure what the status is now. But in any case the issue is very politicized in Taiwan and how they handle history would not provide NPOV guidance on how we should handle it here. Readin (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

A proposal: how about two history sections? One titled "History of Taiwan (prehistory-1949)" (or something similar), and the other "History of the Republic of China". Then move and adapt the current history subsections into these two sections. Admittedly it would look slightly messy, but the ROC/Taiwan situation is unique and the current proposal is too complicated. -- Peter ^{Talk page} 17:40, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The post 1949 section will cover both Taiwan and the ROC government. Absorbing it into "History of Republic of China" when there is a separate section for pre-1494 Taiwan history would be confusing. A third section for the time in which government and the country are combined is better. Readin (talk) 17:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Alternatively we should focus on the history of the post-1949 Republic of China. Pre-1945 or pre-1949 Republic of China, and pre-1945 Taiwan, should be summarised. There should be links to History of the Republic of China and History of Taiwan from these subsections as main articles. Readers should go to Taiwan (island), Kinmen and Matsu Islands for further details about these few groups of islands. Jeremy (talk) 17:48, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Politics

If we're talking about the present, we have to continue to emphasize the ROC historically, because this is an article about the ROC. Anybody who talks about de-emphasiing the ROC is propagating the Chen Shiu-bian Adminstration's propaganda drives when he renamed Chiang Kai-shek Airport to Taoyuan Airport, when he added "Taiwan" to ROC passports, when they renamed Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. All these moves were to minimize the ROC, to de-emphasize the ROC. Everybody here who wants to minimize and de-emphasize the ROC and make this article only Taiwan are only trying to carry out the POV propaganda of Chen Shui-bian and the DPP. This article is about the ROC, common name Taiwan, it is not about the "Republic of Taiwan". Please stop violating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not and it is not "Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion" or "Wikipedia is not a newspaper"; Wikipedia is not a place for DPP propaganda and it is not a journalism article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 20:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Bullshit! That's the post of a pure POV pusher. I just want Wikipedia to make sense to the vast majority of people in the world, like me, with no interest in taking sides the political battles of people still fighting a war that was lost over 60 years ago. Is there any chance at all that you can see that some people with no connection whatsoever with any part of your idiotic war want this to be a great Wikipedia article. I am one of them, and am pushing no POV here, apart from common sense. The article is called Taiwan, which, to most people in the world, is a country off the coast of China. That's what the article must describe. And do keep your insane, paranoid allegations out of here. 21:10, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The ROC, common name Taiwan, is what this article describes. How does relegating the ROC history into 1 paragraph and expanding "Taiwan history" describe the island off the coast of China? What is "Taiwan history" anyways? How does your way make sense? Check out the ROC Yearbook: http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/. If someone were to go to here and then found the ROC Yearbook on the ROC GOVERNMENT SITE (a PRIMARY source), how would that make sense to the reader? Does Wikipedia know something that the ROC GOVERNMENT doesn't? Your way is confusing people, not helping them. And watch your language, it's not appreciated by anybody here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 21:55, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, it's DPP propaganda whether you know it or not and whether you do or not doesn't change the fact that it is propaganda and propaganda is not allowed on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 22:06, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

You don't like my sightly aggressive language? It's not a patch on your insane allegations. Please take your paranoid ranting and raving elsewhere. HiLo48 (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't like the fact that you're making personal attacks instead of addressing the content of my posts. I'm sure that you know that that is against the rules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 22:24, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The content of your posts is ignorant, insane, paranoid, politically motivated, destructive garbage. I have no political or ancestral connection with anything or anyone from within 7,000 kilometres of Taiwan. I've never heard of nor read anything from the DPP, whose propaganda you idiotically claim I am influenced by and pushing. I see a country off the east coast of China and believe that its article should be similarly structured to those of all the other countries in the world. It should describe that country's history and geography. It may need minimal mention of where the ancestors of the present political rulers came from, but no more than that. HiLo48 (talk) 22:42, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Anybody have something constructive to say? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.129.169 (talk) 22:30, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see the final two sentences of my post just above. HiLo48 (talk) 22:42, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

96.40.129.169 and HiLo48, you're both being out of line. Since you've already made your points, and now things are getting heated, perhaps it would be best for both of you to go find other pages to work on for a few days? Sven Manguard Wha? 01:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I will always defend myself against stupid and paranoid allegations. That you criticise us equally gives too much credibility to the sad individual who made them. Would you rather I reported him? HiLo48 (talk) 03:46, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'd rather an admin block you for 24 hours for continuing to make personal attacks after being asked to stop. Disengage. There is no possible good that can be done at this point by your continued posting. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I think they really need to add a new section to WP:NOT: "Wikipedia is not a Cronulla nightclub". Jokes aside, HiLo48's comments of particular characteristics which can be found all over the ROC>Taiwan RM and related talk pages are quite disruptive, and it gives me the impression that he thinks that WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL does not apply to him. I'm not going to sift through diffs to find it, but I recall him once saying within one of the discussions something along the lines of "why should I be considerate to others when I don't expect it to be reciprocated by IP editors... I will change my method of engagement". This has gone on for too long, and has got to stop. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:44, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

HiLo's replies here may be running a little hot, but random IPs coming to this talk page and posting deliberately inflammatory commentary that isn't actually helpful to the discussion has been going on for months. When this page gets hot, I'd suggest semi-protecting it before blocking a long-term established user. The signal to noise from IPs on this talk page is really low, and frustration with that is what is trying the patience of other users. Get rid of the source of the frustration. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Regarding "frustration", we have WP-namespace pages on that, such as WP:COOL. Regardless of how frustrating a discussion may be, users are expected to maintain WP:CIVIL. Now, I'm all for giving HiLo48 a warning only, and hoping that they try their best to improve their behaviour in the future, but you cannot shift the entire focus away from policies such as WP:CIVIL by simply citing "frustration"; in case people aren't aware, I am indef blocked on the Japanese Wikipedia, because I ignored WP:CIVIL and allowed myself to respond to "frustration" during the whole Senkaku Islands dispute shenanigans during 2010 following the 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident. "Frustration" is never a valid excuse to ignore policy. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 07:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I see that the discussions around this subject tend to get heated, however criticizing an established user who is getting trolled by an unidentifiable IP address does not look good. Hilos is a productive contributor to discussions around China and Taiwan, and when a fellow editor gets targeted like that, it's best to remove unproductive commentary made by unidentifiable single-purpose accounts so that the discussions around content may continue. Thank you. — Nearly Headless Nick {c} 08:15, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

"Trolling" - People on Wikipedia keep using that word, and I don't think they know what it actually means. This has got to be the most overused argument word here. "A post that I don't like" is not the definition of trolling. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:57, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Let's not miss the forest for a tree. The point of things like CIVIL is to maintain constructive discussion. Let's not pretend that's why that IP (or any of dozens of others on this page in the last year) is here. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Sure, the IP editor has done inappropriate things as well, but arguing for pot calling the kettle black isn't the right thing to do. We should identify misbehaviour on both sides and aim to fix the issue, not necessarily via penal methods, but any genuine attempt to solve the issue without brushing it away or ignoring it. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:00, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The 21:10 post was submitted by HiLo48 (it isn't signed properly but you can check the page history) and was his first response to the Poster (who we all seem to agree was out of line). In that post HiLo408 said "Bullshit! That's the post of a pure POV pusher." The language was clearly uncivil, and the comment was an attack on the poster rather than the comment. He also wrote, "Is there any chance at all that you can see that some people with no connection whatsoever with any part of your idiotic war want this to be a great Wikipedia article." Remember, this was the first response, not a response given after much frustration. And he also wrote "And do keep your insane, paranoid allegations out of here." Even in the face of provocations we are supposed to keep our heads and these are clear violations of WP:CIVIL. Whether or not bother editors crossed the line to the same extent, they both crossed the line.

Schmucky's point about a long established editor is well-taken, and there is a certain unfairness in that a 24-hour ban would affect the established editor more because the IP editor can just use a different IP (thanks DHCP).

However, In reading other discussions I've seen similarly heated talk and personal attacks from HiLo48. I think HiLo48 should be put on some sort of notice that if he doesn't respond civilly - even when provoked - then we'll have to get administrator intervention. Readin (talk) 15:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Just curious. Many of you seem to see my lack of niceness as a far more serious crime than that "interesting" contribution from the IP editor. If I hadn't responded at all to the IP's post, would any of the rest of you commented on that post in any way at all? HiLo48 (talk) 04:51, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Not I. The posting was self-evidently ridiculous, and I was hoping everyone would step around it and continue the reasonable discussion we were having. Unfortunately you chose to give it a prominence it didn't warrant, and the two of you proceeded to have a brawl, derailing that discussion. Kanguole 08:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

If you hadn't taken the bait, I'd assume that everyone would have naturally ignored any preposterous rambling, which seems to be the most sensible thing to do, and continued on with the main discussion. Once hook, line and sinker are all gone, the only thing left is to bring out the popcorn. Though, it's also likely that perhaps at least one person who is relatively fresh to the discussion may come across the comment at one point, assumed good faith as policy expects them to do so, and write a 200-word summary refuting their comment, in accordance with File:Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement.svg, and in a polite, civil manner. That way, the particular user, having been sensible and polite, however naive they may be, would have not drawn so much attention to the IP editor's comments, which would have prevented a major derailing of the discussion. Once anger and frustration finds its way into a discussion, the discussion goes off a tangent so that one may as well nail a cross over it. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:17, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

History Section Scope

The discussion got sidetracked but that seems to have settled down so this is another attempt. The "Main Article" for the History section is "History of Taiwan". However the history section covers both the history of Taiwan going back to and including pre-history, and the history of the Republic of China incluing 1912 to 1949. I believe both are proper topics for this History section of this article. In most articles about states the article discusses both the entire history of the state and the entire history of the country the state governs. In most articles, the history of the state is a proper subset of the history of the country. For the Republic of China which moved from mainland China to Taiwan there is a part of the state history that did not take place in the current country. Since this article is a logical place to look for both the pre-1945 Taiwan history and the 1912 to 1949 ROC history, it makes sense to cover both in this article. The result then, is that I think we should have 2 main articles for this article's History section. Instead of "Main Article: History of Taiwan" we should have "Main Articles: History of Taiwan, History of Republic of China". Readin (talk) 16:51, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

That works if we're able to make is nice and concise enough to fit into one beautiful section. As it is now, with its jumble of subsections, the History of Republic of China is placed in an appropriate subsection. Another alternative is to condense the text into three subsections: 1) Taiwan pre-1945/9, main History of Taiwan, 2) ROC pre 1949, main History of Republic of China 3) post 1949. CMD (talk) 17:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I can't think of a clean way of doing this either. At the moment the history section is largely handled chronologically, with the main article 'History of Taiwan' being a summary article that spans the prehistory onwards. Putting a link to the history of the Republic of China at the top of the section there as well seems a bit awkward since it would be out of chronological place. I'd like to see the top level 'main article' link for the history section removed or put somewhere else, honestly, but I can't think of anywhere better to put it. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I have been meaning to implement my 3-subsection proposal above (which most people seem okay with), but I have been busy. I was thinking that there would be no main article for the larger history section, and History of Taiwan and History of the Republic of China would be main articles for the pre-1949 Taiwan and ROC subsections, respectively (basically what CMD said above). It's not a perfect fit, since both articles cover post-1949 ROC on Taiwan, but I think it works well enough. Could someone start the reorganisation, if there is no significant objection? wctaiwan (talk) 02:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I have now attempted a rough 3-section organization. It's not very fine-grained due to time constraints. (I just added a section lead and moved a couple paragraphs around.) Please revert / make changes / discuss as needed. Thanks. wctaiwan (talk) 05:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Shorten Intro

The intro section is way too long. Shouldn't include paleo-type prehistory. Should summarize key issues/history that led to current status which affects current political life/sovereignty/identity issues. Details about political camps should be left out other than the different stances in unification/independence issue. "Thriving democracy..." should move into govt or a democracy period section within history. Mistakefinder (talk) 05:15, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The intro is only slightly longer than the intros for France and Germany, and as the merger of two separate topics (the country called "Taiwan" and the government called "Republic of China") whose relationships both to each other and to the outside world are unusual, controversial and filled with misconceptions, I think the intro is only as long as it has to be. Even the sentence about the paleolithic error is useful for dispelling the common notion that Taiwan was an uninhabited island prior to the Chinese arriving in 1949, or the other common notion that the island was uninhabited until the Chinese started arriving at some other point in time. Readin (talk) 14:10, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Government on Taiwan

This whole part here:

"Little or no distinction was made between the government and the Kuomintang, with public property, government property, and party property being largely interchangeable. Government workers and party members were mostly indistinguishable, with many government workers required to become KMT members, and party workers paid salaries and promised retirement benefits along the lines of government employees."

The above has no citation. It should actually be removed as per WP:Citing_Sources because it has no citation. Also, the article makes it sound like the central government imposed martial law when it was actually the Governor of Taiwan that imposed martial law in 1948 prior to the central government's retreat (the central government having officially retreated to Taiwan in 1949). The 2 paragraphs are inaccurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 14:04, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I will fix the last part. Mixed up the declaration of martial law with the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion; my bad. I'd prefer that the part you quoted be sourced and tweaked accordingly, since the conflating of the state and the party did happen (classic example: One would say that they were "忠黨愛國" (loyal to the party and patriotic)), and it is a notable phenomenon in the modern history of the ROC. wctaiwan (talk) 15:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Revert of economy-related paragraphs

I have reverted this edit because it is not neutral, as it frames the issue negatively and seems to criticise current policies, choosing indicators that support the particular view. Even if it were sourced, we need broad consensus among sources (or a reputable source stating that the view is the consensus) to say what the edit said in Wikipedia's voice. wctaiwan (talk) 03:08, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The topic of the Taiwan article should be Taiwan

I suspect that most readers coming to an article with the title Taiwan expect to be reading about, you know, Taiwan. We should follow the lead of the published secondary sources on this topic, for example Taiwan: A New History. (No, this book does not even mention Yuan Shikai.) The vast majority of English-speakers will assume a Republic of China to be located somewhere in the area that is commonly referred to as "China". Using this phrase to refer the government of Taiwan was never mainstream usage. The chapter heading in Cambridge History of China is "Taiwan under Nationalist rule". Newspaper usage was Taiwan or "Nationalist China" until 1971,[11] and has been almost exclusively "Taiwan" since that time. The "Republic of China" lemma is available to tell an ROC-focused story. Kauffner (talk) 06:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

As the country's name is "Republic of China", pointing that redirect anywhere but here would also be quite confusing. Similarly, Federal Republic of Germany redirects to Germany, not to West Germany. —Kusma (t·c) 08:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The majority of readers assume the "Republic of China" means the Chinese government, either because they are confused with "People's Republic China," or because they assume China must have a long form name in the form "Republic of Foo." According Insights, there are looking mainly for the Chinese embassy or the government Web portal. Why do so many readers who type in "Republic of China" also type in "Republic of Taiwan"? They obviously have no idea which one is correct, so they try both. Kauffner (talk) 08:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

So they will learn that their assumption was incorrect. The correct presentation of facts (like the name of the country) is more important than catering to people's wrong assumptions, at least in an encyclopedia. —Kusma (t·c) 12:29, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

There was an opinon poll that showed close to 80 percent support for "name rectification". It is not as if "Republic of China" is something that Taiwanese want to be called. Kauffner (talk) 14:08, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Opinion polls are not representative of the total population, per volunteer bias, and do not statistically represent, confirm or justify anything on a qualitative basis. People only participate in polls if they have an opinion and really are vocal in getting it across. If what you say is correct, then why is it that on Chinese Wikipedia, users from Taiwan with an userbox template reading "I come from the ROC" outnumber those that say "I come from Taiwan"? If your answer is "these users display volunteer bias", then you are correct. Furthermore, how do you explain the large crowds on the day of the 100th Anniversary of the Republic of China, if the majority do not recognise ROC legitimacy as you claim? Again, the proper answer is "these people display volunteer bias". Neither you nor I can prove anything with these things. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 14:45, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Your opinion poll is just that, an opinion. Until the Republic of China passes a constitutional amendment or the government on Taiwan declares independence from itself, it is still the Republic of China. It is not the "Republic of Taiwan," that's an indisputable fact and encyclopedias are supposed to present facts. In fact, the vast majority of the people in the ROC support the status quo, which means that the ROC remains the ROC. Only a small minority want to change the name to "Republic of Taiwan". Here's the article about the government survey supporting the status quo: http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20120518000028&cid=1101. Stop propagandizing here at Wikipedia, it's against policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.78.140 (talk) 21:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

You know, keeping such a belligerent tone isn't really helping. Just write the main points, and try not to say anything else. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:12, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

What change in the article is this suggesting? Sorry, but couldn't find one above. CMD (talk) 22:06, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The topic of this article is Taiwan. Taiwan is governed by the Republic of China. -- Peter ^{Talk · Contribs} 22:57, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• wctaiwan is the midst reorganizing the article to put primary emphasis on the ROC. This is apparently based on the theory that "Taiwan" is simply the common name for ROC, which is ridiculous. Does any history book claim that Sun Yat-sen was president of Taiwan? If you think Taiwan is the common name, that should be the name used in the text. But it's "ROC" all over the place. Soon only the title will be "Taiwan". A section like "The Republic of China in mainland China" isn't related to Taiwan, and isn't needed at all. For the modern state, we can use Republic of China (Taiwan). It's on the president's Website. Kauffner (talk) 01:19, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm unlikely to make further major changes. And I have no particular preference for the current organisation--I actually support leaving the coverage of ROC-on-mainland to another article, but judging from this discussion, there doesn't seem to be consensus to do that. The reorganisation was done to solve the issue of the article jumping from Japanese rule of Taiwan to the establishment of the ROC with no transition / distinction, not to change the scope of coverage. wctaiwan (talk) 01:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

This was one of the dilemmas that were mentioned during the requested move that was ignored and brushed aside by many of the people involved. No use complaining about it now, because mainland ROC history is integrally a part of the ROC topic, and we've decided to put the whole thing under an article titled Taiwan. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Wctaiwan's edits were formatting, not adding or abolishing content. If there's a disagreement with the actual content inclusion, that is not the fault of wctaiwan's edits. And it's good to have a country article under its normal name. I only wish the world was so simple we never had to explain anything. CMD (talk) 01:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• I think this quote sums it up nicely and should go in the "names" section: "When we say 'Taiwan' everybody abroad understands what we mean. When we call ourselves something else, it often sounds quite awkward, but we have to do it for political reasons," said a MOFA spokeswoman.[12] Kauffner (talk) 02:22, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

This article is about the Republic of China, common name Taiwan; concensus was reached on this and 3 Admins approved it. Stop politicizing this article by trying to make it an article about the "Republic of Taiwan". Propagandizing is against policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.46.140 (talk) 13:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Only in your imagination is anyone doing that IP. @Kauffner I wouldn't be against that addition. It's also a nice source for showing that even in Taiwan the island and the state are looked at as one thing and used interchangeably. CMD (talk) 17:56, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Agree with all that re what people are not doing and the use of that quote. I would though hold out against any use of "Republic of China (Taiwan)" in unattributed WP prose, if that's what's being suggested further above. It's an odd and confusing formulation - is there another ROC, or another version of it, say, in Hong Kong? - rarely seen in most sources. In fact, we need more use of straight "Taiwan" in the narrative text - that's what we've decided on for the name. Also, on the broader point, there's a balance to be struck, but I don't see how we can exclude at least some discussion of the ROC history and its relationship to the modern entity known as Taiwan, with links to more appropriate, detailed sub-articles as appropriate (I've lost track of where we are with the ROC history, government articles etc). N-HH talk/edits 18:12, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Whether or not Taiwan is interchangeable with ROC (within the country itself) depends on your political point of view. The use of it interchangeably is a moderate Pan-Green POV and Taiwan Independence ("Republic of Taiwan") being the extreme POV of that group. The Pan-Blue views Taiwan as being governed by the ROC (the ROC on Taiwan) with the extreme of that party viewing Taiwan as a part of China with some wanting immediate reunification and others thinking Taiwan should become a SAR like Hong Kong or Macau. You guys have your pick of POV's. Or we could stick to the current concensus as approved by 3 Admins. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.174.144 (talk) 18:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we should think about what English language speakers are likely to think about the term. Only 0.01% of the English speaking world is going to understand what "pan-blue" and "pan-green" even mean. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Politics should be left at the "door" when it comes to Wikipedia. The article was renamed because of how English language users refer to the country of Taiwan. The content should follow suit. The history of the ROC prior to the nationalists seizing control of Taiwan is not relevant enough (except possibly the briefest of summaries). John Smith's (talk) 22:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a "Liberal Democratic" party in Canada. There's a "Liberal Democrats" party in the UK. When we talk about the "Democrats" in Canada, do we use the UK's definition or the Canadian definition? If we talk about Taiwan, do we use Taiwan's definition of itself or English definitions of it? If we use the English definitions about Taiwan, we are in essence redefining it for our own purposes and not stating the facts that exist in Taiwan which is what an Encyclopedia is supposed to do. You're using Original Research. Which is against policy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.134.13 (talk) 18:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I've made some BOLD edits that I think addresses Kauffner's concerns. First, I removed the "pre-1949 history" heading. It smacks of "date resetting" as practised by dictatorial states. It also helps reduce sub-sub-headings (which look horrible). Second, I reduced the history relating to the ROC/KMT prior to the nationalists' defeat. There's an article on the history of the ROC up until 1949. Users should read that if they want to know what the KMT were up to before they came to Taiwan. I wouldn't object to a little more background info on why the KMT fled to Taiwan, but it should be kept simple. They were at war with the Communists, they lost, they fled to Taiwan. Simple. Anything else is undue weight.

Your setting forth a POV as stated by the former DPP Vice-President Annette Lu here: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/06/03/2003534405. The ROC recently celebrated its centennial: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2011/01/01/285931/Record-crowds.htm. That's 100+ years of history. Since this article is about the ROC, common name Taiwan, all 100 years of history needs to be represented here. Because your edits are certifiably a Pan-Green POV that the Pan-Blues would disagree with, I'm going to undo it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.134.13 (talk • contribs)

I'm afraid that you're mistaken. It is not the case that the Republic of China, i.e. the historical entity formed in 1912, is now referred to as "Taiwan". Most English-speaking people that talk about "Taiwan" don't even know that it's officially called the RoC. They're talking about the state centred around Taiwan. It is true that Taiwan is officially called the RoC, but that's a throw-back to KMT martial rule when they imposed a political system on the island without reference to the people.

Imagine the following scenario. There was a civil war in America, and the rebels won, declaring the new country name to be "the People's Republic of America". Loyalist forces sailed to Cuba, took control of the island and referred to themselves as the government of "The United States of America". Would we suddenly have to rewrite the Cuba article to take account of US history? No. The same applies to this article. This article is about the country of Taiwan, even if that is not its official title. John Smith's (talk) 19:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

DON'T UNDO ANYTHING, until there has been some genuine conversation on this. And please learn to sign your posts so that the conversation can be understood! HiLo48 (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

It should never have been done in the 1st place. There was no concensus on the change John Smith made. It should be undone and it could be done again if there is concensus.

Republic of China history is taught in Taiwan. Why would we not "teach" ROC history here? Encyclopedias, INCLUDING Wikipedia represents FACTS. ROC history is a FACT of Taiwan. Please stop trying to make Wikipedia something it's not. It's against policy. Let's take this up to the Admins. Let's see if they think something that is taught in the school system in a given country should be excluded from being taught here on Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.134.13 (talk) 19:24, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

French history is taught in British schools, but I don't see anything in the UK article about the French Revolution.

The project provides information to people in a way they find logical. They don't go to an article on Taiwan expecting to find out about Chinese history. John Smith's (talk) 19:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

This project is an Encyclopedia. It's not supposed to cater to people's preconceived expectations, it's supposed to represent the facts as they are known and documented. Some people find that the fact that the Holocaust existed to be false and others deny the Rape of Nanking, however, as an Encyclopedia, Wikipedia needs to represent the facts. That's what an Encyclopedia does. It is well documented that that the ROC entity on Taiwan is the same entity as on the Mainland. Everything else is politics.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.134.13 (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

As I said, if people want to know about Chinese history, they go to the China article or the Chinese history article. They don't go to an article called "Taiwan". John Smith's (talk) 19:47, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm talking about ROC history. I'm not talking about the Han, Tang, Song, Ming etc, Dynasties and all that history. The consensus that the 3 Admins approved was to use "Taiwan" as the common name of the Republic of China. How can we not have ROC history in an article about the ROC?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.134.13 (talk) 19:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

RoC history is Chinese history (at least up until the time the RoC became little more than Taiwan). And the closing admins merely said that the weight of policy-based argument comes down squarely on the side of renaming the article currently at Republic of China to Taiwan. They made no decision on the content of the article - it was a move request, nothing more. John Smith's (talk) 20:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

If the ROC is the official name of Taiwan (that's not disputed, that's at the top of the page), shouldn't ROC history be represented in this article? What does ROC history being "Chinese" history have to do with presenting the historical facts of the ROC, common name Taiwan, in this article? What am I missing? Why does ROC history being Chinese history exclude it from and article about the Republic of China? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.134.13 (talk) 20:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

If the ROC is the official name of Taiwan ... shouldn't ROC history be represented in this article? No, because the article's focus is on Taiwan. A brief explanation of the Chinese civil war and the KMT's occupation of Taiwan is relevant because it indicates why Taiwan is called the RoC, as well as why it was under a dictatorship for decades. But, as an example, the founding of the Chinese state in 1912 and what happened to it subsequently has no significant relevance to Taiwan, so should not be included. John Smith's (talk) 21:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

That's like saying the American Revolution has no relevance to the USA. This article isn't only about Taiwan, it's about the Republic of China, common name Taiwan. The closing statement here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Taiwan/Archive_20#Final_closing_statement specifically states that that is the final decision. It was a merger of the Taiwan (Island) article with the Republic of China article, it was not to change this article's focus to be only Taiwan. It is to include both the island topics and the Republic of China topics. This article is supposed to be about the ROC and the island and your edits have cut out the ROC. And you've given no good reason why the ROC CAN'T be included in this article, except that it's Chinese which makes no sense. Whether or not the ROC is Chinese or something else, all of its history should be included. No part of a country's history should ever be covered up. Good or bad. Or whether or not you agree with it. The facts are the facts. And you've removed the facts. If you want to make this into a Taiwan-centric article, that should require a new consensus; the current consensus is that this article is about the Republic of China.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Midcent (talk • contribs) 21:30, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

That's like saying the American Revolution has no relevance to the USA Wrong, because the American Revolution was a defining event that led to the birth of the USA. What you want would be like giving the background of English history in the USA article because that's where the founding fathers came from. John Smith's (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The ROC coming to Taiwan IS a defining moment. Had the ROC not established itself on Taiwan, Taiwan would be a part of Japan and would be a province of Japan just like Okinawa/Ryukyu. Taiwan as a independent (albeit de facto) country would not exist. Treaty of Taipei

Please sign your posts. HiLo48 (talk) 04:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The KMT coming to Taiwan is referred to in the article. Have you even bothered to read it thoroughly? John Smith's (talk) 09:58, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I note that you asked for confirmed status so you could roll back my changes. If you don't care what I think and just want to revert, why are you even bothering to discuss this? Is this a case of soapboxing? John Smith's (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I want to return this article to the consensus that was reached and approved by 3 Admins and then we can discuss and reach a new consensus on whether or not the editors here want to make this a more Taiwan-centric article. My understanding is that that is how it's done here.

My understanding is that we sign our posts here. Want even more respect? Register. HiLo48 (talk) 04:22, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Also I note there's nothing about Taiwan's history 2008-2012. That needs to be filled pronto. John Smith's (talk) 22:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

By the way, sorry if my attempts at copyediting are somewhat limited, but I think it's important to get the structure right first. After that the text should fall into place quite easily. John Smith's (talk) 23:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Also, can we please remove and replace citations from old publications/articles that appear to assert what current views/political positions are. This isn't 2001 or 2005! John Smith's (talk) 23:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

John Smith, you're completely on the right track here. Keep up the good work! HiLo48 (talk) 00:19, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Admins' closing comments

In order to put the above conversation to bed, please note the following comment that was made by the three closing admins.

An article narrowly formulated about the government of Taiwan and its history can be created at Republic of China.

If the admins had intended for this article (Taiwan) to include a history of the Republic of China, they would not have made the comment highlighted above. John Smith's (talk) 23:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The official name of Taiwan is the Republic of China. The Republic of China isn't the past, it is the present. Please present your facts that Taiwan is not the Republic of China and should not be presented here.

Please learn to sign your posts. HiLo48 (talk) 04:15, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Please stop harassing me.

Since when is politely asking someone to sign their posts harassment? Fucking ridiculous! HiLo48 (talk) 17:49, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. The article is about what is currently known as "Taiwan". Both the country and the state currently go by that name. Taiwan was not known as "Taiwan" 150 years ago, but we still include the history of Taiwan that happened 150 years ago. The Republic of China was not known as "Taiwan" 90 years ago, but we should still include that history. Someone looking for the history of the state that they know of as "Taiwan" is just as likely to look as this article as someone looking for the history of the country they know as "Taiwan". We need to include both.

It looks like someone has been deleting the pre-1949 history of the ROC overview despite there clearly being no consensus for doing so.

The presence of narrowly focused more detailed article as the "Republic of China" page does not remove the responsibility to provide overview information on this page. Readin (talk) 01:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Readin, I have to disagree with you. The island/nation now known as Taiwan has a history, which is why the article refers to it. That does not necessarily involve Chinese history. More significantly, it makes no sense to have an article that is both about the island of Taiwan and the historical state of the Republic of China. I think it has to be one or the other. Both is a messy attempt at a compromise. John Smith's (talk) 09:00, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The article can be about just the country, it can be about just the state, or like most other similar articles it can be about both. The article's pre-1949 section of ROC history was too long before, and there was consensus for shortening it, but I haven't seen a consensus for removing the whole thing. The history of the country we now call "Taiwan" and the history of the state we now call "Taiwan" are both part of the history of what we now know as "Taiwan". Readin (talk) 13:52, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

What is the official name of Taiwan? What languages do they speak on Taiwan? What is taught in the history books on Taiwan? Why should Chinese history not be taught in an article about a country called The Republic of China? Here's the most important question that should be considered: Why is Wikipedia teaching something different than what is taught in the history books in the school system on Taiwan?

Please sign your posts by placing 4 tildas after your comment.

Please stop harassing me. This is my second request.

If you're worried about publicly displaying your IP address and don't want to register for an account, can you at least put some unique set of letters and numbers that will distinguish your comments? something like: "--Bob". This helps two ways. It helps connect your posts so we can better understand what you want to communicate. Just as importantly it provides a punctuation to your post letting us know when it is completed and keeping it separate from other people's posts.Readin (talk) 17:08, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

He has registered an account, he just can't be bothered to sign his comments. John Smith's (talk) 18:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The reason Wikipedia may decide to teach something different than what is taught in the history books in Taiwan is that Wikipedia tries to by unbiased while the history books in Taiwan are the result of a very political process that has usually been pretty biased. It is unclear to what extent those biases have been removed. Readin (talk) 14:10, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

How could it be biased to teach the history of the Republic of China in a country called The Republic of China? It's like saying Scottish history shouldn't be taught in Great Britain because the Queen is English (well, really, she's of German stock). Quite the contrary, I think it's biased to not teach Republic of China history in a country called the Republic of China. If this article was about the Republic of Taiwan, then yes, Chinese history probably wouldn't belong here; however, even though we call this article "Taiwan", this article is still about the Republic of China.

The government, imported from China, is called "Republic of China". That government is trying to push its POV that Taiwan is part of China, so the government teaches the children a history of China that has nothing to do with those children. At least that is how I see it. I realize others see it differently. Our job at Wikipedia is not to promote anyone's particular view, whether that view belongs to some random guy behind a computer or whether that view belongs to a dictator who suppressed dissent until he and his ideological descendants were firmly in control of a country. Simply ruling a country does not make you unbiased and a government can be as biased as anyone else.

The Treaty of Taipei gave the ROC (right or wrong) the license to enforce their POV that exists to today. Just as surely the Louisiana Purchase gave the USA the right to enforce their POV onto the land that that treaty covered. It's POV yes, but it's also historical fact and a political reality.

The ROC has no right to impose any POV on Wikipedia articles. I don't think you understand how Wikipedia works. This is exemplified by the fact that we have yet another unsigned post. Very unhelpful. (And not helping your case in the slightest.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

You're right that the article, as decided by the admins, is supposed to include the Republic of China. And I agree with you that we should be including pre-1949 ROC history. But we should be clear that the reason for doing so is to serve people coming to the page looking for information about the ROC (by redirect or by common name), not because we think the ROC is an unbiased source of information about the ROC or about Taiwan. Readin (talk) 17:08, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Why don't we make Republic of China a disambiguation page between this page, Republic of China (1912-1949) and China (disambiguation)? Surely that satisfies everyone? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

That would make sense. Or redirect Republic of China to the 1912 to 1949 page and then have the usual bit at the top to say "if you're looking for the modern state called ROC, please see Taiwan" or something like that. John Smith's (talk) 23:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I proposed both those ideas already, as you can see here and here. Anyone who wants to try again has my support. Most readers typing in ROC as a search term are not aware of the PRC vs ROC issue and are just looking for information on the current Chinese government. So whatever page the lemma directs to should state prominently, Not to be confused with the People's Republic of China. Kauffner (talk) 08:13, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The ROC is still the ROC. We don't divide the USA before the American Civil War (34 States) and modern America (50 States). We include all of American history in the United States article, albeit in summary. ROC on the Mainland should also be included here; why are we trying to hide that history? It's relevant. It's what has made the ROC what it is today: Chinese speaking, de facto independent vs. a prefecture of Japan, etc.

All I get from that post is another irresistible urge to say - please sign your posts. HiLo48 (talk) 02:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Please stop harassing me. This is my third and final request. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midcent (talk • contribs) 03:58, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows for anonymous posts. And you are being overly repetitive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harassment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midcent (talk • contribs) 04:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

If you want the highest level of respect from other editors, and want to contribute effectively to the most coherent conversations, you will register, log on and sign. Anything less, and your posts will have considerably less impact. HiLo48 (talk) 04:08, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not looking for respect. Respect for myself is inconsequential. The truth is what matters and what Wikipedia, as an Encyclopedia, should strive for. The truth comes from facts. This article should present the facts and let the readers decide for themselves what is or what is not important.

Please at least sign your posts. Without that you make it so much harder for others. You should care about that. HiLo48 (talk) 04:54, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Given everyone who is actually making an effort to engage in discussion agrees, I'm implementing my above suggestion. @John, I disagree that Republic of China should directly redirect to the historical article, it is possible that people want this one instead, and we shouldn't bias them by redirecting. A disambiguation page doesn't do much harm. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

That still leaves, unresolved, the history of the ROC in this article. If this article becomes Taiwan, where does a reader go to find out information on the entity known as the Republic of China (on the Mainland or on Taiwan). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midcent (talk • contribs) 14:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that that is another topic worthy of discussion, however it is a separate issue as I don't think there is much disagreement that there needs to be an article on the modern state and the more historical one.

What the exact balance is is worthy of discussion, but that should be a separate matter. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:34, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

It's really the same matter. Because if this article continues down the road it's currently going down, the only thing left to do would be to create a new Republic of China article that talks about the Republic of China on the Mainland and on Taiwan, which then creates some duplication which is something (if memory serves) the 3 admins did not want. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Midcent (talk • contribs) 14:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not really sure why. This article could (and should) easily include appropriate background. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to undo part of the recent move (Talk:Taiwan/Archive 20#Requested Move (February 2012)) without a similar discussion, especially so as this was not announced on either Republic of China or Republic of China (disambiguation). I think many who agreed to the move were happy with it as they knew Republic of China would still redirect to Taiwan. Republic of China may not be the common name of Taiwan but it is the formal and official name with no other comparable entity with the same name, and all other uses depend on it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I would have said the discussion it was going against was Talk:Republic_of_China_(disambiguation)#Requested_move:_Republic_of_China_.28disambiguation.29_.E2.86.92_Republic_of_China which I was unaware of until just now. But I think the result is the same for now. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The Republic of China pre-1945 and post-1949 are two different countries, but they are not two different states. The institutions, people, symbols, laws and such that defined the pre-1945 government largely survived the move from China to Taiwan. We can't simply declare them unrelated and have two completely separate articles for them while refusing to have an article that tracks the continuous history of the ROC. I fail to see the harm in this article having a small section for the pre-1945 history of the ROC. Readin (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree completely. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:57, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

A small section, yes, but remember that the articles on most countries don't say much at all about where the ancestors of the current rulers came from. HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

A small section, yes, but remember that the articles on most countries don't say much at all about where the ancestors of the current rulers came from. HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm revising and extending an earlier comment because it was written hastily.

I'm glad we agree on needing a section. But I do want to say that it isn't just the ancestors of the rulers, it is also the origins of the institutions and laws. Also, it is unfortunately the case that the 3-admin decision said the Republic of China article should be moved to the "Taiwan" page. We may not like it (and I don't), but this article isn't just about the country Taiwan - it is also about the Republic of China. Readin (talk) 15:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, I don't know why that was even brought up in the first place. This is about the ROC_Constitution and the Treaty_Of_Taipei; the laws of the country and its lawful agreements with other countries.

WTF? You, whoever you are (you forgot to sign so we can't tell who you are, or if you've even posted here before), are the only one to mention race and ethnicity. Why did YOU bring them up? HiLo48 (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be coming to a consensus that we need a section on pre-1949 ROC and that it needs to be smaller than what was there before. In anticipation of a dispute about the exact size, I'll say we need a section similar in size to the section on Qing rule of Taiwan. Readin (talk) 15:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

(User:Benlisquare here, just testing out IPv6 for editing to see how things go, don't mind me) Yes, that seems reasonable: The article needs at least one paragraph of pre-1949 ROC information. This compromise should be quite reasonable, and I hope the others agree. 2001:5C0:1400:A:0:0:0:459 (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Is there really consensus? At least it depends what you expect this section to say. I wouldn't mind say a short paragraph on it, but only as background to why the KMT came to Taiwan and where the concept of the ROC came from. John Smith's (talk) 17:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

You never took the time to get concensus from the other editors here to remove it in the first place; now you're looking for concensus? More people agree with the compromise of including a short history of the ROC than those who want it not included. Let's just get it done.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.53.110.144 (talk) 17:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I think there is a consensus to add a paragraph or so on the pre-1949 history - there doesn't seem any good reason not to include such content.

Certainly to that degree Taiwan is different from almost all other countries, the only other similar example that comes immediately to mind is Israel - that said that article doesn't have much general history - but I think in this case a paragraph would still be reasonable. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:33, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what the value of saying that there's consensus to include a paragraph or so on pre-1949 history, because no one has proposed what needs to be said yet. Any editor can propose amendments to an article at any time. It would be better if editors started saying what historical pre-1949 events and facts need to be included. Otherwise how can consensus be found? As I said, I have no objection to some reference to pre-1949 history, but what I might think appropriate might be regarded as insufficient by others. In which case, if no agreement could be found, it might be that nothing substantial would be added. John Smith's (talk) 17:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Excellent point, it would be good to know what is wanted. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not much of a scholar on the ROC (my focus is Taiwan), but I think stating each point below with one sentence or maybe two would be useful:

• In some year some event happened that ended the previous imperial system in China.
• On some date some people got together and announced the formation of the ROC.
• There was some infighting.
• The KMT came out on top.
• CKS became the leader.
• CKS united all of China with his Northern Expedition.
• The Communists formed and began to struggle for control.
• The Japanese invaded.
• The Communists and KMT fought the Japanese separately and didn't trust each other.
• After the WWII the KMT gained control of Taiwan and the war with the Communists resumed with greater intensity.
• The KMT imposed martial law in Taiwan and the 228 incident occurred.
• The KMT lost the war in China and retreated to newly acquired Taiwan.

If that proves to be too long we might cut it down some. Readin (talk) 20:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Nothing there seems particularly unreasonable, but it is going to be a very long paragraph. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:18, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I think there's too much there to be set out as individual points, and it's also unnecessary repetition of what is on other articles. Remember that they are already covered on the China and ROC history pages (or can be easily inserted). As I said, some information can be included but it should be essential background to the KMT's arrival in Taiwan. John Smith's (talk) 07:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think an individual sentence is needed for each of those points. The first six points for example, seem to work well with each two in a sentence. Summary-wise it seems quite good however. Per John Smith, it'd be useful for there to be suggested text to comment on. Prose really can't be worked on until that point. CMD (talk) 10:34, 8 June 2012 (UTC)