Template talk:History of the People's Republic of China

Polite revert requested

This template looks horrible with all that unnecessary whitespace to the far right. Would anyone mind if I reverted back to version 311443097 by Colipon? -- WikHead (talk) 09:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like it has less whitespace on the right of the text to me. Gary King (talk) 18:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989#Naming of incident. The text area is being limited to about 25% of the view width, with a wide white stripe (dead wasted whitespace) running vertically down the far right of the screen (see screen-cap image). It looks bad. Would it be possible to stack these templates instead? -- WikHead (talk) 19:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It looked fine in Firefox. I've tried a different method of merging the two templates together, which should fix it. Gary King (talk) 19:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Ahhh yes, it's perfect now! Thank you very kindly for resolving that issue Gary. Regards :) -- WikHead (talk) 19:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Recentism?

The last section of the template seems to be fairly out of place: 1) The significance of the Beijing Olympics and the Sichuan earthquake can be debated; however, the Shanghai expo certainly doesn't merit being placed alongside a series of periods and turning points in the PRC's history. 2) There is no clear reason for 2002 to be treated as a significant turning point. 1976 and 1989 were both extremely significant years which saw very important decisions made on the future course of China's political development: 2002, not so much. (Yes, I am aware that the handover to the next political generation took place then, but it was nothing as significant as the two previous dates, and I don't see any convincing reason for a new section to be made for this year's handover either -- what would it be called, "China Tomorrow"?)

Hence I recommend merging the "China Today" section into the Rising Power section (I think we can all agree that China did not stop being a rising power in 2002). Personally, moreover, I think that in terms of actual historical significance only the Beijing Olympics deserves being kept there, out of the three events currently listed in that section. --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 18:19, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Wang Lijun instead of Bo Xilai?

I wonder what is the criteria behind the choice of topics for the last section of this template. IMHO, the Wang Lijun incident is a minor plot in the bigger Bo Xilai event: the scandal, expulsion and subsequent trial - which is one of the most important political events in the contemporary chinese political landscape. Is there another place where this should be discussed? I think this template should be modified in such sense. --Helichrysum Italicum (talk) 23:27, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

I concur with the sentiments of Helichrysum Italicum and Tyrannus Mundi above. I think anyone discussing Chinese history would see 1989 to the present, as one continuous and homogeneous period. The power change in 2002 was minor not major and so makes for an odd delimiter in the list. Some events were prominent at the time but have faded or been surpassed since, e.g. Bo Xilai is just one of many corruption scandals that have since come to light. There is also a rather big gap in the list between 1997 and 2008. In fact, there isn't much listed between 1989 and 2008 when compared to what's listed for 2008 to 2012. Rincewind42 (talk) 07:20, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The more I look at this template, the more I think the overall structure is potentially POV. Expecially the final section. Who has the final word in saying what is meaningful and what is not in the past 20+ years? Plus, there are many inconsistencies: for example, One country, two systems is filed under "1989"...but it was promoted by Deng in 1979!! I think the safest way to classify the recent history, if we ever felt the need to do so, should be according to power generations: Mao till death - transition and Deng - Jiang - Hu - Xi - etc.. I think the template should be redesigned in this way, it would be much more NPOV and less liable to being the result of a original research. Concerning what is relevant and what is not in the so called modern contemporary history, why mention Sichuan earthquake and Wang Lijun, and omit Hong Kong Umbrella revolution or clashes in Xinjiang? Choosing to insert such a section in this template is opening a wide window to possible POVs in the choice of content deemed "important". As such, I think this template should be massively redesigned. --Helichrysum Italicum (talk) 14:49, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

This is a tough one, since many of the Mao-era events were topics unto themselves and subject to intense historical research, but the same cannot be said of the more 'recent' events, particularly those that developed after Wikipedia came into existence. There is nothing terribly momentous since 1978 (aside from maybe Tiananmen protests) that can be classified as an event of historical interest in the same way the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution can be. Certainly Expo 2010 should be removed as I cannot see it being an event remembered 50 years from now. As for the Wang Lijun incident - that should probably be re-organized altogether to be named the "Bo Xilai affair" or something similar, as it will likely be of historical significance, we just don't know in what context it will be placed. Colipon+(Talk) 18:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)