![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I deleted the reference to the Chinese government as an authoritarian government, because of the words that are used to describe what "authoritarianism" is in its wiki entry.
For example, "maintains and enforces social control through the use of oppressive measures" or "use of considerable force and sometimes in blatant violation of human rights", etc etc, is debatable and at best a matter of opinion, whether or not that applies to the Chinese government. Hong Qi Gong 01:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
-- Sumple ( Talk) 03:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
A point on which a lot of people get confused - NPOV does not mean you can't say bad things about something. You just need to ensure that the article as a whole is balanced and presents a broad range of views, so do quote from different sources, one that says that it is authoritarian and another that says that it isn't. enochlau ( talk) 10:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I made a minor addition to the current version. See if you are OK with it. Basically, the last revision implies that it is only the Constitution of the PRC that disagrees with the authoritarian reference, and that's plainly not true.
Anyway, I still think it's best to leave out the authoritarian reference altogether. It is not a question of the political process in the PRC government, but more a question of whether or not the PRC fits the description of "authoritarian" as it is written in the authoritarian wiki entry. And clearly:
I would say that many consider the PRC government non authoritarian. Does a one party state = authoritarian? I do not think so. Also, I suppose I was wrong on the grammer. Thought it sounded better. My appologies on that one. ( Majin Takeru 03:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC))
The notion of the people's democratic dictatorship is not even in theory opposed to authoritarianism. The is authoritarianism is meant to apply outside the realm of the people. In practice, this is all hogwash. Can anyone provide a published source that serious argues that 1) China is not authoritarian and 2) China is a people's democratic dictatorship. The claims made, under weasel terms, are simply unargued and unverifiable.-- Jiang 05:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Avoid weasel words. You cant present opposing views by attributing them to vague references and speculating that people in Asia, South America, and Africa hold these opposing views. The term "authoritarianism" can be a precisely defined term in political science. If the problem is with the definition, then change the definition, dont insert weasel words.
Sure, there is dispute and debate over the democratic vs. authoritarian nature of China, but who the hell still defends the system by calling it a "people's democratic dictatorship"? Even the Chinese media doesn't. The term is absurd and has no place here. There is simply no evidence here that it is used by anyone, anywhere to defend the current political system in China. (Just compare this with this. The first link makes plenty of claims that China is authoritarian. The second link has no claims that China is a people's democratic dictatorship.) Here, the system is defended as allowing participation by the masses, but it makes no mention of the people's democratic dictatorship. In the past, the government has defended the system is promoting social stability in light of economic developments.
Again, the issue is not with the word authoritarian, which can be emirically applied to China, but the differing views on the justification of authoritarianism. I ask you to provide references that 1) explicitly refute China is "authoritarian", using the term and 2) explicitly defends the Chinese political system as a "people's democratic dictatorship".
I changed "the government has succeeded in creating jobs" to the more specific "economic reforms have succeeded in creating jobs". why was this reverted?-- Jiang 09:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Who thinks China is authoritarian? Can you please show who is disputing that the PRC has an authoritarian political system?-- Jiang 07:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The paper you linked to earlier discusses the extent of China's authoritarianism. It does not refute that China is authoritarian. Just because there is an absence of claim that China is authoritarian does not prove that China is not authoritarian. Just because this article does not say "Hu Jintao is gay" does not mean Hu Jintao is indeed homosexual. Therefore, the absence of the word "authoritarian" in the French and Chinese versions of wikipedia is irrelevant. It could have just been a fact left out, and to make the connection that the absence of something is the denial of something is to commit a non sequitur. Although the Chinese media does not label China authoritarian, it does not refute it. If they dont deny it, then we cannot conclude that they disagree. They have to say they disagree for us to say they disagree.
Who thinks China is authoritarian? Political scientists who are interested in classifying political systems using standard definitive terms. here are a list of books.
You said, "The fact is that people disagree as to whether or not the PRC is 'authoritarian'." Please prove this statement. -- Jiang 08:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I should have used a less stringent term than "prove." If people disagree with that view, then they will try to refute that view. Do you have evidence of people trying to refute that view? What is the opposing view?
The government presents the view that it is respresentative of and responsible to the masses. But this in and by itself does not refute or attempt to refute the notion of authoritarianism. You can have an authoritarian government that is respresentative of and responsible to the masses. The opposite of authoritarianism is not democracy, (as Sumple said) it is libertarianism. Keep in mind that democracy does not have to be synonymous with western liberal democracy. A large part of the defense for the current system is that it is needed for economic growth. A government responsive to the needs of the people can certainly also be authortarian.
The ommission in the Chinese and French versions is not indicative of anything unless there was an intent to leave out the word. Was there a talk page discussion to suggest this?
You would like to provide "both points of view". But can you cite evidence here of someone professing the "opposing view". Who holds the opposing view and what do they argue? -- Jiang 16:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Again, I don't see the basis of a dispute here. Who disagrees that the PRC is authoritarian? Can you answer this simple question? I see you keep ignoring it. I tried to search for the answer myself and come up with nothing. If there is no evidence that anyone anywhere is disputing whether the PRC is authoritarian, then the whole argument presented here is a red herring.
Your proposal is inadequate because "authoritarian political system" and "representative system" are not opposites. It like saying "Political scientists often categorise the PRC as communist, but the Constitution of the PRC, and so presumably the CPC, regards it as a socialist democracy" which is entirely senseless is you look up the definition of the terms. Authoritarianism is simply having government impose certain controls in society that are opposed to the European concept of liberty and individual rights. The notion of "liberty" is foreign to China. If you read the writings of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen, and almost every 20th century Chinese political thinker attempting to promote some sort of representative system, you will see that none of them are promoting such a system for the sake of individual rights or liberty. The very justification of democracy in China, up to the present, has been as a means to connect the masses to the the leadership to aid the leadership in better serving their interests, as a means to build a stronger state. As demonstrated by the China Daily article I linked to earlier, the whole emphasis is on the participation of various segments of society in government. The article states that the system is meant to "achieve national independence, people's liberation, national prosperity and a happy life for the people", not the protection of their rights and liberties. In the Chinese notion of government, the leaders must always represent the interests of the people, but for millenia their interests were represented through an absolute monarch. The Chinese political orthodoxy really called for both authoritarian and representative system to be in the embodiment of the ruler, like how the socialist system calls for both to be in the embodiment of the party. We can also take the example of Singapore, where every citizen is by law required to vote, but when given several choices of candidates, they repeatedly vote back into office the People's Action Party which has imposed some very anti-libertarian policies. And it is the people who gave the government this power, and it is the government that is deriving consent from the people.-- Jiang 23:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
My Chinese is not good enough for reading news articles, so you'll have to pinpoint the sentence and translate it. The Fr version confuses economic systems with political systems. "Authoritarian" describes a political structure. "Communist" and "socialist" describe an economic structure. If we are to use "communist state" (describing a political structure), then we will have to attribute the term to western political scientists because according to Marxism, there is no state under communist and their preferred term would be "socialist state". Moreover, the last sentence (which I unconveniently take to imply that the first term refers to the government and the second term refers to the economy) does not make sense if you take the Marxist definition of communism and really study the economy to find out that the government still holds a whole lot of reserve control (technical ownership of land, rules on foreign investment, etc.) over the economy.-- Jiang 11:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why the sentence:
was changed to:
Hong Qi Gong 23:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Probably is no big deal, but "earth" should be capitalised to "Earth", shouldn't it? Or is it standard wiki practice to not capitalise it? Hong Qi Gong 05:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I changed the line that says the PRC claims Taiwan as the "23rd province of the PRC" to "a province of the PRC". The reason I did this was:
Thus "a" province is more accurate and NPOV, albeit less poetic. -- Sumple ( Talk) 09:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Why is the PRC flag pink? The red in the emblem and the red in the flag is different in the article. They should be the same color. There's something wrong with the color parameters used for the PRC flag. 128.135.224.149 19:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The article needs a massive overhaul to maintain its featured status. Reduce images, summarise content, add more references, reduce lists and unnecessary sections. See India, Australia, Bhutan and Nepal for reference. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I've listed this article under WP:FARC as it no longer meets the Featured article criteria. No one seems to be interested in maintaining the article. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Citing sources, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#External links. The revert is a gross abuse of the policy of using random links to mask the fact that the article lacks credible sources. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
There seemed to be some surprise when I commented that I found reading this article depressing. There was argument and debate. It was asserted that the article had been improved. We were invited to reread. I think it would be inappropriate to comment at length on the FARC page so here is my very preliminary view on second reading. I regret that I did not get past the first introductory paragraphs:
"Since its founding in 1949," /so this would be the de facto stabilisation after the cessation of hostilities. What is the process of "founding" a state? Has it not been normative for the "founding" act in public international law terms to be de jure recognition by other states? It is arguable that the state was not founded as such, but acquired a form of international legitimacy through the passage of time from 1949 onwards. But the phrase clearly needs considerable explanation/"the PRC has been led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) under a one-party system. Though constitutionally a socialist state/sorry to be dim but what does that mean? You say that a communist state has a socialist constitution? I think you should explain your terminology so that we can all understand what the implications are./"the PRC privatized"/so the state privatised rather than the Party? and what was this privatisation? Who owned what in this communist or socialist state and therefore had the right to sell? And who had the money (in a communist state, would private capital not be illegal?) to buy and what happened to the money?/"nearly half of its economy"/can you sell an economy or half of it? I thought you could only sell property, whether movable or immovable./"in the past three decades"/starting in the 1970s, somebody has sold half of the economy, but at which value? There would have been a valuation of the economy when the first sales were made in 1970. Thereafter, both the public and private economies would have grown. . . This needs serious explanation/"under "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." /is this a quote we can attribute? Is this how the Chinese themselves described their own system or is this an external value judgment, whether free-standing or perhaps as a translation of the Chinese but selecting Western words? It presupposes that there is something objectively identifiable as "socialism" and that this set of political norms was given a particular interpretation or application by the Chinese. Is this the result of the PRC being a communist state with a socialist constitution that you referred to earlier?/"Nonetheless, it"/this it is the Party?/"retains significant political control over the remaining state-owned enterprises and the banking sector."/so the banking sector was never state-owned, presumably because banking would be a capitalist venture? But the Party controlled it by regulation and informal mechanisms?
My deepest apologies, but this is all really depressing. David91 18:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The Communist Party of China (CPC) leads (has led) the country under a one-party system since the PRC's establishment in 1949 (you have failed to explain this— it is highly pertinent to advert to the de facto status of the government and so the equivocal status of the state). Though founded by a communist party, nearly half of its economy has been privatized in the past three decades under "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." (You have failed to deal with this.) During the 1980s, these economic reforms (sorry, did you list economic reforms somewhere?) helped lift hundreds of millions of peasants out of abject (abject is judgmental) poverty -- an achievement unmatched in human history (a bold and completely unsupported assertion that needs very careful justification and explanation). However, due to this mixing of capitalism with socialism (we are back to this communism/socialism/captialism problem which you have yet to explain), the PRC (the PRC is not faced by anything. It is the government that has a mind and it is highly judgmental to personalise the state and its peeople rather than consider the role of the group of people who have led it) is faced with a multitude of problems associated with each, (sorry, each what?) including unemployment and increasing rural/urban income gap (these are terms associated with developed economies and not necessarily relevant to China which has always has a majority of people falling into a peasant class). Despite shortcomings, (what shortcomings: I am completely lost in this explanation) the greater prosperity (among what percentage of the population? We need very careful justification for this statement) led (is leading) to growing Chinese global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs. (Right — Chinese people are highly industrious and, no matter where they have lived, they have always contributed to local economies. . .)
You do realise that there is something wrong with the majority of sentences in this article? Further, simply excising those elements that anyone analyses is extremely unhelpful because you are then failing to explain highly relevant issues. How and when the de jure state came into being is of major significance and if you want to leave 1949 untouched, then you have to explain it very clearly otherwise it is completely misleading to a naive reader. Similarly, you seem to be attributing political characteristics to the government and its activities as if there is an objective definition of communism/socialism/capitalism which every naive reader will understand in this context. Some people (hahahahaha) might have claimed that the government was a military dictatorship that wrapped itself in the flag of communism but that its politics actually had nothing to do with Marxism or Leninism (unless you do not associate Marx and Lenin with communism. Perhaps you see the PRC as more Stalinist in its behaviour?). You have to explain in neutral language what happened, and what social and political motives drove the process. So far, I see absolutely no improvement at all. I understand that you are highly motivated and upset that this page is "under attack". But you should take time to sit back and reflect calmly. We are not acting destructively here. This is an opportunity for a constructive rewriting of the entire piece. Unfortunately, the last few days frenetic activity have produced piecemeal amendments that fail to make any substantive rectification to the article's underlying faults. David91 01:40, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
A few editors seem to be working hard on the article. Here are my suggestions on how to go about in touching this article up:
---
Best of luck! =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with:
Since I have other buisness to take care of, it might take me awhile to fix some of these issues. In the mean time, others can jump in to help.-- Ryz05 00:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Article states that "but India has not included it in any discussion about a settlement to the Kashmir dispute, effectively ceding it to China." Some good references are required before making such statements. -- Blacksun 21:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Because of pressure to be a Featured Article... the current PRC article has been castrated. I would much rather prefer a constantly UPDATED and INFORMATIVE country article than a two-line summary article linking to specific articles that are pieces of crap and rarely if ever updated. The article two weeks ago was great, the history section (especially on the extent of reform, and possible backlashes) was nuanced and accurate.
See the Germany and United States articles for detailed, good quality stuff. I am particularly impressed with the United States article. Look at their economy, geography, politics, culture sections. Like a REAL ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY.
The Wikipedia country template is a sham, only like 4-5 country articles in the world have actually followed it so far. I don't see why country FA articles have to follow this piece of crap template. - JakeLM 22:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Science and technology section is currently focused too much on space and Shenzhou.... We need a summary of other aspects, including the government's recent emphasis on science and technology (see Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents"). There are other things we must summarize such as stem cell research, pebble-bed nuclear reactors and alternative energy exploration (biogas, fusion, etc). The photo of the model of Shenzhou I appears to be a hobbyist's creation, not the official model, I would prefer another more general sectional photo (like the brand new and awesome Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology) in its place. Thanks. JakeLM 20:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2006/gb20060331_921612.htm This recent article on China's science and tech drive is a good place to start on adding more diverse content in the science/tech section. 69.213.138.57 20:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you to all those who contributed in this article by offering help and suggestions! Now, it reads and looks so much better than before. A special thanks to AndyZ for many important citations, JakeLM for the discriptive images, and 67.175.245.110 for suggesting and expanding on the Science and technology section while providing much needed reference information. Now that editing is pretty much done, I'm ready for a wiki-break. -- Ryz05 13:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I changed "Deng never became Party Secretary or State Chairman himself" to the more accurate "Deng was never head of the Party or State himself". Deng was briefly Party Secretary under Mao, but back then Party Secretary was not the highest leader in the Party. -- Sumple ( Talk) 23:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I've deleted non-specific web links (as in, links to a general site and not to specific country information) from the references section. But I have left in the People's Daily and the China Daily links because they provide a Chinese perspective balancing the more Western references - Please replace these with specific links or references as they are found. Thanks. -- Sumple ( Talk) 05:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I've recently added a sub-section on Public Health under Demographics. I've also did quite a bit of research to include references. It is a sub-section on an older version of this article, which I had made substantial edits to and now looks very different from the original. I have copied a closer version of the original to the main article regarding the topic. As of now, there are two articles that could be made better:
I will improve these articles in the future if noone helps. Some useful websites with information are provided in each stub.-- Ryz05 07:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Although I agree with AndyZ's decision to combine the short human rights section with an otherwise fairly short Politics section, I suppose it be better to add a paragraph about the structure of the PRC government under Politics, while moving all that's about censorship to a new human rights section.-- Ryz05 20:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I find it odd that this article cites the CIA factbook for population figures when the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics has published its own census figures. (Here's a link to the information in Chinese.) I would assume that the NBS's figures would more reliable than the CIA's, & using them would strengthen this article. -- llywrch 23:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
China is unique in that the city (or municipality) administration is the most important and cited administration, not the region, province or county. Chinese dialects are also commonly referred to by the city name, not by the regional nor provinical terms. Much of China's economic growth is coming from the key cities. United States, Russia, Mexico, Iran, U.K., France, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Argentina, and Germany all have largest city lists. Of that list 5 are the top 10 highest GDP nations. Naus 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
We don't need a very long list. But we definitely need a list that includes cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hong Kong (Kowloon), Nanjing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Harbin. Naus 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I know largest city lists is not required under the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries guidelines, but I will point out that Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries also says "This structure is advisory only, and should not be enforced against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question." Naus 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
We can include this (a shortened version) into this article
The People's Republic of China has dozens of major cities, including 3 global cities of Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Major cities in China play key roles in national and regional heritage, culture, economics and politics.
The figures ranked below are the 2001 estimates for urban populations within administrative city limits [1]; a different ranking exists when considering the total municipal populations (which includes suburban and rural populations) [2].
Rank | City urban area | Population (2001 est) millions |
Municipality limits (2000 census) |
Region | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
millions | density (per sq km) | ||||
1 | Shanghai municipality | 9.838 | 16.74 | 2,640 | Eastern |
2 | Beijing municipality | 7.441 | 13.82 | 822 | Northern |
3 | Hong Kong SAR | 6.112 | 7.01 | 6,294 | South Central |
4 | Tianjin municipality | 5.095 | 10.01 | 803 | Northern |
5 | Wuhan, Hubei province | 4.489 | 8.31 | 947 | South Central |
6 | Guangzhou, Guangdong province | 4.155 | 10.15 | 1,337 | South Central |
7 | Shenyang, Liaoning province | 3.981 | 7.20 | 557 | Northeastern |
8 | Chongqing municipality | 3.934 | 30.90 | 378 | Southwestern |
9 | Nanjing, Jiangsu province | 2.822 | 6.40 | 970 | Eastern |
10 | Harbin, Heilongjiang province | 2.672 | 9.35 | 174 | Northeastern |
http://www.chinatoday.com/city/a.htm -- Ryz05 11:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
But I'm still waiting for more votes as one problem that I sees is it lengthens the article quite a bit.-- Ryz05 03:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
1. Given that almost all the references are used in the notes section, can they be combined?
2. The notes section (a very long section) frequently cites the same source multiple times. Is there a way of reducing this list by combining such references into one line? -- Sumple ( Talk) 11:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
The References section can just be a list of websites one could go to for references, while the notes section is the support for what we wrote in the article, but the two can be combined, though it's not a big issue at the moment. There's a way to shorten the notes list by typing "ref name=refName" on one, then the same thing <| ref name=refName > on multiple other ones that have the same link as the first one. For a different link, one can do "ref name=refName2" and so on. -- Ryz05 11:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Foreign relations section can definitely be cleaned up a little. Too much detail and kind of chaotic. In fact the main article Foreign relations of China is more concise and to the point than the PRC main article's section.
Congratulations for all those that made a contribution to this article and kept its featured status! I see this article as simply excellent; an example of what a country article should look like. It's just so fun to read and look at. Cheers!-- Ryz05 03:11, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I think that a small change could greatly improve the flow of the article. The see also currently at the end of sections would be less invasive if they were put in a topics box at the end of the article, see Singapore and Australia for examples.-- nixie 06:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Just saying Chinese is the official language in the country box is good enough, otherwise it'll create an unnecessary mess. I have included your more specific categorizations in the footnotes, which is a more fitting place, as people can just look down to see what Chinese in PRC consists of. Please do not change again until we have discussed it in discussion. Thank you.-- Ryz05 17:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法 http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info5895.htm "本法所称的国家通用语言文字是普通话和规范汉字"
China Factfile: Languages http://english.gov.cn/2005-08/16/content_23691.htm "Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect)"
中华人民共和国宪法 http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2004-03/15/content_1367387_1.htm "国家推广全国通用的普通话。"
In fact, article Standard_Mandarin at Wikipedia has explained this very well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Mandarin
So I suppose the right word should be "Standard Mandarin (Putonghua)", in stead of "Chinese" or "Standard Chinese", and in comparison with Taiwan's mandarin.
-- bbao
The official written language is Chinese, and the official spoken variant is Putonghua, which is a dialect of Mandarin. — Insta ntnood 18:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Anybody got the balls to say something about the millions of people murdered by this government?
Anyone?
It's not right to have a single sub-section by itself, and Sports is pretty short. Therefore, it should be combined into Culture section. There's nothing wrong with that.-- Ryz05 t 22:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
the communism privacy forced to stop the blog tibet to force take the steel to help to kill government us as a chinese.
Uh, maybe it is just me, but I am not even going to attempt to decipher this. ( Majin Takeru 01:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC))
Did not have chinese person brilliance assembely to adopt Tibet to watch.
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I deleted the reference to the Chinese government as an authoritarian government, because of the words that are used to describe what "authoritarianism" is in its wiki entry.
For example, "maintains and enforces social control through the use of oppressive measures" or "use of considerable force and sometimes in blatant violation of human rights", etc etc, is debatable and at best a matter of opinion, whether or not that applies to the Chinese government. Hong Qi Gong 01:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
-- Sumple ( Talk) 03:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
A point on which a lot of people get confused - NPOV does not mean you can't say bad things about something. You just need to ensure that the article as a whole is balanced and presents a broad range of views, so do quote from different sources, one that says that it is authoritarian and another that says that it isn't. enochlau ( talk) 10:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I made a minor addition to the current version. See if you are OK with it. Basically, the last revision implies that it is only the Constitution of the PRC that disagrees with the authoritarian reference, and that's plainly not true.
Anyway, I still think it's best to leave out the authoritarian reference altogether. It is not a question of the political process in the PRC government, but more a question of whether or not the PRC fits the description of "authoritarian" as it is written in the authoritarian wiki entry. And clearly:
I would say that many consider the PRC government non authoritarian. Does a one party state = authoritarian? I do not think so. Also, I suppose I was wrong on the grammer. Thought it sounded better. My appologies on that one. ( Majin Takeru 03:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC))
The notion of the people's democratic dictatorship is not even in theory opposed to authoritarianism. The is authoritarianism is meant to apply outside the realm of the people. In practice, this is all hogwash. Can anyone provide a published source that serious argues that 1) China is not authoritarian and 2) China is a people's democratic dictatorship. The claims made, under weasel terms, are simply unargued and unverifiable.-- Jiang 05:16, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Avoid weasel words. You cant present opposing views by attributing them to vague references and speculating that people in Asia, South America, and Africa hold these opposing views. The term "authoritarianism" can be a precisely defined term in political science. If the problem is with the definition, then change the definition, dont insert weasel words.
Sure, there is dispute and debate over the democratic vs. authoritarian nature of China, but who the hell still defends the system by calling it a "people's democratic dictatorship"? Even the Chinese media doesn't. The term is absurd and has no place here. There is simply no evidence here that it is used by anyone, anywhere to defend the current political system in China. (Just compare this with this. The first link makes plenty of claims that China is authoritarian. The second link has no claims that China is a people's democratic dictatorship.) Here, the system is defended as allowing participation by the masses, but it makes no mention of the people's democratic dictatorship. In the past, the government has defended the system is promoting social stability in light of economic developments.
Again, the issue is not with the word authoritarian, which can be emirically applied to China, but the differing views on the justification of authoritarianism. I ask you to provide references that 1) explicitly refute China is "authoritarian", using the term and 2) explicitly defends the Chinese political system as a "people's democratic dictatorship".
I changed "the government has succeeded in creating jobs" to the more specific "economic reforms have succeeded in creating jobs". why was this reverted?-- Jiang 09:11, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Who thinks China is authoritarian? Can you please show who is disputing that the PRC has an authoritarian political system?-- Jiang 07:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
The paper you linked to earlier discusses the extent of China's authoritarianism. It does not refute that China is authoritarian. Just because there is an absence of claim that China is authoritarian does not prove that China is not authoritarian. Just because this article does not say "Hu Jintao is gay" does not mean Hu Jintao is indeed homosexual. Therefore, the absence of the word "authoritarian" in the French and Chinese versions of wikipedia is irrelevant. It could have just been a fact left out, and to make the connection that the absence of something is the denial of something is to commit a non sequitur. Although the Chinese media does not label China authoritarian, it does not refute it. If they dont deny it, then we cannot conclude that they disagree. They have to say they disagree for us to say they disagree.
Who thinks China is authoritarian? Political scientists who are interested in classifying political systems using standard definitive terms. here are a list of books.
You said, "The fact is that people disagree as to whether or not the PRC is 'authoritarian'." Please prove this statement. -- Jiang 08:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I should have used a less stringent term than "prove." If people disagree with that view, then they will try to refute that view. Do you have evidence of people trying to refute that view? What is the opposing view?
The government presents the view that it is respresentative of and responsible to the masses. But this in and by itself does not refute or attempt to refute the notion of authoritarianism. You can have an authoritarian government that is respresentative of and responsible to the masses. The opposite of authoritarianism is not democracy, (as Sumple said) it is libertarianism. Keep in mind that democracy does not have to be synonymous with western liberal democracy. A large part of the defense for the current system is that it is needed for economic growth. A government responsive to the needs of the people can certainly also be authortarian.
The ommission in the Chinese and French versions is not indicative of anything unless there was an intent to leave out the word. Was there a talk page discussion to suggest this?
You would like to provide "both points of view". But can you cite evidence here of someone professing the "opposing view". Who holds the opposing view and what do they argue? -- Jiang 16:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Again, I don't see the basis of a dispute here. Who disagrees that the PRC is authoritarian? Can you answer this simple question? I see you keep ignoring it. I tried to search for the answer myself and come up with nothing. If there is no evidence that anyone anywhere is disputing whether the PRC is authoritarian, then the whole argument presented here is a red herring.
Your proposal is inadequate because "authoritarian political system" and "representative system" are not opposites. It like saying "Political scientists often categorise the PRC as communist, but the Constitution of the PRC, and so presumably the CPC, regards it as a socialist democracy" which is entirely senseless is you look up the definition of the terms. Authoritarianism is simply having government impose certain controls in society that are opposed to the European concept of liberty and individual rights. The notion of "liberty" is foreign to China. If you read the writings of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen, and almost every 20th century Chinese political thinker attempting to promote some sort of representative system, you will see that none of them are promoting such a system for the sake of individual rights or liberty. The very justification of democracy in China, up to the present, has been as a means to connect the masses to the the leadership to aid the leadership in better serving their interests, as a means to build a stronger state. As demonstrated by the China Daily article I linked to earlier, the whole emphasis is on the participation of various segments of society in government. The article states that the system is meant to "achieve national independence, people's liberation, national prosperity and a happy life for the people", not the protection of their rights and liberties. In the Chinese notion of government, the leaders must always represent the interests of the people, but for millenia their interests were represented through an absolute monarch. The Chinese political orthodoxy really called for both authoritarian and representative system to be in the embodiment of the ruler, like how the socialist system calls for both to be in the embodiment of the party. We can also take the example of Singapore, where every citizen is by law required to vote, but when given several choices of candidates, they repeatedly vote back into office the People's Action Party which has imposed some very anti-libertarian policies. And it is the people who gave the government this power, and it is the government that is deriving consent from the people.-- Jiang 23:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
My Chinese is not good enough for reading news articles, so you'll have to pinpoint the sentence and translate it. The Fr version confuses economic systems with political systems. "Authoritarian" describes a political structure. "Communist" and "socialist" describe an economic structure. If we are to use "communist state" (describing a political structure), then we will have to attribute the term to western political scientists because according to Marxism, there is no state under communist and their preferred term would be "socialist state". Moreover, the last sentence (which I unconveniently take to imply that the first term refers to the government and the second term refers to the economy) does not make sense if you take the Marxist definition of communism and really study the economy to find out that the government still holds a whole lot of reserve control (technical ownership of land, rules on foreign investment, etc.) over the economy.-- Jiang 11:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't understand why the sentence:
was changed to:
Hong Qi Gong 23:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Probably is no big deal, but "earth" should be capitalised to "Earth", shouldn't it? Or is it standard wiki practice to not capitalise it? Hong Qi Gong 05:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I changed the line that says the PRC claims Taiwan as the "23rd province of the PRC" to "a province of the PRC". The reason I did this was:
Thus "a" province is more accurate and NPOV, albeit less poetic. -- Sumple ( Talk) 09:42, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Why is the PRC flag pink? The red in the emblem and the red in the flag is different in the article. They should be the same color. There's something wrong with the color parameters used for the PRC flag. 128.135.224.149 19:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
The article needs a massive overhaul to maintain its featured status. Reduce images, summarise content, add more references, reduce lists and unnecessary sections. See India, Australia, Bhutan and Nepal for reference. =Nichalp «Talk»= 10:29, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I've listed this article under WP:FARC as it no longer meets the Featured article criteria. No one seems to be interested in maintaining the article. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Citing sources, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#External links. The revert is a gross abuse of the policy of using random links to mask the fact that the article lacks credible sources. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
There seemed to be some surprise when I commented that I found reading this article depressing. There was argument and debate. It was asserted that the article had been improved. We were invited to reread. I think it would be inappropriate to comment at length on the FARC page so here is my very preliminary view on second reading. I regret that I did not get past the first introductory paragraphs:
"Since its founding in 1949," /so this would be the de facto stabilisation after the cessation of hostilities. What is the process of "founding" a state? Has it not been normative for the "founding" act in public international law terms to be de jure recognition by other states? It is arguable that the state was not founded as such, but acquired a form of international legitimacy through the passage of time from 1949 onwards. But the phrase clearly needs considerable explanation/"the PRC has been led by the Communist Party of China (CPC) under a one-party system. Though constitutionally a socialist state/sorry to be dim but what does that mean? You say that a communist state has a socialist constitution? I think you should explain your terminology so that we can all understand what the implications are./"the PRC privatized"/so the state privatised rather than the Party? and what was this privatisation? Who owned what in this communist or socialist state and therefore had the right to sell? And who had the money (in a communist state, would private capital not be illegal?) to buy and what happened to the money?/"nearly half of its economy"/can you sell an economy or half of it? I thought you could only sell property, whether movable or immovable./"in the past three decades"/starting in the 1970s, somebody has sold half of the economy, but at which value? There would have been a valuation of the economy when the first sales were made in 1970. Thereafter, both the public and private economies would have grown. . . This needs serious explanation/"under "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." /is this a quote we can attribute? Is this how the Chinese themselves described their own system or is this an external value judgment, whether free-standing or perhaps as a translation of the Chinese but selecting Western words? It presupposes that there is something objectively identifiable as "socialism" and that this set of political norms was given a particular interpretation or application by the Chinese. Is this the result of the PRC being a communist state with a socialist constitution that you referred to earlier?/"Nonetheless, it"/this it is the Party?/"retains significant political control over the remaining state-owned enterprises and the banking sector."/so the banking sector was never state-owned, presumably because banking would be a capitalist venture? But the Party controlled it by regulation and informal mechanisms?
My deepest apologies, but this is all really depressing. David91 18:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
The Communist Party of China (CPC) leads (has led) the country under a one-party system since the PRC's establishment in 1949 (you have failed to explain this— it is highly pertinent to advert to the de facto status of the government and so the equivocal status of the state). Though founded by a communist party, nearly half of its economy has been privatized in the past three decades under "Socialism with Chinese characteristics." (You have failed to deal with this.) During the 1980s, these economic reforms (sorry, did you list economic reforms somewhere?) helped lift hundreds of millions of peasants out of abject (abject is judgmental) poverty -- an achievement unmatched in human history (a bold and completely unsupported assertion that needs very careful justification and explanation). However, due to this mixing of capitalism with socialism (we are back to this communism/socialism/captialism problem which you have yet to explain), the PRC (the PRC is not faced by anything. It is the government that has a mind and it is highly judgmental to personalise the state and its peeople rather than consider the role of the group of people who have led it) is faced with a multitude of problems associated with each, (sorry, each what?) including unemployment and increasing rural/urban income gap (these are terms associated with developed economies and not necessarily relevant to China which has always has a majority of people falling into a peasant class). Despite shortcomings, (what shortcomings: I am completely lost in this explanation) the greater prosperity (among what percentage of the population? We need very careful justification for this statement) led (is leading) to growing Chinese global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs. (Right — Chinese people are highly industrious and, no matter where they have lived, they have always contributed to local economies. . .)
You do realise that there is something wrong with the majority of sentences in this article? Further, simply excising those elements that anyone analyses is extremely unhelpful because you are then failing to explain highly relevant issues. How and when the de jure state came into being is of major significance and if you want to leave 1949 untouched, then you have to explain it very clearly otherwise it is completely misleading to a naive reader. Similarly, you seem to be attributing political characteristics to the government and its activities as if there is an objective definition of communism/socialism/capitalism which every naive reader will understand in this context. Some people (hahahahaha) might have claimed that the government was a military dictatorship that wrapped itself in the flag of communism but that its politics actually had nothing to do with Marxism or Leninism (unless you do not associate Marx and Lenin with communism. Perhaps you see the PRC as more Stalinist in its behaviour?). You have to explain in neutral language what happened, and what social and political motives drove the process. So far, I see absolutely no improvement at all. I understand that you are highly motivated and upset that this page is "under attack". But you should take time to sit back and reflect calmly. We are not acting destructively here. This is an opportunity for a constructive rewriting of the entire piece. Unfortunately, the last few days frenetic activity have produced piecemeal amendments that fail to make any substantive rectification to the article's underlying faults. David91 01:40, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
A few editors seem to be working hard on the article. Here are my suggestions on how to go about in touching this article up:
---
Best of luck! =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with:
Since I have other buisness to take care of, it might take me awhile to fix some of these issues. In the mean time, others can jump in to help.-- Ryz05 00:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Article states that "but India has not included it in any discussion about a settlement to the Kashmir dispute, effectively ceding it to China." Some good references are required before making such statements. -- Blacksun 21:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Because of pressure to be a Featured Article... the current PRC article has been castrated. I would much rather prefer a constantly UPDATED and INFORMATIVE country article than a two-line summary article linking to specific articles that are pieces of crap and rarely if ever updated. The article two weeks ago was great, the history section (especially on the extent of reform, and possible backlashes) was nuanced and accurate.
See the Germany and United States articles for detailed, good quality stuff. I am particularly impressed with the United States article. Look at their economy, geography, politics, culture sections. Like a REAL ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY.
The Wikipedia country template is a sham, only like 4-5 country articles in the world have actually followed it so far. I don't see why country FA articles have to follow this piece of crap template. - JakeLM 22:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Science and technology section is currently focused too much on space and Shenzhou.... We need a summary of other aspects, including the government's recent emphasis on science and technology (see Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents"). There are other things we must summarize such as stem cell research, pebble-bed nuclear reactors and alternative energy exploration (biogas, fusion, etc). The photo of the model of Shenzhou I appears to be a hobbyist's creation, not the official model, I would prefer another more general sectional photo (like the brand new and awesome Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology) in its place. Thanks. JakeLM 20:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar2006/gb20060331_921612.htm This recent article on China's science and tech drive is a good place to start on adding more diverse content in the science/tech section. 69.213.138.57 20:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Thank you to all those who contributed in this article by offering help and suggestions! Now, it reads and looks so much better than before. A special thanks to AndyZ for many important citations, JakeLM for the discriptive images, and 67.175.245.110 for suggesting and expanding on the Science and technology section while providing much needed reference information. Now that editing is pretty much done, I'm ready for a wiki-break. -- Ryz05 13:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I changed "Deng never became Party Secretary or State Chairman himself" to the more accurate "Deng was never head of the Party or State himself". Deng was briefly Party Secretary under Mao, but back then Party Secretary was not the highest leader in the Party. -- Sumple ( Talk) 23:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I've deleted non-specific web links (as in, links to a general site and not to specific country information) from the references section. But I have left in the People's Daily and the China Daily links because they provide a Chinese perspective balancing the more Western references - Please replace these with specific links or references as they are found. Thanks. -- Sumple ( Talk) 05:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I've recently added a sub-section on Public Health under Demographics. I've also did quite a bit of research to include references. It is a sub-section on an older version of this article, which I had made substantial edits to and now looks very different from the original. I have copied a closer version of the original to the main article regarding the topic. As of now, there are two articles that could be made better:
I will improve these articles in the future if noone helps. Some useful websites with information are provided in each stub.-- Ryz05 07:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Although I agree with AndyZ's decision to combine the short human rights section with an otherwise fairly short Politics section, I suppose it be better to add a paragraph about the structure of the PRC government under Politics, while moving all that's about censorship to a new human rights section.-- Ryz05 20:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I find it odd that this article cites the CIA factbook for population figures when the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics has published its own census figures. (Here's a link to the information in Chinese.) I would assume that the NBS's figures would more reliable than the CIA's, & using them would strengthen this article. -- llywrch 23:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
China is unique in that the city (or municipality) administration is the most important and cited administration, not the region, province or county. Chinese dialects are also commonly referred to by the city name, not by the regional nor provinical terms. Much of China's economic growth is coming from the key cities. United States, Russia, Mexico, Iran, U.K., France, Spain, Poland, Colombia, Argentina, and Germany all have largest city lists. Of that list 5 are the top 10 highest GDP nations. Naus 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
We don't need a very long list. But we definitely need a list that includes cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hong Kong (Kowloon), Nanjing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Harbin. Naus 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I know largest city lists is not required under the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries guidelines, but I will point out that Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries also says "This structure is advisory only, and should not be enforced against the wishes of those actually working on the article in question." Naus 03:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
We can include this (a shortened version) into this article
The People's Republic of China has dozens of major cities, including 3 global cities of Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Major cities in China play key roles in national and regional heritage, culture, economics and politics.
The figures ranked below are the 2001 estimates for urban populations within administrative city limits [1]; a different ranking exists when considering the total municipal populations (which includes suburban and rural populations) [2].
Rank | City urban area | Population (2001 est) millions |
Municipality limits (2000 census) |
Region | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
millions | density (per sq km) | ||||
1 | Shanghai municipality | 9.838 | 16.74 | 2,640 | Eastern |
2 | Beijing municipality | 7.441 | 13.82 | 822 | Northern |
3 | Hong Kong SAR | 6.112 | 7.01 | 6,294 | South Central |
4 | Tianjin municipality | 5.095 | 10.01 | 803 | Northern |
5 | Wuhan, Hubei province | 4.489 | 8.31 | 947 | South Central |
6 | Guangzhou, Guangdong province | 4.155 | 10.15 | 1,337 | South Central |
7 | Shenyang, Liaoning province | 3.981 | 7.20 | 557 | Northeastern |
8 | Chongqing municipality | 3.934 | 30.90 | 378 | Southwestern |
9 | Nanjing, Jiangsu province | 2.822 | 6.40 | 970 | Eastern |
10 | Harbin, Heilongjiang province | 2.672 | 9.35 | 174 | Northeastern |
http://www.chinatoday.com/city/a.htm -- Ryz05 11:36, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
But I'm still waiting for more votes as one problem that I sees is it lengthens the article quite a bit.-- Ryz05 03:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
1. Given that almost all the references are used in the notes section, can they be combined?
2. The notes section (a very long section) frequently cites the same source multiple times. Is there a way of reducing this list by combining such references into one line? -- Sumple ( Talk) 11:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
The References section can just be a list of websites one could go to for references, while the notes section is the support for what we wrote in the article, but the two can be combined, though it's not a big issue at the moment. There's a way to shorten the notes list by typing "ref name=refName" on one, then the same thing <| ref name=refName > on multiple other ones that have the same link as the first one. For a different link, one can do "ref name=refName2" and so on. -- Ryz05 11:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Foreign relations section can definitely be cleaned up a little. Too much detail and kind of chaotic. In fact the main article Foreign relations of China is more concise and to the point than the PRC main article's section.
Congratulations for all those that made a contribution to this article and kept its featured status! I see this article as simply excellent; an example of what a country article should look like. It's just so fun to read and look at. Cheers!-- Ryz05 03:11, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I think that a small change could greatly improve the flow of the article. The see also currently at the end of sections would be less invasive if they were put in a topics box at the end of the article, see Singapore and Australia for examples.-- nixie 06:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Just saying Chinese is the official language in the country box is good enough, otherwise it'll create an unnecessary mess. I have included your more specific categorizations in the footnotes, which is a more fitting place, as people can just look down to see what Chinese in PRC consists of. Please do not change again until we have discussed it in discussion. Thank you.-- Ryz05 17:59, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
中华人民共和国国家通用语言文字法 http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info5895.htm "本法所称的国家通用语言文字是普通话和规范汉字"
China Factfile: Languages http://english.gov.cn/2005-08/16/content_23691.htm "Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect)"
中华人民共和国宪法 http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2004-03/15/content_1367387_1.htm "国家推广全国通用的普通话。"
In fact, article Standard_Mandarin at Wikipedia has explained this very well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Mandarin
So I suppose the right word should be "Standard Mandarin (Putonghua)", in stead of "Chinese" or "Standard Chinese", and in comparison with Taiwan's mandarin.
-- bbao
The official written language is Chinese, and the official spoken variant is Putonghua, which is a dialect of Mandarin. — Insta ntnood 18:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Anybody got the balls to say something about the millions of people murdered by this government?
Anyone?
It's not right to have a single sub-section by itself, and Sports is pretty short. Therefore, it should be combined into Culture section. There's nothing wrong with that.-- Ryz05 t 22:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
the communism privacy forced to stop the blog tibet to force take the steel to help to kill government us as a chinese.
Uh, maybe it is just me, but I am not even going to attempt to decipher this. ( Majin Takeru 01:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC))
Did not have chinese person brilliance assembely to adopt Tibet to watch.