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Having followed the thoughtful and earnest discussion over the past month, I'd like to raise a slightly different question to bring greater clarity to this discussion: How are we defining China? For how China is defined in turn determines what we are trying convey about China. The definition of China can take several volumes but in this encylopedia and every other one, it must be done in one or two sentences. I think we can all agree that the current introductory sentence to China -- "China is an entity extending over a large area in East Asia, which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational" -- is less than satisfying. The lack of clarity therein about China contributes to the unresolved discussion above.
"China" is used to convey a variety of different meanings and ideas, sometimes bundled together, sometimes individually. There is China the place, a geographic reference. China, the culture. China, the polity. Each time anyone makes a reference to "China", that person is picking and choosing some but not all of those meanings. One important dimension for the meaning of China is time. Most of the forgoing discussion appears to be about what "China is" i.e. China in the present time frame, where the geographic notion of China and the jurisdiction of the PRC largely coincide and therefore enable us to use China as a shorthand for the People's Republic of China.
However, we are editing an encyclopedia, and what "China is" in an encyclopedia is actually broader than what "China is" in the present tense out in the real world. As a respository of knowledge, an encyclopedia must capture what "China is" and "was ever before." because unlike most users of China which are making a reference to some subset of ideas and meanings conveyed by China, the encyclopedia must account for all variances or as many as practicable. For example, as
Septentrionalis pointed out above, "Shi Huangdi unified China" but not the PRC because "China" in that usage refers to the political arrangement of the Chinese civilization circa 221 B.C. From the geographic standpoint, the jurisdictional reach of the PRC indeed accounts for much of what we consider to be China. But from a temporal perspective, the PRC occupies a tiny sliver on the timeline of Chinese civilization. Therefore, the "History of China" is not the same as the "History of the People's Republic of China". Qianlong was an emperor of China, not the PRC.
Supporters of equating China with the PRC above, often invoke the convention or tendency of current English usage to refer to China as the PRC. Hence from the headlines today, we have "China copper imports up but for how long?"; "China agree to play hockey series in Pakistan"; "China's Renminbi May Supplant Dollar, Subramanian Writes in FT" etc. which are all referring to China as the PRC in the present. Aside from the notable exception of "Ma aide to China Post: Cross-strait peace deal plausible", indeed these days much of the published content in English about China is about the PRC. It is natural for language to deal with the here and now. So newspaper editors, travel agents, study-abroad programs, commercial trading concerns etc. etc. etc. all readily refer to the PRC as China. However, they do not need to be as precise as an encylopedia. The PRC is a subset of China, not the reverse. The merger proposal attempts to make the PRC and China as identical sets. This simply does not work.
An encyclopedia covers subject matter that extends well beyond the current or near-present time frame. Camellia sinensis is a plant native to China, irrespective of whether we are referring to China of the PRC, ROC, Ming or Song dynasty. Likewise the "China" in the Great Wall of China also has that seemingly timeless quality of China. Of course the Wall is in the PRC today and the tea plants are there too, but they were there under the ROC and before that as well. The wall and tea plants didn't migrate from the ROC to the PRC. The political state of China changed.
In fact, changes in the political state of China is a recurring feature of Chinese history and civilization. We don't need to go back to the Three Kingdoms or the Ten Kingdoms. If we were having this debate in February 1912, we might be arguing whether to equate "China" with Qing Empire or the newly-founded Republic of China. In 1915, there was a Beiyang ROC regime in Beijing and a Nationalist ROC regime in Guangzhou. Then in the summer of 1927, there were rival Nationalist ROCs in Nanjing and Wuhan and again in 1940 when there was the ROC resisting Japan from Chongqing and the ROC collaborating in Nanjing. Don't laugh, but the Japanese Wikipedia of the day might have auto-linked China to Wang Jingwei regime's regime, citing prevalence of Japanese language usage of the time. While the political state of China continued to undergo changes, the Great Wall and the tea plant, remained part of the same "China".
So to reframe how to define China, for the purpose of our discussion, should the encyclopedia article of "China" be about China, the civilization, or China, the current political state?
The proposal above, by equating China with the PRC in deference to common usage habits among certain English speakers, is designating an article about a Chinese political state as the primary Wikipedia gateway to "China." Essentially, everything about "China" including Chinese history, Chinese civilization, tea plants and the Great Wall would be routed through the PRC article and then to their respective articles. First, given the fairly pronounced distinctions between China, the civilization, and China(s), the political state(s), a case could be made that they should be kept apart even if there were only one political China, because arguably no Chinese political entity can possibly come to represent all that is Chinese civilization. As noted above, China cannot be made a subset any single Chinese state. Even in the PRC, this distinction is readily understood. " Confucius was one of the great philosophers of China's antiquity." Never PRC's antiquity.
Second, given the nuanced nature of China and the context-specific references made to China, it is not apparent that the significant majority of all articles in Wikipedia that link to "China" are intended to be linked to the "China of the PRC in the present or near present" rather than "China" more broadly captured in the "Chinese Civilization."
Third, an encylopedia should seek to make knowledge more readily available and deploy far greater scope of information than news articles or common parlance. It should inform the uninformed rather than to reinforce ignorance. To extent, the China link does not immediately lead to PRC and forces writers and editors casually linking to China to come upon an article about the Chinese civilization, this forces them to consider which China they ought to link to. I don't just mean the PRC/ROC distinction. Marco Polo went to China -- which China? PRC, ROC, Chinese civilization, Chinese history, Yuan Dynasty? There isn't necessarily a clear-cut distinction between whether an article should link to PRC or Chinese civilization. Rather there is a range of possibilities with the more political and more current-day subjects more likely to be suitable for the PRC. If the China link went straight to PRC, many users would probably not even know about other possibilities. Many typing in "China" into the search box intending for the PRC might be surprised to find more nuance, i.e. the story of the ROC on Taiwan when they hit the Chinese civilization page. Surely, it would not be too difficult for readers to discern the difference between Chinese civilization and the PRC and reach their intended target article. Given Wikipedia's mission, we ought to err on the side of being more informative than conforming.
Admittedly, the status quo leaves something to be desired because a user going to "China" for whatever reason and read about "an entity . . . which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational" I propose to change the first paragraph to the following:
China is a vast civilization in East Asia with nearly 4,000 years of continuous history and two modern, sovereign successor states: the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly called "China", and the Republic of China (ROC), commonly referred to as "Taiwan." The People's Republic of China, with a population of 1.33 billion and land area of 9,640,821 km2, is the world's most populous country . . . The Republic of China, with a population of 23 million and land area of 36,191 km2, is based on the island of Taiwan and controls a number of islands off the coast of mainland China. . . .
ContinentalAve ( talk) 22:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Unimportant distinctions between names eh? Confucius said if you can't get your name straight, then what you say will be crooked. The inability to agree on what should go into the China article stems directly from different conceptions of what "China is." Merging instead of moving does not get around this problem.
China is much more than a political entity. It is, to paraphrase the late sinologist Lucian Pye, a civilization trying to fit into a country. The Chinese civilization has had anywhere between one to more than a dozen political entities operating within "China" and its periphery at any given time in the last two thousand years. To be sure the political entities have had a profound effect in shaping the Chinese civilization and have been shaped by it. But none of them alone can be used to define the geographic boundaries of China, which has shifted over time. The territories governed and claimed by the PRC today, provides us with but one version of China's actual and claimed geographic reach. For example, the PRC does not govern or claim nor has it ever governed or claimed Almaty or Hanoi as "integral parts of China", but does that mean those places "were never part of China"?
The coverage of China's geographic expanse (in the China civilization article) should mention the present jurisdiction and territorial claims of the two political successor states of Chinese civilization, the PRC and ROC, which, by the way, are not anachronisms. The two Chinas both exist in the present. They both issue passports that have "China" on the cover (de jure) and they both have Palace Museums (symbolic claim to inheritance of the Chinese civilization). If the ROC changes its name to the ROT and, like the Northern Yuan and Western Liao Dynasties, decides to shed the trappings of Chinese civilization and drift away, then we can revist this issue. The coverage should also talk about how the geographic reach of China has shifted over time, and depending on the level of detail, mention places not currently claimed by China but were part of China. I don't mean this in an irredentist way but just acknowledgment of historical fact. Metal Lunchbox's concern about Tibet somehow not being able to be included in this coverage is misplaced. Foremost, Tibet is and has been part of the PRC. Furthmore, there are past ties that bring Tibet into the Chinese civilization. In the late 13th century, Kublai Khan sent Song Gongzong Zhao Xian, one of the last Song Emperors, to study at the Sakya Monastery of Tibet, which was under his domain. One can quibble about whether Kublai as a "Mongol" counts as "Chinese" but there is little doubt that the Yuan Dynasty is part of Chinese civilization.
To characterize the PRC as the predominant political state of China today is not to belittle or delegitimatize the PRC. In the context of today's nation-state international relations system, the PRC is a permanent UN security council member, recognized by most of the countries of the world. In the context of China's civilization over time, it is also one of the most politically powerful states of China. But the PRC doesn't account for all that's China. Mid-Autumn Festivals and moon cakes, prominent examples of the culture of China at this time of year, exist well apart from the PRC. The PRC is just the current predominant political dimension of China, a multi-dimensional civilization.
Sources provide information for different reasons. Reliable sources about the share price of China Mobile or the score China-Jordan football/soccer match do not need to consider the full magnitude of the Chinese civilization. They can get away with a shorthand. In Wikipedia, China Mobile and the PR China soccer team can have links directly to the PRC. But shorthands can also create blinders and limit understanding. Western news agencies frequently use the China/Taiwan distinction when reporting about the PRC/ROC (Taiwan). During the pan-Blue / pan-Green political struggles in Taiwan earlier in this decade, these media outlets had great difficulty conveying why DPP leaders were trying to declare independence when Taiwan was already independent and why the Nationalists on Taiwan were so vehment in opposing the DPP, going so far as to make amends with the Communists on the mainland. The terminology of the news coverage was not nuanced enough to explain that the DPP while using China PRC as a foil, was really trying to declare independence from China ROC.
Chipmunkdavis asks a good question about China's exceptionalism. First, not all nation-states in the world today as recognized by the UN are created equally. Libya apart from the political state of Libya cannot stand alone in an article about the Libyan civilization. Neither can South Sudan. Not to sound chauvinist but China does have more content to offer. France, especially, and Germany to a lesser extent, are proto-typical European nation-states whose land, people, language and culture were molded through centuries of a nation-state building process. They are not distinct civilizations, however, and the distinctiveness of "France" and "Germany" begin to break down with older subject matter prior to the formation of nation-states. Qi Shihuang united China. Charlemagne is the King of Franks. He is listed as the Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, France and Holy Roman Empire. France has historical names like Gaul. Many articles about subjects of proto-France and proto-Germany can bypass France and Germany altogether using historical names. Caesar conquered Gaul. We have a link directly to Gaul, not France. Genghis Khan conquered China, and we get a link to the PRC?
India is a more interesting case. India, like China, is also an ancient civilization. But the Indian civilization in the present day is divided into different national states on the subcontinent. The fact that these states are called names distinct from India (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal etc.) only masks this division, which makes it difficult to equate Indian state with the Indian civilization (in other words, they can't be merged along the lines of the China civilization-PRC merger approach). For example, the ancient Indus civilization is located outside the confines of the modern India state. Hence, the main article of the history of India covers only pre-1947 India so it can describe in a coherent and continuous manner, the developments in the Indus valley as well as subsequent history common to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh before 1947. The main history of India article must then stop in 1947 and another article about the history of the Republic of India picks it up from 1947. Superficially, the History of China appears to have the same division -- there is a History of China and a History of the People's Republic of China, but the latter forms part of the former as does the History of the Republic of China. Because the state of India cannot claim to cover the Indian civilization, the pre-1947 history of India article is the best that is done to capture the history of the Indian civilization. There is no equivalent article for the whole of Indian/South Asian civilization beyond history. An article about Greater India is a short piece about the conception of Indian culture beyond the state of India, but it is not a broad civilization platform like the China article. China is different.
To conclude, the double-move option is problematic because "PRC" can't adequately handle the load that "China" the civilization is now carrying and will carry going forward. In the coming years, Wikipedia will receive thousands if not hundreds of thousands of articles about subjects relating to China's past. Wikipedia as an encyclopedia also favors adding history sections to subjects. China can take on 4,000 years of history (with little help from readily recognizable historical geographic names like Gaul, Prussia, Anatolia). When Chinese historical subjects are discussed in Chinese, references are invariably made to a particular dynasty. But dynasties in English must often be introduced with "of China" since readers are generally less familiar with Chinese dynasties. "Ibn Battuta visited [link to PRC] during the during the Song Dynasty."
The merger approach is flawed both because China presented through the PRC is unduly constricted and the PRC, when forced to take on broader China topics such as cuisine, traditional culture, etc., can really get overstretched if it were to address each such topic properly. I believe the PRC should focus on socio-economic-political institutions of the PRC state and topics and developments relating thereto. The more political and current day a topic, the more suitable it is for the PRC. The section and article on sports in the PRC, for example, should focus on sports institutions and policies, mass participation in sports, performance of athletes and teams representing the PRC etc. Traditional martial arts and Chinese games such as mahjong, weiqi etc. could be covered separately in an article on Traditional Chinese sports and games.
As an example of constriction, the Geography of the People's Republic of China does not even mention the island of Taiwan. We can amend the article to say that the PRC claims the island of Taiwan, which was ruled by previous Chinese states. But even then, such an article would not be the appropriate place to discuss tidbits of the past like Almaty and Hanoi as part of China. Discussing geography under the rubric of China, the civilization, allows for more expansive, politically-neutral discussion of the topic. Merging PRC into the main China heading article would lead to other generic China article headings to also equate PRC with China. Thus, the Law of China currently covers Chinese legal history, the laws of the ROC and PRC with separate links thereto, but the List of birds of China and list of birds of Taiwan are completely separate articles with no inter-linkage. Merging the PRC into China would encourage more complete bifurcation of China from Taiwan.
On the whole, I think more would be lost than gained by merging PRC into China.
ContinentalAve ( talk) 16:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi, ROC cannot be completely removed since ROC was a legitimate 'dynasty' after Qing dynasty, and ROC was not completely defeated in the Chinese Civil War...However, I do agree that PRC must be given a lot more weight in this article, based on international recognition and territorial extent, PRC is simply a much larger entity with far superior name recognition for the China status, therefore the article must reflect it. The article should reflect a much greater PRC presence than ROC presence, with ROC not being completely removed. Phead128 ( talk) 04:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
What is "the reviewing panel"? Jimbo Wales? T-1000 ( talk) 07:17, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
User:T-1000: Administrators commonly provide some final interpretation on Requests where consensus isn't immediately clear. If you object to that practice, fine; but this page isn't the place to air that concern. White Whirlwind 咨 20:12, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
sock disruption
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I think the following sentence should be removed: "China was for a large part of the last two millennia the world's largest economy" This is baseless, ludicrous propaganda!!!! This sentence insults the intelligence of a ten year old! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.77.126 ( talk) 14:21, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
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Although the three admins are in agreement, User:Tabercil's posting here [2] about "I suspect there will be an appeal to the triumvirate's decision and thus would like to give it a chance to occur" and here [3] "it looks like just about any decision that we come to is going to draw fire from corner or another..." seems to say that the Admins acknowledge that the issue will still not be solved after their decision. Since they are expecting to draw fire and an appeal, it seems that the discussion should be closed as no consensus, because the question is whether the community has form an consensus, not whether or not the three admins formed a consensus. (and face it, if this were a three people decision, the debate would have ended on Aug 31, as the first four opinions were all support). T-1000 ( talk) 06:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
And regarding User:GTBacchus's post here [4] about "These moves do not imply that Taiwan is not a part of China. They imply that the common name for the PRC is "China", I would like to hear more about it, as I believe that is exactly the point of contention. T-1000 ( talk) 06:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
"For now, I am asking GTB and Tabercil to speak more about their opinion". Tabercil can speak (and has spoken) for himself; what in particular would people like to hear from me? I will answer any specific questions there may be, or I could simply expostulate about my choice, if that would be helpful. What would people like to hear? - GTBacchus( talk) 06:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Now that the move discussion is closed, I have a couple comments/observations, followed by a couple suggestions on how best to move forward on this issue. First, the observations:
And what I think should be done moving forward:
-- Jiang ( talk) 14:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
In the discussion of the move proposal a merger of this article (with what I'm going to call the PRC article throughout this for continuity with previous discussions, but by which I mean the article currently titled China) the PRC article seemed to me to have received significant support. However, not all of the article here may be relevant to the PRC, so I've gone through this article and looked at the information provided in each section to figure out if it's worth saving, and if so where to.
After this is done, I think Chinese civilization should redirect to History of China. Chipmunkdavis ( talk) 16:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes now the articles have been moved despite very clear divided opinion people may as well put this article on the bonfire and move everything to other articles (most of it being consumed by the country article), something that was bound to happen if this move went ahead. Yet the main focus was on simply making page moves not on deleting the civilisation page all together and moving most of its contents to the country page, i dont notice that being mentioned in the verdicts of the 3 admins who decided the China move either. Whilst its always made sense to have the country article at China, neutrality and fairness is what got in the way, but i guess that is out of the window now and on the bonfire like this article will be. Looks like the One China policy has now been effectively implemented on wikipedia, The Communist party of China must be so pleased. BritishWatcher ( talk) 16:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
As per the rationale discussed above I'd like to start dealing with some of the sections of this article that now appear to be better placed on a different article with what I believe will be the least controversial. Now that this article is no longer titled "China" the section which discusses the names "China" and "中国" should be included in the article currently at that title, China. Does anyone oppose such a move? - Metal lunchbox ( talk) 21:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
All links appear to be fixed, anything else that needs doing to clean up after splitting up this page? - Metal lunchbox ( talk) 03:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Quigley, these moves are fine, as long as Culture of China and similar articles remain focused on the nation of China as a whole (i.e., separate from Culture of the People's Republic of China). If they don't, this article will have to be reinstated. Nightw 11:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Chinese civilization is much too broad a topic to be autolinked to the History of China or Culture of China. Linking to "History" implies that Chinese civilization exists in the past and extends to the present only insofar as the History of China reaches the present. Chinese civilization covers language, history, food, music, food, medicine, culture, religion, holidays etc. One can create separate Food of China, Languages of China, Music of China articles. But there are at least two reasons for a Chinese civilization article:
More reasons for a Chinese civilization article.
Considering the level of controversy surrounding the China article before the recent move, I wouldn't make any assumptions about what "surely" would have happened. - GTBacchus( talk) 14:05, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
![]() | This 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. |
Archive 20 | ← | Archive 25 | Archive 26 | Archive 27 |
Having followed the thoughtful and earnest discussion over the past month, I'd like to raise a slightly different question to bring greater clarity to this discussion: How are we defining China? For how China is defined in turn determines what we are trying convey about China. The definition of China can take several volumes but in this encylopedia and every other one, it must be done in one or two sentences. I think we can all agree that the current introductory sentence to China -- "China is an entity extending over a large area in East Asia, which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational" -- is less than satisfying. The lack of clarity therein about China contributes to the unresolved discussion above.
"China" is used to convey a variety of different meanings and ideas, sometimes bundled together, sometimes individually. There is China the place, a geographic reference. China, the culture. China, the polity. Each time anyone makes a reference to "China", that person is picking and choosing some but not all of those meanings. One important dimension for the meaning of China is time. Most of the forgoing discussion appears to be about what "China is" i.e. China in the present time frame, where the geographic notion of China and the jurisdiction of the PRC largely coincide and therefore enable us to use China as a shorthand for the People's Republic of China.
However, we are editing an encyclopedia, and what "China is" in an encyclopedia is actually broader than what "China is" in the present tense out in the real world. As a respository of knowledge, an encyclopedia must capture what "China is" and "was ever before." because unlike most users of China which are making a reference to some subset of ideas and meanings conveyed by China, the encyclopedia must account for all variances or as many as practicable. For example, as
Septentrionalis pointed out above, "Shi Huangdi unified China" but not the PRC because "China" in that usage refers to the political arrangement of the Chinese civilization circa 221 B.C. From the geographic standpoint, the jurisdictional reach of the PRC indeed accounts for much of what we consider to be China. But from a temporal perspective, the PRC occupies a tiny sliver on the timeline of Chinese civilization. Therefore, the "History of China" is not the same as the "History of the People's Republic of China". Qianlong was an emperor of China, not the PRC.
Supporters of equating China with the PRC above, often invoke the convention or tendency of current English usage to refer to China as the PRC. Hence from the headlines today, we have "China copper imports up but for how long?"; "China agree to play hockey series in Pakistan"; "China's Renminbi May Supplant Dollar, Subramanian Writes in FT" etc. which are all referring to China as the PRC in the present. Aside from the notable exception of "Ma aide to China Post: Cross-strait peace deal plausible", indeed these days much of the published content in English about China is about the PRC. It is natural for language to deal with the here and now. So newspaper editors, travel agents, study-abroad programs, commercial trading concerns etc. etc. etc. all readily refer to the PRC as China. However, they do not need to be as precise as an encylopedia. The PRC is a subset of China, not the reverse. The merger proposal attempts to make the PRC and China as identical sets. This simply does not work.
An encyclopedia covers subject matter that extends well beyond the current or near-present time frame. Camellia sinensis is a plant native to China, irrespective of whether we are referring to China of the PRC, ROC, Ming or Song dynasty. Likewise the "China" in the Great Wall of China also has that seemingly timeless quality of China. Of course the Wall is in the PRC today and the tea plants are there too, but they were there under the ROC and before that as well. The wall and tea plants didn't migrate from the ROC to the PRC. The political state of China changed.
In fact, changes in the political state of China is a recurring feature of Chinese history and civilization. We don't need to go back to the Three Kingdoms or the Ten Kingdoms. If we were having this debate in February 1912, we might be arguing whether to equate "China" with Qing Empire or the newly-founded Republic of China. In 1915, there was a Beiyang ROC regime in Beijing and a Nationalist ROC regime in Guangzhou. Then in the summer of 1927, there were rival Nationalist ROCs in Nanjing and Wuhan and again in 1940 when there was the ROC resisting Japan from Chongqing and the ROC collaborating in Nanjing. Don't laugh, but the Japanese Wikipedia of the day might have auto-linked China to Wang Jingwei regime's regime, citing prevalence of Japanese language usage of the time. While the political state of China continued to undergo changes, the Great Wall and the tea plant, remained part of the same "China".
So to reframe how to define China, for the purpose of our discussion, should the encyclopedia article of "China" be about China, the civilization, or China, the current political state?
The proposal above, by equating China with the PRC in deference to common usage habits among certain English speakers, is designating an article about a Chinese political state as the primary Wikipedia gateway to "China." Essentially, everything about "China" including Chinese history, Chinese civilization, tea plants and the Great Wall would be routed through the PRC article and then to their respective articles. First, given the fairly pronounced distinctions between China, the civilization, and China(s), the political state(s), a case could be made that they should be kept apart even if there were only one political China, because arguably no Chinese political entity can possibly come to represent all that is Chinese civilization. As noted above, China cannot be made a subset any single Chinese state. Even in the PRC, this distinction is readily understood. " Confucius was one of the great philosophers of China's antiquity." Never PRC's antiquity.
Second, given the nuanced nature of China and the context-specific references made to China, it is not apparent that the significant majority of all articles in Wikipedia that link to "China" are intended to be linked to the "China of the PRC in the present or near present" rather than "China" more broadly captured in the "Chinese Civilization."
Third, an encylopedia should seek to make knowledge more readily available and deploy far greater scope of information than news articles or common parlance. It should inform the uninformed rather than to reinforce ignorance. To extent, the China link does not immediately lead to PRC and forces writers and editors casually linking to China to come upon an article about the Chinese civilization, this forces them to consider which China they ought to link to. I don't just mean the PRC/ROC distinction. Marco Polo went to China -- which China? PRC, ROC, Chinese civilization, Chinese history, Yuan Dynasty? There isn't necessarily a clear-cut distinction between whether an article should link to PRC or Chinese civilization. Rather there is a range of possibilities with the more political and more current-day subjects more likely to be suitable for the PRC. If the China link went straight to PRC, many users would probably not even know about other possibilities. Many typing in "China" into the search box intending for the PRC might be surprised to find more nuance, i.e. the story of the ROC on Taiwan when they hit the Chinese civilization page. Surely, it would not be too difficult for readers to discern the difference between Chinese civilization and the PRC and reach their intended target article. Given Wikipedia's mission, we ought to err on the side of being more informative than conforming.
Admittedly, the status quo leaves something to be desired because a user going to "China" for whatever reason and read about "an entity . . . which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational" I propose to change the first paragraph to the following:
China is a vast civilization in East Asia with nearly 4,000 years of continuous history and two modern, sovereign successor states: the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly called "China", and the Republic of China (ROC), commonly referred to as "Taiwan." The People's Republic of China, with a population of 1.33 billion and land area of 9,640,821 km2, is the world's most populous country . . . The Republic of China, with a population of 23 million and land area of 36,191 km2, is based on the island of Taiwan and controls a number of islands off the coast of mainland China. . . .
ContinentalAve ( talk) 22:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Unimportant distinctions between names eh? Confucius said if you can't get your name straight, then what you say will be crooked. The inability to agree on what should go into the China article stems directly from different conceptions of what "China is." Merging instead of moving does not get around this problem.
China is much more than a political entity. It is, to paraphrase the late sinologist Lucian Pye, a civilization trying to fit into a country. The Chinese civilization has had anywhere between one to more than a dozen political entities operating within "China" and its periphery at any given time in the last two thousand years. To be sure the political entities have had a profound effect in shaping the Chinese civilization and have been shaped by it. But none of them alone can be used to define the geographic boundaries of China, which has shifted over time. The territories governed and claimed by the PRC today, provides us with but one version of China's actual and claimed geographic reach. For example, the PRC does not govern or claim nor has it ever governed or claimed Almaty or Hanoi as "integral parts of China", but does that mean those places "were never part of China"?
The coverage of China's geographic expanse (in the China civilization article) should mention the present jurisdiction and territorial claims of the two political successor states of Chinese civilization, the PRC and ROC, which, by the way, are not anachronisms. The two Chinas both exist in the present. They both issue passports that have "China" on the cover (de jure) and they both have Palace Museums (symbolic claim to inheritance of the Chinese civilization). If the ROC changes its name to the ROT and, like the Northern Yuan and Western Liao Dynasties, decides to shed the trappings of Chinese civilization and drift away, then we can revist this issue. The coverage should also talk about how the geographic reach of China has shifted over time, and depending on the level of detail, mention places not currently claimed by China but were part of China. I don't mean this in an irredentist way but just acknowledgment of historical fact. Metal Lunchbox's concern about Tibet somehow not being able to be included in this coverage is misplaced. Foremost, Tibet is and has been part of the PRC. Furthmore, there are past ties that bring Tibet into the Chinese civilization. In the late 13th century, Kublai Khan sent Song Gongzong Zhao Xian, one of the last Song Emperors, to study at the Sakya Monastery of Tibet, which was under his domain. One can quibble about whether Kublai as a "Mongol" counts as "Chinese" but there is little doubt that the Yuan Dynasty is part of Chinese civilization.
To characterize the PRC as the predominant political state of China today is not to belittle or delegitimatize the PRC. In the context of today's nation-state international relations system, the PRC is a permanent UN security council member, recognized by most of the countries of the world. In the context of China's civilization over time, it is also one of the most politically powerful states of China. But the PRC doesn't account for all that's China. Mid-Autumn Festivals and moon cakes, prominent examples of the culture of China at this time of year, exist well apart from the PRC. The PRC is just the current predominant political dimension of China, a multi-dimensional civilization.
Sources provide information for different reasons. Reliable sources about the share price of China Mobile or the score China-Jordan football/soccer match do not need to consider the full magnitude of the Chinese civilization. They can get away with a shorthand. In Wikipedia, China Mobile and the PR China soccer team can have links directly to the PRC. But shorthands can also create blinders and limit understanding. Western news agencies frequently use the China/Taiwan distinction when reporting about the PRC/ROC (Taiwan). During the pan-Blue / pan-Green political struggles in Taiwan earlier in this decade, these media outlets had great difficulty conveying why DPP leaders were trying to declare independence when Taiwan was already independent and why the Nationalists on Taiwan were so vehment in opposing the DPP, going so far as to make amends with the Communists on the mainland. The terminology of the news coverage was not nuanced enough to explain that the DPP while using China PRC as a foil, was really trying to declare independence from China ROC.
Chipmunkdavis asks a good question about China's exceptionalism. First, not all nation-states in the world today as recognized by the UN are created equally. Libya apart from the political state of Libya cannot stand alone in an article about the Libyan civilization. Neither can South Sudan. Not to sound chauvinist but China does have more content to offer. France, especially, and Germany to a lesser extent, are proto-typical European nation-states whose land, people, language and culture were molded through centuries of a nation-state building process. They are not distinct civilizations, however, and the distinctiveness of "France" and "Germany" begin to break down with older subject matter prior to the formation of nation-states. Qi Shihuang united China. Charlemagne is the King of Franks. He is listed as the Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, France and Holy Roman Empire. France has historical names like Gaul. Many articles about subjects of proto-France and proto-Germany can bypass France and Germany altogether using historical names. Caesar conquered Gaul. We have a link directly to Gaul, not France. Genghis Khan conquered China, and we get a link to the PRC?
India is a more interesting case. India, like China, is also an ancient civilization. But the Indian civilization in the present day is divided into different national states on the subcontinent. The fact that these states are called names distinct from India (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal etc.) only masks this division, which makes it difficult to equate Indian state with the Indian civilization (in other words, they can't be merged along the lines of the China civilization-PRC merger approach). For example, the ancient Indus civilization is located outside the confines of the modern India state. Hence, the main article of the history of India covers only pre-1947 India so it can describe in a coherent and continuous manner, the developments in the Indus valley as well as subsequent history common to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh before 1947. The main history of India article must then stop in 1947 and another article about the history of the Republic of India picks it up from 1947. Superficially, the History of China appears to have the same division -- there is a History of China and a History of the People's Republic of China, but the latter forms part of the former as does the History of the Republic of China. Because the state of India cannot claim to cover the Indian civilization, the pre-1947 history of India article is the best that is done to capture the history of the Indian civilization. There is no equivalent article for the whole of Indian/South Asian civilization beyond history. An article about Greater India is a short piece about the conception of Indian culture beyond the state of India, but it is not a broad civilization platform like the China article. China is different.
To conclude, the double-move option is problematic because "PRC" can't adequately handle the load that "China" the civilization is now carrying and will carry going forward. In the coming years, Wikipedia will receive thousands if not hundreds of thousands of articles about subjects relating to China's past. Wikipedia as an encyclopedia also favors adding history sections to subjects. China can take on 4,000 years of history (with little help from readily recognizable historical geographic names like Gaul, Prussia, Anatolia). When Chinese historical subjects are discussed in Chinese, references are invariably made to a particular dynasty. But dynasties in English must often be introduced with "of China" since readers are generally less familiar with Chinese dynasties. "Ibn Battuta visited [link to PRC] during the during the Song Dynasty."
The merger approach is flawed both because China presented through the PRC is unduly constricted and the PRC, when forced to take on broader China topics such as cuisine, traditional culture, etc., can really get overstretched if it were to address each such topic properly. I believe the PRC should focus on socio-economic-political institutions of the PRC state and topics and developments relating thereto. The more political and current day a topic, the more suitable it is for the PRC. The section and article on sports in the PRC, for example, should focus on sports institutions and policies, mass participation in sports, performance of athletes and teams representing the PRC etc. Traditional martial arts and Chinese games such as mahjong, weiqi etc. could be covered separately in an article on Traditional Chinese sports and games.
As an example of constriction, the Geography of the People's Republic of China does not even mention the island of Taiwan. We can amend the article to say that the PRC claims the island of Taiwan, which was ruled by previous Chinese states. But even then, such an article would not be the appropriate place to discuss tidbits of the past like Almaty and Hanoi as part of China. Discussing geography under the rubric of China, the civilization, allows for more expansive, politically-neutral discussion of the topic. Merging PRC into the main China heading article would lead to other generic China article headings to also equate PRC with China. Thus, the Law of China currently covers Chinese legal history, the laws of the ROC and PRC with separate links thereto, but the List of birds of China and list of birds of Taiwan are completely separate articles with no inter-linkage. Merging the PRC into China would encourage more complete bifurcation of China from Taiwan.
On the whole, I think more would be lost than gained by merging PRC into China.
ContinentalAve ( talk) 16:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi, ROC cannot be completely removed since ROC was a legitimate 'dynasty' after Qing dynasty, and ROC was not completely defeated in the Chinese Civil War...However, I do agree that PRC must be given a lot more weight in this article, based on international recognition and territorial extent, PRC is simply a much larger entity with far superior name recognition for the China status, therefore the article must reflect it. The article should reflect a much greater PRC presence than ROC presence, with ROC not being completely removed. Phead128 ( talk) 04:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
What is "the reviewing panel"? Jimbo Wales? T-1000 ( talk) 07:17, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
User:T-1000: Administrators commonly provide some final interpretation on Requests where consensus isn't immediately clear. If you object to that practice, fine; but this page isn't the place to air that concern. White Whirlwind 咨 20:12, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
sock disruption
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I think the following sentence should be removed: "China was for a large part of the last two millennia the world's largest economy" This is baseless, ludicrous propaganda!!!! This sentence insults the intelligence of a ten year old! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.77.126 ( talk) 14:21, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
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Although the three admins are in agreement, User:Tabercil's posting here [2] about "I suspect there will be an appeal to the triumvirate's decision and thus would like to give it a chance to occur" and here [3] "it looks like just about any decision that we come to is going to draw fire from corner or another..." seems to say that the Admins acknowledge that the issue will still not be solved after their decision. Since they are expecting to draw fire and an appeal, it seems that the discussion should be closed as no consensus, because the question is whether the community has form an consensus, not whether or not the three admins formed a consensus. (and face it, if this were a three people decision, the debate would have ended on Aug 31, as the first four opinions were all support). T-1000 ( talk) 06:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
And regarding User:GTBacchus's post here [4] about "These moves do not imply that Taiwan is not a part of China. They imply that the common name for the PRC is "China", I would like to hear more about it, as I believe that is exactly the point of contention. T-1000 ( talk) 06:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
"For now, I am asking GTB and Tabercil to speak more about their opinion". Tabercil can speak (and has spoken) for himself; what in particular would people like to hear from me? I will answer any specific questions there may be, or I could simply expostulate about my choice, if that would be helpful. What would people like to hear? - GTBacchus( talk) 06:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Now that the move discussion is closed, I have a couple comments/observations, followed by a couple suggestions on how best to move forward on this issue. First, the observations:
And what I think should be done moving forward:
-- Jiang ( talk) 14:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
In the discussion of the move proposal a merger of this article (with what I'm going to call the PRC article throughout this for continuity with previous discussions, but by which I mean the article currently titled China) the PRC article seemed to me to have received significant support. However, not all of the article here may be relevant to the PRC, so I've gone through this article and looked at the information provided in each section to figure out if it's worth saving, and if so where to.
After this is done, I think Chinese civilization should redirect to History of China. Chipmunkdavis ( talk) 16:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes now the articles have been moved despite very clear divided opinion people may as well put this article on the bonfire and move everything to other articles (most of it being consumed by the country article), something that was bound to happen if this move went ahead. Yet the main focus was on simply making page moves not on deleting the civilisation page all together and moving most of its contents to the country page, i dont notice that being mentioned in the verdicts of the 3 admins who decided the China move either. Whilst its always made sense to have the country article at China, neutrality and fairness is what got in the way, but i guess that is out of the window now and on the bonfire like this article will be. Looks like the One China policy has now been effectively implemented on wikipedia, The Communist party of China must be so pleased. BritishWatcher ( talk) 16:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
As per the rationale discussed above I'd like to start dealing with some of the sections of this article that now appear to be better placed on a different article with what I believe will be the least controversial. Now that this article is no longer titled "China" the section which discusses the names "China" and "中国" should be included in the article currently at that title, China. Does anyone oppose such a move? - Metal lunchbox ( talk) 21:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
All links appear to be fixed, anything else that needs doing to clean up after splitting up this page? - Metal lunchbox ( talk) 03:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Quigley, these moves are fine, as long as Culture of China and similar articles remain focused on the nation of China as a whole (i.e., separate from Culture of the People's Republic of China). If they don't, this article will have to be reinstated. Nightw 11:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Chinese civilization is much too broad a topic to be autolinked to the History of China or Culture of China. Linking to "History" implies that Chinese civilization exists in the past and extends to the present only insofar as the History of China reaches the present. Chinese civilization covers language, history, food, music, food, medicine, culture, religion, holidays etc. One can create separate Food of China, Languages of China, Music of China articles. But there are at least two reasons for a Chinese civilization article:
More reasons for a Chinese civilization article.
Considering the level of controversy surrounding the China article before the recent move, I wouldn't make any assumptions about what "surely" would have happened. - GTBacchus( talk) 14:05, 25 September 2011 (UTC)