Talk:Chinese civilization

Discussing possible war between India and China

Why can't we be friends Geo-Strategic Chessboard: War Between India and China? (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=745)

This is an important topic and we should bring it to the attention of readers. I also started a similar discussion in the China page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.112.218.230 (talk) 23:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Please, again, read the first sentence of the article. Also, the link is dead. T-1000 (talk) 05:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Also read WP:CRYSTAL. Simonm223 (talk) 14:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

when the people made the great wall, meny people died when making it, so the people beryed the people that died in the great wall —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.233.172.197 (talk) 20:47, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

BLAHHHHHH —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.206.25.152 (talk) 09:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

We agree that this is just a good nominee article only. Too much western interpretation and it floods to the translation as well. (beancube2009) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.146.119 (talk) 05:56, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Well is it fair that China get's to "well brag" a little and not India's page then ? ?

I dont have a problem with the start of this article stating China as an ancient civilazation or as a leader through some of it's history then....but....They won't let me put stuff like this with India's page. And when I asked the dictators of wikipedia why this is allowed for China's page but not India's page then, one of the answer's that was given to me was to bring this up on the China's page of Disscussion then I think then or maybe something like that here and w then . So now here I am bringing it up then . . . . . 71.105.87.54 (talk) 23:24, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

The status of India is not disputed. Pakistan does not claim to be India. T-1000 (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't really answer my question. Why does China get to brag but not India then? 71.105.87.54 (talk) 22:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Take it up on the talk page for the India article. SchmuckyTheCat (talk) 02:03, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The "bragging" you're looking for is probably at the Indus Valley Civilization article. T-1000 (talk) 23:44, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

ROC again

I am starting this discussion to prevent an edit war. Laurent's reasoning for the edits was that people looking for Taiwan would not go to China. However, only half of the ROC page is on Taiwan, so it cannot be assumed that all who goes to the ROC page are looking for Taiwan. Readin, the ROC cannot be described as a previous regime of China, because it still exists in Taiwan. Calling ROC historical would imply that Taiwan is not a part of China, which violates NPOV. T-1000 (talk) 01:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

However, only half of the ROC page is on Taiwan, so it cannot be assumed that all who goes to the ROC page are looking for Taiwan. - I think the way Taiwan's articles are organized is irrelevant to this discussion. The point is that nobody would type "China" when they are looking for the ROC or Taiwan. They would most likely type "Taiwan" for the modern state officially called "ROC", or "History of the ROC" if they want to know about the history. Your argument that the ROC should be in the hatnote because it used to be in mainland China is not valid either because normally the role of a hatnote is to disambiguate, not to document historical facts or make political points. Otherwise we should also put "Germany" in the France hatnote on the ground that it was part of Germany for 4 years, or "United Kingdrom" in the USA hatnote (all these states still exist, right?). We simply cannot document every historical facts in there, it's not the place for that. Laurent (talk) 09:39, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Both still use "China" in their national title, your argument is specious. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 15:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The fact that they still use "China" in their title is not really the point. It's not the aim of a hatnote to list all the articles with shared words in their titles. We only need to do so when there's a potential confusion. However today no one can seriously argue than when users type "China" they are expecting to find "Republic of China", it's not 1949 anymore. Laurent (talk) 17:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

If they want to look up China's history from 1912-1945, they would go to the China page first, then go the ROC page. Like I said, you cannot assume everyone who goes to the ROC page is looking for Taiwan. Hence your reasoning for removing the link is invalid. You analogy of Britain/USA is also invalid, as Taiwan never declared independence from ROC, and ROC still claims to be China. T-1000 (talk) 18:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

china can not be separated by the government,but an union of its people and culture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.105.37.118 (talk) 03:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey, as a frequent wikipedia reader/visitor I find it plain ridiculous too when I search for China to get some facts about this possible emerging superpower instead I'm faced with this page, and reading the discussion arguments against the merge proposal it seems to me there's a political bias given none ever uses China to refer to other "country" than PRC. After all the issue deserves better investigation considering it's the only entry which doesn't follow the standards. In regards to this matter, I don't doubt wikipedia might be suffering manipulation for political expedient to the detriment of facts. That's shameful and really very bad to wikipedia, to the readers, to the knowledge, to the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.34.168.129 (talk) 18:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

That's quite true, I also think the current article is made to please a small minority of Wikipedians to the detriment of the majority of readers. However it would be very difficult to change this situation. In the meantime, all we can do is try to properly inform readers through hatnotes (even that is difficult) so that they don't waste time figuring out where is the article they were expecting (i.e. People's Republic of China). Laurent (talk) 21:01, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. The refusal to let "China" article be about the "People's Republic of China" is one of the most glaring inaccuracies on Wikipedia. Unfortunately some people are still stuck 50 years in the past and want to see the PRC as a clean break from the continuity of Chinese history. Simonm223 (talk) 16:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

About the country

Why don't we have table of information about the country (its GDP, population size etc) as seemingly all other countries have? And also. there is not much information on modern China.--Gilisa (talk) 15:29, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Economic information is on the seperate economy page, seems best this way, keeps things clear.

Template:Three other usesT-1000 (talk) 17:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I surfed here to find the size of China. So, many articles on China, but couldn't find the size. What I am missing for China is the Infobox Country. I would suggest that it be introduced on the general page of China or the page for the most modern era. --K.Nevelsteen (talk) 13:06, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Now, I see by the previous post where to find the infobox. Highly confusing, since the link in the infobox here leads to the History of instead of directly to the People's republic. If you ask me, there needs to be a giant disambiguation page that clarifies, even though it is not very practical. So, my two cents is... that the structure isn't obvious to the reader. --K.Nevelsteen (talk) 13:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Possible collapse in 2100

Perhaps a small section could detail that the different population groups are a problem to the country's development and that certain people (eg George Friedman) said that china could even collapse by it (in 2100) 217.136.156.187 (talk) 17:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

you are joking, right ? Polylepsis (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

ROTFLMFAO!Simonm223 (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

No way is it going to take that long.

• Corruption and political mismanagement.
• Global Warming hitting just as the aquifers are pumped dry.
• Overinvestment and export dependent economy unable to provide jobs.

There will not be a PRC in 2030. Hcobb (talk) 19:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

While I'm sure most of you know this and the suggestions above are a bit of a joke, please see this article about how Wikipedia is not meant to be a crystal ball. TastyCakes (talk) 20:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Awh, I was about to mention WP:Crystal. Beat me to it. As an aside... it's funny to see how many people are hot to predict the death of global capitalism. After all that's what the collapse of China would cause. Simonm223 (talk) 20:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Government in Exile

There's a dispute over at Talk:Government in exile over the sovereignity of the ROC, and whether or not it is a gov't in exile. There is also a request for comment for one of the editors involved. More input is needed to resolve this issue, thanks.

Request for comment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Mafia_godfather T-1000 (talk) 06:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Introduction = Mess

The introduction is really a mess. It should be rewritten entirely. Polylepsis (talk) 19:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

a bit new to this.From the article "china was one of the largest and most advanced civilizations for most of the last two millenia, until the 1850s. when it missed the industrial revolution." This claim is very problematic,since the gap between the west and china has started a long time before 1850, or the industrial revolution.Right now I don't have the time to do the research but when the British and probably the Portuguese arrived China was already way behind. Probably the Scientific revolution is the tipping point. I believe this claim has POV motives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fearfulleader (talk • contribs) 22:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Simplistic view on the gap between china and the west in the last 500 years

a bit new to this.From the article "china was one of the largest and most advanced civilizations for most of the last two millenia, until the 1850s. when it missed the industrial revolution." This claim is very problematic,since the gap between the west and china has started a long time before 1850, or the industrial revolution.Right now I don't have the time to do the research but when the British and probably the Portuguese arrived China was already way behind. Probably the Scientific revolution is the tipping point. I believe this claim has POV motives. About 1850 - In the First Opium War starting in 1839 the Chinese were clearly at a great technological disadvantage. adding citation needed for now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fearfulleader (talk • contribs) 22:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The Qing Dynasty was very powerful until the end of the 18th century, and China was and is still regarded as one of the most advanced civilization at that time. It went down from the beginning of the 19th century. So perhaps it's indeed too simplistic to say it "stopped" being an advanced civilization in the 1850s, as it happened more gradually than that. Maybe we could rephrase and write "until the middle of the 19th century" or "from the beginning of the 19th century", or something similar, so as to avoid using a precise date. Laurent (talk) 23:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we should find sources clearly describing the decline anytime after the beginning of the 18th century to keep the "until" wording at all. I am being such a pedant only because I suspect this sentence is there to pass a POV'ish message. Fearfulleader (talk)

What POV do you believe that (rather dry factual) statement is trying to convey? Simonm223 (talk) 14:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The Chinese, as a nation that sees itself as a country that should always have a central place as a world power (Not unlike other nations), tends to explain it's past failure to keep up with the western world in a simplistic way, or a technical way. The fact is that China lost it's "world history edge" as soon as the qing dynasty cut itself off from other countries, believing Chinese culture is superior, long before the 19th century. The "missed the industrial revolution" together with blaming foreign imperialism is a way the Chinese make sense of their perceived, now almost forgotten, military, technological, and economic failure in the last century, but not a fact.Fearfulleader (talk)

Scope of the article

I have reverted this edit because the current consensus is that this article is not about China but about the Chinese civilization. If Zonghuo wants to change the scope of the article, he should seek a new consensus here. Laurent (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Since when has there been consensus to have this article changed to be about Chinese civilization? "China" has multiple definitions. The original text was fine.--Jiang (talk) 01:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The hatnote has been saying for more than 2 years that the article is about the Chinese civilization, so I think it's safe to assume there's a consensus about that. Also the article can't be both about the definition of the term "China" and the Chinese civilization. Those are very broad topics that shouldn't be treated in the same article. Laurent (talk) 01:42, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This article is about the definition of China, in which the Chinese civilization features most prominently. Why else would we bother to mention the PRC and ROC prominently in the lead section? This was the consensus when we decided to split the PRC article from the China article back in 2003, and as far as I am aware, there was never any consensus to change this. (If we wan't to delve on consensus here.) But for practical reasons, it doesn't make more sense to say "Chinese civilization is a civilization" instead of "China is a civilization". It makes less sense. The former is just redundant. And we haven't even gone through all the definitions yet. We could very well start this article as with the word "China" and focus exclusively on "Chinese civilization"--Jiang (talk) 02:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Currently the article is 99% about the civilization. There's just one sentence at the beginning which is about the definition of the term "China". I think we should just start straightaway by introducing the civilization itself as it would make it clear what the article is about and will also avoid any possible PRC/China confusion. If we start with "China is...", the vast majority of readers is going to assume the article is about the PRC.

Moreover, "Chinese civilization" redirects here and so do multiple piped links (i.e. [[China|Chinese civilization]]). The hatnote that has been there for more than two years also indicates that the article is about the civilization. So for all these reasons I still think we should bold "Chinese civilization" in the first sentence. Laurent (talk) 02:26, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not the name of the article, and multiple editors have reverted you. --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 03:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)