User:Metal.lunchbox/sandbox

Relevant policies for China -> PRC

• WP:NPOV - guidelines do not over-rule NPOV or other official policy, POV is easily the most common argument against such a move, but the burden of proof should be on them to show that it is POV. since not having PRC at its common name is the MARKED case, implies that PRC is not legitimately called "China" a judgement that is not up to us to make. THis should be the foundation for any argument for move/merge.
• WP:Article titles - policy
• WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) - By following modern English usage, we also avoid arguments about what a place ought to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it is called.
• WP:Disambiguation esp WP:PRIMARYTOPIC
• WP:Vital articles
• WP:Recentism - diehards claim its relevant but it certainly does not apply if you read the contents, it refers mostly to ongoing current events. and asks if in ten years people will still care about the topic.
• WP:POVTITLE
• WP:TECHNICAL
• WP:CHINA
• WP:TAIWAN
• MOS:NAME
• WP:DUE - That the ROC has a legitimate claim to "China" is the view of an extremely small minority. We have no obligation to represent that claim except to state that it is made in the relevant articles. That we give a Hatnote is more than enough acknowledgement of the claim and necessary for historical purposes. But nothing in WP policy says we need to use that claim in making a decision on the article title.

Primary topic

in the case that an article title refers to more that one topic, like "china" there is often a disambiguation page. That title should instead be occupied by it's primary topic or a redirect if a primary topic exists. PRC is primary topic, but how do we prove that.

"A topic is primary for an ambiguous term if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined—to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that ambiguous term in the Search box."

This almost certainly applies but diehards like to challenge this. To start with, it says even if it isn't the primary topic, if its a vital article. WP:Vital articles lists "China" but its a piped link to PRC. Beyond, consensus among editors they suggest a few methods: Incoming wikilinks are problematic as there are so many of them but since the article PRC isn't at it's common name its likely that alot of China links are intended for PRC, many of the rest are piped to use the common name, article traffic statistics suffer the same problems. Google searches are also recommended, with a little reading it is clear that results predominantly refer to PRC. the link problem is complex and widespread and there is no simple solution.

The historical usage argument

One of the arguments against is that China has a long history and that most of it predates the PRC. This is true. That same however is true of most countries, Take France for instance. The history before the fifth French Republic goes a long way back and most of it is very very french, at least as far back as clovis. Yet they still make the article mostly about the 5th republic and don't flinch when including history back to 486 AD.

Pars pro toto

Neutral and Authoritative sources which use China for PRC

Naming convention clearly states that the Widely used name, the one which should be used for the article title, can be determined by finding a neutral and reliable source which states, "X is the name most often used for this entity". Other methods can also be used, but lets find those sources. most of these below are also specifically mentioned in that guidelines page as being a source to consult.

• U.S. state department - their neutrality is likely to be diputed
• AP stylebook - there may not actually be a more reliable and neutral source
• New york times MOS - implies above statement but does not state it directly, pretty darn close though
• CIA world factbook - consistently uses CHina for PRC and states above about as directly as possible without actually stating it directly- "conventional long form: People's Republic of China; conventional short form: China"
• Brittanica does pretty much the same
• Library of congress - same
• Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations - same
• Economist consistently uses "china" in contrast with "taiwan" but that not an example of the explicit statement.
• National Geospatial Intelligence agency geonames seach gives "China" and "Taiwan"
• United nations uses the name china. In their list of countries they also include "China, Hong Kong SAR" and "China, Macau SAR" Taiwan is not included in the list, presumably part of "China". UN further uses China and PRC synonymously.
• World Trade organization uses china and PRC interchangably with China as title of relevant profile page, just like most other sources.
• WHO uses china as title for PRC, which they take to include Taiwan
• World Bank also uses China for PRC, Taiwan is not listed seperately.
• China - our wikipedia article states that PRC is commonly called china and even uses "China" to refer to PRC despite strict name convention prohibiting such practice, hence the origin of this recent debate. This example survived several hundred edits and 10 months before getting "fixed".
• PRC bureau of tourism isn't particularly neutral but they do have some authority on this matter. States that the PRC is commonly known as China
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan[1] - also no neutral but even they use "China" again and again to refer to country which is definitely not the ROC, its the PRC!. Very telling.
• ISO also uses "China" for "People's Republic of China

I'm sure that there are hundreds more, these happen to be every single source I looked at. Some reliable and neutral sources could probably be found which do not use China for PRC, but they would certainly be anomolies. I would not however expect to find a single reliable and neutral source which states that "china" commonly refers to the ROC or that the ROC is commonly known as China.

Note: don't fall into the trap of sources disagreeing about whether "China" includes Taiwan. The article title does not specify that unless it says "China, not Taiwan" or "China and Taiwan", etc. the article content deals with that. No implication is made, except that ROC is not the Primary topic of word "China". An example of this is Napoleon which is about Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon III is also a Napoleon and there is no problem.

President Ma who would represent by far the most prominent voice for the nationalists speaks english. This CSIS conference call includes a prepared statement and Q&A. He uses "Mainland China" to refer to the PRC very consistently. That's not the same thing as calling it "china" but he doesn't claim that there is some other china, he consistently called the ROC "Taiwan" just like everyone else. So calling the PRC "China" would appear not to delegitimize his view.

The name "Taiwan"

There shouldn't be doubt that the Republic of China is commonly known as Taiwan. The real issue is whether or not the ROC is one topic, two, three?. The taiwan government pretty consistently refers to either "Taiwan" or "Republic of China (Taiwan)" and sometimes "Republic of China". Is there a reason to divide the topic into "Republic of China (Taiwan)" titled as "Taiwan" and another topic "Republic of China (China)". Naturally "Republic of China (China)" would also have some discussion over retreat to Taiwan, but the focus would be on the period 1912-1949 on the mainland. Maybe we can just accept alot of overlap, maybe an ROC article covering the whole thing is good, seems like a legitimate topic. And then just have the ROC (china) be included in that ROC article and the China article. Exclusivity is not a principle of wikipedia. Taiwan would include everything you might expect, talking about the contemporary state officially called the ROC (taiwan) and history going back before the ROC. To a great extent this is already the way things are organized. The article History of the Republic of China already exists so it seems like ROC and Taiwan can merge without problem, except those pesky folks who say noooo, you can't call the ROC taiwan. Same commonname and primary topic rules apply as with PRC and China. The republic of China is indisputably commonly known as Taiwan and the ROC (Taiwan) is clearly the primary topic for Taiwan. That the history branches is not that difficult. follow the history of the island back to the big bang and follow the history of the ROC probably all the way back to 1912, its a summary and they can read history of the ROC if they want the whole thing.

The arguments against Taiwan and ROC being same article are mostly based on the idea that the two words do not mean the exact same things all the time, but that's not relevant, there's no requirement that the world be divided up in to clear-cut segments with no overlap and only one name per thing. "Australia" and "the Commonwealth of Australia" don't always mean the exact same thing but noone cares. Tasmania and australia are bot on that article Tasmania also has its own article. The point is that the article for a topic should be covered in a way that makes sense and doesn't conspicuously exclude certain elements which are usually thouht of as part of that concept becuase "that belongs in the Xxxx article".

President Ma, also uses the term "Taiwan" (in english) pretty consistently, occasionally referring to the "republic of china" the "republic of china on Taiwan" and "the ROC" as one might expect.

A look at Ireland v Republic of Ireland might also be interesting. They've had more difficulty than anyone settling naming disputes and the abitrated solution which is frozen for 2 years is to have an article Ireland about the island, its history, culture and demographics and a separate article about the country commonly called "Ireland" at "Republic of Ireland". Their situation actually seems a bit like the current China PRC ROC Taiwan status quo because Republic of Ireland is not at its common name. In fact in that case "Ireland" seems to be something like the official name.

Might also be worth noting the last time there was a merge proposal on Taiwan talk page it was nearly unanimously opposed

Notes

RfC must explain very clearly that the current article at China is not about the People's Republic of China currently.

Do we have to remain ambiguous about the status of "China" if the ROC(Taiwan) no longer claims sovereignty over china? then we're just giving into fringe viewpoints. 1991 additional articles to the ROC constitution. May 1991 ROC president Lee officially announces end of hostilities with China and acknowledges that China is controlled by the PRC since 1949. the DPP further abandoned the nationalist one-china policy, altough Ma has since picked it right back up. It can be argued that the one-china is an acceptance of a future merge, not an insistence that the two states are in fact one and the same.china&f=false That Taiwan abondaoned its claim of soveriegnty over mainland china with the 1991 constitutional reforms is not controversial and is even recognized here on wikipedia, Constitution of the Republic of China. President Ma has complicated things slightly, but his words can't undo the constitutional ammendment. Perhaps it restablishes the claim as being that of him and his party.

It was suggested to do preference voting on solution to china name problem, that might be useful:

• Single transferable vote
• it being used to help settle ireland naming dispute - apparently the only place a dispute has ever been settled in such a manner on wikipedia

In case anyone need precision on the United States position on one-china - [2] the United States carefully avoids taking its own position or concurring with PRC policy. [3] many sources interpret the communique in this fashion. In all its a very subtle distinction, but people sometimes need correcting when they claim US isn't neutral they take PRC's position 100%.