Talk:China

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Is what we know as China a country or a political Union like the USSR?

The USSR was seen as a country, but it was made up of Republics who had their own represenatitives, etc. A union of countries. Is China comprised of several regions who have representatives/presidents? Or has China always been unitary?

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.53.98 (talk) 02:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Cui Jian's Photo

Cui Jian's new concert photo replaced an old one for 2 reasons: 1. To show modern Chinese rock'n'roll concert, Cui Jian's band performance is undoubtedly the most appropriate. 2. The background of the replaced photo displayed concert sponsor's commercial products logo, which is inconsistent with Wikipedia's philosophy of commercial products neutrality. --New haven86 (talk) 00:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Red China

I know the term "Red China' has fallen out of usage, but Wikipedia is about information, and I think it appropriate to include names by which a country was formerly identified, even if they are no longer identified by such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GuelphGryphon98 (talk • contribs) 15:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to add the terms with a note that the terms are pejorative, then go ahead. I noticed that there is already a redirect from "Red China" to "People's Republic of China."Ngchen (talk) 22:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not a pejoratiove term, it was a term used to distinguish it from Taiwan. Only people who want to be offended think it pejorative. GuelphGryphon98 (talk) 14:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

"I think it appropriate to include names by which a country was formerly identified"Former names of People's republic of china is: Republic of china. Qing dyansty, tang dynasty, ming dynasty, han dynasty etc.

not Red china. Kontoenmin (talk) 19:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

As a Chinese, I don't identifiy myself a "Red China" citizen. Use this kind of Cold War term is very childish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.145.117.219 (talk) 14:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Why do you say that using the term "Red China" is childish? In order for you to make such a statement, wouldn't you have to have some kind of knowledge about the motivations for why the person in question made such a statement in the first place? In other words, how do you know that the use of this word in this context, by this specific user, is childish? Also, the fact that you don't identify yourself as a citizen of "Red China" does not mean anything unless we are writing an entry about you and your emotional life. The real question here is if the term "Red China" (a term that was indeed used in the past) should be included in the article or not. As pointed out above, "Red China" is not, I repeat NOT a pejorative noun. (This does not mean that it can't be used in a pejorative context.) So let's remove the chips from our shoulders and discuss this in a logical manner, not making wild assumptions about other people's assumptions for saying this or that. Besides, anybody who is Chinese or know a bit of Chinese history will know that the term "red" was something very positive in China. Song2008yu (talk) 15:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Human Rights Violations section

I understand that Wikipedia has no political or ideological stances, but wouldn't it be prudent to add something about china's history of Human Rights violations, exspecialy with the olypic torch protests in the news? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.14.59 (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a Human Rights section: a subchapter of Politics. For better ease, I've changed the Contents so that it includes subchapters. People's_Republic_of_China#Human_rights Dl.goe (talk) 11:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

And there is an entire article on this: Human rights in the People's Republic of China. We would most welcome any detailed contribution to that article rather than cluttering the already lengthy article here.--Huaiwei (talk) 13:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have re-worded the current section. It missed an important point that the Constitution does not afford protection to anyone accused of criminal activity. Also I changed the bit about when censorship occurs because we need to say that it's happening because the ruling authorities are challenged. To say that it is because the gov is concerned over "security" is to just repeat their position. Let's be honest and say why it happens.

Other changes are simplifications or other small points. Comments are welcomed. John Smith's (talk) 10:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This page will go to China

各位，I will rename this page to the China page, similar to India and Republic of India, later on we can move stuff in "Chinese Civilization" back to China.--Singaga (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

各位网友，I will make the changes tomorrow，如有问题，请提出。反華份子就滾屎好了。--Singaga (talk) 04:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

请注意， article and discussion will be moved altogether. --Singaga (talk) 04:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Singaga!!! Why are you making us Chinese loose face by making such a comment as above!!! Please show some respect. Wikipedia is a wonderful project where people off all races and all opinions can build something valuable and free for all. Why do you want to soil it? Song2008yu (talk) 15:31, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

First line will be changed

The People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó ), commonly known as China

will be changed to

China(simplified Chinese: 中国; traditional Chinese: 中國; pinyin: Zhōngguó ), officially the People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó )

--Singaga (talk) 04:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

This change is similar to India/Republic Of India. --Singaga (talk) 04:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Merge Proposal

• Support: I agree with Singaga the article needs to be updated, and needs more clarity. Buddha24 (talk) 05:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe there is already a disscusion at Talk:China. T-1000 (talk) 06:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

see Talk:China/DiscussRM 74.15.105.205 (talk) 04:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move/RFC

• Talk:China/DiscussRM

Merger proposal May 2008

I have proposed this merger to try and eliminate disputes over the terms for China, and improve information given by Wikipedia to a 'typical' user who types in 'China'.

I think it is quite possible to create a full, balanced, NPOV article which contains a clear explanation of ROC and PRC, whilst providing all other essential details about the country.

The merged document may well be too large, and require subsections.

I have no interest or opinions regarding Chinese politics; I merely want to improve the experience for users of wikipedia by providing clear information on the topic of "China" - be it PRC, ROC, historic deliminations, etc.

It is my hope that, in creating a single main article, through discussion and consensus it will be possible to make a great page.

--  Chzz  ►  04:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong Oppose- First of all, the system ain't broke, so why fix it? There is a disambig tag on the top of the page that directs people to the constituent parts of China. We haven't merge Ireland with Republic of Ireland, so why are we doing this here? Second, this entire proposal is nothing short of POV. You claim to have no ax to grind, Chzz, but your proposal, wrapped in such a thin fig leave, fools no one. Merger of PRC with China only serves to promote Chinese irredentism, which will make the entire China article extremely POV to start with. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 08:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment I'm extremely sorry that you think I'm trying to fool people. I assure you I am not, and I am upset that you'd think so. I'm also saddened that the first comment is so negative and personal. I beg everyone to please talk this through without causing another flame war. Think carefully if your comments might be construed as offensive.

It's 'broke' in so much as there is not a single article on 'china' - there are two. This is confusing for people, and it detracts from the quality of both articles. Combining would improve the encyclopaedia. Simple as that.

Saying that the results would be POV is not an argument. Why do you think it would be POV? Surely with concensus we could create a NPOV article. If you think it's POV, we can discuss it and fix it. Yes, it might be difficult, but that's often the way to make the best articles. --  Chzz  ►  12:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The article would be inherently POV because the political status of Taiwan is not resolved. Merging PRC into China will mean that Wikipedia is advocating that China (which, by many definition, includes Taiwan) is PRC, and that PRC is China. That would stray from our purpose of providing an NPOV article on any topic. Also, like I said earlier, we have a similar situation with Ireland. The article of Ireland refers to the island itself, which includes Northern Ireland. We have not merged Republic of Ireland into Ireland, and we should not do it here, especially when the political implication in this situation is as serious as this. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 16:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose This discussion is moot as there is a merger discussion going on at Talk:China/DiscussRM. As well, with an subject such as "China" and its different interpretations makes it hard for an NPOV article. Unfortunately, what you are proposing is too idealistic. Granted, I see that you have good intentions concerning the "China" articles, however, the situation concerning this area of study/subject is quite complex and cannot be "stuffed" into one article as that would be overly simplistic for a subject such as "China". nat.utoronto 13:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - The subject is too complex for a move like this - perhaps some material overlaps in the China and PRC articles, but from what I know this is the best move. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Support. Calling it "complex" is ridiculous. Is Mathematics too complex? This is why we break articles up and link between them. --slashem (talk) 15:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong support - although Arbiteroftruth makes an analogy with the Ireland situation, it's hardly the same thing. Taiwan really isn't China at all, just the former abode of a self proclaimed and unrecognized Chinese government that lost the civil war. Simply put, the PRC is the only government in the world that is actually made up of Chinese territory. Add to that the fact that the Republic of China exists to no one but itself these days anyway and you are left with no real reason to confuse the average wikipedia reader with dusty cold war politics. ʄ!•¿talk? 16:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment- Regardless of what you think about this whole situation, Taiwan is still a region where its political status is still unresolved. Many institutions around the world recognize Taiwan as an entity not controlled by China (in the sense of PRC), and given the fact that the PRC does not exert control over Taiwan, merging PRC into China would mean that we are advocating Chinese Irredentism, which would, by its very nature, violate NPOV. This merger proposal is, may I dare say, a pact against nature. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 16:57, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

comment- "a pact against nature"? I know this is very unwikipedia-like, but excuse me while I LOL... with that kind of hyperbole I hardly need to seriously persuade anyone of whats correct here. The thing is it's hardly my opinion; only 23 countries recognise the "republic of China", all of them made up of small central american, african or tiny Oceanian islands, the latter being highly right-wing & strongly aligned to the US. The point is alot of people can agree that Taiwan is hardly an integral or authentic part of China, the republic of China is usually just referred to as Taiwan nowadays, and it clearly doesn't represent(and this is just a guess here) probably 99% of ethnic Chinese people. ʄ!•¿talk? 20:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

98%. That is the percentage of the ethnic Han Chinese in the Republic of China. nat.utoronto 13:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I believe that there are multiple meanings to the word "China." So I don't see how this merger can work under npov. —Chris! _ct 20:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment- I believe we have to see the term "China" in the way that certain Chinese would. The term "China", although most often used as a Country, is oftentimes used as a reference term for a region where Chinese culture dominates. By that very definition, China would include Taiwan, PRC, Hong Kong, Macao, and (a minority of people would argue) Singapore and Mongolia. We have to look at this merger carefully, and be careful not to play into the hands of Nationalistic extremists/irredentist of the PRC. Not even the Chinese Wikipedia merge China into PRC. Why should we do it here? Why now? However, I believe this plan will work for everyone:

Proposed Name	Topics
China	Geography, Definition, Constituent nations (PRC, Taiwan), Culture and Customs
China (Historical)	History of China, including its successive dynasties, with a cutoff point at the Qing Dynasty
People's Republic of China	People's Republic of China (no change)
Republic of China (1912)	ROC as it existed before it retreated to Taiwan
Republic of China	ROC after its retreat to Taiwan (aka: Taiwanese Government)

Arbiteroftruth (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment The Chines Wikipedia does not merge it because access to Wikipedia from the PRC is not readily disponible. Therefore Chinese Wikipedia can not be identified with the opinion of the Chinese people! Bogorm (talk) 12:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Don't see any reason to change consensus. There should be an article for the general geographic region and civilization (China), and the two political entities, as there is currently. No alterations are necessary. Superm401 - Talk 01:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment- The splitting of the pages into the plan I advocated would be no different than the current page on Korea. There is the page for the North and the South. In this case, we add a separate page to deal with the nation that we used to know as China (which existed before PRC or ROC was even born). Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment Thanks for the constructive discussion. I think several people are suggesting/advocating the same thing - one "main article" about China, and various sub-pages. As to exactly what is in each, I think will require more deabte and thought; but I do think it's good that we agree it needs sorting out - to clarify the current situation.

Regarding Arbiteroftruth's specific ideas - I think perhaps some parts of the current PRC article might be better in the "main" article - I'm thinking particularly of Geography and climate, Science and technology, Economy, Demographics - and some mention of "Human Rights" - to maintain NPOV. I think that the "main" article should contain sufficient detail to give an overall idea of China, supported by detail in sub-articles, including one on PRC.

I also see so much overlap in, e.g. Geography of China and Geography of the People's Republic of China. I do understand how this has happened, but that's the trouble with having, basically, 2 top-level China articles. If 'Geography of China' - the whole thing - does end up too big, then certainly more detail could be in sub-articles, and one could be on the area called "PRC" perhaps.

I know that this is quite a complex issue, but I'm glad we're getting some ideas.

I hope some other people will contribute their own thoughts.

Incidentally, I am well aware of other/previous discussion regarding a 'move', but I think 'merge' is a more accurate description of what needs to be accomplished to start sorting this out. --  Chzz  ►  23:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)Strong Oppose: The merge of People's Republic of China (PRC) into China (or vice versa) is a huge violation of NPOV. To give a few reasons:

• Is Taiwan part of China? Merging China and PRC inevitably treats the boundaries of the two as identical. This will not be supported by those in favour of Taiwan independence. Besides there are currently some islands that are traditionally Chinese soil (part of the Fujian province) but are not governed by the PRC.
• The claim that PRC represents the whole China (including Taiwan) is exactly what PRC's propaganda is all about. This "China = PRC" POV is more likely to be found in a PRC press release than in a supposingly neutral publication like Wikipedia.
• The Two Chinas problem. The Republic of China (ROC) still exists, and never explicitly give up its claim over Mainland China. In fact there are still countries around the world (including Vatican City) that recognize ROC as the legal government of China (see Foreign_relations_of_the_Republic_of_China), as one is unable to maintain diplomatic ties with both Chinas at the same time. Replacing "China" with the People's Republic favours PRC's POV and disregards ROC's.
• Certain (traditional) aspects of China are inexistent in the PRC, for example Chinese marriage and the legal traditions of the Chinese law, not to mention the Emperor of China, which existed only in the Imperial era of China (ended in 1911 with the founding of the Republic of China, commonly seen as a transition of China into the modern era). Have you ever seen a verifiable "Emperor of China" since the founding of the PRC in 1949?

As the outcome of the merge will be deeply problematic in terms of neutrality as well as logic, I :*strongly oppose the merge of the articles China and People's Republic of China.--Computor (talk) 23:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly Support I type 'China' in, I want to know about the present-day country. I think many users will be the same. Tom Green (talk) 21:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose If you need to find out what China is that quick, just go to Simple English Wikipedia. Don't bother with regular wikipedia. Here every perspective counts. It does not make sense to ignore all the politics. Also this proposal looks identical to the other on-going votes. Benjwong (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support Only a few countries still recognize the Taiwan-based ROC. The PRC meanwhile is widely recognized as China because it governs the mainland. It is odd that such a famous country as the PRC only has a history that begins in 1949 according to WP. --Tocino 05:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose: It may be true that a lot of people type in "China" expecting the PRC article, but that expectation is built upon the China=PRC POV. Even the much touted 1992 Consensus that the PRC government repeatedly mentions implicitly accepts disagreement over the China=PRC interpretation. Kelvinc (talk) 05:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• It's a mess, and needs to be cleaned up whether there is a merge or not - the most common names for the two countries should be recognized and used as the article titles. Wikipedia:Naming conventions clearly states: "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." In common parlance, PRC is China, and ROC is Taiwan. Taiwan is a splinter state, and should be treated as such. For a similar relationship see the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The way Wikipedia represents the Chinas is a minority or fringe position - the vast majority of the Internet presents them as China and Taiwan. We're supposed to be neutral, but in this matter, Wikipedia's presentation is blatantly POV. The Transhumanist    07:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Firstly, it is not a mess and the presentation is not blatantly POV. We are being neutral, and the presentation is neutral. Let me ask you: Who was the victor during the Second World War? Who was the member of the United Nations and the Security Council? Was it Taiwan? No. The Republic of China was. We present these articles in this fashion to allow the articles to be neutral and for content in the articles such as Republic of China to be historically accurate. If the article Republic of China was merged into Taiwan, Do you know how historically inaccurate it would be? It would begin to state: Taiwan was the victor in the WWII or Taiwan was a member of the UN and the security council (which the western media always states, but that is blatantly false). The example of the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire just doesn't cut it, as those are former states and are not relevant. By giving using the Common names in this situation, would be over simplifying a situation/issue that shouldn't be. As such, the status quo in terms of the article names and their content is the best route to go. nat.utoronto 13:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I think this isn't a problem about policy, but the articles are too long as it is, I think it's simply not practical as it is. Besides, China is more refering to the civilization, and the People's Republic of China is more like the current government. There's been lots of governments refered to as China, even in the feudal periods, there's no need to merge these articles. FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 17:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• OpposeThe merger pushes two POVs. T-1000 (talk) 03:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support Strong support. Westerners and Europeans have a tendency to hate PRC and that they try to make China separate from People's Republic of China. These two things are very much similar. Chinese history is PRC's history. ROC can stay the same. Today or in the future the "China" article will become part of the "history of China" article. I strongly support this. China is PRC. Period. Kung fu, wushu, cannon great wall is PRC's history. These things are the same thing. There is no such thing as "China" and "PRC." Period. Merge this. "Chinese civilization" is PRC's civilization. They are the one thing no matter what Westerners that hate PRC might say. 71.237.70.49 (talk) 05:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Another suggestion is, make the current "China" redirect to "Chinese civilization" and redirect "China" to "People's Republic of China." That might be less controversial. 71.237.70.49 (talk) 05:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. While I personally agree with many of the sentiments expressed by supporters above, in the interests of being politically correct I think it's best to keep it the way it is. Splitting up info between articles on the PRC, ROC, Taiwan and China might not be easy, but given the sensitive political context, it's the most prudent option. Brutannica (talk) 21:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. China can be used for the People's Republic, the Republic and any number of former states and regimes over the last few millennia. Having the People's Republic as the main article does not only violate NPOV but glosses over a complex historical and political progress. Dimadick (talk) 05:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

STRONG Oppose per Arbiteroftruths argument above. "China" is like "Ireland", it's a region. PRC and ROC occupy parts of the region, as ROI and NI do in Ireland. Keeping China as a region page largely avoids a POV issue due to the two China's. - JVG (talk) 23:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

STRONG Support (for renaming PRC article "China")...for obvious reasons. Nobody looks up China looking for Taiwan etc. The current postition smacks of a biased POV. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 00:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose First China and PRC is different. PRC refers to the self-declared Communist government, whilst China is the vast expanse of land. Think of this Taiwan is also China, would you want to merge ROC's article to here to. Of course not. For the pure sake of conveniency we have disambugations and redirects. -- Felipe Aira 12:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. There are two Chinese nationstates, to say otherwise is POV. Lord of Light (talk) 20:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. IF MAIN LAND CHINA AND TAIWAN UNITE IN FUTURE, WE COULD EMERGE, OTHERWISE JUST LEAVE THEM THERE FOR THE MOMENT... Using "China" as it is. Synyan (talk) 01:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose. Per the arguments of others, inherently violates NPOV. A single article cannot cover the civilization and both states. —Lowellian (reply) 08:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. In addition to the arguments given above, the history of a cohesive political unit known as "China" has existed since 221 BCE with Qin's empire, not 1949 CE when the PRC was established. The national identity of what it is to be "Chinese" was cemented into China's culture during the four centuries of rule by the Han Dynasty. In the past 6 decades, a completely different political identity for the governing state and China's citizenry was forged under the modern nation state of the PRC. There is also the issue of historic "China" conquering parts of northern Korea and northern Vietnam; obviously, the current PRC does not hold onto parts of northern Korea or Vietnam. This brings up the question of what are the bounds of historic "China" and how are they different today from let's say, the Tang Dynasty. Even the definition of what China proper is and how much territory is included in this definition has changed over time. Merging "China" with the "People's Republic of China" ignores not only the ROC on Taiwan and geographic issues, but also Imperial China and the mainland Republic of China from 1912 to 1949; I would say ignoring anything that vital would be a POV decision.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

this is a lie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.58.69.183 (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you for your wise, detailed and sage-like rebuttal to my post, oh great philosopher king! Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose. There are two Chinas, whether the name China is commonly used to refer to the People's Republic of China makes no difference to the fact China split into two seperate entities in 1949 after the Chinese civil war, with the communist People's Republic of China taking control over the mainland, and the fascist Republic of China taking control over the island of Taiwan. China remains split effectively as two countries, just as Korea is. Merging the article on China with the article on the People's Republic of China would be like merging the article on Korea with the article on South Korea. People may commonly refer to South Korea as Korea but it is very misleading as it states South Korea is the sole legitimate claimant over Korea, just as refering to the People's Republic of China as China is stating the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate claimant over China. Merging the article on China and the article on the People's Republic of China does just this, and it is not Wikipedia's place to state who is the legitimate claimant over China, but to simply state the facts as they are in this long running dispute, and would be just as wrong if it did so with such disputes as the one over Korea. I feel this merger proposal has not been initiated due to people wanting to find the article on the People's Republic of China more easily, but by a desire to see Wikipedia give its seal of approval to the People's Republic of China's claim to be the sole legitimate claimant over China for the whole world to see, effectively turning Wikipedia into a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China. I can't express enough how wrong it would be to merge these two articles on those grounds. Signsolid (talk) 05:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose: To clarify the differences between China, PRC, and ROC is not the same "eliminating" or covering up the differences. There is a larger idea of China that is broader than PRC and ROC together or separately. Neither of these states are even 100 years old!!!! How can you cover the remaining several thousand years of cultural history with either of these very young countries? --Tesscass (talk) 01:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Strong Oppose: Same as User:Lowellian. Per the arguments of others, inherently violates NPOV. A single article cannot cover the civilization and both states. -- _{Folic_Acid | talk}  13:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Neutral "Strongly" means absolutely nothing so please don't bother. We know your political views already just from your opposition. It is not a bad idea, however, this article in particular describes the PRC as a political entity and not its culture. I suggest adding more demographics to the main China page. Please be nice and don't turn this page into a political debate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.57.91 (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

STRONG Support Taiwan is a break-away separatist province, and even in the most benevolent stance towards it it would be inappropriate to dub it China regarding the amount of its territory. I am obliged to agree with 71.237.70.49 above about (most, luckily not all) Westerners being supercilious about PRC and embracing Taiwan. Taiwan was ousted, expelled from the ONU in 1971, when the PRC acquired its rightful place, it is time for it to acquire it here too and I am a staunch proponent thereof! Bogorm (talk) 10:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Strong Support Regardless of political leanings, the fact is when anyone thinks of China, they do not think of Taiwan, they think of mainland and Beijing. In respect for everyone who thinks that Taiwan is not part of the PRC, that is fine. But even then, they are calling for TAIWAN as an independent nation, and not to be a new seat for the nation of China. I do not see any parallel to this situation and that of Ireland, for the reasons stated above, and I strongly support. (Majin Takeru (talk) 00:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC))

Support IMO, I think most Wikipedia editors to the China articles should be politicians. Their strong concern for "political correctness" seems to have deluded their minds into neglecting their primary job as a Wikipedian: to help make a Wikipedia article more user friendly to the general readers, which in most cases...means less politics. The truth is, dear fellow Wikipedians, unlike many of you, many people in the rest of the world simply do not give a damn about the childish PRC/ROC rivalries. They might have read it somewhere in the news these days, but I really don't think you should bother them or patronize them by teaching the whole PRC/ROC conflict everytime they had an innocent search of "China" on Wikipedia. Instead, why not combine the China article with the PRC one while providing a brief but comprehensive subsections on preceding Chinese dynasties as well as the Nationalist KMT rule up to 1949 (after which they deserve their own separate article as "Republic of China on Taiwan"). Some editors mentioned and compared China to Ireland. This is a horrible comparison because at the very least their distinction (Republic of Ireland vs. Northern Ireland) is clear as glass and universally recognized even by the people living on the island. PRC/ROC difference however is more murky and subject to nationalist feelings which is why this problem happened in the first place. I don't know what will be the outcome of this proposal. It sounded dead and has always been since the same proposal appeared periodically for 4 years running now (as soon as the PRC article is separated from the original unified China article). Good luck and have fun debating meaningless ideological differences. --Heilme (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Infobox: Conventional Long Name?

The rendering of the font in the infobox with the text People's Republic of China looks a bit off—isn't it possible to render it like Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó? - Lasse Havelund ^{(p) (t)} 11:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Map

Someone has changed the Infobox map so that it now shows Taiwan and Chinese claims in India as a part of the People's Republic of China. Once again it is not Wikipedia's place to state whether a claim is legitimate and these claimed lands are not currently a part of the People's Republic of China. An Infobox map should simply display where the country's boundaries are, not where that country would like its boundaries to be, that is for the politics section on an article. Once one country Infobox map starts colouring all its claimed territories so will all the others, and so will all territories that claim to be an independent state. It is not hard to see what massive edit warring could errupt over articles such as Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, Serbia/Kosovo, not to mention the potential for China/Taiwan/Tibet edit warring on China related articles. That is why all country Infoboxes should all follow the rule that they only display where that country's current boundaries are, not where it would like them to be. Most country articles follow this rule. Besides, how does Wikipedia maintain a neutral point of view policy when individual articles are supporting differing political views? This map clearly breaks the NPOV Wikipedia policy. An encyclopaedia should be simply stating the facts, not acting as a propaganda tool for certain political views otherwise Wikipedia is no different than any Chinese state controlled media. Signsolid (talk) 17:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The map should show China's borders under international law. No more, no less. perfectblue (talk) 16:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

• It indeed differentiates between territories controlled and territories claimed; the light green is claimed but NOT controlled. The dark green is controlled. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me there's a double standard here. For instance, the map on the Republic of China article does not show mainland China, of which the ROC has never officially relinquished its claims, in light green. —Umofomia (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a separate map which shows all of the ROC's claims - However that is a good point, so what should be done is either both maps have no light green, or both maps have light green. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Being that I have seen no other infobox maps on Wikipedia that use the light green (e.g., not even the Kashmir region in the India and Pakistan maps), I think we should remove it for consistency. —Umofomia (talk) 05:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to remove the light green, if you wish :) (Or ask the creator to do so) WhisperToMe (talk) 23:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You can check out the "India" item, there're also claimed lands showed. Same thing happened to "Argentina". If anyone want to change this one, he should change other maps too. Derekjoe (talk) 04:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)Derekjoe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Derekjoe (talk • contribs) 04:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I haven't changed the map yet because I don't currently have an SVG editor, but the infobox graphic currently in India and Argentina don't show claimed lands either. Only later in the article do they have additional maps about claimed territory. —Umofomia (talk) 20:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge tag

I've removed the merge tag, the debate was closed on the 18th of May. - perfectblue (talk) 16:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Religion

I looked at those citations claiming China is majority Buddhists. Having lived in China for the majority of my life I for one must speak against this notion mistaken for fact. Most Chinese adhere to a mix of Buddhism, Taoism, and other folk religions, and do not have specific religious affiliations. In the United States, you can easily make religion into a statistic by simply counting baptized individuals. You cannot do this in China. Even official Buddhists are hard to pinpoint a number on. Taoists being 30% of the entire population? That is ridiculous. I have not met a single person this lifetime that claimed to be officially Taoist. Most urban population in China is officially atheist with some superstitious folk beliefs that kick in once in a while.

The section must be completely re-written. Colipon+(T) 14:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely. Unfortunately, most people who do these surveys have a specific agenda to find religious people.LedRush (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sports in China

How did rugby and golf get mentioned? Golf, at least, has a very small following among wealthy people in the city, but in 6 years of living in China I never once saw Rugby on local TV nor, despite playing it myself, did I see a Chinese person play it. Surely tennis is more popular than both these sports. Perhaps I was just sheltered (China is a big place, after all), but do we have any citation for Chinese people playing rugby in China?LedRush (talk) 15:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

When I was in China I saw soccer, basket ball, ping pong, tennis, badminton, wushu and various track and field sports being participated in... never rugby. Simonm223 (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Socialist Republic?

Socialist Republic? more like capitalist one party state.141.155.142.146 (talk) 03:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well the article's politics section already goes into considerable depth to explain that there is no real good moniker for the type of state that is the PRC. Given the difficulty of boiling it all down to a single line in the infobox, the constitutional status of "socialist state" (or "socialist republic", given the name People's Republic of China) is probably the best we can do, although any semblance of socialism is non-existent in the major urban centres, at least. Kelvinc (talk) 18:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, we can add more than one, can't we? Since, countries can have more than one type of government, for example, Canada, its three types are federal, constitutional monarchy and representative democracy. And PRC IS undoubtedly capitalist, not communist. Being Chinese, I can say that, since I've also been there, it's actually quite sad that China's capitalist... but what can you do... I'm not sure, but could a country be both socialist and capitalist... Hmm... If it can, then add Capitalist as well... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tosfan4ever (talk • contribs) 17:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Being Socialist and Capitalist is more or less a hybrid term used to describe someone in between, for instance, the Cello. The cello's name comes from violonecello, which litteraly means "little big violin". Names are to never be taken as fact. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is niether Democratic, nor a Republic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ReignMan (talk • contribs) 06:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

My friends, let us introduce some logic into our discussion around whether or not to call China a 'socialist republic.' ReignMan, your comparison to the Democratic Republic of the Congo is bad logic. The "Democratic Republic of the Congo" is a noun. In the context it appears in the PRC entry, "socialist republic" is not used as a noun, but as adjectives, in this case modifying the noun "PRC". The difference is significant. As ReignMan points out "Names are never to be taken as fact." That is often true in the case of nouns, but not in the case of adverbs. Also, ReignMan seems to want to offer his own definition of the word "socialist". Correct me if I am wrong, but should we not try to use definitions that are more or less agreed upon? So rather than abiding by ReignMan's definition of the word socialist, should we not have a look at what the word really means? Would most people agree that "socialism" is "a hybrid term used to describe someone in between, for instance, the Cello..." or should we go by the dictionary definition? Also, what does "socialism with Chinese characteristics" mean? I am fat. Does it mean I can be accurately described as "thin with my own special characteristics?" I guess I could call myself think with my own special characteristics. BUT, if I announce to other people that I am thin without referring to my definition, I may be in for a healthy dose of ridicule. So please, we can argue about a lot of things, but let's try to resolve the issues that can easily be resolved using the objective laws of reasoning.Song2008yu (talk) 15:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

How is China a republic? From the dictionary: a republic is "a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them." I guess you could define indirectly in some weird way, but the Chinese don't vote for their representatives (outside some local elections). Also, socialism is defined as: "Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy." While the gov't has instituted market reforms, the gov't stills owns all land and business and creates the rules for distributing them.

But all of this is academic, and considered original research and synthesis by Wikipedia standards. We call the country what most reliable, verifiable sources call it. It's pretty simple.LedRush (talk) 15:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Aw frak

Latest minor edit, tried to shuffle the the first paragraphs so it mentions the current political system last. Messed it up the to the point that paragraph went under the TOC. Can somebody fix it? Roswell Crash Survivor (talk) 04:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Additional resources for External Links

Here are a couple resources I think you should consider adding to the external links section. They are from a site that provides and extensive library of English language online videos about China. The below are just a few suggestions where the site ties in nicely with existing external links.

For overviews/studies section (it ties in nicely with Danwei.org) China Video Online

For documentaries Living in China Documentaries

For Travel/Maps Virtual China Tour Guide and Map

Chinaontv (talk) 05:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Thalia K

Better photograph

Can we have a better GNU-compatible photograph than "plainfantry.jpg"? It is hardly informative. Wouldn't one of those Xinhua press-release photos taken during a 1st of October parade be a better image? Always a ballistic missile on one of those parades. I'm going to make the change and see if anyone objects.

-Roswell Crash Survivor (talk) 05:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Can someone give me a hand by changing the license policy on "PLA gov.cn.jpg"? It is currently tagged for speedy deletion.

Roswell Crash Survivor (talk) 05:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia policy, you cannot use a non-free image (such as the one from Xinhua) without a fair use rationale. Because the image is owned by Xinhua, only they have the right to dictate the terms of its use, so no one but them can change the image's terms of licensing. It is for this reason that it is marked for speedy deletion. See Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria for more information. I have reverted your addition of the Xinhua photo to the article for this reason. —Umofomia (talk) 09:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

China Energy Statistics Link

I want to add an external link to China's energy profile/statistics from the Energy Information Administration (Official Energy Statistics of the U.S. Government). I feel this is an appropriate link considering how crucial energy is to the development of China and current energy concerns. I might want to add some energy content under the economy section as well. Any thoughts or concerns?

• EIA Energy Profile for China

ARUenergy (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Many people are interested in China because of the economic trading relationship with the United States. Thus, I suggest that a link to the China Business Information Center <http://www.export.gov/china/> be added to the list of links. Currently, there are no links to US government sites on the People's Republic of China links list. Perhaps a link to <http://www.export.gov/china/> could be added to the government links.

Rollbison (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC) June 24, 2008

Source Number 95 is a dead link

Is this document located anywhere else? ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.57.206.49 (talk) 20:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to hit shift to sign my previous post 68.57.206.49 (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Not to be confused with the Republic of China

Is this sentence necessary on this article with the title "People's Republic of China". I understand that if a user types "China", the user will be redirected to the general article on China. If "Republic of China" is entered, that could possibly warrant the need for a "Not to be confused with the People's Republic of China." warning on the page Republic of China. But if the only way to arrive at this page is if "People's Republic of China" in its entirety is typed (and since there is already a redirect warning for the PRC abbreviation), I don't see how a user could arrive at this page without typing the full "People's Republic of China". Why would the sentence "Not to be confused with the Republic of China." be needed here then? Thanks! --Shibo77 (talk) 17:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

To indicate that it and the ROC are not the same thing - something that people should be aware of whereever they are coming from —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.108.101.129 (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Restore text

I have restored some paragraphs back due to vandalism from users like New haven86 and Onetwo1. thanks Buddha24 (talk) 19:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of uncited figures

"Falun Gong, now severely persecuted in China, had 50-70 million practitioners in 1998 according to the Sports Administration. As there are no membership lists, current global numbers are unknown." has been removed due to the source being Epoch Times, which claims that the "Sports Administration" claims there to be 50-70 million, all verifiable sources stated, at most 2 million. If 50-70 is to remain, then a citation from the original source should not be too difficult to come by. Laomei (talk) 11:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/042799china-protest-leader.html -- reinstating with this source.--Asdfg12345 12:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Once again, removing this. If this is a government claim, cite a government source, webarchive goes back far enough if it is legitimate, this is using second hand information for a very specific claim which should be easy to correctly source if true. However, personally I am finding much inconsistency in the claim.

据估计当时在中国有七千万至一亿人在炼法轮功 70-100 million? http://www.fofg.org/chinese/persecution/persecution_bknd.php

Chinese Sports Ministry estimates pegged the number of practitioners in the range of 50-70 million. http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-29/61346.html

（明慧数据中心）从1992年5月至1999年7月的七年间，据公安内部调查，中国大陆炼法轮功的人数达到7000万至1亿。以下这几篇是1999年全面迫害开始之前，大陆媒体对法轮功的正面报道 Claims of 70-100 million from an internal police investigation? http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/8/25/82595.html

Which is it? The Administration, the Police or the Ministry? Find an original source please, the FLG-linked sites cannot even agree on the numbers or the source.

The second edit which was put back in, once again, mentions nothing about Falun Gong in its references and will likewise be removed once more. Laomei (talk) 16:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

i don't get it. NYT says the CCP says that's the figure. We can quote that. there's no question here. (the other one i find almost as odd--there are thousands of references that say Falun Gong is repressed in China. I can find one from US State, where they also talk about censorship, in three seconds)--Asdfg12345 16:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

NYT is using a number and claiming a source which is disputed, you can either cut your loses and walk from this one, find an archived original source, or I will be adding in all the claimed sources and various numbers to this article as well as all other articles making this claim which makes a mockery of the claim as you well know it will. Stop pressing your blatant agenda here, or there will be an arbitration request. FYI, I have already located 3 copies of what was claimed and it is 2 million according to pre-ban state media, find the source yourself and feel free to use it, nothing else will be accepted.

The following

The government has a policy of limiting groups, organizations, and beliefs that it considers a potential threat to "social stability" and control

is the claim being made equating the Tiananmen Square protest of 6/4 with Falun Gong. The sources cited makes no such claims. Laomei (talk) 17:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I checked the NYT source, and yes, the NYT said that the PRC said that there were 70 million back then. There is no need to go back to the original, if we believe the NYT to be a reliable source. Ngchen (talk) 17:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The NYT is relying on the claim on Li Hongzhi. http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0211/sr.china3.falungong.html

(The sect claims 60 million followers in China and 40 million abroad. Beijing says they number 2 million in China.)

But, let's make it interesting. Here's a critical source, as critcal as you can get and still stay semi-legit. Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/1999/09/08/1308 BOTH numbers go in now, as promised —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laomei (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've kept the original language yet added the new citations. Please refrain from unnecessary edit wars.LedRush (talk) 23:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The "original language" that you are inserting is too long and confusing don't you think? With two sources and awkward language trying to combine the two statements. NYT is only supplying one number, whereas Taipei is supplying a range which includes the 70 million figure while remaining critical. The only other options are to use a pre-April 1998 source which claim 2 million, or listing every single number which has been claimed by the non-government sources. This, seems to be the best solution so both sides are represented equally. Furthermore, the Taipei Times article seems to have gotten it's number from the relevant and correct government source, whereas all the others claim a different source each time. This is in lines with WP:V :) Laomei (talk) 23:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the original language is long or confusing. The NY times suggests 50-70, Falun Gong says 100, and the Ministry says 2. Also, I don't know why you change "persecuted" to "prosecuted". I don't mind the inclusion of the 2 million number as it's verifiable and just a claim, and feel that my edit addressed your concern while keeping the language that was fought over for a very long time.LedRush (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Because the 100 mil is a worldwide number, why not delete that? I assume the 2 million is a China-only number, but the article remains silent on it and seems to imply it's worldwide.LedRush (talk) 23:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If you had taken the time to see the cited sources above, adherents themselves claim the 100 million figure, if you like you can include one of those sources as well for further clarification, however there are many more with different numbers ranging from 20 million to 150 million from varying sources, increasing over the time since the ban. It is an unreliable number, whereas the government number remains consistent and with a consistent source. I will make you the same offer I made Asdfg12345, you can keep it as is in the interest of simplicity and NPOV, or include every claim. Please keep in mind that Falun Gong has it's own articles and is not the topic of this one. Thanks :) Laomei (talk) 00:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Please reread my statement and make an appropriate reply.LedRush (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The main issue here is that the NYT article, while a very legitimate source, is not fact checking information from what is essentially a one sided piece and only reporting what was being claimed. However, both the number and source of that number change drastically depending on which source is cited, I have seen 20, 50, 60, 70, 100, 130 million being claimed from multiple sources and none of them consistently agreeing where that number came from as I have documented to some degree above. Most of them are leaning on the 100 million claim from pre-ban, as well as a 130 million claim. Before taking any further action on this I am offering that we and Asdfg12345 along with his friends leave it where it stands and ask for a neutral administrator who can speak Chinese to act as the decider on this. As I do not want to raise issue with my own translation skills being called into question. Obviously the best source would be the original government number pre-ban, however not even Falun Gong seems to know where that number came from, so it is rather difficult to start hunting. The 2 million has a definite source which has not changed either by number nor original source. 100 million worldwide? 100 million in China? And the original preban and well documented letter to the Chinese government claimed numbers of 130 million in China. So, which to cite? That's the question. Either cite them all, cite an original pre-ban government number, or cite none at all. WP:V states that the source must be verifiable. Language such as "any where from 2 to 130 million, depending on the source" and then a list of as many sources as possible would be acceptable. This article is not about the Falun Gong, and Falun Gong never claimed to be a religion until post-ban. So it is really stretching it to place it into this context in the first place. Laomei (talk) 02:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit conflict not noticed for 10 minutes] Just seeing this now. The version I restored gives three figures: the original one made by the Sports Administration, the one claimed by Falun Gong, and the post-persecution figure claimed by the CCP. This isn't the place to get into the "cult status" or not of Falun Gong, that's another field. I'm not aware of a citation for 20 or 150 million. These are the main numbers I'm aware of, they represent three distinct claims, and finally it says that numbers are actually unknown. I may not fully understand your view, Laomei, about why the revised version you are supporting is more appropriate. I also think LedRush may not understand. I guess maybe we could flesh that out on the talk page.--Asdfg12345 02:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

In response to Laomei's latest comment: I still don't understand a few things. The article now cites three distinct claims made by key parties, and two of them are claimed to be from an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. There are other sources which say that the figure was changed from 70 million to 2 million in an effort to downplay Falun Gong's significance in Chinese society--but we should not have that in this article, I don't think, because this isn't the place for it. I don't know where all those other figures come from (20, 60, 130?). I think if it just documents these three central ones and says that the numbers are actually unknown, then wikipedia is doing what it should. I don't believe we need to dispute the methods of the NYT in making the claim about the CCP, nor a Chinese speaking administrator to find the original citation or translate source documents. I think we do need more editors to come and take a look at this though.--Asdfg12345 02:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Then here we go, I am adding all sources of numbers to any and all claims on all pages Laomei (talk) 02:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Why would you make an edit that you know is bad? Just to make a point? Please try to engage in edits that will help the article, not edits that you admit are bad but you stubbornly make to prove a point with which others don't agree. Also, you have been warned for the 3RR (actually, about 11RR) and can't revert further.LedRush (talk) 03:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Back to the Epoch Times link again eh? Thought this was settled. It seems funny that you are determined to get that link onto this page. It's not a credible media source and will be removed (again) Laomei (talk) 20:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Please explain why this verifiable news source (Epoch Times) is not reliable under wiki-guidelines.LedRush (talk) 04:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Tons of fake and made up stories for one, and it was founded, funded and run by Falun Gong... it has about as much credibility as a tabloid. Laomei (talk) 06:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, Falun Gong is not a religion and they are on record claiming it is not a religion. What is it even doing in the "religion" section? Non-response to this counts as consensus by the way. Laomei (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

some say it's a religion some say it isn't. There doesn't seem any other obvious place to put this piece of information. Why not just leave it?--Asdfg12345 09:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

One could make the same argument about Buddhism or Taoism, though there isn't a better category than religion. Also, your personal opinions (nor your "if you don't respond in time, I win" game) aren't really relevent here. Can you show some examples of why "The Epoch Times" isn't reliable under wiki standards, not under Laomei's?LedRush (talk) 13:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's a source, a Falun Gong one as well: http://dawn.thot.net/fofg/whatis.html Q1: Is Falun Gong a religion? A: Falun Gong is not a religion. Li Hongzhi himself says it is not a religion http://www.newstatesman.com/200307140014 As for Master Li, his message is available in a torrent of video- and audiotapes, websites and books. He continues to preach that there are aliens on earth, that he is a being from a higher level and that his followers can develop X-ray vision. Falun Gong, he says, is not a religion - and indeed, it lacks the rituals that conventional religions feel required to provide.

Followers say it is not a religion http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/china/falun_gong.html Falun Gong, which translates to wheel of law, borrows from Buddhist and Taoist traditions. But follower and Canadian spokesperson for the group, Joel Chipkar, says it is not a religion, but a spiritual discipline that can improve physical and mental health.

Not my opinion at all here, it does not belong in the religion section period, for it is in fact not one. Laomei (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. So where would you say the FLG material belongs? Is there a human rights section? Ngchen (talk) 21:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I can call my arm a dog, but it don't make it so. Please address my points regarding Buddhism, Taoism, and other eastern "religions" above.LedRush (talk) 23:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not a debate, nor is it up for debate. The founders and the followers are on record multiple times saying it is not a religion and do not claim otherwise. Not some abstract form of the claim either, it is directly stated "Falung Gong is not a religion". Therefore it has no reason to be included here. Simple. Laomei (talk) 03:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, FLG issues are included in Human rights in the People's Republic of China, so it does not need to be repeated here. Laomei (talk) 03:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I find comments such as "This is not a debate, nor is it up for debate" quite troubling. I agree in the sense that we should not be fiercely arguing against each other, but instead freely exchanging ideas, but I don't think that's what you are pointing towards with that remark. Please simply check the Falun Gong main page for a few sources which identify Falun Gong as a religion, or as religious. And you should know that, traditionally, the idea of what is religion and what isn't in Chinese history is not always clear-cut. Again, why not simply stop this storm in a teacup ?--Asdfg12345 09:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I just can't understand why Falun Gong's somewhat arbitrary designation as a religion, outlook, lifestyle, or cultural choice is dispositive as to whether the language on this subject deserves inclusion anywhere in this article. Perhaps it doesn't fit perfectly into the religion category, but this is clearly a subject that should be addressed, whether in culture, religion, human rights, or elsewhere. I personally believe that it is sufficiently similar to a religion, especially when looking at what other religions are categorized so, to remain in that section.LedRush (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

This is article is so full of unnecessary information and jargon, it makes me laugh every time I read it. Nissanaltima (talk) 01:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

State Motto?

I noticed other pages like Switzerland and France have a motto, but none for PRC. Should it be listed, but just be blank? Legaia (talk) 20:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Agriculture

Agriculture is mentioned once in the article. Once.

How do 1.3 billion people feed themselves?

I know in 1909 an American agronomist named FH King toured China and the Orient; wrote a book Farmers of Fourty Centuries.

Elementalwarrior (talk) 14:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

sentence about last 5 "communist" states

"Currently China is one of five remaining communist states, along with Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba."

The above sentence has been deleted twice in the last day. While I know that technically no country would be considered Communist, isn't there wide enough agreement that certain countries that espouse socialist causes and are led by a Communist party are "Communist". I feel that we shouldn't let semantics get in the way of providing accurate and useful information. Any contrasting thoughts welcome.LedRush (talk) 20:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with LedRush. Ngchen (talk) 02:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "communist" states is a accurate description of those countries, and you can't compare Vietnam, North Korea, laos, cuba and PRC. You could write that all those countries is based on some socialist movement, but they don't compare other than that.

Kontoenmin (talk) 19:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, they are all led by the Communist Party. That's pretty darn similar...and pretty darn "communist". As I've said earlier, communism is more than an economic model. By this reckoning you can argue that China is more communist than it is socialist. However, my point is not to start a debate on the nature of Communism, it's perversions in the world, or what the sliding scale of socialism is: this sentence is important to show which countries in the world are run by a single party dictatorship under a communist party.LedRush (talk) 19:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, with regard to this, I deleted the sentence above but then I replaced that with the new phrase in the first paragraph of the introduction with "...It is ruled by the Communist Party of China under a single-party system...". I think that this is much clearer than simply mentioning China is a communist nation because right now China is neither 100% communist economically (it operates on a capitalist model) or socially (it has unequal income distribution). China is a socialist state. That's what the 1982 PRC Constitution Article number 1 states. Socialism is actually somewhere between communism and capitalism, so that fits China perfectly. Socialist economic model also can refer to relatively free market model but one that is eventually controlled by the state, as is the case in China, where big corporations are state-owned. Not communist because wages/incomes are not state-directed. Mentioning Laos, N Korea, Cuba and so on is irrelevant - it's a Chinese article. Heilme (talk) 20:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Again you seem hung up on semantics and defining communism as purely an economic model. "Communist States" are countries in which there is one party: The Communist Party. There are 5 of them in the world. This is notable and relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LedRush (talk • contribs) 21:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And why should you define communism as purely a political model, duly neglecting the other equally important characteristics of a country such as its economy and society? Listen, I am not fully disagreeing with you here but hear me out first. After the Cold War ends, the definition of a "Communist State" just got very ambiguous because some of those countries (which used to be considered Communist) have completely reformed/transformed its economy and society without much political reform, if any. It may be a commonly accepted concept - a.k.a. POV or OR - that a country ruled by one party (the Communist Party) is considered Communist, but this is not good enough because different people have different concepts of what is a Communist country, especially post-1991. When you write that China is a Communist country, it may remind people that every Chinese is still lining up (for rations) to get food and other basic necessities or that the government still control on what goods to produce, which all of these are no longer true. All I am just saying is that things should be written as clearly as possible. Describing China simply as "Communist", as notable and relevant as you may think it is, may misinform or under-inform the reader. If you want to say that China is ruled by a Communist Party under a one-party rule (which you claim to be the criteria/definition of what makes a "Communist State"), then why don't you write exactly just that! Which btw I did in the first paragraph. What else is not clear about this? Heilme (talk) 23:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

As for the "Socialist State" labelling, I just picked that one up from their 1982 constitution Article #1. Plus, PM Deng himself once mention something on Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Heilme (talk) 23:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

If you want to play with cites, I can do that too: Why China is No Longer a Communist Country, China's Communist Party - different in all but its name. Something about you LedRush that I don't understand is, if you want to say that China is ruled by the Communist Party under one party system, why not just write that? "Communism" means politics, economics, and social structures. 2 out of these 3 in China are definitely nothing to do with "Communism". Please think!! Heilme (talk) 19:29, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of the sentence, and the encyclopedia (to a certain extent) is to allow people a jumping off point to learn about the subjects contained herein. Communism is a complicated subject, as I've said above, and no one sentence is going to correctly capture the differences and similarities between many countries. However, just because there are nuances to the subject matter doesn't mean we have to omit important concepts. One of those is that there are only five communist states in the world, and China is one of them. If you want to add a sentence afterwards that addresses the issue of what it really means to be a communist state (and questions whether China is one because of the market-oriented reforms), go ahead. I just see something amiss by trying to omit a widely held truth that highlights an important aspect of world politics. But add your sentence if you want...LedRush (talk) 21:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary sentence and controversial. Already mentioned that China is ruled by the Communist Party in the lead. Even if it is valid, it does not belong at the end of the last lead paragraph. Source is of dubious quality. 130.113.81.33 (talk) 01:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Even though there was no consensus to remove this sentence from the lede, and even though the article is probably less accessible because of the change, in the spirit of compromise I will back of my position that the sentence should be in the lede and insert it in the politics sections. Hopefully this can keep everyone happy.LedRush (talk) 16:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I was being bold and removed the sentence because it was obviously out of place. I see that you have re-added this in the Politics section. I don't oppose mention of other officially Communist states but your source does not seem reliable. Could you please find a more reliable source that draw from political scientists or China scholars. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the language was better placed in the lead, but I have added two citations, one from a book on the rise and fall of communist states and the other from a policy piece published in a journal on how to deal with communist states, specifically Cuba.LedRush (talk) 19:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Peoples republic of china Goverment model

I have made this, is it OK to put on the main page. Can people help me with fact check etc? [url]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Chinese_political_system.jpg[/url] Kontoenmin (talk) 18:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Formatting emergency

I don't know how to do the formatting, but the way the front page looks now is unacceptable. It looks completely blank (or like it's loading) as there dozens (if not hundreds) of blank lines between the title and the first text. Can someone please change this quickly, (or I'll revert the most recent changes and see if that helps).LedRush (talk)

I reverted because I don't think that the we can allow the article to look that bad, even though the edits I reverted were probably worth repeating. We just to make sure we don't ruin the article while adding them.LedRush (talk) 15:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Largest cities

Why is Beijing ahead of Shenzhen when Shenzhen has a larger population? Zazaban (talk) 21:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Total size

I believe that it has been discussed before, but the size of China is disputed. So it relly shouldnt be listed as the third largest, as the United States page states that it is the third or fourth largest in size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onopearls (talk • contribs) 01:07, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Military Pls Ammend incorrect article

China have World 2nd Largest Amphibious fleet They can Transport 400 Tanks by one Voyage Equal Trasportation Capacity of US PAC amphibious fleet Twice as much as Russia (TWNTotal1000Tanks/Japan900>600Tanks) But this article say "China only have LIMITED POWER PROJECTION AVILITY" I think it is awful under-estimation How's your opinion? guys--Jack330 (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

"Fastest-growing economic power"

I oppose the recent change to the article which replaces the terms "fast growing economy" with "fastest growing". I can't find in the citations provided the support for this statement, and even if someone does find one, I doubt we can conclusively find the parameters to define fastest: fastest in the last year? 4 Years? 27.3 years? I feel the language "among the fastest is good enough to get the message across, is supportable by citations, and avoids unnecessary controversy and possible peacock language issues.LedRush (talk) 01:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you are familiar with economics but the fact that China is now the fastest growing major economy in the world (has been for around 30 years now) is not only "widely acknowledged" but an undisputed fact. Data from any financial institution (IMF, WB, CIA WFB, media outlets) will tell you this. To suggest inserting qualifiers such as "among the fastest" is to add peacock wording. You do have a point that I was not specific as to the timeframe when it was the fastest. To address your concern, I've noted that China is now the fastest growing economic power. This is also how it is constructed per the source. Please also have a look at my comment above about the "communists states" sentence. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/aj.html Azerbaijan has a growth rate of 23.4%, over twice of China's. There are 8 other coutries with faster growing economies, which you can see listed here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real)_growth_rate )(all the facts are from the CIA factbook). If you want to say "now", let's list China as the tenth fastest. If not, let's just say among the fastest. The whole problem with saying fastest is that there are too many measures and too many ways to phrase it.LedRush (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Azerbaijan and neither or the other states that grew faster than China are economic powers. Please see great power, an article that I have brought up to GA, if you are unfamiliar with the term. This is simply too clear cut to make ambiguous. Moreover, peacock terms should be avoided per Wikipedia policy. By contrast, "rapidly aging population" is somewhat debatable; however, the source seems credible so I will accept. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

So you want to say that China is the fastest growing economy among great powers? If you qualify anything enough, I guess it's true. I would prefer the article just remain accurate accoring to wikipedia policy.LedRush (talk) 02:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem like a constructive editor so I'd just like to illustrate my point further. Per CIA WFB: Most recent data available for real annual growth.

1 Azerbaijan 23.40 2007 est. 2 Bhutan 22.40 2007 est. 3 Timor-Leste 19.80 2007 est. 4 Angola 16.70 2007 est. 5 Macau 16.60 2006 Macau is a SAR of the PRC 6 Armenia 13.70 2007 est. 7 Equatorial Guinea 12.40 2007 est. 8 Georgia 12.00 2007 est. 9 China 11.90 2007 est.

As you can see, of the 7 recognized states that grew faster than China last year, all are not powers (not even middle powers) by any definition of the term. Therefore, there is really no argument to contest. Economics dictates that the larger the economy, the harder is it for it to grow at rapid rates, which makes China really remarkable in the context of rapid, sustained economic growth over the past 30 years. In fact, I'm not sure if you are aware but this has never been seen in human history before. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that as a matter of principle, I must disagree with you. Is it unfortunately not notable that China had the 8th fastest growing economy but that it is the fastest growing major economy. With some knowledge of economics, you should be very aware of this fact. You should realize that I am not trying to highlight China's growth but simply to present what would important for Wikipedia. The fact that China is the fastest growing major economy is clear and verifiable by many, many publications (including the one I provided). Simply put, it is important to have some common sense as there is no ambiguity and I am very surprised that you would have a problem if you have experience with economic analysis. For a comparison, see the lead in India, a FA, "Economic reforms have transformed it into the second fastest growing large economy;[16]" Should we note that India was the 22nd fastest growing economic? Obviously not. As you can see, my statement is even more clear, notable, verifiable, and unambigious in this context.Nirvana888 (talk) 15:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with LedRush. Saying it's the fastest means adding all sorts of qualifiers about what makes a "major economy". And even if you do prove it, it will take all sorts of maintenance and argument to make sure it remains true. I believe just saying something along the lines of "China is one of the worlds fastest growing economies, reaching unprecedented rates for a country of its size." Of course that's somewhat banal being that there are no other countries of its size, but I think the sentiment is right and saying it's the "fastest growing" in the world is asking for unnecessary complication and argument here. TastyCakes (talk) 15:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, TastyCakes's suggestion works far better than the current revision. For the record, I still believe that my statement is accurate, notable, and verifiable but I would like to know what other people think. Nirvana888 (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I am also fine with TastyCakes' suggestion.LedRush (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, I've incorporated the compromise version.Nirvana888 (talk) 16:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, we could just put in both pieces of information: China is the world's eighth fastest growing economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP growth, and the fastest in the world among major economies." By providing both we do a couple of positive things:

• the importance and unique nature of China's growth (that Nirvana888 wanted) is emphasized
• the fact that there are several ways to measure these things is presented
• no one is left with the false impression that China's economy is the fastest growing of all countries in the worldLedRush (talk) 16:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

TastyCakes raises a good point that very specific wording will require more maintenance and qualifiers. But Nirvana made some comments at Led Rush's talk page about specifically the fact that China's sustained growth over 30 years has supposedly never happened before in human history, which I think should also be mentioned. The best wording, in my impression, would be something along the lines of "PRC is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and is the fastest among what ____ consider 'major economies' [or maybe superpowers]" and also mentions the period of time over which the growth rate has been maintained. —Politizer^{( talk • contribs )} 16:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Ran into an edit conflict here, but it looks like LedRush's proposal is the same as the one I just made. —Politizer^{( talk • contribs )} 16:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Politizer. I have no issues with the current revision now as this was what I think as important to convey. I guess it also clarifies that China wasn't the fastest growing of all the economies even though I thought my previous statement did not suggest this. Nirvana888 (talk) 16:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

rapidly aging population

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rapidly+aging+China&start=0&sa=N

Here is a google search with over 70 citations that could be used for the article (though the current one is reliable and verifiable, and therefore can be used). There are probably a lot more, but I stopped counting. I have never seen a source to dispute that China's population is rapidly growing, and frankly I'm surprised anyone has a problem with language.LedRush (talk) 14:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  全世界只有一个中国 
这网站上面有个中华民国是什么意思

建议取消 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.232.87.244 (talk) 10:36, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

China GDP numbers in wrong units

GDP numbers on the top right hand column are given a 7,346 trillions of US dollars. It should be 7,346 billions of US dollars or US$7.3 trillions —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.199.115 (talk) 11:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

redirecting "China" to the "PRC"

There is a discussion going on here.--pyl (talk) 05:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

dispute again on how to word the part about Falun Gong

Since this has already been gone over so many times, and the current version until now stable for months, I think it would just be simplest if PCPP explained why this edit [1] is an improvement. PCPP, in your response, please be sure to thoroughly address these two key points:

1. Making Falun Gong the last of several religious groups to be introduced, either as "a religious group or sect", or perhaps as "a minority religion", depending on how the sentence is read, given the enormous impact Falun Gong had, and the persecution has had, on Chinese society, as evidenced by countless reliable sources, including scholarly articles, documentaries, newspaper reports, human rights organisation reports, UN reports, etc. (for instance, Sinologist Benjamin Penny said in 2001 that Falun Gong is "certainly one of the most important phenomena to emerge in China in the last decade");
2. To include misleading and factually inaccurate information that Falun Gong "was officially proscribed and banned by the Chinese authorities in 1999 as an "evil cult"" -- factually inaccurate because the cult label was only applied to Falun Gong months after the persecution had began; misleading because Falun Gong is not only 'banned' in China, but followers are routinely sent to forced labor camps without trial and tortured to death, i.e., "persecuted." Obviously the latter is the more notable feature of the campaign--do I even need to say this?

Please be clear. Thanks.--Asdfg12345 12:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

1) Your characterizations are irrelevant. FLG is one of the new religious movements founded in the 20th century, and should be introduced as such. Just because some pro-FLG material you dug out says so doesn't make it factual to wikipedia. 2) The "persecution" material is nosensial FLG propaganda largely used by FLG groups, and the cult nature of FLg has already been used long before the ban. There is no set definition of the extend of FLG's repression, and whatever FLG and its supporters think doesn't mean wikipedia should endorse one view over others.--PCPP (talk) 13:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Please present reliable sources to back up your point of view, or I will be justified in simply reverting. Your opinions are of no consequence, only the sources you can bring to bear on this subject. Labelling sources which present a viewpoint that make you feel uncomfortable or disagree with as "pro-FLG" is meaningless. Their independence is not related to your feelings on the subject. I have 1) presented a source which shows the importance of Falun Gong in recent Chinese history, 2) here is something from a non-Falun Gong related source which makes my second point: “It was Mr. Jiang who ordered that Falun Gong be branded a ‘cult,’ and then demanded that a law be passed banning cults.” (Washington Post, November 9, 1999) -- okay? Please provide sources, your opinions are not relevant.--Asdfg12345 16:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Your sources mean nothing, considering that this is not a promotional article for FLG. You specifically find one source that supports your POV and present it as if it factual. And whether FLG was branded a cult before or after the ban is irrelevant, considering it did.--PCPP (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: PCPP has now reverted twice and been reverted by myself and Ledrush. If he reverts again it will be time to start a RfC on his editing behaviour on this subject, characterised almost always by little to no discussion and constant, annoying reverts, ignoring consensus, and the whole basis of how wikipedia should be edited. --Asdfg12345 05:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead, I'm getting sick of you and your FLG buddies hiding propagandic edits under the guise of consensus.--PCPP (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for the last comments, but I think that the particular paragraph should be worded as "banned", as it avoids a endorsing a particular POV and introduces the situation clearly to readers without going too deeply into the subject. Regardless of outside uses, WP guidlines states that endorsing particular viewpoints should be avoided. According to WP:Title#Controversial names "Article and section titles should be chosen, where possible, to avoid implying a viewpoint. For section titles, a compromise may be needed between a neutral and a concise heading, while for article titles, words which should usually be avoided may be part of the title if this is the most common name for the subject of the article. In other cases, choose a descriptive title that does not imply a particular conclusion."--PCPP (talk) 04:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, PCPP, when people are jailed and tortured to death, it is a persecution. Human rights organisations, journalists, the United Nations, the US State Department, etc., all testify to this fact. The word "banned" is not a neutral word. It is the word of choice by the Chinese Communist Party, used to hide the persecution. If Falun Gong was only banned in China, there would not be so much fuss. It is the beatings, electric batons, mass-arrests, labor camps, gang rape, etc., that is at question, not merely some abstract legal status. I'm going to copy some lines here from Edelman and Richardson's analysis of the CCP's apparent "ban" of Falun Gong. Please note, they are considered a reliable source on this topic. The Chinese Communist Party is not considered a reliable source on this topic. I'm simply going to copy a number of passages from it here. I'll put them in the 'hide' box, so you can click to view them. Source: Edelman, Bryan and Richardson, James. “Falun Gong and the Law: Development of Legal Social Control in China.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2003, Vol. 6:2, pp. 312-31.

This, at the very least, shows that the legal basis for the decision is quite unsound. My purpose is presenting all this here is to make very clear from yet another angle that the term 'banned' is not some middle-ground, and certainly not a neutral term. It's the Communist party's term, not the term of reliable sources.

“Falun Gong and the Law: Development of Legal Social Control in China.”

“In 1999 the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) labeled Falun Gong an ‘evil cult’ and began a campaign to eliminate the qigong movement of which it was a part” (312).

“Criticism of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actions and the crackdown will not be based on Western standards of democracy and law, bit on concepts of government and justice formulated by the CCP and put forth in Party documents, the CCP constitution, and the PRC Constitution (313).”

“The People’s Republic of China is not adhering to the principles laid down in its own official documents that would seem to allow its citizens freedom of association, speech, and religion, as laid down in its official documents…” (313)

“Unlike the West, where law is usually seen as a constraint on the power of the state, the PRC views law as a means to maintain stability, regulate society, protect the interests of Communist ruling class, and strengthen and enforce the government’s authority” (314).

“The ruling Communist elite may use laws to enforce its policies, but the elite class itself is not easily constrained by law. This reflects a system known as the rule by law…The rule by law enables the power holders to use law enforcement to exert social control over the populace” (314).

“…the decisions concerning Falun Gong seem to have been made hastily and without acting within official guidelines” (315).

“Coupled with the State Council’s ban on the Falun Dafa organization in July, the regulations and Internet ban seem to contradict several rights guaranteed in the PRC Constitution, including citizens’ rights to enjoy freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration protected under Article 35” (319-20).

“It is the responsibility of the NPC Standing Committee to negate any legislation that is not in accordance with the constitution. However, due to Party/state overlap, coupled with the apparent adherence to Party policy doctrine described herein, the negation of such legislation on constitutional grounds ins quite unlikely” (320).

“The statements made by Ambassador Qiao and the PRC delegation run counter to the crackdown taking place in the PRC” (326). [Regarding a press briefing on March 21, 2000 in which Qiao said that the PRC practices toward Falun Gong are in accordance with those of all governments regarding cults, and that the PRC follows the rule of law] “…the Party and government’s response to the Falun Gong movement violates citizens’ right to a legal defense, freedom of religion, speech and assembly enshrined in the Constitution and treaties to which the PRC is a party” (326).

“The recent treatment of Falun Gong practitioners clearly demonstrates that the PRC is not yet willing to recognize the individual rights of its citizens…If the harsh reaction to Falun Gong, and the anticult legislation passed over the last few years is any indications, the Party will do whatever is necessary to crush any perceived threat to its supreme control. This represents a move away from the rule of law and toward this historical Mao policy of ‘rule by man.’” (326)

“…the Party stands to lose the very legitimacy it is fighting to protect. If the Party oppresses a large portion of the working class, it is clearly no longer the ‘party of the people.’” (327)

--Asdfg12345 10:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

And I might add another note, in the spirit of PCPP's call for 'clarity', above: when we use the word "banned," we are precisely being unclear about what is happening in China. This term does not tell us the status of Falun Gong practitioners in China, its noise to content ratio is extremely high. "persecuted" says far more, and of course it includes being "banned." This is just such a transparent and obvious thing, and it looks so silly to go to so much trouble to try to pretend something is not the way it so obviously is.--Asdfg12345 11:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I won't be able to respond in more detail until I have a chance to read through the rest of this discussion later, but in the meantime, my stance (the same as what I said at a recent discussion on this same topic at Talk:The Epoch Times is that we should go with the wording that's most neutral and easiest to verify in the books. Now, I'm not an expert on the current situation of FLG and all that's going on with that, but I do know that a legal policy is a black-and-white thing—is there a law in the books, or isn't there—that can be verified and agreed upon. We may disagree on how the law should be interpreted, or on what "banned" means, but a word like "outlawed" should be relatively clear-cut: is there a law against FLG, or isn't there?

"Persecuted," on the other hand, opens up a whole can of worms. You and I both agree that the group is persecuted, but nevertheless, the term is open to a lot more interpretation, and where something is open to interpretation that means editors will interpret it different ways and there will be edit warring. The word "persecuted" is pretty much inviting nationalist editors to come on and yell at us about how all the reports come from Epoch Times and Clearwisdom & co., or about how FLG is evil anyway, or yada yada...and it's something that can't be measured as easily. "Persecuted" can't be defined as clearly as "outlawed," especially when a large portion of editors here believe that the reports of persecution are falsified anyway. I think "outlawed" is just a much safer way to go, especially if it's a matter of a single sentence where you have to say that; the persecution issue really deserves a whole section so we can address it and talk about what people think about it, etc., whereas if you want to wrap the whole situation up in a couple words I think it's better to go with "an outlawed group" rather than "a persecuted group." —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

But "outlawed" and "persecuted" have clearly different meanings. The first just means that it is illegal. The second means that the government actively goes out of there way to stomp it out. For example, smoking marijuana is outlawed in the US, but the people who do it are not persecuted. The connotations are clearly different. If people have a problem with the word persecuted (which has been the language for a long time), why don't we just get a reliable source that says this (not the Epock Times), and say that [blank] has reported that FLG practioners are persecuted and link to the persecution article...—Preceding unsigned comment added by LedRush (talk • contribs)

I agree they mean different things...but "outlawed" is something we all can agree is true, whereas "persecuted" is something that a lot of editors will disagree with, and is subjective. Looking at PCPP's edit (in the diff Asdfg gave at the top of this section), I think "banned" is better than "persecuted" in that instance—the People's Daily source given is about the ban anyway, not about the persecution. Of course, you're not ever going to find an "official" source (Xinhua, PD, embassy, etc.) saying "yes, we persecute FLG"—you could probably find that at some Western government agencies or it might be mentioned in a secondary way in places like NYT and IHT. How about, as a compromise, we make the wording something like 'and Falun Gong, which was officially proscribed and banned by the Chinese authorities in 1999 as an "evil cult," and which many outside organizations believe is persecuted in China.' That gets both the persecution and the banning in there while keeping us somewhere neutral. (Incidentally, though, I think PCPP's edit is already decent in that respect; it says 'and Falun Gong, which was officially proscribed and banned by the Chinese authorities in 1999 as an "evil cult," admist outside criticism of religious repression.' —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 21:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I just made (diff) the change I suggested; the new wording is

"In July 1999, the Falun Gong religion was officially banned by the authorities, and many international organizations have criticized the persecution of Falun Gong that has occured since then."

I moved the PD ref to the first half of the sentence (it is for verifying the ban, not the persecution), and worded the persecution way such as to make it more clearly a fact, and not a possibility (i.e., I didn't say "many organizations think there is persecution," but "many organizations have criticized it," implying that there is persecution); hopefully that will be an acceptable compromise. I added the {{Fact}} tag not because I doubt that this criticism exists, but because I don't have any sources handy and I need one of you guys to add a bunch of sources (preferably secondary, stuff like NYT and IHT, saying that the persecution is widely criticized and listing what orgs have criticized it...you can also add primary sources, i.e. several links to organizations that do criticize it, but the secondary sources would be much more robust).

You guys are all editors whom I respect and have worked with in the past, so I hope we can come to an agreement that is acceptable for everybody. Again, I am not an expert on FLG, but I think the wording I have inserted is fair and will hopefully be able to accurately represent all of you guys' knowledge without unfairly weighing the article towards any one point of view. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. I am crushed at work but will look for cites when I can.LedRush (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, a good compromise. I'll chuck a link in there now there then. Do we want to cite a few organisations or what? It could get wordy to say "Amnesty International, the United Nations, the US Department of State, investigative reports..." blah blah. I'll just link this article which mentions those, and also says, like "There have been at least 3000 documented deaths and 63,000 cases of torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China." This is a Fairfax paper, mainstream as you get. We love our mainstream here on wikipedia.--Asdfg12345 03:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's best to cite a mainstream article that does all the citing of organizations for us. There has to be some news article there that talks about some recent FLG issue and, while giving background, says something like "Amnesty International, the UN, the US State Department, investigative reports, etc., have all criticized the government for its treatment of FLG"; we can cite that to verify the "many international organizations" claim, and the reader himself can go look for the specifics about which organizations. It's kind of a pain, but I've gotten the impression that's how Wikipedia likes to work: if we ourselves list a bunch of organizations it's arbitrary and "POV," but suddenly if NYT or some other newspaper lists a bunch then it's perfect, factual and unbiased journalism! —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 12:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Life is full of such quirks, wiki's no exception. Anyway, another case closed. Well done. *dusts off hands* --Asdfg12345 13:10, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Chronological Archives
Old China 1, China 2, China 3, China 4, China 5, China 6 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Is what we know as China a country or a political Union like the USSR?

The USSR was seen as a country, but it was made up of Republics who had their own represenatitives, etc. A union of countries. Is China comprised of several regions who have representatives/presidents? Or has China always been unitary?

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.53.98 (talk) 02:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Cui Jian's Photo

Cui Jian's new concert photo replaced an old one for 2 reasons: 1. To show modern Chinese rock'n'roll concert, Cui Jian's band performance is undoubtedly the most appropriate. 2. The background of the replaced photo displayed concert sponsor's commercial products logo, which is inconsistent with Wikipedia's philosophy of commercial products neutrality. --New haven86 (talk) 00:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Red China

I know the term "Red China' has fallen out of usage, but Wikipedia is about information, and I think it appropriate to include names by which a country was formerly identified, even if they are no longer identified by such. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GuelphGryphon98 (talk • contribs) 15:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to add the terms with a note that the terms are pejorative, then go ahead. I noticed that there is already a redirect from "Red China" to "People's Republic of China."Ngchen (talk) 22:54, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not a pejoratiove term, it was a term used to distinguish it from Taiwan. Only people who want to be offended think it pejorative. GuelphGryphon98 (talk) 14:56, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

"I think it appropriate to include names by which a country was formerly identified"Former names of People's republic of china is: Republic of china. Qing dyansty, tang dynasty, ming dynasty, han dynasty etc.

not Red china. Kontoenmin (talk) 19:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

As a Chinese, I don't identifiy myself a "Red China" citizen. Use this kind of Cold War term is very childish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.145.117.219 (talk) 14:52, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Why do you say that using the term "Red China" is childish? In order for you to make such a statement, wouldn't you have to have some kind of knowledge about the motivations for why the person in question made such a statement in the first place? In other words, how do you know that the use of this word in this context, by this specific user, is childish? Also, the fact that you don't identify yourself as a citizen of "Red China" does not mean anything unless we are writing an entry about you and your emotional life. The real question here is if the term "Red China" (a term that was indeed used in the past) should be included in the article or not. As pointed out above, "Red China" is not, I repeat NOT a pejorative noun. (This does not mean that it can't be used in a pejorative context.) So let's remove the chips from our shoulders and discuss this in a logical manner, not making wild assumptions about other people's assumptions for saying this or that. Besides, anybody who is Chinese or know a bit of Chinese history will know that the term "red" was something very positive in China. Song2008yu (talk) 15:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Human Rights Violations section

I understand that Wikipedia has no political or ideological stances, but wouldn't it be prudent to add something about china's history of Human Rights violations, exspecialy with the olypic torch protests in the news? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.192.14.59 (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a Human Rights section: a subchapter of Politics. For better ease, I've changed the Contents so that it includes subchapters. People's_Republic_of_China#Human_rights Dl.goe (talk) 11:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

And there is an entire article on this: Human rights in the People's Republic of China. We would most welcome any detailed contribution to that article rather than cluttering the already lengthy article here.--Huaiwei (talk) 13:17, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have re-worded the current section. It missed an important point that the Constitution does not afford protection to anyone accused of criminal activity. Also I changed the bit about when censorship occurs because we need to say that it's happening because the ruling authorities are challenged. To say that it is because the gov is concerned over "security" is to just repeat their position. Let's be honest and say why it happens.

Other changes are simplifications or other small points. Comments are welcomed. John Smith's (talk) 10:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This page will go to China

各位，I will rename this page to the China page, similar to India and Republic of India, later on we can move stuff in "Chinese Civilization" back to China.--Singaga (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

各位网友，I will make the changes tomorrow，如有问题，请提出。反華份子就滾屎好了。--Singaga (talk) 04:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

请注意， article and discussion will be moved altogether. --Singaga (talk) 04:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Singaga!!! Why are you making us Chinese loose face by making such a comment as above!!! Please show some respect. Wikipedia is a wonderful project where people off all races and all opinions can build something valuable and free for all. Why do you want to soil it? Song2008yu (talk) 15:31, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

First line will be changed

The People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó ), commonly known as China

will be changed to

China(simplified Chinese: 中国; traditional Chinese: 中國; pinyin: Zhōngguó ), officially the People's Republic of China (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó )

--Singaga (talk) 04:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

This change is similar to India/Republic Of India. --Singaga (talk) 04:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Merge Proposal

• Support: I agree with Singaga the article needs to be updated, and needs more clarity. Buddha24 (talk) 05:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe there is already a disscusion at Talk:China. T-1000 (talk) 06:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

see Talk:China/DiscussRM 74.15.105.205 (talk) 04:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move/RFC

• Talk:China/DiscussRM

Merger proposal May 2008

I have proposed this merger to try and eliminate disputes over the terms for China, and improve information given by Wikipedia to a 'typical' user who types in 'China'.

I think it is quite possible to create a full, balanced, NPOV article which contains a clear explanation of ROC and PRC, whilst providing all other essential details about the country.

The merged document may well be too large, and require subsections.

I have no interest or opinions regarding Chinese politics; I merely want to improve the experience for users of wikipedia by providing clear information on the topic of "China" - be it PRC, ROC, historic deliminations, etc.

It is my hope that, in creating a single main article, through discussion and consensus it will be possible to make a great page.

--  Chzz  ►  04:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong Oppose- First of all, the system ain't broke, so why fix it? There is a disambig tag on the top of the page that directs people to the constituent parts of China. We haven't merge Ireland with Republic of Ireland, so why are we doing this here? Second, this entire proposal is nothing short of POV. You claim to have no ax to grind, Chzz, but your proposal, wrapped in such a thin fig leave, fools no one. Merger of PRC with China only serves to promote Chinese irredentism, which will make the entire China article extremely POV to start with. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 08:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment I'm extremely sorry that you think I'm trying to fool people. I assure you I am not, and I am upset that you'd think so. I'm also saddened that the first comment is so negative and personal. I beg everyone to please talk this through without causing another flame war. Think carefully if your comments might be construed as offensive.

It's 'broke' in so much as there is not a single article on 'china' - there are two. This is confusing for people, and it detracts from the quality of both articles. Combining would improve the encyclopaedia. Simple as that.

Saying that the results would be POV is not an argument. Why do you think it would be POV? Surely with concensus we could create a NPOV article. If you think it's POV, we can discuss it and fix it. Yes, it might be difficult, but that's often the way to make the best articles. --  Chzz  ►  12:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The article would be inherently POV because the political status of Taiwan is not resolved. Merging PRC into China will mean that Wikipedia is advocating that China (which, by many definition, includes Taiwan) is PRC, and that PRC is China. That would stray from our purpose of providing an NPOV article on any topic. Also, like I said earlier, we have a similar situation with Ireland. The article of Ireland refers to the island itself, which includes Northern Ireland. We have not merged Republic of Ireland into Ireland, and we should not do it here, especially when the political implication in this situation is as serious as this. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 16:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose This discussion is moot as there is a merger discussion going on at Talk:China/DiscussRM. As well, with an subject such as "China" and its different interpretations makes it hard for an NPOV article. Unfortunately, what you are proposing is too idealistic. Granted, I see that you have good intentions concerning the "China" articles, however, the situation concerning this area of study/subject is quite complex and cannot be "stuffed" into one article as that would be overly simplistic for a subject such as "China". nat.utoronto 13:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - The subject is too complex for a move like this - perhaps some material overlaps in the China and PRC articles, but from what I know this is the best move. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Support. Calling it "complex" is ridiculous. Is Mathematics too complex? This is why we break articles up and link between them. --slashem (talk) 15:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong support - although Arbiteroftruth makes an analogy with the Ireland situation, it's hardly the same thing. Taiwan really isn't China at all, just the former abode of a self proclaimed and unrecognized Chinese government that lost the civil war. Simply put, the PRC is the only government in the world that is actually made up of Chinese territory. Add to that the fact that the Republic of China exists to no one but itself these days anyway and you are left with no real reason to confuse the average wikipedia reader with dusty cold war politics. ʄ!•¿talk? 16:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment- Regardless of what you think about this whole situation, Taiwan is still a region where its political status is still unresolved. Many institutions around the world recognize Taiwan as an entity not controlled by China (in the sense of PRC), and given the fact that the PRC does not exert control over Taiwan, merging PRC into China would mean that we are advocating Chinese Irredentism, which would, by its very nature, violate NPOV. This merger proposal is, may I dare say, a pact against nature. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 16:57, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

comment- "a pact against nature"? I know this is very unwikipedia-like, but excuse me while I LOL... with that kind of hyperbole I hardly need to seriously persuade anyone of whats correct here. The thing is it's hardly my opinion; only 23 countries recognise the "republic of China", all of them made up of small central american, african or tiny Oceanian islands, the latter being highly right-wing & strongly aligned to the US. The point is alot of people can agree that Taiwan is hardly an integral or authentic part of China, the republic of China is usually just referred to as Taiwan nowadays, and it clearly doesn't represent(and this is just a guess here) probably 99% of ethnic Chinese people. ʄ!•¿talk? 20:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

98%. That is the percentage of the ethnic Han Chinese in the Republic of China. nat.utoronto 13:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I believe that there are multiple meanings to the word "China." So I don't see how this merger can work under npov. —Chris! _ct 20:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment- I believe we have to see the term "China" in the way that certain Chinese would. The term "China", although most often used as a Country, is oftentimes used as a reference term for a region where Chinese culture dominates. By that very definition, China would include Taiwan, PRC, Hong Kong, Macao, and (a minority of people would argue) Singapore and Mongolia. We have to look at this merger carefully, and be careful not to play into the hands of Nationalistic extremists/irredentist of the PRC. Not even the Chinese Wikipedia merge China into PRC. Why should we do it here? Why now? However, I believe this plan will work for everyone:

Proposed Name	Topics
China	Geography, Definition, Constituent nations (PRC, Taiwan), Culture and Customs
China (Historical)	History of China, including its successive dynasties, with a cutoff point at the Qing Dynasty
People's Republic of China	People's Republic of China (no change)
Republic of China (1912)	ROC as it existed before it retreated to Taiwan
Republic of China	ROC after its retreat to Taiwan (aka: Taiwanese Government)

Arbiteroftruth (talk) 22:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment The Chines Wikipedia does not merge it because access to Wikipedia from the PRC is not readily disponible. Therefore Chinese Wikipedia can not be identified with the opinion of the Chinese people! Bogorm (talk) 12:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Don't see any reason to change consensus. There should be an article for the general geographic region and civilization (China), and the two political entities, as there is currently. No alterations are necessary. Superm401 - Talk 01:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment- The splitting of the pages into the plan I advocated would be no different than the current page on Korea. There is the page for the North and the South. In this case, we add a separate page to deal with the nation that we used to know as China (which existed before PRC or ROC was even born). Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment Thanks for the constructive discussion. I think several people are suggesting/advocating the same thing - one "main article" about China, and various sub-pages. As to exactly what is in each, I think will require more deabte and thought; but I do think it's good that we agree it needs sorting out - to clarify the current situation.

Regarding Arbiteroftruth's specific ideas - I think perhaps some parts of the current PRC article might be better in the "main" article - I'm thinking particularly of Geography and climate, Science and technology, Economy, Demographics - and some mention of "Human Rights" - to maintain NPOV. I think that the "main" article should contain sufficient detail to give an overall idea of China, supported by detail in sub-articles, including one on PRC.

I also see so much overlap in, e.g. Geography of China and Geography of the People's Republic of China. I do understand how this has happened, but that's the trouble with having, basically, 2 top-level China articles. If 'Geography of China' - the whole thing - does end up too big, then certainly more detail could be in sub-articles, and one could be on the area called "PRC" perhaps.

I know that this is quite a complex issue, but I'm glad we're getting some ideas.

I hope some other people will contribute their own thoughts.

Incidentally, I am well aware of other/previous discussion regarding a 'move', but I think 'merge' is a more accurate description of what needs to be accomplished to start sorting this out. --  Chzz  ►  23:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)Strong Oppose: The merge of People's Republic of China (PRC) into China (or vice versa) is a huge violation of NPOV. To give a few reasons:

• Is Taiwan part of China? Merging China and PRC inevitably treats the boundaries of the two as identical. This will not be supported by those in favour of Taiwan independence. Besides there are currently some islands that are traditionally Chinese soil (part of the Fujian province) but are not governed by the PRC.
• The claim that PRC represents the whole China (including Taiwan) is exactly what PRC's propaganda is all about. This "China = PRC" POV is more likely to be found in a PRC press release than in a supposingly neutral publication like Wikipedia.
• The Two Chinas problem. The Republic of China (ROC) still exists, and never explicitly give up its claim over Mainland China. In fact there are still countries around the world (including Vatican City) that recognize ROC as the legal government of China (see Foreign_relations_of_the_Republic_of_China), as one is unable to maintain diplomatic ties with both Chinas at the same time. Replacing "China" with the People's Republic favours PRC's POV and disregards ROC's.
• Certain (traditional) aspects of China are inexistent in the PRC, for example Chinese marriage and the legal traditions of the Chinese law, not to mention the Emperor of China, which existed only in the Imperial era of China (ended in 1911 with the founding of the Republic of China, commonly seen as a transition of China into the modern era). Have you ever seen a verifiable "Emperor of China" since the founding of the PRC in 1949?

As the outcome of the merge will be deeply problematic in terms of neutrality as well as logic, I :*strongly oppose the merge of the articles China and People's Republic of China.--Computor (talk) 23:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly Support I type 'China' in, I want to know about the present-day country. I think many users will be the same. Tom Green (talk) 21:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose If you need to find out what China is that quick, just go to Simple English Wikipedia. Don't bother with regular wikipedia. Here every perspective counts. It does not make sense to ignore all the politics. Also this proposal looks identical to the other on-going votes. Benjwong (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Support Only a few countries still recognize the Taiwan-based ROC. The PRC meanwhile is widely recognized as China because it governs the mainland. It is odd that such a famous country as the PRC only has a history that begins in 1949 according to WP. --Tocino 05:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose: It may be true that a lot of people type in "China" expecting the PRC article, but that expectation is built upon the China=PRC POV. Even the much touted 1992 Consensus that the PRC government repeatedly mentions implicitly accepts disagreement over the China=PRC interpretation. Kelvinc (talk) 05:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• It's a mess, and needs to be cleaned up whether there is a merge or not - the most common names for the two countries should be recognized and used as the article titles. Wikipedia:Naming conventions clearly states: "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." In common parlance, PRC is China, and ROC is Taiwan. Taiwan is a splinter state, and should be treated as such. For a similar relationship see the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The way Wikipedia represents the Chinas is a minority or fringe position - the vast majority of the Internet presents them as China and Taiwan. We're supposed to be neutral, but in this matter, Wikipedia's presentation is blatantly POV. The Transhumanist    07:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Firstly, it is not a mess and the presentation is not blatantly POV. We are being neutral, and the presentation is neutral. Let me ask you: Who was the victor during the Second World War? Who was the member of the United Nations and the Security Council? Was it Taiwan? No. The Republic of China was. We present these articles in this fashion to allow the articles to be neutral and for content in the articles such as Republic of China to be historically accurate. If the article Republic of China was merged into Taiwan, Do you know how historically inaccurate it would be? It would begin to state: Taiwan was the victor in the WWII or Taiwan was a member of the UN and the security council (which the western media always states, but that is blatantly false). The example of the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire just doesn't cut it, as those are former states and are not relevant. By giving using the Common names in this situation, would be over simplifying a situation/issue that shouldn't be. As such, the status quo in terms of the article names and their content is the best route to go. nat.utoronto 13:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I think this isn't a problem about policy, but the articles are too long as it is, I think it's simply not practical as it is. Besides, China is more refering to the civilization, and the People's Republic of China is more like the current government. There's been lots of governments refered to as China, even in the feudal periods, there's no need to merge these articles. FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 17:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• OpposeThe merger pushes two POVs. T-1000 (talk) 03:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
• Support Strong support. Westerners and Europeans have a tendency to hate PRC and that they try to make China separate from People's Republic of China. These two things are very much similar. Chinese history is PRC's history. ROC can stay the same. Today or in the future the "China" article will become part of the "history of China" article. I strongly support this. China is PRC. Period. Kung fu, wushu, cannon great wall is PRC's history. These things are the same thing. There is no such thing as "China" and "PRC." Period. Merge this. "Chinese civilization" is PRC's civilization. They are the one thing no matter what Westerners that hate PRC might say. 71.237.70.49 (talk) 05:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Another suggestion is, make the current "China" redirect to "Chinese civilization" and redirect "China" to "People's Republic of China." That might be less controversial. 71.237.70.49 (talk) 05:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. While I personally agree with many of the sentiments expressed by supporters above, in the interests of being politically correct I think it's best to keep it the way it is. Splitting up info between articles on the PRC, ROC, Taiwan and China might not be easy, but given the sensitive political context, it's the most prudent option. Brutannica (talk) 21:45, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. China can be used for the People's Republic, the Republic and any number of former states and regimes over the last few millennia. Having the People's Republic as the main article does not only violate NPOV but glosses over a complex historical and political progress. Dimadick (talk) 05:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

STRONG Oppose per Arbiteroftruths argument above. "China" is like "Ireland", it's a region. PRC and ROC occupy parts of the region, as ROI and NI do in Ireland. Keeping China as a region page largely avoids a POV issue due to the two China's. - JVG (talk) 23:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

STRONG Support (for renaming PRC article "China")...for obvious reasons. Nobody looks up China looking for Taiwan etc. The current postition smacks of a biased POV. Regards. Redking7 (talk) 00:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose First China and PRC is different. PRC refers to the self-declared Communist government, whilst China is the vast expanse of land. Think of this Taiwan is also China, would you want to merge ROC's article to here to. Of course not. For the pure sake of conveniency we have disambugations and redirects. -- Felipe Aira 12:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. There are two Chinese nationstates, to say otherwise is POV. Lord of Light (talk) 20:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. IF MAIN LAND CHINA AND TAIWAN UNITE IN FUTURE, WE COULD EMERGE, OTHERWISE JUST LEAVE THEM THERE FOR THE MOMENT... Using "China" as it is. Synyan (talk) 01:33, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose. Per the arguments of others, inherently violates NPOV. A single article cannot cover the civilization and both states. —Lowellian (reply) 08:58, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. In addition to the arguments given above, the history of a cohesive political unit known as "China" has existed since 221 BCE with Qin's empire, not 1949 CE when the PRC was established. The national identity of what it is to be "Chinese" was cemented into China's culture during the four centuries of rule by the Han Dynasty. In the past 6 decades, a completely different political identity for the governing state and China's citizenry was forged under the modern nation state of the PRC. There is also the issue of historic "China" conquering parts of northern Korea and northern Vietnam; obviously, the current PRC does not hold onto parts of northern Korea or Vietnam. This brings up the question of what are the bounds of historic "China" and how are they different today from let's say, the Tang Dynasty. Even the definition of what China proper is and how much territory is included in this definition has changed over time. Merging "China" with the "People's Republic of China" ignores not only the ROC on Taiwan and geographic issues, but also Imperial China and the mainland Republic of China from 1912 to 1949; I would say ignoring anything that vital would be a POV decision.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 07:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

this is a lie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.58.69.183 (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you for your wise, detailed and sage-like rebuttal to my post, oh great philosopher king! Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose. There are two Chinas, whether the name China is commonly used to refer to the People's Republic of China makes no difference to the fact China split into two seperate entities in 1949 after the Chinese civil war, with the communist People's Republic of China taking control over the mainland, and the fascist Republic of China taking control over the island of Taiwan. China remains split effectively as two countries, just as Korea is. Merging the article on China with the article on the People's Republic of China would be like merging the article on Korea with the article on South Korea. People may commonly refer to South Korea as Korea but it is very misleading as it states South Korea is the sole legitimate claimant over Korea, just as refering to the People's Republic of China as China is stating the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate claimant over China. Merging the article on China and the article on the People's Republic of China does just this, and it is not Wikipedia's place to state who is the legitimate claimant over China, but to simply state the facts as they are in this long running dispute, and would be just as wrong if it did so with such disputes as the one over Korea. I feel this merger proposal has not been initiated due to people wanting to find the article on the People's Republic of China more easily, but by a desire to see Wikipedia give its seal of approval to the People's Republic of China's claim to be the sole legitimate claimant over China for the whole world to see, effectively turning Wikipedia into a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China. I can't express enough how wrong it would be to merge these two articles on those grounds. Signsolid (talk) 05:57, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose: To clarify the differences between China, PRC, and ROC is not the same "eliminating" or covering up the differences. There is a larger idea of China that is broader than PRC and ROC together or separately. Neither of these states are even 100 years old!!!! How can you cover the remaining several thousand years of cultural history with either of these very young countries? --Tesscass (talk) 01:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Strong Oppose: Same as User:Lowellian. Per the arguments of others, inherently violates NPOV. A single article cannot cover the civilization and both states. -- _{Folic_Acid | talk}  13:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC) Neutral "Strongly" means absolutely nothing so please don't bother. We know your political views already just from your opposition. It is not a bad idea, however, this article in particular describes the PRC as a political entity and not its culture. I suggest adding more demographics to the main China page. Please be nice and don't turn this page into a political debate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.57.91 (talk) 20:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

STRONG Support Taiwan is a break-away separatist province, and even in the most benevolent stance towards it it would be inappropriate to dub it China regarding the amount of its territory. I am obliged to agree with 71.237.70.49 above about (most, luckily not all) Westerners being supercilious about PRC and embracing Taiwan. Taiwan was ousted, expelled from the ONU in 1971, when the PRC acquired its rightful place, it is time for it to acquire it here too and I am a staunch proponent thereof! Bogorm (talk) 10:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Strong Support Regardless of political leanings, the fact is when anyone thinks of China, they do not think of Taiwan, they think of mainland and Beijing. In respect for everyone who thinks that Taiwan is not part of the PRC, that is fine. But even then, they are calling for TAIWAN as an independent nation, and not to be a new seat for the nation of China. I do not see any parallel to this situation and that of Ireland, for the reasons stated above, and I strongly support. (Majin Takeru (talk) 00:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC))

Support IMO, I think most Wikipedia editors to the China articles should be politicians. Their strong concern for "political correctness" seems to have deluded their minds into neglecting their primary job as a Wikipedian: to help make a Wikipedia article more user friendly to the general readers, which in most cases...means less politics. The truth is, dear fellow Wikipedians, unlike many of you, many people in the rest of the world simply do not give a damn about the childish PRC/ROC rivalries. They might have read it somewhere in the news these days, but I really don't think you should bother them or patronize them by teaching the whole PRC/ROC conflict everytime they had an innocent search of "China" on Wikipedia. Instead, why not combine the China article with the PRC one while providing a brief but comprehensive subsections on preceding Chinese dynasties as well as the Nationalist KMT rule up to 1949 (after which they deserve their own separate article as "Republic of China on Taiwan"). Some editors mentioned and compared China to Ireland. This is a horrible comparison because at the very least their distinction (Republic of Ireland vs. Northern Ireland) is clear as glass and universally recognized even by the people living on the island. PRC/ROC difference however is more murky and subject to nationalist feelings which is why this problem happened in the first place. I don't know what will be the outcome of this proposal. It sounded dead and has always been since the same proposal appeared periodically for 4 years running now (as soon as the PRC article is separated from the original unified China article). Good luck and have fun debating meaningless ideological differences. --Heilme (talk) 21:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Infobox: Conventional Long Name?

The rendering of the font in the infobox with the text People's Republic of China looks a bit off—isn't it possible to render it like Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó? - Lasse Havelund ^{(p) (t)} 11:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Map

Someone has changed the Infobox map so that it now shows Taiwan and Chinese claims in India as a part of the People's Republic of China. Once again it is not Wikipedia's place to state whether a claim is legitimate and these claimed lands are not currently a part of the People's Republic of China. An Infobox map should simply display where the country's boundaries are, not where that country would like its boundaries to be, that is for the politics section on an article. Once one country Infobox map starts colouring all its claimed territories so will all the others, and so will all territories that claim to be an independent state. It is not hard to see what massive edit warring could errupt over articles such as Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, Serbia/Kosovo, not to mention the potential for China/Taiwan/Tibet edit warring on China related articles. That is why all country Infoboxes should all follow the rule that they only display where that country's current boundaries are, not where it would like them to be. Most country articles follow this rule. Besides, how does Wikipedia maintain a neutral point of view policy when individual articles are supporting differing political views? This map clearly breaks the NPOV Wikipedia policy. An encyclopaedia should be simply stating the facts, not acting as a propaganda tool for certain political views otherwise Wikipedia is no different than any Chinese state controlled media. Signsolid (talk) 17:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The map should show China's borders under international law. No more, no less. perfectblue (talk) 16:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

• It indeed differentiates between territories controlled and territories claimed; the light green is claimed but NOT controlled. The dark green is controlled. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me there's a double standard here. For instance, the map on the Republic of China article does not show mainland China, of which the ROC has never officially relinquished its claims, in light green. —Umofomia (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

There is a separate map which shows all of the ROC's claims - However that is a good point, so what should be done is either both maps have no light green, or both maps have light green. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Being that I have seen no other infobox maps on Wikipedia that use the light green (e.g., not even the Kashmir region in the India and Pakistan maps), I think we should remove it for consistency. —Umofomia (talk) 05:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to remove the light green, if you wish :) (Or ask the creator to do so) WhisperToMe (talk) 23:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You can check out the "India" item, there're also claimed lands showed. Same thing happened to "Argentina". If anyone want to change this one, he should change other maps too. Derekjoe (talk) 04:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)Derekjoe —Preceding unsigned comment added by Derekjoe (talk • contribs) 04:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I haven't changed the map yet because I don't currently have an SVG editor, but the infobox graphic currently in India and Argentina don't show claimed lands either. Only later in the article do they have additional maps about claimed territory. —Umofomia (talk) 20:43, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge tag

I've removed the merge tag, the debate was closed on the 18th of May. - perfectblue (talk) 16:19, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Religion

I looked at those citations claiming China is majority Buddhists. Having lived in China for the majority of my life I for one must speak against this notion mistaken for fact. Most Chinese adhere to a mix of Buddhism, Taoism, and other folk religions, and do not have specific religious affiliations. In the United States, you can easily make religion into a statistic by simply counting baptized individuals. You cannot do this in China. Even official Buddhists are hard to pinpoint a number on. Taoists being 30% of the entire population? That is ridiculous. I have not met a single person this lifetime that claimed to be officially Taoist. Most urban population in China is officially atheist with some superstitious folk beliefs that kick in once in a while.

The section must be completely re-written. Colipon+(T) 14:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely. Unfortunately, most people who do these surveys have a specific agenda to find religious people.LedRush (talk) 15:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Sports in China

How did rugby and golf get mentioned? Golf, at least, has a very small following among wealthy people in the city, but in 6 years of living in China I never once saw Rugby on local TV nor, despite playing it myself, did I see a Chinese person play it. Surely tennis is more popular than both these sports. Perhaps I was just sheltered (China is a big place, after all), but do we have any citation for Chinese people playing rugby in China?LedRush (talk) 15:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

When I was in China I saw soccer, basket ball, ping pong, tennis, badminton, wushu and various track and field sports being participated in... never rugby. Simonm223 (talk) 20:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Socialist Republic?

Socialist Republic? more like capitalist one party state.141.155.142.146 (talk) 03:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well the article's politics section already goes into considerable depth to explain that there is no real good moniker for the type of state that is the PRC. Given the difficulty of boiling it all down to a single line in the infobox, the constitutional status of "socialist state" (or "socialist republic", given the name People's Republic of China) is probably the best we can do, although any semblance of socialism is non-existent in the major urban centres, at least. Kelvinc (talk) 18:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, we can add more than one, can't we? Since, countries can have more than one type of government, for example, Canada, its three types are federal, constitutional monarchy and representative democracy. And PRC IS undoubtedly capitalist, not communist. Being Chinese, I can say that, since I've also been there, it's actually quite sad that China's capitalist... but what can you do... I'm not sure, but could a country be both socialist and capitalist... Hmm... If it can, then add Capitalist as well... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tosfan4ever (talk • contribs) 17:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Being Socialist and Capitalist is more or less a hybrid term used to describe someone in between, for instance, the Cello. The cello's name comes from violonecello, which litteraly means "little big violin". Names are to never be taken as fact. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is niether Democratic, nor a Republic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ReignMan (talk • contribs) 06:05, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

My friends, let us introduce some logic into our discussion around whether or not to call China a 'socialist republic.' ReignMan, your comparison to the Democratic Republic of the Congo is bad logic. The "Democratic Republic of the Congo" is a noun. In the context it appears in the PRC entry, "socialist republic" is not used as a noun, but as adjectives, in this case modifying the noun "PRC". The difference is significant. As ReignMan points out "Names are never to be taken as fact." That is often true in the case of nouns, but not in the case of adverbs. Also, ReignMan seems to want to offer his own definition of the word "socialist". Correct me if I am wrong, but should we not try to use definitions that are more or less agreed upon? So rather than abiding by ReignMan's definition of the word socialist, should we not have a look at what the word really means? Would most people agree that "socialism" is "a hybrid term used to describe someone in between, for instance, the Cello..." or should we go by the dictionary definition? Also, what does "socialism with Chinese characteristics" mean? I am fat. Does it mean I can be accurately described as "thin with my own special characteristics?" I guess I could call myself think with my own special characteristics. BUT, if I announce to other people that I am thin without referring to my definition, I may be in for a healthy dose of ridicule. So please, we can argue about a lot of things, but let's try to resolve the issues that can easily be resolved using the objective laws of reasoning.Song2008yu (talk) 15:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

How is China a republic? From the dictionary: a republic is "a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them." I guess you could define indirectly in some weird way, but the Chinese don't vote for their representatives (outside some local elections). Also, socialism is defined as: "Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy." While the gov't has instituted market reforms, the gov't stills owns all land and business and creates the rules for distributing them.

But all of this is academic, and considered original research and synthesis by Wikipedia standards. We call the country what most reliable, verifiable sources call it. It's pretty simple.LedRush (talk) 15:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Aw frak

Latest minor edit, tried to shuffle the the first paragraphs so it mentions the current political system last. Messed it up the to the point that paragraph went under the TOC. Can somebody fix it? Roswell Crash Survivor (talk) 04:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Additional resources for External Links

Here are a couple resources I think you should consider adding to the external links section. They are from a site that provides and extensive library of English language online videos about China. The below are just a few suggestions where the site ties in nicely with existing external links.

For overviews/studies section (it ties in nicely with Danwei.org) China Video Online

For documentaries Living in China Documentaries

For Travel/Maps Virtual China Tour Guide and Map

Chinaontv (talk) 05:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)Thalia K

Better photograph

Can we have a better GNU-compatible photograph than "plainfantry.jpg"? It is hardly informative. Wouldn't one of those Xinhua press-release photos taken during a 1st of October parade be a better image? Always a ballistic missile on one of those parades. I'm going to make the change and see if anyone objects.

-Roswell Crash Survivor (talk) 05:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Can someone give me a hand by changing the license policy on "PLA gov.cn.jpg"? It is currently tagged for speedy deletion.

Roswell Crash Survivor (talk) 05:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia policy, you cannot use a non-free image (such as the one from Xinhua) without a fair use rationale. Because the image is owned by Xinhua, only they have the right to dictate the terms of its use, so no one but them can change the image's terms of licensing. It is for this reason that it is marked for speedy deletion. See Wikipedia:Image use policy and Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria for more information. I have reverted your addition of the Xinhua photo to the article for this reason. —Umofomia (talk) 09:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

China Energy Statistics Link

I want to add an external link to China's energy profile/statistics from the Energy Information Administration (Official Energy Statistics of the U.S. Government). I feel this is an appropriate link considering how crucial energy is to the development of China and current energy concerns. I might want to add some energy content under the economy section as well. Any thoughts or concerns?

• EIA Energy Profile for China

ARUenergy (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Many people are interested in China because of the economic trading relationship with the United States. Thus, I suggest that a link to the China Business Information Center <http://www.export.gov/china/> be added to the list of links. Currently, there are no links to US government sites on the People's Republic of China links list. Perhaps a link to <http://www.export.gov/china/> could be added to the government links.

Rollbison (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC) June 24, 2008

Source Number 95 is a dead link

Is this document located anywhere else? ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.57.206.49 (talk) 20:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to hit shift to sign my previous post 68.57.206.49 (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Not to be confused with the Republic of China

Is this sentence necessary on this article with the title "People's Republic of China". I understand that if a user types "China", the user will be redirected to the general article on China. If "Republic of China" is entered, that could possibly warrant the need for a "Not to be confused with the People's Republic of China." warning on the page Republic of China. But if the only way to arrive at this page is if "People's Republic of China" in its entirety is typed (and since there is already a redirect warning for the PRC abbreviation), I don't see how a user could arrive at this page without typing the full "People's Republic of China". Why would the sentence "Not to be confused with the Republic of China." be needed here then? Thanks! --Shibo77 (talk) 17:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

To indicate that it and the ROC are not the same thing - something that people should be aware of whereever they are coming from —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.108.101.129 (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Restore text

I have restored some paragraphs back due to vandalism from users like New haven86 and Onetwo1. thanks Buddha24 (talk) 19:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Removal of uncited figures

"Falun Gong, now severely persecuted in China, had 50-70 million practitioners in 1998 according to the Sports Administration. As there are no membership lists, current global numbers are unknown." has been removed due to the source being Epoch Times, which claims that the "Sports Administration" claims there to be 50-70 million, all verifiable sources stated, at most 2 million. If 50-70 is to remain, then a citation from the original source should not be too difficult to come by. Laomei (talk) 11:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/042799china-protest-leader.html -- reinstating with this source.--Asdfg12345 12:25, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Once again, removing this. If this is a government claim, cite a government source, webarchive goes back far enough if it is legitimate, this is using second hand information for a very specific claim which should be easy to correctly source if true. However, personally I am finding much inconsistency in the claim.

据估计当时在中国有七千万至一亿人在炼法轮功 70-100 million? http://www.fofg.org/chinese/persecution/persecution_bknd.php

Chinese Sports Ministry estimates pegged the number of practitioners in the range of 50-70 million. http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-29/61346.html

（明慧数据中心）从1992年5月至1999年7月的七年间，据公安内部调查，中国大陆炼法轮功的人数达到7000万至1亿。以下这几篇是1999年全面迫害开始之前，大陆媒体对法轮功的正面报道 Claims of 70-100 million from an internal police investigation? http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/8/25/82595.html

Which is it? The Administration, the Police or the Ministry? Find an original source please, the FLG-linked sites cannot even agree on the numbers or the source.

The second edit which was put back in, once again, mentions nothing about Falun Gong in its references and will likewise be removed once more. Laomei (talk) 16:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

i don't get it. NYT says the CCP says that's the figure. We can quote that. there's no question here. (the other one i find almost as odd--there are thousands of references that say Falun Gong is repressed in China. I can find one from US State, where they also talk about censorship, in three seconds)--Asdfg12345 16:23, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

NYT is using a number and claiming a source which is disputed, you can either cut your loses and walk from this one, find an archived original source, or I will be adding in all the claimed sources and various numbers to this article as well as all other articles making this claim which makes a mockery of the claim as you well know it will. Stop pressing your blatant agenda here, or there will be an arbitration request. FYI, I have already located 3 copies of what was claimed and it is 2 million according to pre-ban state media, find the source yourself and feel free to use it, nothing else will be accepted.

The following

The government has a policy of limiting groups, organizations, and beliefs that it considers a potential threat to "social stability" and control

is the claim being made equating the Tiananmen Square protest of 6/4 with Falun Gong. The sources cited makes no such claims. Laomei (talk) 17:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I checked the NYT source, and yes, the NYT said that the PRC said that there were 70 million back then. There is no need to go back to the original, if we believe the NYT to be a reliable source. Ngchen (talk) 17:47, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The NYT is relying on the claim on Li Hongzhi. http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/2000/0211/sr.china3.falungong.html

(The sect claims 60 million followers in China and 40 million abroad. Beijing says they number 2 million in China.)

But, let's make it interesting. Here's a critical source, as critcal as you can get and still stay semi-legit. Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/1999/09/08/1308 BOTH numbers go in now, as promised —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laomei (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've kept the original language yet added the new citations. Please refrain from unnecessary edit wars.LedRush (talk) 23:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The "original language" that you are inserting is too long and confusing don't you think? With two sources and awkward language trying to combine the two statements. NYT is only supplying one number, whereas Taipei is supplying a range which includes the 70 million figure while remaining critical. The only other options are to use a pre-April 1998 source which claim 2 million, or listing every single number which has been claimed by the non-government sources. This, seems to be the best solution so both sides are represented equally. Furthermore, the Taipei Times article seems to have gotten it's number from the relevant and correct government source, whereas all the others claim a different source each time. This is in lines with WP:V :) Laomei (talk) 23:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the original language is long or confusing. The NY times suggests 50-70, Falun Gong says 100, and the Ministry says 2. Also, I don't know why you change "persecuted" to "prosecuted". I don't mind the inclusion of the 2 million number as it's verifiable and just a claim, and feel that my edit addressed your concern while keeping the language that was fought over for a very long time.LedRush (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Because the 100 mil is a worldwide number, why not delete that? I assume the 2 million is a China-only number, but the article remains silent on it and seems to imply it's worldwide.LedRush (talk) 23:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

If you had taken the time to see the cited sources above, adherents themselves claim the 100 million figure, if you like you can include one of those sources as well for further clarification, however there are many more with different numbers ranging from 20 million to 150 million from varying sources, increasing over the time since the ban. It is an unreliable number, whereas the government number remains consistent and with a consistent source. I will make you the same offer I made Asdfg12345, you can keep it as is in the interest of simplicity and NPOV, or include every claim. Please keep in mind that Falun Gong has it's own articles and is not the topic of this one. Thanks :) Laomei (talk) 00:08, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Please reread my statement and make an appropriate reply.LedRush (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The main issue here is that the NYT article, while a very legitimate source, is not fact checking information from what is essentially a one sided piece and only reporting what was being claimed. However, both the number and source of that number change drastically depending on which source is cited, I have seen 20, 50, 60, 70, 100, 130 million being claimed from multiple sources and none of them consistently agreeing where that number came from as I have documented to some degree above. Most of them are leaning on the 100 million claim from pre-ban, as well as a 130 million claim. Before taking any further action on this I am offering that we and Asdfg12345 along with his friends leave it where it stands and ask for a neutral administrator who can speak Chinese to act as the decider on this. As I do not want to raise issue with my own translation skills being called into question. Obviously the best source would be the original government number pre-ban, however not even Falun Gong seems to know where that number came from, so it is rather difficult to start hunting. The 2 million has a definite source which has not changed either by number nor original source. 100 million worldwide? 100 million in China? And the original preban and well documented letter to the Chinese government claimed numbers of 130 million in China. So, which to cite? That's the question. Either cite them all, cite an original pre-ban government number, or cite none at all. WP:V states that the source must be verifiable. Language such as "any where from 2 to 130 million, depending on the source" and then a list of as many sources as possible would be acceptable. This article is not about the Falun Gong, and Falun Gong never claimed to be a religion until post-ban. So it is really stretching it to place it into this context in the first place. Laomei (talk) 02:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit conflict not noticed for 10 minutes] Just seeing this now. The version I restored gives three figures: the original one made by the Sports Administration, the one claimed by Falun Gong, and the post-persecution figure claimed by the CCP. This isn't the place to get into the "cult status" or not of Falun Gong, that's another field. I'm not aware of a citation for 20 or 150 million. These are the main numbers I'm aware of, they represent three distinct claims, and finally it says that numbers are actually unknown. I may not fully understand your view, Laomei, about why the revised version you are supporting is more appropriate. I also think LedRush may not understand. I guess maybe we could flesh that out on the talk page.--Asdfg12345 02:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

In response to Laomei's latest comment: I still don't understand a few things. The article now cites three distinct claims made by key parties, and two of them are claimed to be from an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. There are other sources which say that the figure was changed from 70 million to 2 million in an effort to downplay Falun Gong's significance in Chinese society--but we should not have that in this article, I don't think, because this isn't the place for it. I don't know where all those other figures come from (20, 60, 130?). I think if it just documents these three central ones and says that the numbers are actually unknown, then wikipedia is doing what it should. I don't believe we need to dispute the methods of the NYT in making the claim about the CCP, nor a Chinese speaking administrator to find the original citation or translate source documents. I think we do need more editors to come and take a look at this though.--Asdfg12345 02:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Then here we go, I am adding all sources of numbers to any and all claims on all pages Laomei (talk) 02:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Why would you make an edit that you know is bad? Just to make a point? Please try to engage in edits that will help the article, not edits that you admit are bad but you stubbornly make to prove a point with which others don't agree. Also, you have been warned for the 3RR (actually, about 11RR) and can't revert further.LedRush (talk) 03:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Back to the Epoch Times link again eh? Thought this was settled. It seems funny that you are determined to get that link onto this page. It's not a credible media source and will be removed (again) Laomei (talk) 20:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Please explain why this verifiable news source (Epoch Times) is not reliable under wiki-guidelines.LedRush (talk) 04:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Tons of fake and made up stories for one, and it was founded, funded and run by Falun Gong... it has about as much credibility as a tabloid. Laomei (talk) 06:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, Falun Gong is not a religion and they are on record claiming it is not a religion. What is it even doing in the "religion" section? Non-response to this counts as consensus by the way. Laomei (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

some say it's a religion some say it isn't. There doesn't seem any other obvious place to put this piece of information. Why not just leave it?--Asdfg12345 09:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

One could make the same argument about Buddhism or Taoism, though there isn't a better category than religion. Also, your personal opinions (nor your "if you don't respond in time, I win" game) aren't really relevent here. Can you show some examples of why "The Epoch Times" isn't reliable under wiki standards, not under Laomei's?LedRush (talk) 13:12, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's a source, a Falun Gong one as well: http://dawn.thot.net/fofg/whatis.html Q1: Is Falun Gong a religion? A: Falun Gong is not a religion. Li Hongzhi himself says it is not a religion http://www.newstatesman.com/200307140014 As for Master Li, his message is available in a torrent of video- and audiotapes, websites and books. He continues to preach that there are aliens on earth, that he is a being from a higher level and that his followers can develop X-ray vision. Falun Gong, he says, is not a religion - and indeed, it lacks the rituals that conventional religions feel required to provide.

Followers say it is not a religion http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/china/falun_gong.html Falun Gong, which translates to wheel of law, borrows from Buddhist and Taoist traditions. But follower and Canadian spokesperson for the group, Joel Chipkar, says it is not a religion, but a spiritual discipline that can improve physical and mental health.

Not my opinion at all here, it does not belong in the religion section period, for it is in fact not one. Laomei (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. So where would you say the FLG material belongs? Is there a human rights section? Ngchen (talk) 21:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I can call my arm a dog, but it don't make it so. Please address my points regarding Buddhism, Taoism, and other eastern "religions" above.LedRush (talk) 23:45, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not a debate, nor is it up for debate. The founders and the followers are on record multiple times saying it is not a religion and do not claim otherwise. Not some abstract form of the claim either, it is directly stated "Falung Gong is not a religion". Therefore it has no reason to be included here. Simple. Laomei (talk) 03:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, FLG issues are included in Human rights in the People's Republic of China, so it does not need to be repeated here. Laomei (talk) 03:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I find comments such as "This is not a debate, nor is it up for debate" quite troubling. I agree in the sense that we should not be fiercely arguing against each other, but instead freely exchanging ideas, but I don't think that's what you are pointing towards with that remark. Please simply check the Falun Gong main page for a few sources which identify Falun Gong as a religion, or as religious. And you should know that, traditionally, the idea of what is religion and what isn't in Chinese history is not always clear-cut. Again, why not simply stop this storm in a teacup ?--Asdfg12345 09:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I just can't understand why Falun Gong's somewhat arbitrary designation as a religion, outlook, lifestyle, or cultural choice is dispositive as to whether the language on this subject deserves inclusion anywhere in this article. Perhaps it doesn't fit perfectly into the religion category, but this is clearly a subject that should be addressed, whether in culture, religion, human rights, or elsewhere. I personally believe that it is sufficiently similar to a religion, especially when looking at what other religions are categorized so, to remain in that section.LedRush (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

This is article is so full of unnecessary information and jargon, it makes me laugh every time I read it. Nissanaltima (talk) 01:21, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

State Motto?

I noticed other pages like Switzerland and France have a motto, but none for PRC. Should it be listed, but just be blank? Legaia (talk) 20:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Agriculture

Agriculture is mentioned once in the article. Once.

How do 1.3 billion people feed themselves?

I know in 1909 an American agronomist named FH King toured China and the Orient; wrote a book Farmers of Fourty Centuries.

Elementalwarrior (talk) 14:15, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

sentence about last 5 "communist" states

"Currently China is one of five remaining communist states, along with Vietnam, North Korea, Laos and Cuba."

The above sentence has been deleted twice in the last day. While I know that technically no country would be considered Communist, isn't there wide enough agreement that certain countries that espouse socialist causes and are led by a Communist party are "Communist". I feel that we shouldn't let semantics get in the way of providing accurate and useful information. Any contrasting thoughts welcome.LedRush (talk) 20:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with LedRush. Ngchen (talk) 02:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "communist" states is a accurate description of those countries, and you can't compare Vietnam, North Korea, laos, cuba and PRC. You could write that all those countries is based on some socialist movement, but they don't compare other than that.

Kontoenmin (talk) 19:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, they are all led by the Communist Party. That's pretty darn similar...and pretty darn "communist". As I've said earlier, communism is more than an economic model. By this reckoning you can argue that China is more communist than it is socialist. However, my point is not to start a debate on the nature of Communism, it's perversions in the world, or what the sliding scale of socialism is: this sentence is important to show which countries in the world are run by a single party dictatorship under a communist party.LedRush (talk) 19:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, with regard to this, I deleted the sentence above but then I replaced that with the new phrase in the first paragraph of the introduction with "...It is ruled by the Communist Party of China under a single-party system...". I think that this is much clearer than simply mentioning China is a communist nation because right now China is neither 100% communist economically (it operates on a capitalist model) or socially (it has unequal income distribution). China is a socialist state. That's what the 1982 PRC Constitution Article number 1 states. Socialism is actually somewhere between communism and capitalism, so that fits China perfectly. Socialist economic model also can refer to relatively free market model but one that is eventually controlled by the state, as is the case in China, where big corporations are state-owned. Not communist because wages/incomes are not state-directed. Mentioning Laos, N Korea, Cuba and so on is irrelevant - it's a Chinese article. Heilme (talk) 20:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Again you seem hung up on semantics and defining communism as purely an economic model. "Communist States" are countries in which there is one party: The Communist Party. There are 5 of them in the world. This is notable and relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LedRush (talk • contribs) 21:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

And why should you define communism as purely a political model, duly neglecting the other equally important characteristics of a country such as its economy and society? Listen, I am not fully disagreeing with you here but hear me out first. After the Cold War ends, the definition of a "Communist State" just got very ambiguous because some of those countries (which used to be considered Communist) have completely reformed/transformed its economy and society without much political reform, if any. It may be a commonly accepted concept - a.k.a. POV or OR - that a country ruled by one party (the Communist Party) is considered Communist, but this is not good enough because different people have different concepts of what is a Communist country, especially post-1991. When you write that China is a Communist country, it may remind people that every Chinese is still lining up (for rations) to get food and other basic necessities or that the government still control on what goods to produce, which all of these are no longer true. All I am just saying is that things should be written as clearly as possible. Describing China simply as "Communist", as notable and relevant as you may think it is, may misinform or under-inform the reader. If you want to say that China is ruled by a Communist Party under a one-party rule (which you claim to be the criteria/definition of what makes a "Communist State"), then why don't you write exactly just that! Which btw I did in the first paragraph. What else is not clear about this? Heilme (talk) 23:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

As for the "Socialist State" labelling, I just picked that one up from their 1982 constitution Article #1. Plus, PM Deng himself once mention something on Socialism with Chinese characteristics. Heilme (talk) 23:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

If you want to play with cites, I can do that too: Why China is No Longer a Communist Country, China's Communist Party - different in all but its name. Something about you LedRush that I don't understand is, if you want to say that China is ruled by the Communist Party under one party system, why not just write that? "Communism" means politics, economics, and social structures. 2 out of these 3 in China are definitely nothing to do with "Communism". Please think!! Heilme (talk) 19:29, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of the sentence, and the encyclopedia (to a certain extent) is to allow people a jumping off point to learn about the subjects contained herein. Communism is a complicated subject, as I've said above, and no one sentence is going to correctly capture the differences and similarities between many countries. However, just because there are nuances to the subject matter doesn't mean we have to omit important concepts. One of those is that there are only five communist states in the world, and China is one of them. If you want to add a sentence afterwards that addresses the issue of what it really means to be a communist state (and questions whether China is one because of the market-oriented reforms), go ahead. I just see something amiss by trying to omit a widely held truth that highlights an important aspect of world politics. But add your sentence if you want...LedRush (talk) 21:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary sentence and controversial. Already mentioned that China is ruled by the Communist Party in the lead. Even if it is valid, it does not belong at the end of the last lead paragraph. Source is of dubious quality. 130.113.81.33 (talk) 01:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Even though there was no consensus to remove this sentence from the lede, and even though the article is probably less accessible because of the change, in the spirit of compromise I will back of my position that the sentence should be in the lede and insert it in the politics sections. Hopefully this can keep everyone happy.LedRush (talk) 16:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I was being bold and removed the sentence because it was obviously out of place. I see that you have re-added this in the Politics section. I don't oppose mention of other officially Communist states but your source does not seem reliable. Could you please find a more reliable source that draw from political scientists or China scholars. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:14, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the language was better placed in the lead, but I have added two citations, one from a book on the rise and fall of communist states and the other from a policy piece published in a journal on how to deal with communist states, specifically Cuba.LedRush (talk) 19:10, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Peoples republic of china Goverment model

I have made this, is it OK to put on the main page. Can people help me with fact check etc? [url]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Chinese_political_system.jpg[/url] Kontoenmin (talk) 18:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Formatting emergency

I don't know how to do the formatting, but the way the front page looks now is unacceptable. It looks completely blank (or like it's loading) as there dozens (if not hundreds) of blank lines between the title and the first text. Can someone please change this quickly, (or I'll revert the most recent changes and see if that helps).LedRush (talk)

I reverted because I don't think that the we can allow the article to look that bad, even though the edits I reverted were probably worth repeating. We just to make sure we don't ruin the article while adding them.LedRush (talk) 15:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Largest cities

Why is Beijing ahead of Shenzhen when Shenzhen has a larger population? Zazaban (talk) 21:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Total size

I believe that it has been discussed before, but the size of China is disputed. So it relly shouldnt be listed as the third largest, as the United States page states that it is the third or fourth largest in size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Onopearls (talk • contribs) 01:07, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Military Pls Ammend incorrect article

China have World 2nd Largest Amphibious fleet They can Transport 400 Tanks by one Voyage Equal Trasportation Capacity of US PAC amphibious fleet Twice as much as Russia (TWNTotal1000Tanks/Japan900>600Tanks) But this article say "China only have LIMITED POWER PROJECTION AVILITY" I think it is awful under-estimation How's your opinion? guys--Jack330 (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

"Fastest-growing economic power"

I oppose the recent change to the article which replaces the terms "fast growing economy" with "fastest growing". I can't find in the citations provided the support for this statement, and even if someone does find one, I doubt we can conclusively find the parameters to define fastest: fastest in the last year? 4 Years? 27.3 years? I feel the language "among the fastest is good enough to get the message across, is supportable by citations, and avoids unnecessary controversy and possible peacock language issues.LedRush (talk) 01:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you are familiar with economics but the fact that China is now the fastest growing major economy in the world (has been for around 30 years now) is not only "widely acknowledged" but an undisputed fact. Data from any financial institution (IMF, WB, CIA WFB, media outlets) will tell you this. To suggest inserting qualifiers such as "among the fastest" is to add peacock wording. You do have a point that I was not specific as to the timeframe when it was the fastest. To address your concern, I've noted that China is now the fastest growing economic power. This is also how it is constructed per the source. Please also have a look at my comment above about the "communists states" sentence. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/aj.html Azerbaijan has a growth rate of 23.4%, over twice of China's. There are 8 other coutries with faster growing economies, which you can see listed here ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(real)_growth_rate )(all the facts are from the CIA factbook). If you want to say "now", let's list China as the tenth fastest. If not, let's just say among the fastest. The whole problem with saying fastest is that there are too many measures and too many ways to phrase it.LedRush (talk) 02:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Azerbaijan and neither or the other states that grew faster than China are economic powers. Please see great power, an article that I have brought up to GA, if you are unfamiliar with the term. This is simply too clear cut to make ambiguous. Moreover, peacock terms should be avoided per Wikipedia policy. By contrast, "rapidly aging population" is somewhat debatable; however, the source seems credible so I will accept. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

So you want to say that China is the fastest growing economy among great powers? If you qualify anything enough, I guess it's true. I would prefer the article just remain accurate accoring to wikipedia policy.LedRush (talk) 02:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

You seem like a constructive editor so I'd just like to illustrate my point further. Per CIA WFB: Most recent data available for real annual growth.

1 Azerbaijan 23.40 2007 est. 2 Bhutan 22.40 2007 est. 3 Timor-Leste 19.80 2007 est. 4 Angola 16.70 2007 est. 5 Macau 16.60 2006 Macau is a SAR of the PRC 6 Armenia 13.70 2007 est. 7 Equatorial Guinea 12.40 2007 est. 8 Georgia 12.00 2007 est. 9 China 11.90 2007 est.

As you can see, of the 7 recognized states that grew faster than China last year, all are not powers (not even middle powers) by any definition of the term. Therefore, there is really no argument to contest. Economics dictates that the larger the economy, the harder is it for it to grow at rapid rates, which makes China really remarkable in the context of rapid, sustained economic growth over the past 30 years. In fact, I'm not sure if you are aware but this has never been seen in human history before. Nirvana888 (talk) 02:58, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that as a matter of principle, I must disagree with you. Is it unfortunately not notable that China had the 8th fastest growing economy but that it is the fastest growing major economy. With some knowledge of economics, you should be very aware of this fact. You should realize that I am not trying to highlight China's growth but simply to present what would important for Wikipedia. The fact that China is the fastest growing major economy is clear and verifiable by many, many publications (including the one I provided). Simply put, it is important to have some common sense as there is no ambiguity and I am very surprised that you would have a problem if you have experience with economic analysis. For a comparison, see the lead in India, a FA, "Economic reforms have transformed it into the second fastest growing large economy;[16]" Should we note that India was the 22nd fastest growing economic? Obviously not. As you can see, my statement is even more clear, notable, verifiable, and unambigious in this context.Nirvana888 (talk) 15:42, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with LedRush. Saying it's the fastest means adding all sorts of qualifiers about what makes a "major economy". And even if you do prove it, it will take all sorts of maintenance and argument to make sure it remains true. I believe just saying something along the lines of "China is one of the worlds fastest growing economies, reaching unprecedented rates for a country of its size." Of course that's somewhat banal being that there are no other countries of its size, but I think the sentiment is right and saying it's the "fastest growing" in the world is asking for unnecessary complication and argument here. TastyCakes (talk) 15:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, TastyCakes's suggestion works far better than the current revision. For the record, I still believe that my statement is accurate, notable, and verifiable but I would like to know what other people think. Nirvana888 (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I am also fine with TastyCakes' suggestion.LedRush (talk) 16:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, I've incorporated the compromise version.Nirvana888 (talk) 16:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, we could just put in both pieces of information: China is the world's eighth fastest growing economy in the world in terms of nominal GDP growth, and the fastest in the world among major economies." By providing both we do a couple of positive things:

• the importance and unique nature of China's growth (that Nirvana888 wanted) is emphasized
• the fact that there are several ways to measure these things is presented
• no one is left with the false impression that China's economy is the fastest growing of all countries in the worldLedRush (talk) 16:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

TastyCakes raises a good point that very specific wording will require more maintenance and qualifiers. But Nirvana made some comments at Led Rush's talk page about specifically the fact that China's sustained growth over 30 years has supposedly never happened before in human history, which I think should also be mentioned. The best wording, in my impression, would be something along the lines of "PRC is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and is the fastest among what ____ consider 'major economies' [or maybe superpowers]" and also mentions the period of time over which the growth rate has been maintained. —Politizer^{( talk • contribs )} 16:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Ran into an edit conflict here, but it looks like LedRush's proposal is the same as the one I just made. —Politizer^{( talk • contribs )} 16:20, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Politizer. I have no issues with the current revision now as this was what I think as important to convey. I guess it also clarifies that China wasn't the fastest growing of all the economies even though I thought my previous statement did not suggest this. Nirvana888 (talk) 16:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

rapidly aging population

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rapidly+aging+China&start=0&sa=N

Here is a google search with over 70 citations that could be used for the article (though the current one is reliable and verifiable, and therefore can be used). There are probably a lot more, but I stopped counting. I have never seen a source to dispute that China's population is rapidly growing, and frankly I'm surprised anyone has a problem with language.LedRush (talk) 14:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

  全世界只有一个中国 
这网站上面有个中华民国是什么意思

建议取消 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 221.232.87.244 (talk) 10:36, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

China GDP numbers in wrong units

GDP numbers on the top right hand column are given a 7,346 trillions of US dollars. It should be 7,346 billions of US dollars or US$7.3 trillions —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.199.115 (talk) 11:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

redirecting "China" to the "PRC"

There is a discussion going on here.--pyl (talk) 05:21, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

dispute again on how to word the part about Falun Gong

Since this has already been gone over so many times, and the current version until now stable for months, I think it would just be simplest if PCPP explained why this edit [2] is an improvement. PCPP, in your response, please be sure to thoroughly address these two key points:

1. Making Falun Gong the last of several religious groups to be introduced, either as "a religious group or sect", or perhaps as "a minority religion", depending on how the sentence is read, given the enormous impact Falun Gong had, and the persecution has had, on Chinese society, as evidenced by countless reliable sources, including scholarly articles, documentaries, newspaper reports, human rights organisation reports, UN reports, etc. (for instance, Sinologist Benjamin Penny said in 2001 that Falun Gong is "certainly one of the most important phenomena to emerge in China in the last decade");
2. To include misleading and factually inaccurate information that Falun Gong "was officially proscribed and banned by the Chinese authorities in 1999 as an "evil cult"" -- factually inaccurate because the cult label was only applied to Falun Gong months after the persecution had began; misleading because Falun Gong is not only 'banned' in China, but followers are routinely sent to forced labor camps without trial and tortured to death, i.e., "persecuted." Obviously the latter is the more notable feature of the campaign--do I even need to say this?

Please be clear. Thanks.--Asdfg12345 12:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

1) Your characterizations are irrelevant. FLG is one of the new religious movements founded in the 20th century, and should be introduced as such. Just because some pro-FLG material you dug out says so doesn't make it factual to wikipedia. 2) The "persecution" material is nosensial FLG propaganda largely used by FLG groups, and the cult nature of FLg has already been used long before the ban. There is no set definition of the extend of FLG's repression, and whatever FLG and its supporters think doesn't mean wikipedia should endorse one view over others.--PCPP (talk) 13:18, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Please present reliable sources to back up your point of view, or I will be justified in simply reverting. Your opinions are of no consequence, only the sources you can bring to bear on this subject. Labelling sources which present a viewpoint that make you feel uncomfortable or disagree with as "pro-FLG" is meaningless. Their independence is not related to your feelings on the subject. I have 1) presented a source which shows the importance of Falun Gong in recent Chinese history, 2) here is something from a non-Falun Gong related source which makes my second point: “It was Mr. Jiang who ordered that Falun Gong be branded a ‘cult,’ and then demanded that a law be passed banning cults.” (Washington Post, November 9, 1999) -- okay? Please provide sources, your opinions are not relevant.--Asdfg12345 16:59, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Your sources mean nothing, considering that this is not a promotional article for FLG. You specifically find one source that supports your POV and present it as if it factual. And whether FLG was branded a cult before or after the ban is irrelevant, considering it did.--PCPP (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

NOTE: PCPP has now reverted twice and been reverted by myself and Ledrush. If he reverts again it will be time to start a RfC on his editing behaviour on this subject, characterised almost always by little to no discussion and constant, annoying reverts, ignoring consensus, and the whole basis of how wikipedia should be edited. --Asdfg12345 05:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead, I'm getting sick of you and your FLG buddies hiding propagandic edits under the guise of consensus.--PCPP (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for the last comments, but I think that the particular paragraph should be worded as "banned", as it avoids a endorsing a particular POV and introduces the situation clearly to readers without going too deeply into the subject. Regardless of outside uses, WP guidlines states that endorsing particular viewpoints should be avoided. According to WP:Title#Controversial names "Article and section titles should be chosen, where possible, to avoid implying a viewpoint. For section titles, a compromise may be needed between a neutral and a concise heading, while for article titles, words which should usually be avoided may be part of the title if this is the most common name for the subject of the article. In other cases, choose a descriptive title that does not imply a particular conclusion."--PCPP (talk) 04:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, PCPP, when people are jailed and tortured to death, it is a persecution. Human rights organisations, journalists, the United Nations, the US State Department, etc., all testify to this fact. The word "banned" is not a neutral word. It is the word of choice by the Chinese Communist Party, used to hide the persecution. If Falun Gong was only banned in China, there would not be so much fuss. It is the beatings, electric batons, mass-arrests, labor camps, gang rape, etc., that is at question, not merely some abstract legal status. I'm going to copy some lines here from Edelman and Richardson's analysis of the CCP's apparent "ban" of Falun Gong. Please note, they are considered a reliable source on this topic. The Chinese Communist Party is not considered a reliable source on this topic. I'm simply going to copy a number of passages from it here. I'll put them in the 'hide' box, so you can click to view them. Source: Edelman, Bryan and Richardson, James. “Falun Gong and the Law: Development of Legal Social Control in China.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2003, Vol. 6:2, pp. 312-31.

This, at the very least, shows that the legal basis for the decision is quite unsound. My purpose is presenting all this here is to make very clear from yet another angle that the term 'banned' is not some middle-ground, and certainly not a neutral term. It's the Communist party's term, not the term of reliable sources.

“Falun Gong and the Law: Development of Legal Social Control in China.”

“In 1999 the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) labeled Falun Gong an ‘evil cult’ and began a campaign to eliminate the qigong movement of which it was a part” (312).

“Criticism of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actions and the crackdown will not be based on Western standards of democracy and law, bit on concepts of government and justice formulated by the CCP and put forth in Party documents, the CCP constitution, and the PRC Constitution (313).”

“The People’s Republic of China is not adhering to the principles laid down in its own official documents that would seem to allow its citizens freedom of association, speech, and religion, as laid down in its official documents…” (313)

“Unlike the West, where law is usually seen as a constraint on the power of the state, the PRC views law as a means to maintain stability, regulate society, protect the interests of Communist ruling class, and strengthen and enforce the government’s authority” (314).

“The ruling Communist elite may use laws to enforce its policies, but the elite class itself is not easily constrained by law. This reflects a system known as the rule by law…The rule by law enables the power holders to use law enforcement to exert social control over the populace” (314).

“…the decisions concerning Falun Gong seem to have been made hastily and without acting within official guidelines” (315).

“Coupled with the State Council’s ban on the Falun Dafa organization in July, the regulations and Internet ban seem to contradict several rights guaranteed in the PRC Constitution, including citizens’ rights to enjoy freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration protected under Article 35” (319-20).

“It is the responsibility of the NPC Standing Committee to negate any legislation that is not in accordance with the constitution. However, due to Party/state overlap, coupled with the apparent adherence to Party policy doctrine described herein, the negation of such legislation on constitutional grounds ins quite unlikely” (320).

“The statements made by Ambassador Qiao and the PRC delegation run counter to the crackdown taking place in the PRC” (326). [Regarding a press briefing on March 21, 2000 in which Qiao said that the PRC practices toward Falun Gong are in accordance with those of all governments regarding cults, and that the PRC follows the rule of law] “…the Party and government’s response to the Falun Gong movement violates citizens’ right to a legal defense, freedom of religion, speech and assembly enshrined in the Constitution and treaties to which the PRC is a party” (326).

“The recent treatment of Falun Gong practitioners clearly demonstrates that the PRC is not yet willing to recognize the individual rights of its citizens…If the harsh reaction to Falun Gong, and the anticult legislation passed over the last few years is any indications, the Party will do whatever is necessary to crush any perceived threat to its supreme control. This represents a move away from the rule of law and toward this historical Mao policy of ‘rule by man.’” (326)

“…the Party stands to lose the very legitimacy it is fighting to protect. If the Party oppresses a large portion of the working class, it is clearly no longer the ‘party of the people.’” (327)

--Asdfg12345 10:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

And I might add another note, in the spirit of PCPP's call for 'clarity', above: when we use the word "banned," we are precisely being unclear about what is happening in China. This term does not tell us the status of Falun Gong practitioners in China, its noise to content ratio is extremely high. "persecuted" says far more, and of course it includes being "banned." This is just such a transparent and obvious thing, and it looks so silly to go to so much trouble to try to pretend something is not the way it so obviously is.--Asdfg12345 11:12, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) I won't be able to respond in more detail until I have a chance to read through the rest of this discussion later, but in the meantime, my stance (the same as what I said at a recent discussion on this same topic at Talk:The Epoch Times is that we should go with the wording that's most neutral and easiest to verify in the books. Now, I'm not an expert on the current situation of FLG and all that's going on with that, but I do know that a legal policy is a black-and-white thing—is there a law in the books, or isn't there—that can be verified and agreed upon. We may disagree on how the law should be interpreted, or on what "banned" means, but a word like "outlawed" should be relatively clear-cut: is there a law against FLG, or isn't there?

"Persecuted," on the other hand, opens up a whole can of worms. You and I both agree that the group is persecuted, but nevertheless, the term is open to a lot more interpretation, and where something is open to interpretation that means editors will interpret it different ways and there will be edit warring. The word "persecuted" is pretty much inviting nationalist editors to come on and yell at us about how all the reports come from Epoch Times and Clearwisdom & co., or about how FLG is evil anyway, or yada yada...and it's something that can't be measured as easily. "Persecuted" can't be defined as clearly as "outlawed," especially when a large portion of editors here believe that the reports of persecution are falsified anyway. I think "outlawed" is just a much safer way to go, especially if it's a matter of a single sentence where you have to say that; the persecution issue really deserves a whole section so we can address it and talk about what people think about it, etc., whereas if you want to wrap the whole situation up in a couple words I think it's better to go with "an outlawed group" rather than "a persecuted group." —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

But "outlawed" and "persecuted" have clearly different meanings. The first just means that it is illegal. The second means that the government actively goes out of there way to stomp it out. For example, smoking marijuana is outlawed in the US, but the people who do it are not persecuted. The connotations are clearly different. If people have a problem with the word persecuted (which has been the language for a long time), why don't we just get a reliable source that says this (not the Epock Times), and say that [blank] has reported that FLG practioners are persecuted and link to the persecution article...—Preceding unsigned comment added by LedRush (talk • contribs)

I agree they mean different things...but "outlawed" is something we all can agree is true, whereas "persecuted" is something that a lot of editors will disagree with, and is subjective. Looking at PCPP's edit (in the diff Asdfg gave at the top of this section), I think "banned" is better than "persecuted" in that instance—the People's Daily source given is about the ban anyway, not about the persecution. Of course, you're not ever going to find an "official" source (Xinhua, PD, embassy, etc.) saying "yes, we persecute FLG"—you could probably find that at some Western government agencies or it might be mentioned in a secondary way in places like NYT and IHT. How about, as a compromise, we make the wording something like 'and Falun Gong, which was officially proscribed and banned by the Chinese authorities in 1999 as an "evil cult," and which many outside organizations believe is persecuted in China.' That gets both the persecution and the banning in there while keeping us somewhere neutral. (Incidentally, though, I think PCPP's edit is already decent in that respect; it says 'and Falun Gong, which was officially proscribed and banned by the Chinese authorities in 1999 as an "evil cult," admist outside criticism of religious repression.' —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 21:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I just made (diff) the change I suggested; the new wording is

"In July 1999, the Falun Gong religion was officially banned by the authorities, and many international organizations have criticized the persecution of Falun Gong that has occured since then."

I moved the PD ref to the first half of the sentence (it is for verifying the ban, not the persecution), and worded the persecution way such as to make it more clearly a fact, and not a possibility (i.e., I didn't say "many organizations think there is persecution," but "many organizations have criticized it," implying that there is persecution); hopefully that will be an acceptable compromise. I added the {{Fact}} tag not because I doubt that this criticism exists, but because I don't have any sources handy and I need one of you guys to add a bunch of sources (preferably secondary, stuff like NYT and IHT, saying that the persecution is widely criticized and listing what orgs have criticized it...you can also add primary sources, i.e. several links to organizations that do criticize it, but the secondary sources would be much more robust).

You guys are all editors whom I respect and have worked with in the past, so I hope we can come to an agreement that is acceptable for everybody. Again, I am not an expert on FLG, but I think the wording I have inserted is fair and will hopefully be able to accurately represent all of you guys' knowledge without unfairly weighing the article towards any one point of view. —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 22:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. I am crushed at work but will look for cites when I can.LedRush (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, a good compromise. I'll chuck a link in there now there then. Do we want to cite a few organisations or what? It could get wordy to say "Amnesty International, the United Nations, the US Department of State, investigative reports..." blah blah. I'll just link this article which mentions those, and also says, like "There have been at least 3000 documented deaths and 63,000 cases of torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China." This is a Fairfax paper, mainstream as you get. We love our mainstream here on wikipedia.--Asdfg12345 03:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's best to cite a mainstream article that does all the citing of organizations for us. There has to be some news article there that talks about some recent FLG issue and, while giving background, says something like "Amnesty International, the UN, the US State Department, investigative reports, etc., have all criticized the government for its treatment of FLG"; we can cite that to verify the "many international organizations" claim, and the reader himself can go look for the specifics about which organizations. It's kind of a pain, but I've gotten the impression that's how Wikipedia likes to work: if we ourselves list a bunch of organizations it's arbitrary and "POV," but suddenly if NYT or some other newspaper lists a bunch then it's perfect, factual and unbiased journalism! —Politizer ^talk/_contribs 12:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Life is full of such quirks, wiki's no exception. Anyway, another case closed. Well done. *dusts off hands* --Asdfg12345 13:10, 3 November 2008 (UTC)