Talk:Chinese civilization

People's Republic of China 中华人民共和国[a] Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó
Flag Emblem
Anthem:  "March of the Volunteers" 《义勇军进行曲》 (Pinyin: "Yìyǒngjūn Jìnxíngqǔ")
Capital	Beijing
Largest city	Shanghai
Official languages	Mandarin (or Putonghua)
Recognised regional languages	See Languages of China
Official scripts	Simplified Chinese
Ethnic groups	91.51% Han; 55 recognised minorities List of ethnic groups 1.30% Zhuang 0.86% Manchu 0.79% Uyghur 0.79% Hui 0.72% Miao 0.65% Yi 0.62% Tujia 0.47% Mongol 0.44% Tibetan 0.26% Buyei 0.15% Korean 1.05% other
Demonym(s)	Chinese
Government	Single party-led state
• President	Hu Jintao
• Premier	Wen Jiabao
• Congress Chairman	Wu Bangguo
• Conference Chairman	Jia Qinglin
• CPC General Secretary	Hu Jintao
Legislature	National People's Congress
Establishment
• People's Republic of China proclaimed.	1 October 1949
Area
• Total	9,640,821 km2 (3,722,342 sq mi)[c] or 9,671,018 km²[c] (3rd/4th)
• Water (%)	2.8[d]
Population
• 2010 census	1,339,724,852 (1st)
• Density	139.6/km2 (361.6/sq mi) (53rd)
GDP (PPP)	2010 estimate
• Total	$10.085 trillion (2nd)
• Per capita	$7,518 (94th)
GDP (nominal)	2010 estimate
• Total	$5.878 trillion (2nd)
• Per capita	$4,382 (94th)
Gini (2007)	41.5
HDI (2010)	0.663  (89th)
Currency	Chinese yuan (renminbi) (¥) (CNY)
Time zone	UTC+8 (China Standard Time)
Date format	yyyy-mm-dd or yyyy年m月d日 (CE; CE-1949)
Drives on	right, except for Hong Kong & Macau
Calling code	+86[d]
ISO 3166 code	CN
Internet TLD	.cn[d] .中國 .中国
a. ^ See also Names of China. b. ^ Simple characterizations of the political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible. c. ^ 9,598,086 km2 (3,705,842 sq mi) excludes all disputed territories. 9,640,821 km2 (3,722,342 sq mi) Includes PRC-administered area (Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract, both territories claimed by India), Taiwan is not included. d. ^ Information for mainland China only. Hong Kong, Macau and territories under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, are excluded.

Primary topic of China

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

As it states at WP:CRITERIA "What title(s) are readers most likely to look for in order to find the article?" It's persuasively argued below that readers are most likely to think of China is commonly thought of as being the People's Republic. Tabercil (talk) 11:58, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

---

Request for Comment

Is the People's Republic of China the primary topic of "China"? Metal.lunchbox (talk) 00:39, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

This should be closed before being removed from this page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, removing from the page is closing it. Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Ending RfCs D O N D E groovily Talk to me 12:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Evidence from filing party

Wikipedia naming policy states that "by following modern English usage, we ... avoid arguments about what a place ought to be called, instead asking the less contentious question, what it is called." It goes on to state that for places we should use the widely accepted English name, "A name can be considered as widely accepted if a neutral and reliable source states: 'X is the name most often used for this entity'." In the case of the People's Republic of China (PRC) it is indisputably "China".123. No reliable source contradicts this.

The problem is that the term "China" is somewhat ambiguous. The disambiguation guidelines are also fairly clear about this. When a term is ambiguous that title should lead to a disambiguation page except where a primary topic exists:

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

Where there is a primary topic the title should lead directly to that topic. We have not clearly established consensus as to what the primary topic is but the most prominent argument so far is that the primary topic for "China" is the People's Republic of China. In addition the same guidelines suggest that Vital articles, of which the People's Republic of China is one, can be treated as the primary topic regardless of whether it is the article most sought by users.

In order to help establish what topic a reader is likely seeking when searching for a particular term, the guidelines suggest some looking at the following:

• Incoming wikilinks from Special:WhatLinksHere
• Wikipedia article traffic statistics
• Google web, news, scholar, or book searches (NOTE: adding &pws=0 to the google search string eliminates personal search bias)

Wikpedia traffic statistics are not a useful source in the confusion caused by the current situation. A look at incoming links for both articles reveals that many "China" links are clearly intended to lead to the People's Republic of China article and many links to the PRC article are piped to be labeled as "China". This is pretty much standard practice on "In the news", which is transcluded on the Main Page.

A look at other reliable sources and various Google search results should make it clear what the primary topic is:

• Both Encyclopedia Brittanica and Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations decided that the PRC is the primary topic for the term "China
• AP stylebook and New York Times MOS, both are widely cited authorities on contemporary English usage and state that "China" refers to the PRC.
• Other highly-reliable sources frequently cited and quoted on Wikipedia use "China" to consistently refer to The PRC: U.S. state department, CIA world factbook, U.S. Library of Congress, Economist Magazine, United Nations, World Trade organization, WHO, World Bank, International Standards Organization
• While not neutral, the ROC and PRC governments do have a certain amount of authority. As one would expect the PRC bureau of tourism uses "China" to refer to the PRC, but so does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan.

Individually these results prove nothing but there's a consistent pattern you can see anywhere you look. To be sure, do some Google searches for yourself and look at how the term "China" is used. Are they referring to the state officially known as the People's Republic of China and topics related directly to it? Google Web search should be used carefully because of the number of sites repeating Wikipedia content. Try Google Books and Google News. Again any individual result is not important, the question is about the general pattern. Does it look like "China" is referring to the PRC more than other topics?

Note: Currently the article China is not about the People's Republic of China.

When adding your comment below please keep in mind that this is not a move request or a discussion of whether or not renaming the People's Republic of China article to China would violate NPOV. Stay on the topic.

- Metal.lunchbox (talk) 00:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Is the People's Republic of China the primary topic for the term "China"?

Responses

• Yes. I believe the PRC is the primary topic for the search term "China". After surveying reliable sources on the topic, the usage seems fairly widespread among recent English-language sources. Mlm42 (talk) 01:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

• Unclear. PRC is more likely than other terms to be the subject sought, I believe that we agree on. I'm not sure that a convincing case can be made that the PRC is more likely than all the others combined. Because of that I lean toward no but maintain that it is unclear. Cliff (talk) 02:44, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes because the PRC is a WP:VITAL article, and as its almost certainly more likely to be sought than this article its probably more likely to be sought than everything else. That its a vital article and none of the other plausible articles are pushes it over the edge. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:26, 1 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes. From an outsider's point of view, China has always referred to the state in control of the bulk of territory on the Chinese mainland. In the past that might have meant something else, but today, it is the PRC. The PRC is what readers are looking for when they hear about China on the news, read about China in contemporary books and periodicals, and seek information about China to travel. The PRC is what modern reliable sources mean when they say "China", and the PRC is implicitly understood when "China" is mentioned in daily conversation. Quigley (talk) 15:56, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

• No. When I talk about China, I mostly mean the civilization that began several thousand years ago and is still going on, not merely the political entities that are at best about 100 years old. When I say my parents are from China, I don't mean PRC. --Tesscass (talk) 22:08, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes - "China" is, first and foremost, the common name of a very important country. The fact that Taiwan is currently independent from the mainland is very important, but no reason to create a confusing pair of articles: China (covering "territory, civilization and cultural entity"), and a second article on People's Republic of China. That sort of split makes sense in the case of Korea, where that article is defined as "an East Asian country that is currently divided into two separate states- North Korea and South Korea." But the two states involved in the China situation are vastly different in terms of population and importance. Another example: the Ireland article is about the island, not the larger country Republic of Ireland, but even in that case, the ratio of size is about 4:1, not 100:1, as in the case of China. One key fact is found in the article List of sovereign states, where the "China" entry points to People's Republic of China, and Taiwan is in a supplemental listing at the bottom (" States with no membership to the UN or to UN specialized agencies") --Noleander (talk) 22:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

... Also, I would wager that over 95% of all references to "China" by modern English speakers is to the modern country of China, namely PRC. The other 5% of uses are historical references to china before 1950. WP:Title weighs common usage very heavily. --Noleander (talk) 22:56, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

• Unclear: I echo the same views as Cliff and Tesscass, and wish to add that, as I have said many times before, any usage of "China" that does not have a clear and modern political context (i.e. "China criticises...") does not have to mean the PRC or the mainland and could well mean the civilisation or pre-1949 states. Examples: "_ in China", "to China". Since those phrases are common, too, it cannot be so that even 80% of all mentions of "China" most definitely mean the PRC. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 23:50, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes - as used commonly China refers to the People's Republic of China. E.g. if I wrote that I last visited China in 2008, or that the PM of China visited the UK this year, or that China has overtaken Japan as the second largest economy in the world, I am referring to the PRC. I use 'China' as 'PRC' would seem unduly formal and pedantic. Even historically although the boundaries of China were different before 1949 the country is the same, going back hundreds of years. Countries can and often do change borders, gaining and losing territory, while retaining their identity. The other indication of this is from Chinese itself: the country, although formally named 中华人民共和国, is in day to day communication and even in formal news reporting is always called 中国.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes. Although it might have been made more clear, had the previous requested move gone through, I still think the overwhelming usage by media and other reliable sources of the name "China" when referring the PRC is good evidence that when people think of "China" they think of the PRC. I think we might potentially be going against NPOV when choosing to go against reliable sources and discriminate against the PRC. When reliable sources choose not to distinguish between the PRC and "China", I don't think it can be justified anywhere in Wikipedia's policies that we try to make such a distinction.TheFreeloader (talk) 22:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes When people discuss China they discuss the PRC, just as when people discuss Germany they discuss the Federal Republic of Germany. Historical usage does not affect modern usage, and I doubt people will not be able to know if something is historical. From anecdotal experience, I would say that "China" does not include Taiwan in modern usage, as all the Taiwanese I know vehemently insist they are not from China. If even the ROC is using China for the PRC, then clearly the PRC is the primary topic for China. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes Still not seeing any significant and mainstream reliable sources that refer to anything but the PRC as China. It's kind of odd this even needs to be asked considering the entire lack of evidence to the contrary. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• Yes Although China can refer to different things, including various countries and entities that currently exist or that have existed at some point of time, a sufficiently large majority of reference to "China" in reliable sources, whether news or scholarly text, are about the PRC.  Cs32en Talk to me  16:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes It's pretty clear that the common name for the PRC in modern usage is "China". This distinction and subsequent confusion seems rather artificial; if applied to other countries that have been composed of different states in different parts of history (e.g. Spain) it becomes quite obvious. siafu (talk) 18:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes even the government of Taiwan refers to the PRC as China. When the English media speaks of China it refer to the PRC. Agathoclea (talk) 06:31, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• No China has a continuous history of 4000 years. The PRC has only been around 50. PRC is the primary topic for modern China. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 12:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes After reading other arguments, particularly about Germany's turbulent history, I'm changing my vote to "yes", PRC is the primary topic for China, and its article should by title "China." D O N D E groovily Talk to me 00:53, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes Google china -wikipedia. All the top results are about the PRC. Kauffner (talk) 01:49, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• No China is the primary topic of the term China. PRC is an important aspect of China, and it should be covered, but it is not the primary topic (as can be seen clearly from the incoming links). LK (talk) 07:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes. BRIC. Disassociating the country from the geography is being done here only because of sore losers from an old war. Dalit Llama (talk) 20:22, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes. When one says "China" in English, it means the PRC. Not having PRC=China makes Wikipedia look ridiculous. Taiwan has little international recognition as China and almost no Taiwanese ever say "I'm from China". The Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 and there is simply no ambiguity 60 years later. (Also, note User:Noleander's comments above.) As far as references to the past go, any country's name could refer to a different polity in the past. Germany could mean Nazi Germany, India could mean British India, France could mean the French Empire but it doesn't make these countries' names ambiguous. Reasonable readers no doubt understand that history is complicated. —  AjaxSmack  00:54, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
  • "Reasonable readers no doubt understand that history is complicated" - not specifically referring to this move discussion, but do you think most people are "reasonable readers"? I don't think that the majority of people are. People come to Wikipedia because they want to know, not because they already know. 10 minutes ago I've come across someone talking about the attack on Pearl Harbour on Facebook: "were we (the United States) really on the same side as China? Why the fuck would a free nation like us side with those communists? Wikipedia is fucking retarded!" You cannot simply assume that the majority of readers are capable of understanding a concept that me and you are familiar with. We are not only writing for the literati and the academia - Wikipedia also serves the proles as well. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 01:33, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree with you about the purpose of Wikipedia and sympathize with you having to deal with "were we (the United States) really on the same side as China?". However, this ignorance should not be dealt with in the title of the article but the text. On might ask why Germany is now allied with the USA when it was once a Nazi dictatorship but that's no reason to move the Germany article to Federal Republic of Germany, ignoring the current common primary meaning of the name "Germany". —  AjaxSmack  02:11, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
    • That person on Facebook did not understand the historical distinctions despite experiencing Wikipedia's efforts to separate China and PRC, so this activist project of trying to re-educate the proles is clearly not working. Let's then try something truer to Wikipedia's principles: describing things as they are; not how they should be. Quigley (talk) 02:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• No Never mind, no position: There is the simple, casual way of identifying things, used by the general proletariat, such as naming the United States as "America", calling the ulnar nerve the "funny bone", mixing up the terms British Isles, Great Britain and United Kingdom, claiming that personal computers running on the Macintosh OS X operating system as not "PCs", but "Macs", calling GNU/Linux as Linux or calling a Linux distro as Linux, and calling the PRC "China". But then there are those who strictly prefer the technicalities - that "America" is a continent, that nerves cannot be osseous, that OS X is an operating system, Macintosh is a brand of PC that are manufactured by Foxconn, and there is no such computer "form factor" as a "Mac", and that the situation regarding China is more complex than saying "A is definitely B, and C is not D, end of story". BBC, CNN, et cetera are written for the proletariat, and as elitist as this may sound, I believe that Wikipedia should not stoop down to such a simple-minded level. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 02:10, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

• Even though you prefaced it with a "No", your comment seems to support the idea that the People's Republic of China is the primary topic of "China", which is the only question that this RfC is asking. (quoted: "A topic is primary for an ambiguous term if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined—to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that ambiguous term in the Search box.") Quigley (talk) 02:20, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
• I think you'll find that even media which is intended for more educated audiences us the term "China" in the way we are arguing above, to refer to the People's Republic of China. New York Times, The Economist, Foreign Policy magazine, Financial Timesof London, Wall Street Journal for instance. take a look. It's not just for the proles, it's convention. Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 01:51, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
• can you please clarify your position. you do sound like you support 'yes' as a response to the RfC question especially in light of your previous comment above. Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• Never mind. Let's leave it that I've yet to have a position, for this section at least. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes. Looking at major news sources, it seems that the term "China" overwhelmingly designates the PRC. mgeo talk 20:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes Like all other countries. They say no because they hate and should just admit it. 203.184.138.132 (talk) 01:34, 13 August
• Yes China is the PRC. And the Republic of China is Taiwan. These are the popular terms in English-speaking countries, and among my Taiwanese and Japanese friends as well. China is China!Vendrov (talk) 08:34, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• No Even if people are often looking for the PRC when they type in "China", the hatnote at the top of that page makes it easy for readers to find their way here. The term "China" refers to much more than just the PRC, and there's no need to move the China article to some awkward title just to help readers find this article with one click less than before. Also note that America is not a redirect to United States of America, even though many of the arguments people are pointing out above also apply to that name. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

This is not a move proposal. The question was "Is the People's Republic of China the primary topic for the term "China" ?" - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:43, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but my understanding of your opening statement was that your goal is to have "China" redirect to People's Republic of China, which would also require moving this page to a different name. rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Nevertheless, you offer a "no" but appear to be answering a completely different question than what was asked. My goal was for the community to answer the question about the primary topic. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 22:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

• Yes The current jurisdiction over the vast majority of historic China is that of the People's Republic. We have no problem in most other articles to point to the the current state as representative of the culture of its peoples and a hook on which to hang their history. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the only reason that there is a debate here is that the US has traditionally regarded the former Nationalist régime has the legitimate authority. That is clearly no longer true. --Red King (talk) 18:45, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
• Yes. It is clearly the dominant sense in common English usage, and I see no more reason not to treat the PRC article as the main summary article that also includes the older periods than with other country articles such as France, Russia or Germany. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Sources

Future timestamp -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Obviously sources are the basis of any halfway decent wikipedia article, so I though I'd ask for some. I'm hoping to find sources describing what China is, just to see what third party english sources out there say. I'm hoping this will provide an actual basis for the debate, because although this conversation has been extremely long, there has been a dearth of sources to back up positions. Obviously each source stands on its own merits, which should be discussed, and as in the arguments table above I think inclusion is better than exclusion for the moment. Quotes, if available, would help, and although obviously some aren't going to be direct, anything from which context can easily be taken is good.

People's Republic of China

• Agence-France-Presse: "The presidential candidate for Taiwan's opposition said Tuesday that China is actively exerting its influence to prevent her from winning elections in January."
• Aljazeera English: "China's prime minister has rebuffed calls for a drastic appreciation of the yuan, as US legislators push for sanctions against China over alleged currency manipulation."
• Amnesty International :"China, which is officially known as the People’s Republic of China, is the world’s most populous country."
• AP Stylebook: "China When used alone, it refers to the mainland nation."
• Atlantic Monthly: "Just after the streets of Tunisia and Egypt erupted, China saw a series of “Jasmine” protests—until the government stopped them cold."
• BBC: "China is the world's most populous country, with a continuous culture stretching back nearly 4,000 years...Facts, Full name: People's Republic of China"
• Bloomberg: "Vice President Joe Biden told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that China has nothing to fear when it comes to its investment in U.S. Treasuries."
• Britannica: "China, Chinese (Pinyin) Zhonghua or (Wade-Giles) Chung-hua, officially People’s Republic of China, Chinese (Pinyin) Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo or (Wade-Giles) Chung-hua Jen-min Kung-ho-kuo, country of East Asia."
• British Foreign Office: "Demonstrations which do not have the prior approval of the Chinese authorities are considered by the local government to be unlawful and violators may be deported and could face imprisonment...China is in practice a oneparty state."
• Cambridge Illustrated History of China(uses "China" throughout. Focuses on the PRC, not the ROC, after 1949): "Not surprisingly the Great Leap Forward strained relations between China and the Soviet Union."
• Chinese civilization: a sourcebook(popular China studies textbook): "As a worker and soldier [Lei Feng] was exemplary in his adherence to revolutionary attitudes and spartan living, qualities China's leaders have encouraged for their value in combating selfishness and promoting industrialization."
• China Post (1 of 3 major English language papers on Taiwan): "A Tibetan spiritual leader installed by China's communist government against the Dalai Lama's wishes has finished a trip to a major Buddhist monastery with comments unlikely to endear him to an already skeptical Tibetan public." "China starts bullet train safety inspections"
• CIA fact book: "For centuries China stood as a leading civilization...After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system"
• CNN: "If French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde enchanted top Chinese officials the way she charmed reporters in Beijing, she has a good chance at winning China's support for her bid to run the IMF."
• Economist: "China’s currency: Redback and forth"
• Financial Times: "Biden visit aims to assure China on US economy"
• Fodor's Travel Guides: "Beijing is arguably the center of China's contemporary art scene, and it's in China's capital that well known artists like..."
• Foreign Affairs[1]: "In recent years, China's power and influence relative to those of other great states have outgrown the expectations of even its own leaders."
• Foreign Policy Magazine: "Three decades of legislative and institutional progress have overcome the chaos left by the 1957-1958 Anti-Rightist Movement, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, giving China the apparatus of a formal legal system."
• Fox News: "China's unprecedented efforts weren't enough to prevent the attack Saturday by a Chinese man,...Chinese government officials have remained tight-lipped about the attack... China also refused to provide many visas in advance of the games, which it said was another needed security precaution."
• Frommer's China - in addition to the title, uses "China" throughout. "China still has some of the most spectacular natural scenery on the planet. Many places within the People's Republic have only recently been opened to visitors, so we have only had a few decades to unlock some of this enormous realm’s secrets."
• Guardian: "China cracks down in Xinjiang following ethnic violence...China denies inspecting US helicopter used in Bin Laden raid, 17 Aug 2011: Beijing says claims that Pakistan gave it access to wreckage of Black Hawk aircraft are 'groundless and preposterous'"
• IBM "IBM China", refers to the People's Republic of China (IBM Taiwan, IBM Hong Kong S.A.R of China)
• IMF(they use "People's Republic of China" more often than other sources but still use "China" to refer to the PRC in a variety of contexts.) : "We examine the impact of renminbi revaluation on foreign firm valuations, considering two surprise announcements of changes in China’s exchange rate policy in 2005 and 2010 and employing data on some 6,000 firms in 44 economies."
• Le Monde Diplomatique: "The finance was motivated by a desire to improve China’s image abroad and to make Beijing’s voice carry."
• Kuomintang News Network (note, the KMT usually uses "Mainland China" or "the mainland" and generally avoids using "China" when referring to the PRC, it does not directly refer to the ROC as "China" and very occasionally includes editorials which use "China" to refer to the PRC on their official English-language news site): "Tsai explained that in developing relations with China, Taiwan should emphasize Taiwan identity and Taiwan values."
• Library of Congress country profile - Article about the People's Republic of China and its historical predecessors titled "China" - "After China entered the Korean War, the initial moderation in Chinese domestic policies gave way to a massive campaign against the "enemies of the state," actual and potential" (source)
• Lonely Planet: "Eagerly assuming its place among the world’s top travel destinations, even more so since Beijing took centre stage at the 2008 Olympics...Curator of the world’s oldest continuous civilisation...Chief of state: President Hu Jintao, Currency: What's the Chinese yuan worth today?"
• Mail & Guardian: "But China's initiative is yet another example of Beijing's offensive in Africa"
• Médecins Sans Frontières: "China’s Ministry of Health estimates that 740,000 people in the country were living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2009."
• MercoPress: "China became world’s top manufacturing nation, ending 110 year US leadership"
• Merriam-Webster: "Country, eastern Asia. Area: 3,696,100 sq mi (9,572,900 sq km). Population: (2009 est.) 1,331,433,000. Capital: Beijing. It is the world's most populous country"
• National Geographic: "China is the world's most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people—20 percent of the Earth's population. Occupying most of East Asia, it is the fourth largest country in area...China has perhaps the world's longest continuous civilization...The People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1976 imposed state control on the economy. Since 1979, China has reformed its economy and allowed competition, and today it has one of the world's highest rates of growth, averaging nearly 10 percent since the late 1970s."
• NATO: "The NATO-China relationship goes back to 2002, with a meeting between the then NATO Secretary General and the Chinese Ambassador at the time. Since then, NATO and China have developed a political dialogue..."
• New Zealand Herald: "The free trade deal with China saved the meat industry nearly $25 million last year"
• New Catholic Register "Diplomatic relations with Beijing means severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan." "The Catholic Church is 2,000 years old; the current Chinese regime took power in 1949. The Church can afford to wait.".
• New York Times: "Official Name: People’s Republic of China, Capital: Beijing (Current local time), Government Type: Communist State...Web site: Gov.cn"
• NPR: "China's Ministry of Culture has ordered music download sites to delete songs by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and other pop stars within two weeks or face punishment."
• OCR GCSE History Syllabus "Mao’s China c1930-1976"
• OECD[2]:"The single most important challenge China is facing is that of the shift from export-led growth to an economic and growth model driven by domestic consumption..."
• Oxford Encyclopedic World Atlas: "China's flag was adopted in 1949, when it became a Communist People's Republic."
• Rand Corporation: "...U.S.-Taiwan and U.S.-China relations, political change and military capabilities in Taiwan and China..."
• Republic of China (Taiwan): "In order to temper Taiwan's negative reaction to the passage of the "anti-separation law"(the so-called "anti-secession law") by Beijing authorities, China launched an all-out united front campaign to manipulate Taiwan's farmers."
• Republic of China (Taiwan), Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan) solemnly announces that, much to our regret, the Republic of Malawi has decided to switch diplomatic ties to China due to the latter’s coercive tactics and monetary incentives."
• Reuters: "China's foreign ministry on Tuesday decried foreign pressure on Syria following calls from the United States and Europe for President Bashar al-Assad to step down"
• Rolling Stone Magazine: "Bob Dylan performed his first-ever concert in China yesterday at the Worker's Gymnasium in Beijing... Dylan played a two-hour set of songs that had been vetted by China's Culture Ministry..."
• Rough Guides: "As the Communist Party moves ever further from hard-line political doctrine and towards economic pragmatism, China is undergoing a huge commercial and creative upheaval."
• Science: "On 28 April 2011, China’s state statistics bureau released its first report on the country’s 2010 population census."
• South China Morning Post(Hong Kong): "Vietnam fails to bring China into Paracels talks Despite initial agreements, Beijing has yet to agree to discuss the territorial dispute in the South China Sea"
• The Spectator[3]: "Mrs Clinton gave a speech on internet freedom and alluded to China’s efforts to censor the web. China reacted vehemently, accusing the US of seeking to perpetuate its ‘information hegemony’."
• Stabroek News: "China to donate hospital to Suriname"
• Sydney Morning Herald "CHINA'S legal system has struck again against a successful Australian business person - this time a single mother who founded a private university in Guangzhou."
• Taipei Times (1 of 3 English-language papers on Taiwan) : "Despite pledging not to begin political negotiations with China should he be re-elected, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was quoted in a leaked WikiLeaks cable released on Tuesday as having told the US that there was pressure from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to engage in talks"
• Taiwan News (1 of 3 English-language papers in Taiwan): "China's Civil Aviation Administration says it is investigating a report that a local airline balked at yielding to a Qatar Airways jet requesting to land because it was short of fuel."
• Telegraph: "China's five-year-plan needs to fix the economy"
• Times of India: "BEIJING: China probably overtook the US as the largest personal-computer market last quarter, after three decades of American dominance in an industry pioneered by Apple Inc and International Business Machines Corp."
• Toronto Sun: "China bluntly criticized the United States on Saturday one day after the superpower’s credit rating was downgraded"
• United Nations country profile (China): "The nation's 10-Point Strategy for Sustainable Development was adopted by the Chinese Government in August 1992 to proclaim that China's inevitable choice is to follow the path of sustainable development."
• United States, State Department "The People’s Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949, with Beijing as its capital city. With well over 1.3 billion citizens, China is the world's most populous country and the world’s fourth-largest country in terms of territory."
• USA Today: "China has always objected to meetings with the Dalai Lama, whom they denounce as a violent separatist who wants to set up an independent Tibet."
• The Vatican(note: because they maintain diplomatic relations with the ROC, the Vatican sometimes uses "China" to refer to the ROC such as "Ambassador of China"): "LETTER OF THE HOLY FATHER POPE BENEDICT XVI TO THE BISHOPS, PRIESTS, CONSECRATED PERSONS AND LAY FAITHFUL OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Greeting 1. Dear Brother Bishops, dear priests, consecrated persons and all the faithful of the Catholic Church in China:"
• Vanity Fair: "Desperate for Africa’s oil, China has been investing hundreds of billions of dollars in pariah regimes—most controversially, Sudan—then selling them the weapons to stay in power."
• Wall Street Journal: "Taiwan's opposition party leader Tsai Ing-wen backtracked from an earlier position on a trade deal with China..."
• Washington Post: "China, Mandarin Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo [central glorious people's united country; i.e., people's republic], officially People's Republic of China, country (2000 pop. 1,295,000,000), 3,691,502 sq mi (9,561,000 sq km), E Asia."
• World Bank: "China has had a remarkable period of rapid growth shifting from a centrally planned to a market based economy."
• World Health Organization: "China's 11th Five Year Plan (2006-2010) forms the basis of the Government's current economic and social development efforts."
• World Trade Organization: "China announced on 14 July 2011 that it is contributing USD 400,000 to set up a programme to help least-developed countries (LDCs)..."
• Xinhua news: "China fully supports the Palestinians' right to establish an independent state in a balanced manner and through peace talks, said China's special envoy to the Middle East"

Republic of China

• The Vatican. - ROC flag labelled as "China" in a list of flags and labels
• Central American Integration System - see link to www.gio.gov.tw labeled as "Official website of the Government of China", probably a translation mistake - in Spanish the link is labelled "Republic of China (Taiwan)."
• Civil Code and its Enforcement Acts. Translations available on Wikisouce "Within the limits of the acts and regulations, the foreign legal person which has been recognized has the same legal capacity as the legal person of [the Republic of] China of the same kind has."

Chinese Civilization

• British Museum "Each dynasty had its own distinct characteristics and in many eras encounters with foreign cultural and political influences through territorial expansion and waves of immigration also brought new stimulus to China."

Others

The talk page structure is odd. I don't know if I should sign my name after adding some items...... ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 11:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Discussion on the sources

Some of the news sources I provided above just list articles on China, but I've obtained quotes that to me clearly point to the PRC rather than the ROC or anything else. I've also included in some quotes information about China's long history, which then leads on to a discussion on the modern state (the PRC), to show that these sources consider the PRC to be the modern state of the country of China (using GTBacchus terminology). Many have the PRC flag, although I can't quote that. It is interesting to look through the maps provided though, and information on the ROC. Many maps don't have Taiwan coloured in. In some of the text, it is mentioned that the ROC retreated to Taiwan after a civil war in 1949, but it is not really mentioned after that. I find the BBC especially interesting. They focus their China article on the PRC, showing the flag and describing the modern PRC. Yet their first paragraph in the overview section is:

"The People's Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949 after the Communist Party defeated the previously dominant nationalist Kuomintang in a civil war. The Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, creating two rival Chinese states - the PRC on the mainland and the Republic of China based on Taiwan."

So although they mention there are two rival Chinese states, they still clearly call one "China". Their ROC article is located at Taiwan (and listed as a country profile too), and in that article they refer to "China" as the claimant over "Taiwan". Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Could this go in the ROC header? It refers to the ROC as China, one of the few that still does so.--Tærkast (Discuss) 17:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Done so. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:57, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, as I said, inclusion better than exclusion right now. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Not sure about this one [4] In English it calls the government website "Government of China", but in Spanish it calls it "Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan)".--Tærkast (Discuss) 18:07, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I saw "Government of China", but the rest of the page reflects language used by most other sources, "Official name: Republic of China, also known as Taiwan". Nonetheless, even if it's inconsistent, it's one of the only English sources that I've ever seen to refer to the Republic of China (Taiwan) as "China". - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:19, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Well that and the vatican. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:09, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

So, shall it go in?--Tærkast (Discuss) 19:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why not, we've been asking for sources that use "China" to refer to the Republic of China for a while now. Even if its accidental its an example, its not like anyone is keeping count (counting the sources that use "China" to refer to the PRC would be a terrible waste of time). I wasn't able to find any more examples, I've looked several times through the course of this discussion, but I'm probably not looking in the right places. if anyone can find another example which clearly uses "china" to refer to the ROC (Taiwan) then please share it. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 19:41, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I doubt we'll find a lot more sources on (modern) ROC = China. As I understand it, even those with diplomatic relations with the ROC and not PRC use the designation "Republic of China (Taiwan)".--Tærkast (Discuss) 21:23, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Surely we all acknowledge this. I'd say anyone who argues that it is relatively common to refer to the Republic of China (Taiwan) as "China" should make themselves more familiar with English usage. How many reliable sources does one need to cite to state that the sky is blue? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

A lot of these PRC entries are purely geographic. e.g. "British Foreign Office: "China is subject to earthquakes..." - this applies to what Benjwong mentioned above regarding China = Mainland China, or China in relation to the geographic area/region rather than the political entity. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:45, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition, many entries are blatant laymen's readings that are realistically incorrect, e.g. "New York Times: ...Government Type: Communist State" (there is no such thing as a communist state, since communism is an economic model. "One party system", "authoritarian", "dictatorship", "people's republic", "communism", "socialist state", etc are not synonyms). Taking these seriously would be like taking seriously G4TV's crappy definition of "Linux" being an operating system (GNU/Linux is a kernel, and Linux distributions such as Gentoo and Ubuntu are OSes). I see that this viewpoint of mine is always shunned by other editors (as seen above), but I still believe that laymen rubbish shouldn't be used on an encyclopedic level. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

With regards to Linux guess what? That's exactly what Wikipedia does. The article Linux is about the operating system and the kernel article is at Linux Kernel. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

>The article Linux is about the operating system
Read the lede again. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

You're saying that the New York Times can't be taken seriously? If you don't like the NYTimes there are at least a thousand other quality sources which use the word "China" to refer to the People's Republic of China, it's territory and its population. The list above is just the few most prominent sources that some of us felt like listing. I'll remind you that we aren't concerned here about how things should be, its about how things are, as can be verified in reliable sources. I have my own opinions about China and the PRC but I'm not here to represent those, because that would be inappropriate. Also take a look as some of these sources listed, we ain't just talking about G4TV. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

New York Times is taken seriously, but it has a POV that Taiwan is not part of China, shown in the Map here: [5] Taiwan is the same color as Mongolia and India. Since it already shows Taiwan as not part of China, it could only be used to prove such a POV exists, but cannot be described as fact. T-1000 (talk) 05:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

And what would you say if the two were the same color? They obviously use the word "China" to refer to the PRC because that is the convention in English not because of they are defending a particular point of view. They probably have Taiwan labeled with a different color because it is controlled by a different government and is in most of the ways that matter to them, a territory which is separate from the PRC. They aren't taking sides, they're just trying to present things realistically. If it helps, ignore the New York Times. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Then they would be taking the POV that Taiwan is a part of China. Like I said before, 4 notable POVs exists. T-1000 (talk) 06:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

This is totally irrelevant. All this means is that WP:POVTITLE comes into play. All those 4 POV's aren't equally notable which is what our sources are saying. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

No need to invoking POVTITLE in the first place, because we already have a title that PRC, ROC, and TI all agree upon: China = the civilization. T-1000 (talk) 04:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

There is which is that the status quo is unacceptable. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No, that's the opinion of one admin. GTB, who is also an admin, disagree with that position. T-1000 (talk) 05:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think GTB has agreed or disagreed to anything at the moment. Let them make their own comment. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

GTB has said "I've seen a clear consensus, and it doesn't look like this page" T-1000 (talk) 06:10, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

And that notes he finds the status quo acceptable how? It doesn't. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:36, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Eraserhead1's original claim was that there was a consensus that status quo is not acceptable. GTB said there was no consensus, therefore disagreeing with Eraserhead1 and that one admin. T-1000 (talk) 06:42, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually you've misunderstood what GTB was referring to. He said that the RfC about primary topic did not look like a clear consensus, he was not talking about the move request, reread the discussion and see for yourself. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Please. The RFC was more clear than the RM. If the RFC doesn't have a consensus, then there's no way in hell that the RM has a consensus. T-1000 (talk) 06:59, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The previous admin said there was no consensus for what to do with the articles. GTBacchus may have meant that too. Can we let GTBacchus clarify rather than try to determine his thoughts? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:05, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, just as long as Eraserhead1 stops harping on the opinion of one admin. T-1000 (talk) 07:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

T-1000, are there any sources which you would accept, or do we simply throw out everything as POV? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Sources don't have to be neutral, we have to be neutral. The whole point of the dispute is that the sources have POVs and the POV directly contradict each other. I am not throwing out any source, they could be used to support their POV. Like the NY times can be used to support the POV that "Taiwan is not part of China". T-1000 (talk) 04:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

We still have to follow sources. The NY times article notes Taiwan is not part of the PRC, which is a quite fair and neutral statement to make. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No that is a POV, because in the PRC's view, Taiwan is a part of the PRC. The PRC argues that it inherited all of the ROC's holdings in 1971. The PRC's POV is a notable one. The only way to remain neutral is to mention de facto control only. T-1000 (talk) 05:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

"The only way to remain neutral is to mention de facto control only." As that's exactly what they've done, I assume then you agree with them? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

No, even if NY times had said "PRC has de facto control of China", it would still be POV because whether Taiwan is part of China or not is disputed. The neutral term is mainland China. T-1000 (talk) 05:28, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

In their usage, China is shorthand for the PRC. You're reading all these things into the use of China, when they use it simply as the name for the country whose long form is the People's Republic of China. That's the simple layout of the situation, whether you accept it or not. Are you jumping on that red herring which is the Mainland China argument too? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Those sources never claimed to be neutral, so it's totally fine for them to have a POV usage. That, however, is not fine for wikipedia. T-1000 (talk) 06:10, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If you actually look at the British Foreign Office source, you will see the PRC flag clearly presented. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:17, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Quite. Its clearly just being used as an excuse to avoid the obvious. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:04, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

On second glance of the list:

• Now I can confirm that Britannica is written by idiots, since they call China "Zhonghua" (中华). If a person can't get a country's name right, I wouldn't trust them for medical advice personally. For me the same applies here.
• Regarding "IBM China, IBM Taiwan", this doesn't prove anything since if IBM had an office in Hong Kong it would be called "IBM Hong Kong" - used geographically.
  • EDIT: Oh wait they actually do.
• Merriam-Webster: "China is the most populous country" - sure. Country ≠ sovereign state, as explained above. I don't see a problem, since it doesn't equate China with the PRC. The terms country, nation and state vary on interchangability depending on the circumstance. Before someone drones on about the flag they used, most of the prose has nothing to do with the political state and more to do with China (as linked) in general.

I'm sure I can nitpick a bit more, but I'll leave it at that for now. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:22, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

• Arguing Britannica is not reliable will not get you very far anywhere. The system of romanisation they use is up to them.
• IBM indeed isn't the strongest source. There is, if you want, an instance where they use "China" to refer to "Mainland China", since you couldn't provide those before.
• If Merriam-Webster has the flag of the PRC, and you then say the text is not about the PRC, then there's really not much hope. For the record, country in common parlance usually does equal sovereign state. The definitions used by GTBacchus above were purely to help focus debate. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

>The system of romanisation they use is up to them.
${\frac {mypoint}{yourhead}}$. This has nothing to do with romanization, China is never called "Zhonghua" in everyday Chinese. We don't say "Oh Mr. Zhang, where did you go last week?" "Oh nothing too fancy Mr. Chen, I just went to Zhonghua!" - things don't work that way. If Britannica can't do research as simple as finding out how to say "China" in Chinese, can they be trusted to not make other pants-on-head idiotic mistakes?
>If Merriam-Webster has the flag of the PRC
Maybe for uniformity? Or for decoration? You cannot imply that placing a flag means that they must be referring to the PRC. Their prose refers to China.
>For the record, country in common parlance usually does equal sovereign state.
China is an exception. Korea is an exception. Germany was, but no longer is, an exception. Blame commie-nism. The vast majority of other countries and/or nations (and yes, there is a difference, that and/or wasn't a mistake) aren't divided between commie and non-commie states. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

To clarify: China, the country that is, irrespective of states, is always called Zhongguo (中国). "Zhonghua" is only used, in selective cases, as a descriptive adjective, e.g. Zhonghua Ethnicity (中华民族, Zhonghua Minzu), Zhonghua Bank (中华银行, Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan)), Zhonghua Republic (中华民国, lit. "Chinese Republic", i.e. Republic of China), Zhonghua cuisine (中华料理, Chinese cuisine). Zhonghua can never be used as a noun, unless you are the author of a 220BC Qin Dynasty romance novel. I say selectively, because even in most cases "Zhongguo" is used as the adjective - 中国料理 (Zhongguo cuisine), 中国学 (Sinology). In other words, Britannica, hailed by some Wikipedians as the holy grail of Western literature, has made a pants-on-head mistake that not even a preschooler in China of healthy mental capacity can ever make. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Romanisation matters completely. They don't give the Chinese characters, so we don't know what they're translating from. Britannica is a very old encyclopaedia, much older than Hanyu Pinyin, which only came into widespread use in the 1950s. There are a variety of ways that Chinese characters are translated into Latin characters, and Britannica may simply not use Hanyu Pinyin, but a different style. If they don't follow the same style as the PRC, that's not a point against them at all.

Yes, it does. When they say "China" they mean the "People's Republic of China", whose official shortform name is "China". If you're going to argue than whenever a source doesn't spell out "People's Republic of China" but instead uses just "China", that the source is then not referring to the PRC, then the whole point of the conversation, that "China" is oft used as a shortform to mean the PRC, has been completely lost on you.

Exceptions are always debatable. I've never actually heard anyone call Korea as a whole a country in real life. I'm not going to get into a debate of what "country" means, I've had enough of those, I will just note again that common usage equates country (and in fact nation) to sovereign state, even though they do have other meanings. Bark (dog sound) is not the same as Bark (tree trunk cover), yet the word is the same. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

>Romanisation matters completely.
Again, you've ignored my point. There is no way the two terms can be mistaken unless the author was really careless. As for your final point, I'll start a new block below. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:22, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Let's for a moment forget about Britannica, what about the fact that all of the most popular and most prestigious English-language newspapers on every continent use "China" for the PRC on a consistent basis? All three of the major English language wire services do as well. And prominent international organizations like the UN, WHO, and WTO, Official government sources such as the US State department; All major English-language travel guides; a variety of politics and culture magazines such as Economist, Foreign Policy, and Atlantic Monthly; the journal Science; radio and TV news outlets such as CNN and NPR; etc. etc. It's not POV to use China to refer to the PRC, it's just common English, the language of this encyclopedia. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 20:26, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

As the Pro-life example shows, common terms are not always neutral. Yes, most of your sources use China to refer to PRC, but they also have a POV that Taiwan is not part of China (like the NY times and the AP stylebook), which makes them useless in resolving disputes. T-1000 (talk) 03:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

This term however is neutral. you've already brought that up and Pro-life is an inherently not-neutral term. "China" is not. Throw out the NY Times and AP and you still have nearly every single prominent reliable source. The list above is not exhaustive, just a quick overview of some of the best examples across different types of sources. It could be expanded to thousands of sources but that would be a complete waste of time. Surely you recognize, given the sources we have provided that it is the norm to refer to the People's Republic of China as "China". Just painting sources that don't support your view as being nothing but POV is not going to convince anyone. No one has yet provided a single source which establishes the name "China" as being controversial. The incredible consistency across a wide variety of sources from around the world would suggest that there is no major controversy. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

You're just repeating yourself. You argument is that a term is common, therefore it is neutral. And the Pro-life term destroys that argument by being common but not neutral. As for sources that dispute China = PRC, the 23 states and the KMT, of course. For your argument to work, Common name would have to never conflict with NPOV, and Ireland, Pro-life, pro-choice already shows it isn't the case. T-1000 (talk) 04:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

My argument is that it is more than just extremely common it is uncontroversially the norm. I am also arguing that it is neutral, not because it is common but because I have seen no evidence that it is not sufficiently neutral. Remember the title we are proposing is not "China (which is not Taiwan)" or any variation thereof, but simply "China". - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not neutral because it is incompatible with "Two Chinas" and the "ROC = China" POV, which is notable in the 23 states and Taiwan itself. The only way you can call it fringe is if you call Taiwan's entire POV fringe, but if Taiwan's POV is fringe, then the entire debate is pointless. T-1000 (talk) 04:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you could show me a source that states or directly indicates that calling the PRC "China" is controverisal in an important way. That Ma chooses to say "mainland China" or "the mainland" instead seems more a matter of style than genuine naming controversy. Its not incompatible in any important ways with those ideas, they could easily be included in brief summary format in an article titled "China" which is primarily about the PRC. By your logic it would seem that we should not have any article titled "China". I'd like to see even one more reliable source which uses China to refer to the Republic of China before discussing this any further. I have already made it clear that the naming scheme proposed does not violate the NPOV policy. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

As stated many times before, the sources are the 23 states and the KMT. They recognize ROC as China, thereby making PRC = China disputed. T-1000 (talk) 05:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

That's not related to naming though, that's a matter dealt with in the content of the article, whether the country known as china includes the island of Taiwan or not. Of course those 23 states recognize the ROC and presumably they at least claim to support the ROC's one china policy, that does not mean that they claim that the people's republic of China should never be called "China". Do you see the difference. This is why POVTITLE doesn't confirm what you are trying to argue. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:35, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Then the disagreement is actually what "naming" is. You think that China = PRC is just about the common name, while others believe that naming PRC China implies that it is the truth that that violates NPOV. Like I said, this just means everyone interprets the same policies differently. T-1000 (talk) 06:10, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Well the burden of proof is on you since what we are describing is so clearly prescribed by naming policy with the support of countless reliable sources and is not contradicted by POVTITLE. Its up to you to demonstrate with reliable sources that such a simple name implies some absolute political statement and therefore violates NPOV, just coming up with some alternative interpretation of naming policies is not good enough, this is described in WP:GAMING. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

No, you mean that your interpretations of the policies are clear to yourself. But anyway, if you want to hear the arguments again, here they are: PRC, ROC, and TI are the parties in dispute here. They've all agreed that China can refer to the Civilization. Thus, China = Civilization is neutral. Based on the pro-life example, Neutrality is non-negotiable, while common name allows for exceptions. Since there is already a neutral title that PRC, ROC, and TI agree upon, there is no need to invoke WP:POVTITLE. T-1000 (talk) 05:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You are right, there can be no question we need to follow WP:NPOV, but you are interpreting completely wrong what NPOV means. NPOV does not mean you should base decisions on the personal of editors on what is neutral. It means exactly the opposite. WP:FIVEPILLARS states under NPOV that: "Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here.". WP:NPOV also points out that: ""Neutral point of view" is one of Wikipedia's three core content policies. The other two are "Verifiability" and "No original research". These three core policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because these policies work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another". There simply is no way to implement WP:NPOV, which does not include basing your claims on reliable sources. And you have presented no sources at all to back up your claims. All you have presented is personal opinions and your own "logical conclusions", which is clearly something which WP:OR says we should not base Wikipedia on. So far there has only been shown sources which indicate that it would not be neutral to not call the PRC "China". The AP Stylebook says that you should avoid using the name "The People's Republic of China" when referring to the PRC, and it lumps that name in with names like "Communist China" and "Red China" as names for the PRC to avoid.

About the pro-life case which you keep citing, I would like to point out three things you got wrong in it: 1) The case has not been concluded yet, it is still ongoing in an Arbitration Committee case, so I think it's quite inappropriate to conclude anything about the outcome of that case yet. 2) The closing of the Mediation Cabal discussion was not based on policy, it makes that clear through-out. Rather it was compromise based on WP:IAR which was forced in place, because an unacceptable situation had arisen where the two opposing article had got non-parallel titles (Pro-life movement and Abortion-rights movement), and despite 6 months of discussion it had been impossible to get the articles back to parallel titles. 3) The people arguing against staying with WP:COMMONNAME in that case presented way better arguments than you do. They actually showed reliable sources which avoided the common names, as those sources concluded those names were too partisan to be used in news reporting. One of the sources was the AP Stylebook, which directly recommends not to use "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice".TheFreeloader (talk) 07:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Your AP stylebook called "Mainland" a nation, and that POV is disputed by the PRC itself, not me. If you have a problem with the PRC disputing your sources, go talk to the PRC, get them to agree that "mainland" is a nation and drop their claim on Taiwan, then we'll talk. T-1000 (talk) 21:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

You're reading way too much into the use of the one word, "nation". It doesn't have all these connotations you give to it. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

No matter how you define nation/country/state, the PRC still sees mainland and Taiwan together as one. T-1000 (talk) 08:46, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

China still uses the term China to refer to itself. The part that's debatable is whether that includes Taiwan. We don't have to wait for a solution to that situation to change the naming on Wikipedia unless you can point to an actual policy which says so - and hand-waving WP:NPOV without pointing to other policies isn't good enough. Additionally getting obsessed about the AP stylebook while ignoring the other 30-40 sources there is really WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

We've been through this before. Both the "ROC = China" and the "Two Chinas" POV are notable in Taiwan and the 23 states. An example is that it is referenced in Taipei Times. Saying that the POV's are fringe when there's proof that they are notable is a prime example of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. T-1000 (talk) 02:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A look at the Taipei Times would actually contradict your statement. They consistently use the same naming convention as everyone else, the PRC is referred to as "China" and Republic of China (Taiwan) is referred to as "Taiwan". Every major English-language newspaper on Taiwan does so. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

He's talking about this two china's thing which he found one editorial source for, but that source explicitly said that it was the first time anyone had suggested such a thing. Its hardly a particularly notable viewpoint, and putting into the same basket as the PRC being called China is highly dishonest and a massive violation of WP:UNDUE. With regards to the 23 countries you need to bring sources to the table if you want to make the point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

No, the two Chinas POV has been around since Truman [6]. Don't talk about stuff you don't know. T-1000 (talk) 08:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Bringing up an argument about how China was treated before the founding of the PRC, or very shortly after, isn't really very relevant to 2011. While your source does use the term two China's it was written in 1987 - nearly 25 years ago, and even then although it calls the PRC the PRC it calls the ROC "Taiwan". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:46, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The Taipei times article proves that the "Two Chinas" POV is still notable. T-1000 (talk) 05:18, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The world isn't anywhere near as black and white as you seem to think. POVs aren't either notable, in which case they have to be treated as equals to other POV's or fringe. There is a hell of a lot of grey. This viewpoint is clearly a very minority viewpoint, otherwise the Taipei Times would have known about it before May 2011. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, as long as a POV isn't fringe, then Wikipedia should not take sides, that's from Jimbo Wales himself here:[7]. As for the two Chinas POV being fringe, it has been mentioned by notable people like Richard Bush here [8], so, once again, don't talk about stuff you don't know. T-1000 (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It also proves that even within that POV, even in a newspaper from the Republic of China, China still refers to the PRC. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

In case you didn't know, Taipei Times is a Pro-DPP newspaper, so of course it wants to imply that Taiwan is not part of China. I wasn't using a neutral source to begin with, but just proving the Two Chinas POV is notable. T-1000 (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

If I can add to this, a source would need to demonstrate that those 23 countries think that there is something wrong with calling the PRC "China" in English, simply having formal relations with ROC isn't enough. I've tried to find this but only find more confirmation that the PRC is usually called "China" and the ROC is not. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 07:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Those 23 states disputes the PRC succeed ROC as the legitimate gov't of China, and NPOV supersedes every other policy, including common name. T-1000 (talk) 08:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

No because there is WP:POVTITLE. You need to prove that the usage of China is a POV term and is treated as such by our sources, and not just your own personal belief which amounts to WP:OR. Its quite clear that the central Americans - which generally holding diplomatic relations with Taiwan call it "Republic of China (Taiwan)", only the Vatican appears to call it China and they contradict themselves anyway over it.-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:49, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

As I said before, There's no need to invoke POVTITLE in the first place, because we already have a neutral title that PRC, ROC, and TI agree upon, China = Civilization. The examples given at WP:POVTITLE are examples in which there is no neutral title, like "Jack the Ripper". T-1000 (talk) 08:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

And as I have said before, I disagree this title is NPOV. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, then you would be need to come up with a party that said "China" cannot refer to the Civilization. Such a party don't exist. T-1000 (talk) 05:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Given you are unable to come up with sources to backup your claims it is utterly unreasonable to ask anyone else to come up with a source to backup their views. Regardless the AP stylebook does say that using People's Republic of China is non neutral. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

And the AP stylebook already has a POV that Taiwan isn't a part of China. T-1000 (talk) 02:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)WP:POT. You still haven't come up with a single source saying China cannot refer to the PRC. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok here a source from the KMT that they use Mainland for PRC instead of China [9], specifically "馬英九在新春茶會中指出，為符合「九二共識」、「一個中國／各自表述」，今後政府機關用語，一律稱「對岸」或「大陸」，不稱「中國」。" T-1000 (talk) 02:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There is no neutral title here either. The current situation implies the PRC is illegitimate. And given how our sources avoid the term PRC they obviously think using China is better. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:20, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The PRC separates China from itself in it's own anti-secession law, thereby destroying any argument that China = Civilization delegitimatizes the PRC. T-1000 (talk) 05:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Give us a quote or something to back up this claim. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Here's a source that talks about the Anti-secession law and the 92 consensus [10], specifically this part: "原本「一中原則」的老三句是：世界上只有一個中國，中華人民共和國政府是代表中國的唯一合法政府，台灣是中國的一部分，而這主要是對於外國的一種立場宣誓，因為當時兩岸在國際上的爭鬥激烈，但目前已不使用。而當今所使用的新三句則是：世界上只有一個中國，大陸與台灣同屬一個中國，中國的主權與領土不可分割。因此，一中是指「中華人民共和國」，已經變成為北京可以想但不必說的一種策略，這也提供了台灣一些較大的戰略空間，「一個中國」可以是中華民國，但也可以是中華民族（一中屋頂說）。" T-1000 (talk) 02:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Again we need some source which shows that the title is even a little bit controversial. I can say for sure that while T-1000 claims the KMT sticks to the idea that ROC = "China" it is easy to see that this is not so simple by looking at the KMT's language. The KMT never refers to the Republic of China (Taiwan) as "China", it may have done so many decades ago but it does not today. It consistently uses "Republic of China (Taiwan)", "Republic of China", "Republic of China on Taiwan" or "Taiwan", but never "China". When referring to the PRC the KMT prefers to avoid calling it simply "China" but it has no competing claim on that title. see KMT entry in above list. There are not two states which currently call themselves "China" we have demonstrated this already. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 17:06, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure if you understand what the other side are arguing or not. There are 2 issues here: 1. whether or not the "China" is the common name/Primary topic for PRC. 2. Whether the PRC has succeed the ROC to "China". Regardless of the status of 1, the status of 2 is disputed, because of the status of Taiwan. The people who are against the moves views 2 as more important than 1, because NPOV is non-negotiable, while common name allows for exceptions. You can bring up common name over and over again, but it will not be anything break through. And this this exactly where the debates stalled for the last eight years. T-1000 (talk) 05:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what NPOV means. It has to be backed up with sources. Almost all our sources say that the PRC has inherited the title China. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The NPOV issues we are talking about here are not referring to the Title, but whether or not the PRC has succeed to ROC to "China", (both de jure and de facto). The response to Common name was always that Common name allows for exceptions. T-1000 (talk) 02:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)We're not here to solve 2. Wikipedia is meant to follow real life consensus, as it describes, not prescribes. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

That just shows you still missed the point: "We're not here to solve 2" is exactly why China = PRC is unacceptable. There is no real life consensus on 2, because of the status of Taiwan. Defining PRC as China would be taking a side and solving 2, which is exactly what Wikipedia isn't suppose to do. T-1000 (talk) 02:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No, because China should cover its primary topic and the PRC article should be at its common name - both of which are part of the naming policies as well. These other polices can't be completely ignored and so we must invoke WP:POVTITLE. Ignoring WP:AT as you are is totally inappropriate. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

As mentioned before, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC allows for "occasional exceptions". T-1000 (talk) 07:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason to make an exception here as PRC at China follows all our policies. Additionally WP:CRITERIA and WP:COMMONNAME as well as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC backup the point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Of course there's a reason. The existence of the ROC makes China = PRC disputed and the China situation unique. T-1000 (talk) 02:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Not really. Plenty of countries have territorial disputes and the ROC doesn't actively claim China anyhow. That it officially claims the rest of China doesn't mean we should abandon all of our other policies. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 09:25, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, other countries has territorial disputes, but they don't claim the state in it's entirety like PRC/ROC. The only other example is Korea, which follows the example of the current China setup. T-1000 (talk) 05:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of who claims what there is no particular dispute that China refers to the PRC - even the KMT occasionally use China to refer to the PRC and never uses it to refer to the ROC, and all the English language newspapers in Taiwan use China to refer to the PRC. If there was a dispute that was notable and worth covering here then it would be trivial to find lots of sources to backup this claim. Its trivial to find sources using North Korea and South Korea to differentiate them, such as BBC South Korea country profile, BBC North Korea country profile. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

As stated before many times, the dispute is whether PRC has succeed ROC to all of China, not the common name. T-1000 (talk) 02:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

• Quite controversial and one-sided. Back to the Pro/Con table discussion. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 11:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Not really. The points against doing so in the pro-con table are weak as they don't generally take policy into account, whereas the arguments for doing so do take policy into account.
  • Btw I removed the stuff about commercial people using "China" to refer to mainland China, this may well be true, but every other point in the table is sourced so so should those. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:30, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I've moved IBM up to the PRC as they call their Hong Kong office "IBM Hong Kong S.A.R. of China". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:36, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That's weird. Usually if they don't just say Hong Kong Special Administrative Region it's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, not just China. Very unofficial. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Let me explain why I marked the SICA example which appears to use "China" to refer to the ROC as a possible translation mistake. If you look at the website, first you'll see that the ROC and Taiwan are referred to again and again but only once does this "Government of China" appear. Second. notice the capital G in "Government of China", in the original Spanish version they use "Republica de China". Third, on that same page "Republica de China" is translated elsewhere correctly as "Republic of China". It's also important that this is an isolated utterance, without the context of a complete sentence. I'm reverting the removal of this notice which had the editors note "china in Spanish is china." Its not the "china" part I'm worried about. it seems likely that its a translation mistake. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:04, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

If you look at the spanish version of the page its obvious that its a translation error. The Spanish version calls it "República de China (Taiwan)". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

With regards to the civil code where exactly does the ROC call itself "China"? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorted. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Country, nation, state

Though definitions vary from source to source, a country is a geographical entity that encompasses an area traditionally associated with a culture, a nation denotes an area associated with a peoples, and a sovereign state is a political entity with a government, judiciary, currency, etc etc. Most of the time people either get them confused or mistakenly believe that the terms are interchangeable, but this is because in most cases the country = the nation = the state. The person with the Ph.D in political sciences can correct me if I am wrong, but this is my interpretation of the whole hubbub.

• Korea is a country, and a nation, but not a sovereign state. Korea is historically associated with the Korean people, however NK/SK are the states; Korea has no common currency, government, stock market, etc.
  • North Korea is a sovereign state, but not a country, nor a nation. North Korea has a government, currency, etc. therefore it is a state. It however does not represent all Korean people
  • South Korea is a sovereign state, but not a country, nor a nation.
• Vietnam is a country, and a nation, and a sovereign state. Vietnam is the land of the Vietnamese people, and has a government.
• France is a country, a nation, and a sovereign state. France is the land of the French people, and has a government.
• China is a country, and a nation, and contains two sovereign states with varying recognition:
  • PRC is a sovereign state.
  • ROC is a sovereign state with limited recognition.
• The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state with a central government in London, however
  • England is a country and a nation encompassed within,
  • Scotland is a country and a nation encompassed within,
  • Wales is a country and a nation encompassed within.
• the Soviet Union is a sovereign state, but not a nation.It had a central government in Moscow, however is a union of separate republics with separate governments, representing separate peoples.
  • the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic,
  • Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,
  • Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic,
  • et. al., are all republics within the Soviet Union. These are all countries and nations, however central rule is directed from Moscow, meaning that they have no sovereignty on their own. They act as states within the Soviet Union, but have no sovereignty on the world stage.
• Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a sovereign state, but not a nation.
  • Socialist Republic of Croatia,
  • Socialist Republic of Macedonia,
  • Socialist Republic of Serbia,
  • et al., were nations within Yugoslavia.
• as for the Russian Federation, this is where it gets a bit messy: It is a sovereign state as it has a central government in Moscow, and to a point it represents the Russian people, however it may not meet the definitions of nation and country, as it also consists of
  • Altai Republic,
  • Republic of Buryatia,
  • Chechen Republic,
  • Republic of Dagestan,
  • Republic of Ingushetia,
  • Republic of North Ossetia-Alania,
  • Republic of Tatarstan,
  • Tyva Republic,
  • et. al., which are all countries and nations with their own peoples, federated within the Russian Federation, however they do not meet statehood on the international level since they are administered from the central government in Moscow. These republics all have their own constitution, which is a prerequisite for nationhood.
• then there's the whole messy hubbub within Somalia with Somaliland, Puntland, Galmudug, etc.

In most cases, the country is the nation, which is also the state. In other cases, the country is the nation. For some, the three are not the same. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:22, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I have a degree in Political Science and I can tell you that the distinction that you are relying on is not as clear cut as you seem to believe. It is true that there are often quite specific definitions for these things but what you have presented is little more than a semantic parlor trick. South Korea is in fact a country, and so is (the People's Republic of) China. It is however of little importance whether or not we all agree on the exact definition of "country", "nation", and "state" and how they apply to China and the People's Republic of China. What GTBachus gave as an explanation using those concepts was simply a heuristic tool to help us understand the logic behind the organization and naming that he was proposing. You are right that nation, country, and state do not always apply to the same label, as illustrated by your Russian Federation example, but this does not change the fact that "China" is used to refer to the PRC. I would also take issue with your geography argument, that a particular utterance of "China" can't be referring to the PRC because they are talking about geography. That state has a defined territory which defines what we understand as China on the map. There are a few territorial disputes but that doesn't mean that the geography of china is an entirely different topic from the territory of the PRC. Beijing, China and Beijing, People's Republic of China are quite the same address. The distinction between China and the PRC is so utterly unique that it would make our readers wonder if we are talking about the same China that everyone else is. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:26, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It's fairly ironic that when describing the Russian republics Belinsquare said "These republics all have their own constitution, which is a prerequisite for nationhood" (emphasis added), rather than statehood. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:45, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Also bringing up England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and calling them countries is misleading. While the British do call them countries they are for all intents and purposes provinces with different levels of autonomy, and in the case of Scotland a different legal system. The reason they are called countries is bloody mindedness and historical hangover from where Scotland was in fact a separate kingdom which for about 200 years shared a king with England. While the British do use this as an excuse to have 4 teams in the football world cup they only get away with this as they founded the sport and anyway fielding more teams just makes them less likely to win, so why would anyone else care? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

The definition of nation is particularly problematic. It can mean many things but when we are trying to draw fine lines between nation, state, and country, "nation" typically refers to a people who identify themselves as having a common name, culture, destiny, ancestry, but its not exact what is and is not a nation. A nation may have land, or it may not. The Kurds are an example of a nationality which does not have a defined territory although there are areas where Kurds are in the majority. In political science generally "country" does not contrast with "state". "State" is fairly well-defined as the combination of the people, a territory, and a sovereign government. "Country" is not a technical word and is used informally. It emphasizes territory, and it is usually used in common English in the place of "state", especially in the US. We can nit-pick about semantics all we want but what I want to know is what this is all supposed to prove about naming and article scope/organization. Are we debating how to word the first sentence of the article "China"? How does this suggest that we should not make the changes suggested above by GTBacchus? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 07:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Once the RFC is complete with regards to the primary topic, given that means WP:CONCEPTDAB doesn't apply, given the points from WP:AT and the evidence in this section I suggest a merge proposal to merge PRC and China is made. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

If you can prove Taiwan/ROC is undeniably not China (literally independence) then PRC will be the only thing left for a page move. Listing all these references to China, it feels like a repeat of archive20 to be honest. Benjwong (talk) 03:15, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Of course we don't have to prove any such thing. The sources demonstrate clearly what things are called in English, and until a reliable source can be provided which establishes that calling the PRC "China" is substantially controversial, we have no reason not to use the common English name. And even if it were significantly controversial (which it is not) POVTITLE would still suggest we stick with the common name and I would agree especially in light of the great importance of this article. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:05, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

For a topic with this level of importance like you said, can't just be handled like this. You just find 50 sources to support the view of your choice, and pretend there is no opposition anywhere. That may work on smaller topics, but not this one. Benjwong (talk) 05:10, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not cherry picking. you find me some sources that say the PRC isn't called China and we'll talk, or better yet find me some sources that say the ROC is called China or that use China to refer to the ROC. I have looked, many times but cannot find them. When I went looking at the sources to see what they said, I actually wasn't expecting to find such broad unanimity, but its what I found none the less. I'm not pretending. I've looked for the opposition and I have not found it. Others and myself have requested many times for reliable sources which show opposition to the name China for the PRC but none has ever been shown. Its not a magic trick, I'm just calling it like I see it. I find your accusation that I'm stacking a bunch of cherry-picked sources just to push my own POV on this article inappropriate. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. You show up in 2011 after wikipedia has been around all these years to make this move.... Last I checked this current China article was the most neutral solution to people educated about political situation. You have virtually a zero edit history on WP:China topics. Is not cherry picking. I think your credibility and hard push came out of nowhere. Is like you found out the 100th anniversary of ROC is coming up, and you just want to make sure people recognize PRC is China. Is not good timing, and you are doing them a disfavor. I suggest you focus on things the mainland do positive like maybe edit a "Opening ceremony of Shenzhen Universidad". You are not calling it like you see it. I am sure you can see there is a republic of China that lasted longer than the people's republic of china, and is still here. Benjwong (talk) 05:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

You are way out of line, Benjwong. Stop the accusations immediately. I can show up anytime I want and my edit history has nothing to do with this discussion, though I have edited more than a few china-related articles. I have shown that I am familiar with wikipedia, its culture, and its policies. let's not make this discussion about me, as you have done before. stick to the content and policy please. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I am curious as to why someone who edits so few (if any) WP:China articles want so much say on WP:China political issues. It just seems strange to me. Unless you have some fear that the ROC would come back in a big way? I don't know, you tell me. Benjwong (talk) 05:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

How can you say "if any", just look at my edit history if you are curious, its not a mystery. Your repeated accusations that I am operating on a political agenda is an unwarranted assumption of bad faith and is very inappropriate. Consider this a warning. This is not a discussion about me, if you wish to make a comment about me do so on my talk page. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:01, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes Benjwong, everyone who disagrees with this page clearly wants to destroy the ROC, and fears its untimely revival into a worldwide superpower. Now, as that is actually irrelevant to content discussions, can we leave the ad hominems behind? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:02, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

You mean to tell me if I went over to some country's talkpage, and I have zero knowledge of that country and never edited any article relating to that country, that it would be normal to be demanding huge changes like this? I think that is dangerous for the community. Chipmunkdavis, you know there are fraud editors? In zh.wikipedia I think they publicly found people associated with the 50 Cent Party. Benjwong (talk) 06:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you accusing me of being a sock for the Chinese Communist Party? Your stating that I have no knowledge of China is personally insulting and completely baseless. Also if you would bother to look at my edit history you would see that I have edited China-related articles as I have already stated above. This is the last time I will warn you that these personal attacks are not appropriate. I recommend you have a look at WP:personal attacks. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I looked at WP:personal attacks and I do not believe I have crossed the line. I am just pointing out some of the stuff that has happened around other language wikis, and the highly abnormal expertise you claim to have (yet prefer to avoid politics, which is the core of this issue). Benjwong (talk) 06:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If those 50 cent users have good points, more power to them. These are baseless accusations Benjwong, and I suggest you withdraw them. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:36, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Let me help you out, Benjwong, from the first two sentences of WP:personal attacks, "Do not make personal attacks anywhere in Wikipedia. Comment on content, not on the contributor". You have definitely crossed the line. You are not in a position to evaluate my expertise as you know nothing about me except that I claim above to have a degree in political science - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I personally don't have great interest in Chinese politics. I have various pages on my watch list that I have requested unprotection for - quite a few of which involve controversial topics and I have made a few edits to various other Chinese pages. I certainly have no interest in cross strait relations and I view it as a matter for China and Taiwan to figure out. My country has spent the past 200 years getting involved in other countries politics and it has generally backfired anyway.

In 2011 China is one of the most successful countries in the world, and it also attracts vast interest. If you go on a site like the Economist out of the top 10 most commented threads 3 of them are explicitly about China and another is about Asian marriage which involves China.

The reason I have got heavily involved in this discussion is because I think that the current position is confusing to our readers and makes our titles longer than necessary and clearly our article on China is important and should have a sensible non-confusing title. You could quite easily have a degree on politics in the US and only be involved here to avoid confusing readers like the people you know who always call the PRC China. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:56, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

• “Country, nation, state” is an incomplete list, and "goverment", "dynasty" (not restricted to historical usage) and "regime" (as non-pejorative term) should be added. ––虞海 (Yú Hǎi) ✍ 11:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Distinguishing Wikipedia from its sources

I think we must put sources in context. Sources listed are evidence of a "common name", but do not reflect what we should do as an encyclopedia to accurately reflect the topic at hand. While print encyclopedias and news articles are limited in size, Wikipedia is not a paper. It is a balance between accuracy and concision: Due to space constraints, and limits to reader attention, it would be unthinkable for news articles to regularly write out "People's Republic of China" out in full.

With or without a move/merger/renaming, I don't think the title of the article is a big deal with the existence of redirects. However, I am concerned that a change in the article title will affect the quality of the article text. For example, would the UN Security Council article read "China's seat was originally filled by Taiwan, but due to the stalemate of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, there have been two states claiming to represent China since then, and both officially claim each other's territory. In 1971, China was awarded China's seat in the United Nations by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, and Taiwan soon lost membership in all UN organizations." There are contexts where changing PRC to China would not sacrifice accuracy by much (e.g. "PRC leadership" to "Chinese leadership") but there are others where it would "China replaced Taiwan in the United Nations".--Jiang (talk) 06:49, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

"In 1971, the People's Republic of China was awarded China's seat in the United Nations by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758". Titling the PRC page "China" doesn't mean that every instance of PRC must be replaced with "China", and it doesn't mean that the PRC's full name can't be used when "China" is ambiguous. Quigley (talk) 06:52, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Also it's worth noting that the sources list includes far more than just newspapers. Many newspapers are included because they are extremely prolific, accessible on the internet, and all of the writing is reviewed by a group of editors with specific standards of language use and style. They also operate under journalistic standards that mandate a high degree of neutrality. So newpapers are a good place to find clues about language which is NPOV and common written English. Like Quigley said, we don't have to change every single instance of "People's Republic of China" to "China" the official long form has its place, but in most contexts there is not enough ambiguity to use the longer name. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 07:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition, all the sources above are online. Many newspapers now publish more articles online then they do in print, and theoretically they would have as much space as we do. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I think I'm trying to raise a two separate issues here:

1. Any of the proposed changes should be made in conjunction with specific instructions on how to alter the existing wikilinks. As an example of sloppiness, after [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom]] was moved to [[Elizabeth II]], someone went around destroying all pipelinks to that article, with [[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Queen Elizabeth II]] changed to [[Elizabeth II]].
2. There are a significant number of instances where using "China" in place of "PRC" will not create ambiguity, but will reduce the accuracy of of the text. I agree that the way newspapers refer to China does not create ambiguity problems in that we clearly understand what they mean when they use these terms, but why should we not use a more accurate and technically correct alternative? Wikipedia and online journalism have many overlapping goals, but the goal of concision is still much more pressing for journalists than it is for Wikipedians, where one audience is trying to research a topic in depth and the other is just trying to browse current events. Further, the ability to confuse by using more technical terminology is reduced by the ability to interlink to other articles, which is not available to our sources.

--Jiang (talk) 16:30, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I think these are legitimate concerns that are worth considering. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with 1. It makes sense. 2 is an interesting point. However, I'd think that current wikipedia practice is does not put that much weight on complete accuracy. For a fairly analogous situation (although obviously not exactly the same), should we rename Australia to "Commonwealth of Australia" in order to increase accuracy and prevent all ambiguity with the Australian continent? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The only problem I see from the Australia setup is when someone links to the Commonwealth of Australia article when they really intend to link to the continent article. If Australia is ever referred to in a political/state context, there are not precision/accuracy issues. The same is much less true for China - for example, when we list statistics (which are invariably linked to a state entity like the Commonwealth of Australia instead of a continent), how do we tell is those numbers include Taiwan?--Jiang (talk) 17:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It's always not easy to tell whether numbers include Taiwan or not, and I don't see how that will be affected one way or another by whatever name is used. Either way there is ambiguity over Taiwan. Most sources listing statistics will list them under "China", which would mean the PRC. Some of these may include Taiwan, some may not. A listing under "People's Republic of China" could also include Taiwan. That all depends on the source used, and either way should be clarified on wikipedia with some form of notes if it is not obvious. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 20:00, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course, statistics are only a fraction of the concern here. China is used in the cultural and geographic sense to reach beyond the borders of the PRC. In my academic background (history), the term "PRC" is commonly bandied about by historians to refer to Mainland China in the modern sense. So while not removing ambiguity entirely, at least in English parlance (as opposed to a Chinese speaker in Beijing who is convinced Taiwan is part of China), PRC in English implies Mainland China more so in the way China does.--Jiang (talk) 08:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

China in a cultural sense extends even beyond the PRC+ROC, to singapore and communities in Malaysia and other overseas Chinese. In any case it's an abstract use of the word "China", and I'd more expect anything to do with Culture that is not directly related to the country to be described as "Chinese" rather than with the word China. I don't see any room for confusion there. In regards to geography, there's no such thing as geographic China. China is defined purely by its political borders, and this is the case historically as well as today. Historically I have no doubt the PRC is described as the PRC, at least until the 1970s or 1980s. In those days the PRC was not unequivocally called "China", but rather had some clarification such as "Red China". This is not the case at this time. In terms of historians writing now about that time, PRC would be used due to the fact that at that time much of the international community considered the ROC to be China. I don't have any sources about what PRC connotes to, but my guess is that the vast majority of english speakers would understand it to be China, just as easily if not more easily than Mainland China. Indeed, I've heard some people express surprise that "Hong Kong is part of China?!?" Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:22, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

What?!? Hong Kong is in China??? You're kidding right⸮ -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 06:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Haha, nice reaction. However, if I do that they get angry with me! Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:01, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

This is an important point. We will need to work towards a clear convention for how to treat "China" and the PRC across all pages. Whatever it is, we need to avoid encouraging absolutism, we don't want editors going on a rampage changing every single instance of "People's Republic of China" to "China". I don't think it would have to be very complicated though. Just acknowledge that sometimes it is better to have clarity and use the long form but that its not against the rules to use the common name "China". As it stands we get a lot of awkward prose where editors feel that they have to use the long form every time. I don't think it would be hard to develop a clear common-sense standard so that editors can feel comfortable writing about China, but I don't expect we'll all be able to agree on all the detail immediately. The first step I think is settling the title for this article and the one currently titled "People's Republic of China", with an aknowledgment that the result will not be applied arbitrarily to every china-related article, that an MOS-type discussion will necessarily follow. These concerns can and should be addressed. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 19:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

With regards to naming that's basically the current status-quo. I agree that a naming convention discussion also seems worthwhile to follow the merge. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Pro-Con table

Future timestamp. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:50, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

copied from archive 24, as relevant to RM below

• "PRC" = People's Republic of China, which controls Mainland China since 1949
• "ROC" = Republic of China, which controlled Mainland China from 1912 to 1949, and today controls only the island of Taiwan along with a few outlying islands

"China" article is ...	Pros	Cons
PRC - "China" article is about the country of PRC, with a disambiguation statement at the top linking to ROC/Taiwan	Neutrality POVTITLE Meets WP:POVTITLE so WP:NPOV isn't really relevant UNDUE/FRINGE The idea that the ROC is more than Taiwan is very much a minority viewpoint, doesn't need to be given equal weight per WP:UNDUE. Two Chinas POV (beyond one China and one Taiwan) is WP:FRINGE. Source attestations of neutrality The AP Stylebook, which is a reference work in what is neutral and accurate language in reporting, recommends calling the PRC "China"[11]. No outside sources have been shown to support the claim that calling the PRC China is unneutral or partisan. This claim is solely built on the personal opinion of editors. (relevance questioned) Other neutrality arguments That de facto is more important than de jure in naming is a policy not a POV (See WP:OFFICIALNAME and WP:UCN) It stops the single issue of the cross straits relations from dominating how the much wider topic of China in general is covered (duplicated point with civilisation con section) Commonality/Recognizability/Naturalness/Precision Most sources, including the ROC government, use "China" to mean PRC (see WP:COMMONNAME) The Republic of China (Taiwan) is not commonly known as "China" (duplicated point with common name) Most readers that visit the "China" article will expect the article to be about the modern country Consistent with the country name used by List of sovereign states, United Nations, World Bank, etc PRC is the primary topic for the word "China". (Pending above RfC result) More wikilinks will be pointed in the right direction Given the article wouldn't just cover the PRC it would be precise. Consistency Consistent with every country other than Ireland and Macedonia - those two have had Arbcom cases as they are particularly controversial. Conciseness Shorter title for the PRC that is still clear. Would make re-naming of articles about other Chinese topics easier where including "People's Republic of China" in the name adds unneccessary length and is even restrictive (e.g. transport) or leads to WP:POVFORK's and duplicated content (e.g. geography) Effect on other articles ROC is commonly known as Taiwan so it doesn't matter if this move makes that move more likely.(relevance questioned) The main content change is adding history before 1949. Currently South Korea, Republic of Ireland and Macedonia all have history sections which extend before their founding so that probably needs doing for the PRC article anyway. The subtleties of competing intraChina political POVs already have dozens of explanatory articles(relevance questioned) [pro here]	Neutrality POVTITLE WP:POVTITLE does not apply because in this case, it is two political entities competing for a name, not that the name itself contains offensive words.(relevance questioned?) UNDUE/FRINGE UNDUE WEIGHT deals with Coverage. Here both the PRC and ROC's claims can be explained in one sentence. This is not a scientific debate where the POVs require explaining Ignores the "Two Chinas" POV. (relevance questioned: fringe viewpoint?) (re: It's a notable POV in Taiwan) (Re: sources to back this up?) (re: [12]) ROC is recognized by 23 countries. This represents 12% of the UN membership and it is not fringe (no-one has argued that its fringe, just that its significantly lower weight). (re: see response on Undue weight deals with coverage) Implies a POV that the countries that recognize the ROC does not matter because they are small, when each country's recognition should be counted the same under international law(same as above?)(Re: This is about the 23 states being territorially small) PRC uses Bullying Tactics to get the United Nations to recognize that they are China. Therefore, is is not neutral to side with the UN in this matter. (relevance questioned) Source attestations of neutrality Most western media already have a POV that Taiwan is not part of China. The AP stylebook, for example, calls "Mainland" a nation, thus implying that Mainland China and Taiwan are separate nations. This is a POV that Wikipedia is not allowed to take.(Why does this mean we can't have a China article about the PRC?) (Re: In a merged China/PRC article, ROC will have to be described as the historical regime. But ROC isn't historic in Taiwan, therefore, it implies that Taiwan is not part of China) Other neutrality arguments Implies a POV that de facto is more important the de jure, as the ROC has limited international recongination as the government of China, but no recognition as the government of Taiwan(relevance questioned given WP:UCN is a policy) Takes a POV stance which implies that Taiwan/ROC is either (a) illegitimate (Pro-PRC POV); (b) independent (Pro-DPP POV, anti-PRC anti-KMT POV); (c) not part of China. Informativeness Potentially a "dumbing-down" of the PRC-ROC political situation for the reader, which is a much more complicated issue than what might be implied by an article name change Consistency The existence of the ROC makes the China situation unique, therefore China should NOT be like most other countries Effect on other articles Requires merging, moving and information rewriting of pre-1949 (from China, e.g. Qin/Song/Ming Dynasties) and post-1949 (from PRC) material May potentially result in some pursuing a rename of the Republic of China article, which further complicates POV issues (A large portion of the ROC article deals with the China formed after the Xinhai Revolution in 1911 that was plagued with warlords and Chiang family authoritarian rule on the mainland up to 1949, which have nothing to do with Taiwan.)(relevance questioned) [con here]
Civilization - "China" article is about the civilization of China	Neutrality Avoids POV problems: Does not favour the ROC nor the PRC as the sole China (see WP:NPOV and WP:PILLAR) The concept of Chinese civilization is used by politicians to avoid the cross-strait political issue; for example Ma Ying-jeou used the term "Zhonghua minzu" in his inauguration speech to refer to Chinese people as a whole, without possible political misinterpretations(I presume only ROC politicians do this) (re:done by both PRC and ROC) If "Anti-PRC" is POV, then obviously "Pro-PRC" is also POV. The only way to maintain neutrality is to make everything about de facto control only (The current setup) WP:PRIMARYTOPIC allows for "occasional exceptions" and the NPOV policy supersedes every other guideline Having "China" be the Civilization article does not delegitimatize the PRC, since PRC separates "China" from itself when talking about cross-strait relations with ROC (see point about Anti-secession Law), and the PRC certainly does not want to delegitmatize itself Informativeness Current People's Republic of China article name is accurate and useful: no benefit from renaming it to "China"; There is no harm in using the official (long) names of states for the PRC/ROC article names Commonality/Recognizability/Naturalness PRC, ROC, and TI all agree that China can refer to the Civilization PRC is not necessarily the primary topic. (Most links are about Mainland China) The PRC's own Anti-Secession Law does not explicitly equate China with the People's Republic of China (referred to in the law as "the State") Consistency Consistent with Ireland, Ossetia and Korea.(relevance of Korea questioned) Consistent with the Chinese Wikipedia interwiki Ease of implementation No merging/moving/rewriting of content required; keep the status quo [pro here]	Neutrality Making exceptions from our usual naming conventions may be seen to delegitimize the PRC Goes against the normal usage of "China" by reliable sources Provides an avenue for WP:UNDUE pro-ROC POV in more detailed articles which follow this naming convention (duplicate point from PRC's pro section) It lets the single issue of the cross straits relations dominate how the much wider topic of China in general is covered (duplicate point from PRC's pro section) Clarity Macedonia is significantly clearer at disambiguating than "China" currently is. (duplicates point below) Confuses readers as they may think that this actually is the article about the PRC Makes the civilisation article have an unnecessarily complex lead as it has to include details about other topics. (duplicates point below) Commonality/Recognizability/Naturalness/Precision Not a common usage of the term "China", by reliable sources nor by typical readers, WP:PRIMARY TOPIC (duplicates point above) Puts editors in the position having to arbitrarily draw a dividing line between "PRC" and "Chinese civilization" when linking to China or editing one of the two China articles in question, especially for content related to history. Current article title isn't precise as it doesn't cover the PRC in detail. (duplicate point from PRC's pro section) Consistency Not consistent with any other country article apart from Ireland and Korea, but in the case of Korea neither modern country is called just "Korea". (Duplicate point from PRC's pro section) (Not duplicate as the countries are different, but if Korea is removed it would be the same) Reader-friendliness Less reader-friendly in that most people will have to click an extra time to get to the article they want (duplicates point below) [con here]
Disambiguation page - "China" article is a disambiguation page with links to PRC, Taiwan/ROC, civilization, porcelain, etc.	Neutrality Avoids most POV problems. Clarity Macedonia is significantly clearer at disambiguating than "China" currently is. Avoids the civilisation article having an unnecessarily complex lead as it wouldn't have to include details about other topics (duplicates point above). Consistency Consistent with Macedonia and Congo disambiguation articles (duplicate point with Macedonia) Ease of implementation Doesn't involve any content being changed. [pro here]	Neutrality Creates POV problem by assigning equal weight to non-equal claims Consistency Not consistent with other WP articles on any other country/civilisation apart from Macedonia. Violates the guideline in WP:DABCONCEPT, that a broad concept title "should be an article describing the broad concept, and not a disambiguation page". Reader-friendliness Not very reader-friendly: forces readers to click another link Redundancy Civilization page already functions as a disambig page [con here]

Requested move August 2011

• China → Chinese civilization
• People's Republic of China → China

The Request for Comment above (section header Primary Topic of China) overwhelmingly concluded that People's Republic of China is the primary topic for China. Per Wikipedia's primary topic policy, the page should be moved accordingly. A merge of the two pages is a separate issue from this and can be done at a later date. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 12:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I concur with the suggestion that the concept of a merger should not be addressed here in this RM: that would just muddle the RM and lead to an endless, pointless debate. Likewise, discussions of the disambiguation hatnote and what do do with existing wiki-links to "China" can be initiated after any move is done. --Noleander (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

If you concur, then the right thing for you to do is to oppose this move on procedural grounds as the merger has not been explored/considered enough. However, you have done nothing but made yourself your own worst enemy. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 21:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

We can easily do the merge later. The move request doesn't make any difference to that goal. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Because a merge and move are separate concepts, it is still either one or the other. If you prefer a merge, you are abetting a total waste of time here. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 15:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really. You might prefer a merge but think this is better than nothing. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Responses to move proposal

• Support - For the reasons discussed above in the RfC: namely, that sources use the term "China" overwhelming to mean the nation. It may or may not be wise to merge the two articles (PRC and Civilization) after the move, but that is a separate discussion. Any issues about confusion with ROC can be resolved with disambiguation hatnotes.--Noleander (talk) 13:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This seems to me to be the substantial consensus emerging from the RFC, absent those who support one side or other in the territorial dispute. --Red King (talk) 14:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support Both articles are written using WP:SUMMARYSTYLE of paragraphs leading to other articles. A merge is mostly just some shuffling of existing paragraphs and entirely secondhand to the move. Editorial decisions can be made after. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
• Oppose I would oppose this if there were no question of two governments. The present division parallels the uncontroversial division between France and French Fifth Republic (except for the unnecessary disambiguation by including French in the latter, not even useful here): In both cases, one article on the very ancient country, another on the state which now governs most or all of it. Many incoming links will be misleading: Shi Huangdi did (as his article says) "subdue the states of China"; he did not subdue the states of the People's Republic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Hitler conquered France, but it wasn't the fifth republic. France was defeated by the Russians at Waterloo, but it wasn't the fifth republic. Otto von Bismarck unified Germany (pardon my history), but it wasn't today's Bundesrepublik Deutschland. So, I'm no sure why you want a different standard for China than every other country. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 15:54, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

No, the Fifth Republic began in 1958, as its article says; that is why we have a separate article from that on France, which has existed as a continuous entity at least since 843, arguably much longer. (Readers will rarely want to go from the Battle of Waterloo to Charles de Gaulle.) Similarly, the People's Republic was founded in 1950; China may have existed since the third millennium BC, and has been an unquestionable entity at least since the Spring and Autumn Annals. In short, this is the same standard as for other countries: One article on the country, another article on its present form of government, yet other articles on previous forms of government. We can of course merge two or more of these; for some small countries, we do; but that is (by the terms of this proposal) another discussion.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Pmanderson: The France article focuses on the current nation of France including details about France's current President, current Legislature, current population, etc (see the prominent InfoBox in the upper right corner of the France article). The RM is simply suggesting that the China article should similarly focus on the current nation, including its current government. --Noleander (talk) 17:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Quite the France article is the one that's directly comparable to the People's Republic of China one. If people want to create a more detailed article titled People's Republic of China about the government system ala French Fifth Republic they can. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

In fact we already have a separate article on that topic called Government of the People's Republic of China or more broadly Politics of the People's Republic of China. This is like the France/Fifth Republic example but we use a descriptive title which avoids all potential ambiguity about the article's scope. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

"So, I'm no sure why you want a different standard for China than every other country." - it's the same "standard" with Ireland, Ossetia and Korea, and a similar case with Macedonia and Congo. Most country articles are not like this one, that is correct, but that is because today there is indisputably one Germany, one France, and one Poland. However since there are 2 Chinas, 2 Ossetias, 2 Koreas and 2 Congos, they make completely different cases. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In all of those other cases English language reliable sources regularly use the some means of disambiguating between them. The only one which doesn't is Ireland, but if you do a search on the BBC's website quite a lot of the top hits are actually for Cricket and Rugby, which operate as all Ireland sports. On this issue there aren't a whole swathe of sources using "China" to refer to both Taiwan and the PRC in any sense beyond the PRC claiming to rule Taiwan. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I think each situation is different and should be treated on a case-by-case basis, not a set standard. For example, neither of the two Koreas have a different English shorthand name, North Korea isn't commonly referred to in English as Choseon or Korea, nor South Korea as Hanguk or Korea. I suspect South Ossetia as a de-facto independent nation receives much more coverage than North Ossetia-Alania. Whereas "China" is the common shorthand name for the PRC, while "Taiwan" commonly refers to the ROC in English, unlike Korea's situation. --Shibo77 (talk) 23:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• The article titled "China" would refer to a land, as well as a state, whose history encompass Shi Huangdi. The current division here, unlike France's, is controversial, because it promotes the idea of a nonexistent controversy about which state is "China", and also promotes the fringe idea that the PRC has not succeeded the Republic of China (1911-1949). Quigley (talk) 02:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, that PRC has not completely succeeded ROC is not a fringe idea. The timeline on my history textbook (I'm from Hong Kong) clearly shows PRC and ROC as existing in parallel since 1949, the same treatment as other times in history when the geographical region of "China" is divided. Deryck C. 16:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Does your textbook give the ROC after 1949 claim to mainland China, regarding the PRC as a bunch of illegitimate Communist bandits? Or does it treat the ROC after 1949 as a rump state, and the PRC as the internationally recognized successor on mainland China? Quigley (talk) 16:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • History textbooks on this end of the planet don't comment on "legitimacy" as such, because "legitimacy" is more often an excuse for war rather than a moral claim. However you did get my point: PRC is the recognised successor to mainland China, and ROC's control of Taiwan (and some other islands) remains recognised. Neither has a legitimate, recognised claim of the entirety of China. Deryck C. 02:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • And why is it Wikipedia's place to assert that "the entirety of China" includes Taiwan, suppressing the Taiwan independence point of view? Quigley (talk) 03:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
          • Surely putting the PRC article at "China" suppresses the Taiwan independence POV in a stronger way? Deryck C. 03:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
            • No, because acknowledging that "China" commonly refers to the PRC does not mean that "China" can't refer to other things. Even in the context of "China" meaning PRC, Taiwan could still be part of that China, depending on how the article text (not the article title) presents the issue. Quigley (talk) 03:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support - The name China has a primary topic and that is the People's Republic of China (PRC) as determined by the strong consensus in the RfC above. The common name of the PRC is unquestionably "China" and WP:Naming conventions (geographic names) and WP:AT state clearly that the article should be at its common name. It is not up to us to determine what a topic should be called; we simply follow what reliable sources use. The above list of dozens of the most reliable sources available and a quick google search reveals that quality publications of all kinds around the world, even in Taiwan, consistently use "China" to refer to the PRC without qualification. While some have argued that having the PRC article titled "China" would violate NPOV no evidence has yet been shown to substantiate that claim and none of those arguments have survived scrutiny. A look at any notable Chinese history book shows a consensus that the topic continues through imperial china to the republic in 1912 and in 1949 when the PRC is founded the narrative thread follows the PRC (and not the ROC) without skipping a beat. It is not for us to re-evaluate such a solid convention without evidence from a reliable source that following the convention is a violation of NPOV. Other country articles, like France and Germany cover a long history but focus on the current state which occupies a similar traditional territory and uses the same common name. There is no reason that the China article should not have a similar structure. That means having the article titled "China" focus primarily on the contemporary PRC but also include summaries of relevant topics which are inextricably and directly related, such as Chinese history and cross-strait relations. I also support merging the two articles, and this move does not interfere with such an eventual merge. The current article China is not about the PRC and violates NPOV by marginalizing the RPC. Furthermore we are doing our readers a great disservice by not providing them general information about the country commonly known as China when they search that term. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 17:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Incoming links show that the country/nation is the primary topic for China, not the PRC. I reject that the PRC is the primary topic according to common usage. It is universally accepted in politics that there is only one China, and this China—the China that includes both Mainland China and Taiwan—is the "China" that is referred to in politics, history, geography, etcetera. Whether the government of this China be the PRC or the ROC is something that has not been resolved, and per Wikipedia's policies on neutrality, all significant viewpoints must be represented. This article effectively introduces the nation known as China in a way that the PRC article cannot, and a link to these other articles are displayed prominently. Nightw 17:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • If PRC wasn't the primary topic then it would be clear from the RFC above. As it is the RFC makes it quite clear. With regards to "this China" as you can see from the vast list of sources it practically universally applies to the PRC rather than the ROC - per WP:UNDUE unequal viewpoints should not be treated equally - and given the vast weight of sources and the 88% of the world's countries which don't recognise the ROC its clear that most people think China is the PRC.. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Maybe there is only one China, but that one China does not include Taiwan. Taiwan was only part of China for about 200 years in China's 4,000 year history. The fact that Taiwan is currently separate is the historical norm, not the exception. D O N D E groovily Talk to me 00:48, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Thank you for showing an example that the move is wanted by TI POV pushers, therefore the political impactions are always there. T-1000 (talk) 06:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Whether or not this move request is wanted (or not wanted) by people with certain political stances is irrelevant - what counts is whether it meets our policies and whether that is adequately explained. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:24, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The proposed move does not take any position on the One China Policy or undermine it in any way. In fact, the current setup promotes the incorrect idea that there are two states referred to as "China". Quigley (talk) 02:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Please explain that one. It seems that you are bluntly arguing that the PRC is China under the One Chine Policy, which would be in blatant conflict with our policies on neutrality. Nightw 04:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • It takes no position on "One China" in the same way that Napoleon which is about Napoleon Bonaparte (and not about Napoleon III) does not take a position on "One Napoleon". Wikipedia acknowledges that other Napoleons exist and makes no claim as to their relative legitimacy. Titling the article in such a way implies nothing more than the following: Its the common name of the subject and that is the subject that one can reasonably assume the reader is looking for when they type in that title. It is not a political declaration. If that were such a political declaration then we'd see other sources avoiding such language in order to maintain neutrality, they do not, see sources section above. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support as the common name for the PRC. On incoming links if you check them many if not most are intended for the PRC. E.g. in Bonn it mentions "...Bukhara in Usbekistan, Chengdu in China and La Paz in Bolivia" – cities in countries, with the editor quite sensibly assuming that China links to the PRC. And there are many more like that. So not only is the common name but it is so common that editors rarely check to see if China could be something other than the PRC.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:19, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Chengdu is in China. I, and probably many other editors, link to China when writing non-politicised geography. Let's sample the first five that come up: Alchemy ("Chinese alchemy, centered in China and its zone of cultural influence"); Almond ("In China, almonds are used in a popular dessert"); Ancient philosophy ("an era of great cultural and intellectual expansion in China"); Astronomical unit ("A Chinese mathematical treatise, the Zhoubi suanjing"); April 1 ("a Chinese People's Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet"). All but the last of these are appropriately linked. Nightw 18:57, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
    • No-one would ever do that when linking to any other country. The Taiwanese English language media wouldn't refer to somewhere in Taiwan as being in "China". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Distorting the picture again, which is the only thing you can do as you have no case whatsoever. Simply because they would not refer to somewhere in Taiwan (the island) as being "in China" does not mean they would definitely argue Taiwan is not a part of China. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 21:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Not really no. If Taiwan is part of China "geographically" then people should refer to things in Taiwan as being in China if they are using China as a geographical term that remains politically neutral. If Taiwan is not part of China geographically then there should be no issue with making China about the PRC which would then control the whole of "geographical" China. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
          • Is Woody Island, South China Sea geographically part of China? Is Hainan Island geographically part of China? Is Taiping Island geographically part of Taiwan? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:28, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
            • Does it include the parts of Manchuria controlled by Russia or mongolia for example. The truth is it's not clearly defined. And so the only way to do it is contorolled territory - thus the answer is yes if they are controlled by China and no otherwise. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
              • But that would be political definitions, not geographical definitions. Think of it this way. Today Hainan is generally considered part of Mainland China, however that is because the People's Liberation Army was successful in defeating the National Revolutionary Army of the ROC during the Landing Operation on Hainan Island. What if, like the island of Taiwan, the communists failed to capture the island of Hainan from the ROC? Would general consensus still consider Hainan island "China"? Where do we firmly define the line between geography and geopolitics? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
                • If Hainan island were controlled by a state other than the one commonly known as "China" then no it would not be commonly referred to as part of China. There is no line between geography and geopolitics. The geographic borders of "China" are political. The borders of China have always changed with the territories controlled by the state known as "China". It is not always black and white, as in the case of territorial disputes. Have a look at English-language world atlases and National Geographic and you'll see what I mean. "Geographical China" is not something wholely distinct from the PRC. Very ocassionally the term "Greater China" is used to indicate this larger geographicial area which includes the territories of the PRC and ROC, but its still pretty uncommon. It is not simply called "China" because that would not effectively make the desired distinction. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 16:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support as it follows WP:AT which is the key policy regarding article titles.
  • Firstly lets take a look at WP:CRITERIA, China is widely recognised as referring to the PRC as shown by the large list of sources using China to refer to the PRC compared to the very short list referring to the ROC including a clear translation error. It is also the natural them you would use to refer to the PRC in conversation and the one used very frequently by the media, including Taiwanese media sources (see the above link for more details). With regards to precision one could argue that PRC is more precise but as its less commonly used it might well confuse our readers to use it anyway - especially as there is another article at the title "China". With regards to conciseness given China is only 5 letters long its difficult to be more concise. Finally with regards to consistency, other than Macedonia and Ireland all the other countries in the world have their articles at their common name so calling the article on the PRC "China" is consistent with almost all of the rest of the world's countries articles on the project.
  • Secondly we most consider the common name policy, as shown from the large list of sources linked about "China" is used overwhelmingly to refer to the PRC. When the New York Times was checked earlier this year there were 1,730 hits on the New York Times for Republic of China (with the top hit referring to a shopping centre in Beijing), 5,600 hits for People's Republic of China, 3.6 million hits for the word China alone and 80,500 hits for Taiwan. Given it is reasonable to assume that the New York Times has a consistent editorial policy those 3.6 million hits are highly likely to all refer to the People's Republic of China - and the New York Times uses China 650x more often than it uses People's Republic of China. No evidence has been presented showing that any other English languages sources are different.
  • Thirdly we must consider neutrality in titles. Per WP:POVTITLE articles should use the common name if this title is used by a significant majority of English language sources - as you can see from the above evidence that is clearly the case and therefore any possible POV issues to do with the Republic of China are ignored by our sources, and therefore as our policy is to describe not proscribe we should do the same.
  • Fourthly with regards to precision over disambiguation we should only be as precise as necessary and "China" is precise enough given it is the WP:COMMONNAME for the country.
  • As you can see China meets all the requirements for the article on the article titles policy. Then the only remaining concern is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as you can see from the RFC the PRC is thought of as the primary topic of China. Additionally the PRC is the only WP:VITAL article that competes for the title China and therefore like all other vital articles that gives it additional weight to be at its common name article - other than Ireland I cannot think of another WP:VITAL article which isn't at its common name. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:33, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Listed at WP:CENT. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)Listed at the village pump proposals instead. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support All that needed to be said is already said above. Common usage of China definitely refers to the current country. Yoenit (talk) 20:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support - For the reasons discussed above in the RfC. 190.51.168.29 (talk) 21:19, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: Such makes it unequivocally clear that Taiwan and the other territory controlled by the ROC is not part of China, which is strictly prohibited by NPOV policy; this is also a highly notable opinion, so WP:FRINGE does not apply. How does this work? By renaming the PRC article to "China", we are equating the two terms, and as this is understood to be taken in a modern context, clearly Taiwan has failed to be a part of China. Conversely, if we examine the UN viewpoint ("Taiwan, province of China"), then we would also be presenting the completely false premise that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China. Anyone who disagrees with what I said above is pretending to do so, if not lying to all here. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 21:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Per WP:POVTITLE we must follow our sources - and they all have no issue with using China to refer to the PRC. Besides if this POV issue was notable the Taiwanese and/or Chinese media would avoid using the term China to refer to the PRC. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Why is the idea that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China a "completely false premise"? Why does that viewpoint have to be suppressed, and the nearly-unsourced viewpoint that the ROC is "China" elevated? Quigley (talk) 02:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I shouldn't have to explain the agendas of the mainlander and Taiwanese, nor much of the rest of the media in general, if you clearly examine their origins.
    • Then we are presenting a falsehood, which is unacceptable above all else in an encyclopaedia. "Part of" implies control, which the PRC does not have over TW. Control is based based on self-evident facts, not views. Also, another perspective is that the ROC is part of "China" (not PRC); I myself believe this is more important than giving the ROC an equal claim to "China"—the fact that the PRC controls far more territory strongly speaks for itself. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 15:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • I should point out that the current People's Republic of China article presents Taiwan's status as a part of the PRC as being disputed. It would be wrong to present it in any other way (in particular, it would be wrong to include it, or exclude it completely). Mlm42 (talk) 16:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
        • It should be obvious that I am basing everything on actual control, not interpretations of the One China policy. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 21:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: The "China" article should include the present material, somewhat more concise, with links, "See Also"s, "Main Article" etc to related topics ranging from "Republic of China," "Ming Dynasty," "Geography of China" etc etc, all of which are included when we say "China" in general usage. "China" is not a scientific term which can be used with precision, and if we want to go for rigor we could not use the term "China" at all. It is merely a convention and a convenience. ch (talk) 22:30, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Most of that content is included in People's Republic of China already - including the history and geography that you've highlighted. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)'
  • Well, but it isn't it, as shown with so many sources above, the convention to refer to the PRC as "China", and not this weird "multinational entity"?TheFreeloader (talk) 01:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I see your point, Eraserhead. I will wait and support revisions to the new article which will do what I'm concerned about in just as good a way. ch (talk) 03:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: Wikipedia is WP:NOT a paper encyclopedia, and exceptions can be made from other encyclopedias. The status quo maintains WP:NPOV, despite that doing so forfeits WP:COMMONNAME. In order to remain neutral, neither the People's Republic of China nor the Republic of China must be designated the sole One China, as realistically, both are valid sovereign states that are vying for the title of "China". WP:NPOV is one of the WP:PILLARs, and WP:COMMONNAME is not, and so WP:IAR regarding WP:COMMONNAME may apply here since WP:NPOV holds more importance. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 22:39, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Do you have any evidence that the ROC is currently "vying for the title of China", that is not synthesis of material from decades ago? Quigley (talk) 22:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
    • And some evidence the current position meets WP:NPOV when its more extreme than the KMT's current position would be nice too. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
    • @Quigley: The Constitution of the Republic of China for one, along with the 1992 Consensus and various speeches made by ROC President Ma Ying-Jeou. The ROC constitution is still valid, and does not relinquish claims over the mainland. Recent addendum made in 2005 do make the distinction between the Free Area of the Republic of China (i.e. the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, et cetera) and territories not administered by ROC rule, but that is not a relinquishing of territory.
      @Eraserhead1: "more extreme than the KMT's current position" - care to clarify? I don't follow. The KMT's official position is that the ROC is undeniably China. On the other hand, it is this proposal that is a POV issue, as such a move implies that the ROC is either illegitimate (Pro-PRC POV), or independent (Pro-DPP POV). Keeping the articles as they are at China, PRC and ROC does not take any sides, whether it is the CCP, DPP or KMT side. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • If you go on the KMT's English language website they describe their address as being in "Taiwan (ROC)." - they are basically calling themselves Taiwan. Its pretty clear their current position would be to make China a redirect to the PRC article. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
        • No its not "pretty clear", that is your interpretation, and I dispute that interpretation. Taiwan is a geographical location; if what you claim is actually true, they would drop the "(ROC)" in parentheses. Also, see Ma refers to China as ROC territory in magazine interview - October 8, 2008. This further disproves your claim. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 08:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• SUPPORT Current content IS NPOV PROBLEM caused by NATIONALIST DENIERS. Not moving MAINTAINS MINORITY BIASED KMT POV. 203.184.138.131 (talk) 23:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: The current setup can be justified because it is just about who control what, without going to what belongs to who. If PRC and China are merged, it will definitely have a anti ROC and possibly anti Taiwan POV. 159.83.4.153 (talk) 00:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The proposed move does not make any judgments about "what belongs to who". If calling the PRC China is "anti ROC" or "anti Taiwan", then why does the ROC/Taiwanese government and press call the PRC China? Quigley (talk) 02:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • the ROC/Taiwanese government and press call the PRC China Deryck C. 16:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • See #Sources, which include Taipei Times, Taiwan Times, Kuomintang News Network, ROC Govt, ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, etc. Quigley (talk) 17:11, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Thing is, these are English-language Taiwanese media. I'd assume that they do this because they wish to avoid confusing non-Chinese readers that have no idea of the whole PRC/ROC thing. In Chinese-language Taiwanese media, they use the term 中國大陸 to refer to the mainland. They never refer to the PRC by name, because after all, their government's official stance is non-recognition. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 17:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
          • If the English language Taiwanese media call it China then we should do the same. If they don't think its sufficiently POV to avoid then neither should we - especially as clearly their audience is significantly more WP:TECHNICALly aware than ours. With regards to how it is referred to in Chinese that is irrelevant - especially as its called "the Middle Kingdom" in Chinese and not China. Languages are different. In French the English Channel is called "the sleeve" which is clearly more "neutral", but as that isn't its name in English that isn't the one we use. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This move should have happened a long time ago. There is a reason why Wikipedia has the policies it has for titling of article. It's so that readers can quickly and easily get to the article with the information they are looking for. I think we should have very good reasons if we are to stray from these policies, especially when it comes to subjects as vital to the encyclopedia as the one here. But to be clear, this dispute is not a question of "WP:COMMONNAME vs. WP:NPOV". This is question of whether to follow the WP:AT's central principle of calling subjects what they are called by reliable English-language sources, or to whether let editors' tastes and opinions about how things ought to be referred to be deciding factor in article titling. There has so far been shown no outside sources what-so-ever to support the claim that calling the PRC "China" is viewed as controversial or partisan in the outside world. This is a claim which is solely based on the opinions of editors. And WP:NPOV does not base itself on the opinions of editors, WP:PILLAR makes that clear. So I say let's leave our personal opinions behind and get back to an encyclopedia based on reliable sources and which is written so as to be the most helpful to its readers.TheFreeloader (talk) 01:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support - People's Republic of China is the primary topic when people talk about China these days. While I don't like how this discussion has quickly become one of politics / Wikipedia's stance, moving and maintaining the status quo might both be taken as political statements. I hope we can build a consensus to move solely on the basis of PRC being the primary topic, and not some political stance (either Taiwan is part of PRC or Taiwan is not part of China), regardless of the political views of participants in this discussion (including my own). wctaiwan (talk) 01:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The move proposal is much more compliant with article titles policy than the status quo. It also follows the academic, governmental, journalistic, and common convention, as reflected in the reliable sources. Wikipedia is fundamentally descriptive, not prescriptive—the opposition's political arguments, while factually suspect, should not even be an issue. Leaving this article where it is forces editors on thousands (millions?) of articles to create convoluted pipes to send readers to the article they intend, and often readers will find themselves here anyway, to complain about how they didn't find the article that they wanted. Thus, the current configuration is unintuitive, counter to our policies, and massively disruptive. Many more articles are impacted by these article titles than deal with Cross-Strait relations, and many more readers are impacted by this than want to read about Cross-Strait relations, so it is unfair to hold these articles and readers hostage to some dubious politically-correct synthesis of China as a "multinational entity". The opposition says to ignore all rules, but once we do this, the prospects for a move become only more favorable. Quigley (talk) 03:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • China is multinational. There's the Tibetan nation, the Uyghur nation, the Han nation, the Mongol nation, etc. There's a difference between a nation and a nation-state. A nation doesn't need to be a state in order to be a nation. Perhaps you meant "multi-state". Is saying that two states claim to representative of the Chinese nation wrong? Is the ROC less Chinese than the PRC? Is allegiance to a certain state a requirement for being called Chinese? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • "Is saying that two states claim to representative of the Chinese nation wrong?" Yes, because outside the constraints of Cross-strait relations, the ROC claims only to be representative of the people in Taiwan. "Is the ROC less Chinese than the PRC?" In the sense that a lower percentage ROC citizens identify as "Chinese" than do PRC citizens, yes. A significant number of people in Fiji identify as Indian in the cultural and historical sense, but to have India be a disambiguation page between the Republic of India and the Republic of Fiji would be preposterous. Quigley (talk) 16:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, as per benlisquare.--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 04:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support, as a consequence of the clear consensus in the "primary topic" poll above, and of general naming policy. The whole "RoC" issue that is repeatedly cited here as a counter-argument seems a red herring to me – in practice, the RoC's continued claim as an alternative representative of "China" has been a purely academic issue for decades and has hardly any influence on the actual naming practices of the rest of the world, and those are what we go by. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The poll above isn't in itself a valid argument for or against the move. That the poll above had a clear consensus but this poll doesn't means that the poll above was inadequately publicised, and the wider community is now reconsidering the results of the poll. I won't comment on the rest of your comment save suggesting that it's not as simple as that. Deryck C. 17:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Then you need to come up with a serious argument as to how the PRC isn't the primary topic taking into account that the PRC is a WP:VITAL article and none of the other possible claimants are. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Surely that's an argument against the move: many other Wikipedias, including the Chinese Wikipedia, are also using "China" for the "unpoliticised" geography and civilisation, and "People's Republic of China" (or translations thereof) for the current regime in Beijing, thus WP:VITAL clearly lists "People's Republic of China" (not "China"). The proposed move will screw up the inter-wiki vital articles system. Deryck C. 04:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • What other Wikipedia's do is irrelevant. We must follow en.wiki's policies and come up with the most appropriate title here - interwiki links will have to just handle that. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 03:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
          • It is often the case that other wikis' articles are direct translations of the more comprehensive en.wiki's articles. The existence of this "multinational China" article was probably influential in the creation of those other pages. Quigley (talk) 04:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose As I've pointed out, a simple move would violate WP:CONCEPTDAB and WP:NPOV as it would support the assertions that 'PRC is the legitimate government of China, and ROC is not', and that 'Taiwan is not part of China'. I would support a merge of PRC and the current article, or a move after sandboxing of the PRC article to address these issues. LK (talk) 06:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • How can it violate WP:CONCEPTDAB when the Chinese civilisation isn't the primary topic? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • A merged article would still have the NPOV problem of the ROC being described as historic regime in China, but ROC is not historic in Taiwan, and that still implies that "Taiwan is not part of China". T-1000 (talk) 07:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. If I Google up China -wikipedia, I have to go to the bottom of the second page to the a find a hit where the referent is something other than the PRC. This is the site for China Airlines, which is at best an indirect reference to the ROC. This article is a fossil and expresses a POV that has not been found in mainstream English-language media for 40 years. As Quigley puts it, the current set up holds a sizable chunk of traffic hostage to cross-strait relations issues that most readers will find obscure. Kauffner (talk) 08:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support, at least the first part - the primary topic for "China" is the modern country, along with its history. --Kotniski (talk) 09:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose (registered user, but I'm having login problems) The current arrangement of article names is significantly better at observing WP:NPOV than the proposed arrangement of article names. WP:COMMONNAME is not a core policy like WP:NPOV is. 67.173.147.197 (talk) 11:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I fail to see how using 'China' as the common name for the PRC violates NPOV. If you mean it we should treat the ROC's claim to sovereignty over the whole of the middle kingdom equally then that is giving far too much weight to that claim. As per WP:UNDUE it should be noted but it is very much a minority view. If you mean the ambiguity over whether China is just the PRC or the PRC + Taiwan that is already covered in PRC as the PRCs claim over the island.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose – China is the name of a nation that includes both mainland China and Taiwan. The People's Republic of China and the Republic of China are regimes / states that each claims control or representation over the whole nation. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Exactly. Nightw 16:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Your comment is consistent with the suggested move.. the point is that the term "China" on its own usually refers to the country (or whatever you want to call it) whose capital is Beijing. Mlm42 (talk) 16:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The PRC is the clear primary topic of "China". While the push to give the PRC and the ROC equal weight and therefore be "neutral" is understandable, it is also wrong and actually reflects a POV. As Fut.Perf. puts it, "the RoC's continued claim as an alternative representative of 'China' has been a purely academic issue for decades and has hardly any influence on the actual naming practices of the rest of the world". As an example, ask any random person "what does China's flag look like?" and I guarantee that >99% would tell you it's red with yellow stars. Jenks24 (talk) 12:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, I'd like to quote this paragraph from zhwp local WikiProject Countering systemic bias policy. "Although UN and most of countries in the world recognize the PRC as the legal government to 'represent China', Wikipedia should present a neutral point of view: The term 'China' should not be equal to any single political entity nor government." and here is the original text "纵然联合国及世界上大部份独立国家都已经承认，中华人民共和国政府为代表中国的唯一合法政府，但维基百科应该反映中立的现实，从而应认为'中国'一词不应该与任何单一独立政治实体或政府相同。".-Mys 721tx (talk) 13:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

We should follow overwhelming English usage, which has "China" refer to the country whose capital is Beijing. To reject this usage would be highly questionable in NPOV terms. To follow it is not saying anything about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of anything; it's just saying what the country is actually called.--Kotniski (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Policies from other projects are irrelevant. This is the English wikipedia not the Chinese one. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

This is not a different policy; this is merely a case example of the same policy (NPOV) in play on a different project. Although the English Wikipedia has decided (and I say as if I was part of the decision; I wasn't) to subdue NPOV to verifiability, we didn't subdue NPOV to popular English usage. See my presentation at the Wikimania earlier this year - subduing NPOV to popularity and official usage is very dangerous indeed. Deryck C. 03:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

This is quite interesting, but again the Chinese Wikipedia is different and has different rules. With regards to subduing NPOV to popularity see WP:POVTITLE which makes that explicit. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you've turned the policy upside down. WP:POVTITLE says "if the name Xxx refers unambiguously to thing Y and is the most prevalent name for Y, don't worry to use Xxx for Y even if Xxx seems to pass judgement upon Y". What you're saying is "if most people think Xxx refers to Y rather than Z and W, don't worry to use Xxx for Y even if many people think Xxx means Z or W instead". Deryck C. 16:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Except they don't. China is Almost universally used to refer to the PRC. If you believe otherwise add something to the sources section. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Policies from other projects are relevant -- just that there is a barrier to frequent cross-pollination. I can think of nothing more misinformed and insular an attitude than "Chinese Wikipedia is different and has different rules"; the rules of neutrality across all projects should be the same. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, interestingly, in fact this section of policy that mys_721tx quoted was patially translated from enwp (see WP:NC-ZH#Political NPOV).--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 00:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. China not just represents current government only, you don't use other names to called a country with different government in the past or current time, no matter they are elected or not. The so called "overwhelming" using may not be the better approach here. We need to remind ourselves that we are trying to spread knowledge and information, not political point of view. Thank you very much.-Cobrachen (talk) 14:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support ,Nice idea that can clear the old cata.--Edouardlicn (talk) 15:39, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support , China stands for PRC, Taiwan for ROC-Acbdyho (talk) 15:57, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I believe the article "China" should be about the "country" (or nation, or modern state) whose capital is Beijing, and it should have the {{infobox country}} at the top with the PRC flag. As GTBacchus suggested (archived here), I also think such a page should have a detailed, possibly expandable hatnote to help with disambiguation concerns regarding "the legitimate government of China", etc. I'm concerned that the current article situation is actually not neutral, with an anti-PRC bias; an overwhelmingly large proportion of English-language reliable sources (see this list) use the term "China" to mean the PRC - so that's what Wikipedia should do as well. I think we should be basing our decisions primarily on what reliable sources do.. Mlm42 (talk) 16:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose any combination at which either the PRC or ROC article is at China. As pointed out by many above, "China" is, even admitted by PRC and ROC governments, the geographical area including all of today's PRC and ROC, although both entities lay claim to each other's territories. Putting the PRC article at "China" gives even more WP:UNDUE weight than mentioning both PRC and ROC at "China". Compounded with the complication that most incoming links to China now refer to the geographical region or civilisation (and must be cleaned up by hand, not by an automated script, because it is not straightforward where each link should point after the move), the proposed move is simply implausible. Deryck C. 16:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'd love to see these modern sources of the Republic of China calling themselves "China". The only thing I've seen is the civil code which was originally written in 1929. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Of course ROC don't call themselves "China" anymore. However, when academics from modern Taiwan use the word "China" unqualified, they refer to the geographical region, often including Taiwan. For example, The Foreign and Cross-Straight Policies of the New Administration in the Republic of China by Stephen S F Chen (2008), ex-ROC ambassador to USA, abstract here. (I happen to have a paper copy of it, hope you can find a copy somewhere.) This clearly uses ROC and PRC to refer to the political entities, and "China" for the geographical region including Taiwan. Deryck C. 03:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Great, you've got a source. Please add it to the list of sources above. Now you'll need to find a whole bunch more to show that it is a view which is carried by multiple sources. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • I'd prefer not to become part of the "Sources" discussion above, because you've constructed the list against the idea that China refers to a geographical region rather than a governmental regime. If you want, I can go through the list of sources for "China"="People's Republic of China" there, and tell you which ones among them don't actually care whether they were talking about the geographical region, the civilisation or the regime, and therefore shouldn't be used as evidence for "China"="PRC" over the geographical region / civilisation. Deryck C. 16:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
          • • Go and add a section with those dubious entries duplicated. Given the definition of geographic area is so unclear. I don't know what is included. I don't believe sources use it. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. This move will affect the linked text of thousands of articles and cannot be made without further discussion and consensus on how usage of the term "China" in article text will be affected. If this move is enacted without discussion of usage of the word "China" in articles, it will lead to a reduction of accuracy and precision of political terms used in articles. Ignoring precision, neutrality, and accuracy issues, the fact that "China" is the common name for PRC would call for a merger of the PRC and China articles, not a move.--Jiang (talk) 17:48, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • We can't possibly do things in some magical order that solves all of these issues at once. Nothing short of an arbitration motion can do anything else. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • See below. I don't see how postponing a decision cannot be done.--Jiang (talk)
      • The discussion is happening now. I didn't start it - and there is nothing that can be done. If we need to agree some more technical details get the arbitration committee to lock down the articles to give us a chance to sort that out. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support Per arguments by, including others, Eraserhead. In my personal experience having visited Taiwan, the Taiwanese have no problem referring to the PRC as "China" (中國), the hordes of mainland tourists as "Chinese" (中國人) -- in addition to numerous less-flattering descriptions. siafu (talk) 18:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • "I met some Taiwanese people" should never be a good reason to make major changes in Wikipedia article titles. Taiwan is a pluralistic society with differing viewpoints. I've lived in Taiwan and can say with more authority that while some Taiwanese (mainly Taiwan independence supporters) will refer to the PRC as "China" (中國), many others (the other half) will refer to it as "the mainland" (大陸). At a logical level, calling mainland tourists "Chinese" (中國人) does not imply that Taiwanese themselves are not "Chinese".--Jiang (talk) 03:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • My comment was not being presented as evidence (hence my reference to arguments made by others), just as a corrollary to the fact that I think this discussion is resting too much on theory, and not enough on observation. siafu (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Incoming copypasta from Talk:Senkaku Islands dispute, put on your helmets: "Identity politics varies between those with Pan-Blue and Pan-Green sympathies, and is all in all a political issue. Those who associate with Pan-Green view themselves as Taiwanese (and "definitely not Chinese"), and their country as "Taiwan", whilst those who are Pan-Blue view themselves as both "Taiwanese" and "Chinese", and refer to their nation as "ROC", with their geographical origin being the island of Taiwan. It's essentially an irrelevant correlation to claim that no one from Taiwan would solely refer to themselves as "Chinese" - its obvious that they would point out their geographic origins to demonstrate that they're not from "that China". You know, the evil one that uses red colours alot and they say on Fox News that they murder poor children all day every day withe Mеlаminе and send scary, nasty soldiers into Tibеt (oh dear, poor them) all day every day. Similarly, ask any Hongkonger where they are from, and they will say "Hong Kong". The current global environment makes it unlikely for someone from Taiwan to solely refer to themselves as "Chinese". ... set theory ... Individuals, companies, all have their identities subject to their political views. Pan-Green leaning companies tend to write things such as "台灣製造 Made in Taiwan" and "台灣產品 Product of Taiwan" (I have a packet of 超级99棒 brand biscuits in front of me that does exactly this), whilst Pan-Blue leaning companies tend to write things such as "中華民國台灣" or "Made in Taiwan, R.O.C" (my LCD monitor has this printed on the back). Then there's the "degree of severity", so to speak - if you're Pan-Green "enough", you'll call your homeland "Formosa", not Taiwan; after all, the word "Taiwan" is apparently the Chinese corruption of "What is that?" in a Taiwanese Aborigine language, or so they say; if you're really Pan-Blue (though a limited number of people actually do this), you'll even drop the "Taiwan" from the line "Republic of China (Taiwan)"." -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • See my comment above. siafu (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support confusion about name China hasn't existed since 1971. Dalit Llama (talk) 22:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support Chinese-language usage and policies of other wiki projects are irrelevant here, #Sources and the preceding discussion show that "China" is the common English name for the PRC. Common name stems from majority English usage, and the majority of the English-language media are not based in the ROC or the PRC. Above arguments against the neutrality of the rename based on direct translation from the common Chinese names into English or views of the KMT/DPP political parties are unfounded as well, again because they are not the majority of the English-language media. My opinion is that, in order to show that the rename violates neutrality, an argument would have to be made to show that the majority English-language media (esp. the native populations of North America, British Isles, Australasia, and the rest of Anglosphere) considers that the PRC's shorthand name as "China" to be non-neutral usage that is to be avoided, which I don't think is the case here. --Shibo77 (talk) 00:02, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Support The PRC is what people usually mean when they say 'China', by far. This has needed to be done for a very long time. Whenever I want to look up something about the PRC, I type in 'China' in the search bar, and there is momentary disorientation when I end up here instead and have to click a link to another article. I can't be the only person who experiences this problem, and it is pointless, awkward, irksome situation. Zazaban (talk) 01:53, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I would like to amend my original comment, and say that upon reading more from the 'oppose' camp, I see their point. Also, the status quo creates the unique situation of the PRC and ROC, current entities, being presented on the same level as historical forms of 'China,' such as the Qing Dynasty. I'm not sure if that makes sense the way I've said it. Zazaban (talk) 17:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose China = PRC either implies that ROC is illegitimate, or that Taiwan is not part of China. Both cases violate NPOV. This is also the exact reason why both pro-PRC and Pro-TI POV pushers want it. T-1000 (talk) 02:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm a Chinese mainlander and a citizen of PRC. Despite that, I oppose this propsal strongly. China is a cultural conception rather than a political one just as PRC or ROC. It's just like that you can't redirect Korea to the South Korea or the Northern one, neither is proper. So the two cases are the same. However, in comparison with the large size and influence of China mainland, ROC or Taiwan is comparatively small and uninfluential in the world. But it is completely ridiculous that out of ROC's poor international position and to deprive ROC of its relationship to China is subtlely obnoxious. In the history of China, many territories ever belonged to China, in contrast, the territory of PRC at present times is just one part, not all of China. In the fields of culture, history, language, thoughts, literature and so on, the conception of China is much much broader than you ever thought. You guys can't define China by the utter misconception of Westerners unless Wikipedia is just a Western one, an American one or an European one? Otherwise, the entry of China should never be equated to PRC at all.———Aronlee90 (talk) 05:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • This is the English Wikipedia, so what counts is how China is referred to in English. If you can provide sources, in English, which point to China in the sense you describe please add them to the list. With regards to Korea in English it is trivial to find sources using some means to disambiguate between the two and neither is called just "Korea". -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • The Taipei Times article directly below indicates how the Taiwan government is explicitly opposed to referring to the PRC as China. Of course, just one POV of many. Also, to support their view that they are the legitimate Korea, South Korean sources will often use "Korean" instead of "South Korean" in English. See [13]. I remember an incident where the South Korean government protested to the Taiwanese media for referring to them as "South Korea" instead of "Korea" in Chinese. --Jiang (talk) 08:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • why do they keep using it in that way then? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • It should be the Westerners' misconception of China to blame. You can't edit and change the entry of China according to a completely biased and unfair conception. Before the founding of People's Republic of China, was there the word "China"? What did it mean? The present president of ROC, Mr. Ma and the government of ROC also make it clear that ROC is the only legitimate delegate of China and holds that there is only one China in the world. Also, the president of PRC claims that PRC is the only legitimate delegate of China and holds that there is only one China. If Wikipedia redirects this entry to PRC, Mr. Ma is just talking about sh*t? Are you guys joking? You'd better just forget the NPOV and do your own English-semantic glory. And others will also have enough reason to redirect America to USA because everyone thinks America = USA when they mention America.——Aronlee90 (talk) 11:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Given in the article linked in this discussion where they are talking about his claim to "one China" they call Taiwan Taiwan and the Taiwanese the Taiwanese its clear that even the Taiwanese media think that "China" isn't the name to use for Taiwan even when talking about "one China". With regards to neutrality we should be following our sources, and they use appear to China overwhelmingly to refer to the PRC. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 03:45, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
      • You can just read the entry 1992 Consensus which is still the most formal and the greatest common denominator on political identity of China by both PRC and ROC. Despite its nominal non-governmental appearances of the ARATS and SEF, the two organizations are in fact established to avoid the international misunderstanding that both sides had admitted the other's legitimacy and then made the two organizations as a bridge or a buffer to communicate with each other. In fact, this concensus can just be understood as a formal treaty of two governments of PRC and ROC that both admits the notion of One China of which ROC takes One China as ROC and PRC takes One China as PRC. Despite that they never admit the other, this consensus is the foundation of the peace of cross-strait relationship and understanding. If Wikipedia just ignores this consensus and redirect China to PRC, NPOV will just be a joke.——Aronlee90 (talk) 06:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
        • The 1992 Consensus is a Chinese-language document from an official political source, it is pertinent only to Chinese-language usage and article titles on the Chinese Wikipedia, not to English-language usage and article titles on the English Wikipedia, not to mention it is highly POV. --Shibo77 (talk) 23:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - ROC and PRC claim to be China. The move will not maintain a NPOV. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 06:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Source? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • 'One China' is the 'Republic of China': president DPP criticizes Ma over interview in ‘Washington Post’--Jiang (talk) 08:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Please add them to the sources list above. What I do find funny is quotes like "To the Taiwan government, “one China” refers to the “Republic of China,”" - so although they are a "China" their country is still called Taiwan. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Obvious support - We should reflect reality in our articles. mgeo talk 08:30, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

perhaps, you could clarify your reasoning a little? not everyone is as convinced as you are about our need to reflect this "reality" you mention. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 08:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• • And the reality, i.e. the de facto circumstance, is that there are two sovereign states called China. The de jure on the other hand is that there is only one China. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Actually, the reality, i.e. the "de facto" circumstance, is that there is one country called China and another called Taiwan. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • There is no such country as Taiwan. Taiwan is one island of the Free Area of the Republic of China, along with Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu, Dongsha Islands and Taiping Island. In addition, the interpretation that "Taiwan "is" the ROC" is the viewpoint of the DPP (part of the Four-Stage Theory of the Republic of China, a controversial viewpoint proposed by former president and DPP leader Chen Shui-bian), and hence an extremely partisan POV. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 09:50, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • You're going against the flow of reliable sources arguing it's not called Taiwan. Surely if calling it Taiwan is an extremely partisan POV, calling it China is equally partisan. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
          • But its de facto. The country is called the Republic of China. The constitution of the ROC guarantees that as fact. Nowhere in the ROC constitution nor in the main backbone ROC federal laws is the word "Taiwan" even mentioned; recent modifications and addendum to the constitution and common laws use the term "Free Area" to describe the territory of the ROC not under control by the Chinese Communist Party. They call their written script Traditional Chinese and their language "Chinese". Taiwan's top music celebrities, from Jay Chou to Jolin Tsai, call their music C-pop (Chinese pop). Their airline is called China Airlines and their postal service Chunghwa Post. How is that partisan? -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 10:04, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
            • Names don't have to be legal. For example, we call Myanmar Burma and we call Timor-Leste East Timor. That's not an argument. Neither is the fact Taiwanese speak Chinese. Americans speak English, Argentinians speak Spanish, Senegalese speak French. Calling the ROC China as partisan as calling it Taiwan is, by the very fact it must be due to opposing POV, which I suppose would be anti-DPP. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
              • I agree with you. Article titles should reflect real English usage, and not necessarily what a government prescribes. I think this is a core principle of any credible encyclopedia. mgeo talk 13:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support This debate seems to hinge on the issue of NPOV; those that argue for this page say it is in line with NPOV, whereas others disagree. I disagree the current situation is NPOV. The argument of the supporters of this page setup (as far as I can tell) is that in real life two countries claim the title China, and that therefore we must have the China page devoted to neither. This by itself is a decent argument, but it doesn't hold up to outside usage. Almost every source we have found refers to the PRC unequivocally as China, with both sources using it for the ROC being political, and the one supporting the civilization being a historical page called "Imperial China" where the word "China" is prefaced by the word "Imperial" even in most of the prose. The argument has been brought up that all these sources are biased and follow a POV, and that therefore we shouldn't follow them. This is however ridiculous, as it is hugely presumptuous to think that only we have achieved neutrality, and no doubt if all the sources follow a particular POV then we do to. The correct way to title an article is to follow guidelines and ignore POVs. It is not NPOV to go against the terminology of what seems to be the whole english speaking world, including those from the ROC. (And even if it was, WP:POVTITLE says english usage can allow a POV title, and english usage is extremely clear in this case.) TheFreeloader made a good point here, where they noted that NPOV can not be taken in isolation from OR or V. So far we haven't found a single reliable source backing the setup of this page, while we have found a huge number backing the use of China for the PRC. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:42, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I think the current setup cannot be made to be fully NPOV, but it is the most NPOV it gets. Think of NPOV here as a goal rather than a reality. Unlike the overwhelming amount of sources, Wikipedia is not a newspaper, nor is it a paper; unlike newspapers, references to China here do not always speak of the present, and our ability to have a more general "China" article and a more specific "People's Republic of China" allows us to pinpoint what we mean by "China" in the instant context. In a historical context, the PRC might be wholly irrelevant; in the political context, it might be fully relevant; our ability to link to the specific article will help direct the reader to what is most relevant. I won't claim the sources are biased per se, but they are biased as news sources. What about the prevailing scholarship? Historians and political scientists commonly use the term PRC in the interests of accuracy and precision, which are goals less pressing for news journalists. See [14] [15] [16].--Jiang (talk) 08:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I don't see how creating an entirely new idea which doesn't seem to be expressed in the same way anywhere else could be the most NPOV way to describe something. The spirit of NPOV is that in creating articles we describe POVs, but reflect reality as best as possible and give each POV its due weight. The argument you give could be used for any country in the world, but we base each country article at its present name and describe its present system of government because chances are high thats what readers are looking for. If not they'd probably go to a history article. I'm quite sure many historians and political scientists use the term PRC, but so do many journalists. By itself that means nothing. I'd be much more interested if political scientists avoided the use of the word China to refer to the PRC but used the short names of other countries. Historians, as discussed and noted, would definitely use the term PRC if what they were writing about covered any period from 1949 to at least the 1970s, just as todays journalists write about Gadaffi and NTC forces rather than Libyan forces. And contrary to what you state, many journalists and newspapers strive to be as accurate as possible. Putting aside news sources, there are still a variety of other sources which use China to refer to the PRC. Encyclopaedia Britannica for example. In the end, this page (which doesn't have any specific easily definable topic) creates a huge deal out of a political situation which has in real life become, as said elsewhere, purely academic. It also means readers who are looking for the China that they see mentioned around them everyday are not taken to the page they are looking for.
      For the record, I agree with you that a separate Chinese Civilization page would not be a great idea, and a merger would be more appropriate. However, besides adding history, I can't really see what needs to be merged from this page to the PRC one that would make the move need to wait. This page is, after all, just duplicated information from the PRC and ROC pages. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Encyclopaedia Britannica called Taiwan a province, therefore it definitely already has a POV in this issue. T-1000 (talk) 17:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia does too in some places. It's a description of the PRC's POV, which is perfectly acceptable. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
          • EB wasn't talking about the PRC's POV, it defined Taiwan as a province, [17], which is a POV. Wikipedia only mentions that PRC has a Taiwan province in its administrative system, which is a fact. Hence, Wikipedia is neutral, while EB is not. T-1000 (talk) 18:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
            • Yes they were.
              • No, they weren't. They defined Taiwan as a province, based on "The government of the ROC continued to claim jurisdiction over the Chinese mainland, whereas the government of the People’s Republic of China on the mainland claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan; both governments remained in agreement that the island is a sheng (province) of China." [18], but that completely ignores the DPP's POV. T-1000 (talk) 05:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

"China has 33 administrative units directly under the central government; these consist of 22 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities (Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), and 2 special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The island province of Taiwan, which has been under separate administration since 1949, is discussed in the article Taiwan."

They gave the official subdivisions of the PRC, and then noted that one of the claimed provinces was not under their control, and even noted that it was covered in a separate article and therefore not covered in that article, showing they are just as neutral, if not more neutral, than our article, which mentions Taiwan multiple times. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

They've completely ignored the POV that Taiwan is a country. Furthermore, the Maps on the EB page directly show that Taiwan is a part of China. Face it, they already got a POV in this matter. T-1000 (talk) 05:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there a reason you've split your response? Anyway, there's nothing wrong with what they said. Both governments do remain in agreement Taiwan is a province; that's true. They cover the Taiwan is a country POV on their Taiwan page, which you are free to look at. You are also free to look at their first map on the China page, which clearly notes "Taiwan under separate administration", again almost exactly the same as our map of the PRC with Taiwan in light green. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:22, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

They made no mention of the dispute that Taiwan is a province or a country. The Kids Brittanica specifically said that "Taiwan is a province of China, not an independent country." T-1000 (talk) 06:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well they clearly state it is under a separate administration, which implies they are a separate country. As for the Kids Britannica, I'd like to see the whole entry rather than one out of context post. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:59, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The PRC recognize that Taiwan is under separate administration (They refer to the Taiwan authorities), but it does not recognize Taiwan as a country. The Two are not the same. As for the Kids Brittanca, the entry is here: [19]. T-1000 (talk) 02:45, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

• I would doubt whether anyone can merge the China and People's Republic of China articles into one with no POV problem. 116.48.84.190 (talk) 17:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I doubt anyone can do anything significant on the project with no POV problem. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Move China to China (geographical region) and move China (disambiguation) to China. 116.48.84.190 (talk) 17:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: There are enough different things that are commonly called "China" that China should be a disambiguation page. --Carnildo (talk) 17:37, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: I agree with others above who have said that this rename would violate NPOV. It is not for us to decide what is legitimate and what is not, and that commitment to neutrality trumps all "common usage" arguments.--Danaman5 (talk) 18:02, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually it doesn't because there is a policy called WP:POVTITLE which states that to be truly neutral we must follow common usage if it is used significantly more. All the evidence presented so far shows that to be true. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. The primary topic for China is the China that includes both mainland and Taiwan. Search for "China" in an image-based search and you will see more maps of this China than maps of the PRC. Statistics for China will almost always include Taiwan. There is a clear consensus among sources is that Taiwan and the mainland together constitute "China". In regards to which government is the legitimate one, this is a separate issue, unrelated to Wikipedia's naming practices and certainly unrelated to common usage. This comes under our NPOV policy instead, and we should be presenting this article the same way we do Western Sahara, Kosovo or Macedonia, allowing for common-sense differences as each case is unique. Rennell435 (talk) 18:17, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • How do you know the maps aren't just showing the PRC to the extent it claims, which includes the island of Taiwan? The same applies to statistics, especially those gathered by the UN and other political bodies that recognise the PRC's claim to the island (and the other, smaller, islands of course). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • And how do we know this evidence even exists in significant quantity? AFAIK it hasn't been added to the sources section yet. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • There is certainly no such consensus among sources that Taiwan and the mainland together constitute "China." We know this partly because of how extremely common it is to talk about relation between "Taiwan" and "China". Take a look at popular English language sources (such as those in the above list) and you'll see this. 184.100.212.55 (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose merge PRC and China. 116.48.84.190 (talk) 04:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• If you insist on making this a binary choice, I support, but I think neither the article currently at China nor the article currently at People's Republic of China quite matches what I'd rather the article at China was, though the latter comes much closer to it. The article at China should be about China as a whole, both historically and currently, and both geographically/ethnically/culturally and politically, summary style; OTOH, since the mainland is much bigger than Taiwan and the PRC is much more widely recognized than the ROC, per WP:UNDUE the main China article should discuss the mainland at much greater lengths than Taiwan and the PRC at much greater lengths than the ROC. And it should definitely have the infobox about the PRC on it, though I wouldn't object to it having the one about the ROC as well. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • That's a better option, like the Libya article currently does. I'd support something like that, but not moving PRC → China. Nightw 14:16, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support making the "China page" about the PRC and a separate "Chinese civilization" or "Historic/geographic China" or whatever for much of the content currently here. That would bring this into line with the system for every other country and put an end to one of WP's weirdest, long-standing and most egregious quirks. Citing NPOV is all very well but there comes a point when that is just pettifogging (which often also disguises a POV all of its own, with fringe or minority views seeking equality under the guise of "neutrality"). Many states and other bodies have territorial and authority/authenticity issues (eg AFC Wimbledon vs Wimbledon FC) and/or have an extensive back history that may not be encompassed entirely in the modern entity (as noted, for example, Egypt and Germany), but neither of those leads us to the contortion we've had here for so long; equally, other article titles, eg "XXX massacre" have arguable POV issues, but they stand because that is what the thing is commonly known as. Putting the PRC under China is not approving the PRC government view or excluding the Taiwanese view; it is simply WP noting that the massive majority of people and international bodies use "China" to mean exactly that and that is what they are likely to be looking for when they search for China here. What makes us special and different? The page on China would then also of course include content on the history of the country, which would cover the fact that - like all countries - it has covered shifting territory and has had numerous political regimes and structures in the past. Any more discrete and substantive alternatives - such as rival claims to being the successor nation, historic manifestations or a broader cultural region - can be incorporated in a hatnote and disambiguation page. Just like with Egypt, Germany, Italy, India etc etc N-HH talk/edits 14:13, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Bringing "this into line with the system for every other country" would not support the creation of the separate "Chinese civilization" article. Instead, it would support a merger of the current "People's Republic of China" article into this one. That we don't have a merge on the table goes on to show that this move proposal is premature. We need to get sandboxes of what different changes would look like and then decide, not hastily do so right now. The main difference I see with the current setup and the examples you cite is that the current setup leads to more precision in article text. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, nor is it a paper; unlike newspapers, references to China do not always occur in the present tense, and our ability to have a more general "China" article and a more specific "People's Republic of China" allows us to pinpoint what we mean by "China" in the historical and geopolitical context.--Jiang (talk) 08:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    • OK, let's then have a "more precise" "Federal Republic of Germany" page about the modern state commonly known as, er, "Germany" - which would, presumably, include its history and how it got to where it is today - and a separate "Germany" page, which deals with a more nebulous and generic historical, geographic and cultural concept of Germany throughout the ages and/or which postulates that the true Germany is to be found in eastern Prussia; but which is very specifically not about the modern German state. After all, "Germany" has meant different things and covered different areas over the years and might mean different things when cited in article text, depending on the context (which should of course, in itself, provide the clarity that you correctly seek). If we do that, then I'll stand by the odd mish-mash that we have here currently. If not, and we're merely scrabbling around for excuses to avoid the blindingly obvious as to what people mean by "China", newspapers or not, then it's time to drop this bizarre exception - for that is precisely what it is. N-HH talk/edits 18:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
      • China is not like Germany. The ROC still exists, while East Germany no longer exists. T-1000 (talk) 19:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
        • I must have missed the bit where my point about Germany was substantively or primarily related to the existence, in the past or otherwise, of East and West Germany. It was about the fact that there is a broader "German" cultural and historical area, which has covered different geographies and politics over the years (including areas that are now in Poland), as has China. The bottom line is what people mean now when they talk about "Germany" or "China". (And, for the record, if we had had Wikipedia during those days, it should indeed have had separate articles on those two German entities, titled that way, as we have separate pages now on North Korea and South Korea. The situation with Taiwan and China is simply not analogous - are you saying that the People's Republic of China is commonly known as "Northwest China", rather than simply "China", and Taiwan as "Southeast China"?) N-HH talk/edits 19:47, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
          • No, the PRC/ROC Political situation is like Korea, and formerly Germany. Therefore, China should follow the Korea model. NPOV supersedes common name. That's the point of contention. T-1000 (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

North and South Korea are treated as equals by usage in sources. PRC/ROC are not. ROC as "China" is ignored. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Like I said before, common name allows for exceptions, otherwise Pro-life and Pro-Choice would be used. T-1000 (talk) 20:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed this is false equivalence, between China and Korea. So you do then contend T-1000 that Taiwan is commonly known as Southeast China - or something equivalent - and China as Northwest China. OK .... (and, surely, spurious NPOV, based on a minority POV, should never outweigh common name. Or we would never have pages called Suez Crisis, Peterloo Massacre etc; and Danzig-based German irredendists could claim Germany should not be used to refer to the modern German state). N-HH talk/edits 20:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Peterloo Massacre and Suez Crisis are examples of where a neutral title is unavailable. In this case, We do have a neutral title that PRC, ROC and TI agree upon, China = Civilization. So no need to invoke POVTITLE. T-1000 (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Well no, making China hit to this odd page just brings another whole POV into play - that the People's Republic of China is somehow not China. The POV issue here is not only a red herring, but actually cuts both ways. And sorry, but we call the Suez crisis the Suez crisis - however ridiculously underplayed that description is - because that is what it is called in both casual and serious sources, not because there is no better more "objectively neutral" alternative that is not a total WP invention. It really is that simple. Again, see India, Germany, Egypt etc etc ad nauseam. N-HH talk/edits 21:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

No, The PRC separates "China" from itself in the both the 1992 consensus and the Anti-secession law. T-1000 (talk) 22:13, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The 1992 consensus and the Anti-secession law are official Chinese-language documents with a mainland poitical POV. At most, they can serve as sources for article rename requests and proper Chinese-language usage at the Chinese Wikipedia, not here at the English Wikipedia. As far as I can tell, in no way does the two documents show that the common English-language usage of equating the longform name "People's Republic of China" with the shortform name "China" to be non-neutral usage. --Shibo77 (talk) 23:33, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no guideline saying that Chinese language sources can't be used on the English Wikipedia. Furthermore, what I was saying was that the PRC does not equate "China" with itself at all times, Thus, China = Civilization is neutral. T-1000 (talk) 00:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I should think that is for the main body of the article (of using POV documents and foreign-language sources), while the title of an article on the English Wikipedia should be based on English-language usage and English-language sources, the title should be in English after all. Sorry if I misunderstood, but my point is that those documents are the viewpoints of the Government of the People's Republic of China, in whether the Chinese-language or the English-language, their usage is a highly POV matter. Just as KMT and DPP usage. --Shibo77 (talk) 00:16, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Precisely because the PRC, KMT, and DPP all have their own POV, the article should focus on de facto control only instead of getting into legitimacy and sovereignty. And that's what the current setup is. T-1000 (talk) 04:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Why should it focus on de facto control but completely ignore de facto English usage? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Because the majority isn't always neutral. T-1000 (talk) 18:38, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Yet you base your defence of this page on the idea that it appeases the majority of POVs? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

No, it's because this article focuses on de facto control, which can never be disputed. T-1000 (talk) 05:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: China is ambiguous when referring to the sovereign entity. If China is mentioned in a geo-political context, mention must be made of the epoch if not to be ambiguous. Stripped of the modern geopolitical context, I expect the meaning to be the geographical entity, which forcibly includes summary details of the historical evolution of its land mass, people, and culture. Thus PRC certainly ought not to be moved to that namespace. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:46, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Where is the sourcing showing any ambiguity "when referring to the sovereign entity"? When other nations don't put the modern context state as the primary topic when "mention must be made of the epoch"? This response directly contradicts both sourcing and Wikipdia policy without any outside support but their internal opinion. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• Support per Fut.Perf. The mainland Chinese may not have much in the way of access or interest in editing Wikipedia or this poll would look much different, but that's not a good reason to let this article be held hostage by some islanders. 79.119.87.178 (talk) 12:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • >some islanders
    Great ad hominem there. Many of us base our arguments on actual fact rather than that "but he's from x" nonsense. I have no relation to the ROC nor the island of Taiwan whatsoever, and am an Overseas Chinese from the mainland that identifies with the PRC, though this is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Rather than basing how I treat Wikipedia via my own political adherations, I'd rather have Wikipedia describe the whole China situation realistically, and in actual fact there is more to China than the PRC, regardless of whether those who identify with the PRC would like to admit to or not.
    In addition, your argument regarding access of Wikipedia from mainland China makes no sense; Wikipedia is no longer blocked in China, and if you check the calendar today is no longer 2006. Whether or not mainland users are interested in contributing towards Wikipedia is another story - if they're not interested, it's their own doing, and arguing that "they are not interested" is a non-argument.
    Chinese people are "nationalistic" (so to speak) in their choice of website use; many would prefer using Youku to Youtube, Baidu Baike to Wikipedia, Renren to Facebook, and Sina Weibo to Twitter. You see this with all sorts of nationalities - Russians don't use Facebook, they use Vkontakte; Japanese prefer to use Nico Nico, Livedoor and Mixi to Youtube and social network sites. These people make their own personal choices on what websites to use, and it is invalid to say that here at Wikipedia we inherit some kind of "guilt" because certain people are ignorant too nation-centred to use this website. Whether or not there are fewer mainlanders here should not have any weight in discussing how things go on within Wikipedia at all. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:34, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
    • TL;DR: To clarify, I personally believe that the PRC is (or "should be") the only China, and this is my own nationalistic view; however I do acknowledge that realistically this is not the case, and that the ROC is a de facto valid regime, whether I like it or not, and whether the CPC likes it or not. Rather than placing my nationalistic sentiments on Wikipedia, I'd rather that the encyclopedia project explain the situation in a more down to earth manner, without taking any sides. This is for the benefit of the Wikipedia project (WP:NPOV), as well as the reader (who are more well informed). At the same time, I'd prefer it if people would argue the content and not the person. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:49, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm with Benlisquare on this one, we should avoid arguments based on the assumed political agendas of other editors. Perhaps you could amend your statement with some other rationale? 184.100.212.55 (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support - The United Nations has recognized the PRC to represent China since 1971 when the ROC lost her seat. STSC (talk) 16:21, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - China is not just the government of today, but an entity that has persisted for thousands of years. By this move, we are saying the government of the last 60 years takes precedence over the thousands of years of Chinese history. China is a place, a nation, a people, and more. The most broad identifier should have the broadest inclusion, not merely mean the current government. -- Avanu (talk) 21:07, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no suggestion that the China page should simply be about today's government or political system as such - just that the page under this name should be primarily about the current geopolitical entity commonly known as China (which is the People's Republic of China; not Taiwan or Imperial China or whatever) rather than this odd half-way house. Like every other page on modern nation-states, that page would also provide detail on the history, the previous incarnations, the other territories that might be related to/divorced from it (or indeed wish to be separate from it), its cultural reach etc etc. It could also have hatnotes, see also's etc to link to other aspects of "China" and Chinese history; but its primary focus would be on the modern country. Again, see India, Germany etc - none of those pages are focused on Indian or German civilisation or culture as a whole. Neither should this one be. N-HH talk/edits 21:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Then the ROC would have to be described as a historic regime on China, which violates NPOV as whether the ROC has left China is disputed. T-1000 (talk) 22:22, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily, it would depend on the wording in the article should this rename take place. It would be important to stress that the Government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, Matsu and other outlying islands, and continued to claim legitimacy over the entirety of the Chinese territories controlled by the Government of the People's Republic of China, its continued recognition from many countries of the world and representing China in international organisations such as the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee for many years after the end of the Chinese Civil War. In any case, the section of the newly renamed article "China" dealing with the current situation would focus on the People's Republic of China (per WP:COMMONNAME and consensus above should rename occur), rather than on the Republic of China on Taiwan, which would continue to exist as a separate article at either Republic of China or Taiwan or both (a separate issue from this particular rename request, in my opinion). --Shibo77 (talk) 23:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It would still be a NPOV violation because the KMT would say that ROC was forced out of "Mainland", but not "China". T-1000 (talk) 00:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I do not doubt that, however, that is the KMT's POV, just as the DPP and the CPC would have a different POV on the usage of the name "China". Political POV aside, more importantly, the KMT, DPP, CPC and their supporters in the ROC and PRC are not majority English-language speakers, they do not dictate what the common and neutral English-language usage is, rather it is the Anglosphere, and the majority of the Anglosphere ("Western misconception" or not) equates the shortform name of "China" with the "People's Republic of China" (per #Sources and other user's comments above).--Shibo77 (talk) 00:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's the point of contention. The argument is that we must be neutral about China's disputed status first (whether PRC has succeed ROC to all of China), then consider common name, because while common name allows for exceptions, NPOV is non-negotiable. T-1000 (talk) 04:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I think I am gaining a better understanding of the problem. I would like to ask, why is the current solution considered NPOV? I'm not sure if I understand this correctly:
The subject matter concerns the PRC and the ROC with the three major politcal parties CCP, DPP, KMT;
The POV of the KMT would likely support the current situation or perhaps (as a more radical/likely WP:FRINGE viewpoint) rename the Republic of China to China;
The POV of the CCP and the DPP would likely support renaming People's Republic of China to China;
Per WP:COMMONNAME, which is the normal guideline for article titles, People's Republic of China would indeed be renamed to China; however, due to this yielding the same result as the CCP/DPP POV, we must consider the KMT's POV in order to be NPOV, and maintain three separate articles at China, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. Perhaps to avoid readers into thinking that the PRC is the only legitimate "China", or the successor state to the ROC, or delegitimising the KMT and the ROC, or a combination thereof.
Correct me if I have misunderstood, but to me, this seems to be following the KMT's POV, while disregarding COMMONNAME, majority usage and the CCP/DPP POV, and this is definitely not a NPOV. I think NPOV would be best achieved through neutral descriptions in the body of the article rather than through the article title. This rename concerns China, Chinese civilization, and the People's Republic of China. Republic of China and Taiwan would remain unchanged. I do not think the rename would violate NPOV nor do I think it delegitimises the KMT or the ROC. I (and most English-language sources) would agree that there are currently two sovereign states with "China" in their names, but I disagree that there are two sovereign states named "China" or using the shortform name "China". They may seem equivalent, but it is far from the truth. Currently and for quite a few decades now, the Republic of China has not named itself simply "China" in either the English-language or the Chinese, the longform, "Republic of China" would most likely have the shortform "ROC" or "Taiwan" (possibly depending on KMT/DPP allegiance). Under English-language usage, having "China" as the equivalent or shortform to the "Republic of China" is very much a fringe usage (possibly a fringe English-language usage even within the KMT itself). I agree with User:Eraserhead1, that in this case, to be NPOV, the COMMONNAME should be used, which is also the majority usage in the Anglosphere and just happens to follow the CCP/DPP POV. This however, does not mean that Wikipedia supports the CCP/DPP POV, and disregards the KMT's POV, such POV matter (Political status of Taiwan, Two Chinas, One China, etc.) should be described in detail in the body of the article to maintain NPOV. --Shibo77 (talk) 09:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Because the PRC, ROC and TI all agree that China can refer to the Civilization. T-1000 (talk) 18:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Sure, this rename does not change that fact. A renamed China article would still have contents about Chinese civilization, in much the same way as other country articles. (Curious observation: the People's Republic of China article has material concerning pre-modern Chinese civilization, yet the the Republic of China article does not.) China can mean Chinese civilization but it is not exclusively so. Based on #Primary topic, Chinese civilization is not the primary topic of "China". If there are significant English-language sources showing that the Republic of China refers to itself simply as "China", (in a similar way to that of the Vatican website), then there is a case for NPOV to take precedence over COMMONNAME, otherwise this rename is not an NPOV issue. --Shibo77 (talk) 19:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

The title of an article implies a lot of things however. It's not as simple as "move it to X, then explain it in detail", otherwise we wouldn't have all the edit wars at Sea of Japan, Senkaku Islands, Liancourt Rocks, et cetera. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 11:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that name is important, but in this case, I do not feel that the current setup is justified. For the Sea of Japan, Senkaku Islands, Liancourt Rocks, there are significant English-language usage to the contrary, and of course, a very vocal opposition to those English-language names, (incidentally, they seem to be kept at their current article title because it is the COMMONNAME). While for the current rename request, I do not see much opposition from even within the ROC and the KMT, namely, opposition against the English-language usage of "China" for the People's Republic of China. If the KMT, ROC and others are highly vocal that the two are not equivalent and that they do indeed use "China" as a shortform name for the "Republic of China" and not simply for the "People's Republic of China", then we do have a dispute at hand, and I would agree that the rename would violate NPOV, but as far as I can tell based on #Sources and my personal experience and knowledge, there is not a (or only a very marginal per the Vatican website source) dispute against the rename. --Shibo77 (talk) 16:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

>there are significant English-language usage to the contrary
Surely you jest. Regarding Sea of Japan, name me a country that does not have "Korea" in its name that calls it the East Sea. As the Sea of Japan naming dispute article states, websites such as Google Maps and About.com list the name as "Sea of Japan (East Sea)" simply because nationalist groups such as VANK bombard them with annoying emails until they do so. Yes, they are an example of "vocal opposition", but this is merely a mouse with a megaphone outroaring an elephant. At the same time, Japanese nationalists come in hordes from 2channel and roar back, and all in the end we have a massive dick-poking fest between 2channel users and VANK members on Wikipedia. Currently the situation regarding China in its current form is relatively peaceful in comparison with the whole Sea of Japan and Liancourt Rocks shitfest; would you rather that China become a dick-poking fest in the future as well? By making such controversial page moves, there is bound to be butthurt from groups, vocal or not, significant or not. Currently the hordes of Chinese astroturfers from Tianya, Mop and Baidu Tieba don't really give a damn about Wikipedia because it isn't within their range of comfort; on the other hand, I'd presume Taiwanese trolls from 2cat would be at the ready at any time to cause a shitstorm if things don't go their way. Dealing with penis-stroking fights on Wikipedia is a pain in the ass, and I'd rather not make the situation more ripe for such fights. There hasn't been too much of an issue with the status quo; it's preferable not to venture too much into the unknown. (Before anyone asks, WP:NOTCENSORED. "Kinder words" cannot stress the degree of the situation enough.) -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 00:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Support - My perception is that the current naming is a throwback to times when it was easier to POV-push on WP. High time the error was corrected. Yes, China has a long history, but so does India, Germany etc etc and there is no reason to give different treatment in the case of China. --FormerIP (talk) 21:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
  • But there is only one India. Pakistan calls itself Pakistan, and Bangladesh calls itself Bangladesh; there is no "Republic of India" vs. "Islamic Republic of India" situation that parallels the situation we have for China. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 12:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Currently, under English-language usage, it is only the People's Republic of China that calls itself "China", while the Republic of China calls itself the "ROC" or "Taiwan" (or even "Formosa"), very rarely would the Republic of China refer to itself as simply "China". The current setup against the renaming of the People's Republic of China to China is indeed a throwback to decades ago when the ROC possibly did refer to itself as simply "China", and/or inference by past Wikipedia editors from politically motivated Chinese-language documents which have been directly translated into the English-language without regard to current and actual English-language usage. --Shibo77 (talk) 16:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose - Although I am aware and have stated that the common name for PRC is "China", I have also stated that I believe the current status quo works best. A final solution wouldn't please everyone, anyway. I am however, open to other ideas.--Tærkast (Discuss) 11:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

What do you think of A. di M.'s idea (at 13:53, 3 September 2011) ? Nightw 12:07, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not a bad one, and I do like the idea of both PRC/ROC infoboxes being included in the article as well.--Tærkast (Discuss) 12:38, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose It is not for Wikipedia to decide which government is legitimate. Neutrality is more important than "common usage". Ignorance and common attitudes do not make something true and we shouldn't present majority ideas as true. Most people refute the idea that Jesus was the son of God, but we don't go ahead and say that he wasn't. We present it fairly. Icarus^talk 15:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. As others have noted here, even the Chinese Wikipedia reflects the current arrangement found on the English Wikipedia. International authority is not a reason to shift away from current NPOV arrangement -- because such authorities are influenced by politics, not neutral descriptions. We can also look at scholarly contributions on Google Scholar: of the 5.5 million articles found on "China" -- most are on geography or the civilisation or culture -- not the political state. The ones on the political state are comparable in number to the Scholar hits for "People's Republic of China" (800,000). elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to echo what another editor said: "China" is more than just the PRC, and they only appear the same when we're speaking in a modern context. In English we happen to one name for multiple concepts. Consider our articles for the Roman Empire, and imagine an English Wikipedia had existed in the time of Justinian -- this move proposal would be akin to moving Eastern Roman Empire over the current Roman Empire. Avoid WP:RECENTISM. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of move proposal

ROC capital

• One might ask, "What is the capital of China"? The answer appears to be, according to recent reliable sources, Beijing. Consider the google searches for (in quotes) "The capital of China is Beijing", and "The capital of China is Taipei". The results of such a search are overwhelmingly in favour of Beijing. Is there evidence that it's a non-neutral statement to say that the capital of China is Beijing? Mlm42 (talk) 16:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • This is irrelevant. Even the ROC claims that the capital of China is Beijing (Peking). They just happen not to be in control of it. Deryck C. 16:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The capital of the ROC is Nanking. Since the ROC lost Nanking militarily, it relocated to Chungking, then Chengdu, then Guangdong, and finally in Taipei. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 16:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Maybe I'm confused, but I though the capital of the ROC was Taipei.. that's what the article says, anyway. Mlm42 (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Many a country/state/region/whatever has a separate "capital" and a "location of government headquarters", and it gets complicated when the government doesn't actually control the capital... anyway it's fine, we all get lost in history. Deryck C. 17:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Nanking was the constitutional capital of the ROC, but it was lost during the Chinese Civil War; the ROC government relocated to Taipei, which was its "provisional capital", and the seat of government ended up there. I recall that I might have read from somewhere, but am unsure of where, that in recent years (c. 2000-2008) the ROC passed a law which officially recognised Taipei as capital, or something along those lines. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 17:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
        • Just a clarification, Nanking is not the constitutional capital of the ROC, Chiang Kai-shek wanted it to be, but it was met with resistance during the First National Assembly, and so no city was named the national capital in the Constitution of the Republic of China.--Shibo77 (talk) 23:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• RE:"geographical china" or "non-politicized geography". There is an extremely artificial distinction being made between the territories controlled by the PRC and some other area which is called china but somehow is not to be confused with the borders of the PRC. The fact is that there is no non-political geography involved in the borders of countries. If china were an island it would be easy to see how the border is defined by something other than politics but the borders of what we call China have always been predominantly defined as the area controlled by the state commonly referred to as China. These borders have fluctuated throughout history and today what we call China in geography in English is those areas controlled by the PRC. Chengdu is in China because it is controlled by the PRC. If it were to be annexed by India we would then call it "Chengdu, India". Of course there are some disputed territories which require some explanation. The borders are politically defined so arguments based on "geographic (not political) China" are nonsensical semantic shell-games. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 17:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• This move proposal is premature. It will instantly affect thousands of articles and cannot be made without consensus on how to edit existing links to the affected articles. Does every instance of [[People's Republic of China]] get changed to [[China]]? Do we destroy all pipelinks in the process? or do we make [[China|People's Republic of China]] the default? More problematic will be the existing links to [[China]] where the vast majority of links are ambiguous as to whether the modern state entity is implicated, so we won't even know whether to maintain the link to [[China]] or change it to [[Chinese civilization]] or to pick one at random. A discussion on article links will be need to flesh out these details, perhaps suggesting to us that the [[Chinese civilization]] articles doesn't even need to exist. --Jiang (talk) 18:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • See your talk page, I suggest you get an arbitration motion that other pages won't be moved. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure I understand how arbitration is the best way to go about this. Yes, go ahead and file something if you believe it is the best option. This is a major change - I don't see why we cannot wait a couple more weeks to sort out any outstanding issues.--Jiang (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • ArbCom don't judge content disputes ;) Deryck C. 03:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • This isn't "getting Arbcom to judge a content dispute" its getting them to lock something down so a discussion can occur. I don't think I'll have the time to do it, but someone should make a request at the arbitration requests page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:37, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
          • ArbCom doesn't do preemptive lockdowns either. We'll already have a cluster of mess by the time someone among us manages to get ArbCom to pass an injunction. We're better off starting a separate straw poll here now if you want a lock in case the RM goes through. Deryck C. 16:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
            • Arbcom isn't known for quick decisions. Jiang has a point about other articles - it needs discussing. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The problem already exists. Of the exiting links to China many are clearly meant to be to the modern state, which is the PRC. Many others are referring to the geographic territory which again is represented by the PRC. Those linking to China that are not meant for the country often have better targets such as Chinese mathematics or the Chinese language. But this should not affect the discussion anyway. Where a move breaks links from other articles, as often happens, the solution is to fix the links.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
    • My degree of support or opposition to the move proposal depends on how the article text will be changed in other articles. If this is going to lead to a wholesale destruction of mentions of "People's Republic of China" in Wikipedia, then I strongly oppose. I don't see how we cannot discuss this issue, as well as whether to create a "Chinese civilization" article before attempting to change anything.--Jiang (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • As has been explained to you in this section, the move does not entail the "wholesale destruction of mentions of 'People's Republic of China' in Wikipedia", because using the PRC's full name is necessary when "China" is ambiguous. However, in most cases, "China" is not ambiguous, which is why we see it so often in reliable sources. Quigley (talk) 03:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
        • You and I agree on that point, but that's not necessarily what is going to occur without a discussion and consensus on what to do. My argument is procedural - decide on what to do with the links before moving articles, because once articles are moved, the links will become redirects and will need to be changed immediately, without time for a proper discussion.--Jiang (talk) 03:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Notified WP:COUNTRIES. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:18, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• • • • • • • I think I understand your complaint, but I don't think you should be worried. One of the reasons we are not providing an alternative inside this move request is that we can only realistically expect to settle one question at a time. Since this move was generally perceived as not interfering with the eventual merge request, someone took the initiative to post the request and we all went along. I agree that the two should be merged and I look forward to a productive merge discussion. In the mean time, this is a big step in the right direction. As for overzealous automatic conversion of every instance of "People's Republic of China" to "China", this move doesn't support that and we can't make any binding decisions about all of wikipedia on this article discussion page. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:33, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Here's a thought: If "China" should be about the PRC per "common name (in English)" as is argued, why isn't America about the United States? While it is somewhat different, I do think it is comparable. When people say "in America" (in English), they mean the United States... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In short, because the term "America" is ambiguous enough (i.e. enough reliable sources are divided on its usage) to warrant a disambiguation page. I think if "China" were a disambiguation page, it would be an improvement on the current situation. Mlm42 (talk) 00:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Think of the current article as a disambiguation page with text - i.e. use of the primary topic method. This was the intention in 2003 when we split off the PRC article. Our intention back then was not to create a "Chinese civilization" article.--Jiang (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

@Jiang, regardless of previous editors' intentions, this page is no longer a disambiguation page, unfortunately. There is so much text that readers get confused regarding what the article is about; and previous RfC's indicate that a large number of readers think it's about the modern country whose capital is Beijing. This is why I think the current article set-up is a problem. Mlm42 (talk) 17:24, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

People said the same thing about the article formerly known as "people of the United States", which is now titled Americans. The reason for "America" being a disambiguation page probably has more to do with inertia and the difficulties of Wikipedia's decision-making processes than with any sound policy-based rationale. Quigley (talk) 01:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of the reasons for America being a disambiguation page, we should avoid WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTSWP:Other stuff exists arguments. Sometimes these comparisons are valid, especially when those other articles appear to form a convention, but most of the time comparison of this RM to another single article is a waste of everyone's times. For example, we could have a discussion about Ireland, but there are many reasons why that is not productive. I happen to think that comparisons with France and Germany are useful, but we need to stick to policy and issues relating to this article. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 01:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is a case of the "othercrap"-thing (and I never said anything about "crap", I could just as well have meany "othergoodstuffexists", no?)). "America" and "Ireland" are quite similar. This is about the present moment, not history/a situation in the past; so I don't know how Germany or France could even be brought up here (yes, I've read the above, it doesn't make sense to me). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:35, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

othergoodstuffexists is fine as well except it doesn't link to what I wanted to show you. The point is that a decision made on another article such as the United States is not as valid an argument for what to do with this article as it might at first seem. Ireland is a whole 'nother bag of worms that we probably shouldn't get into. Instead we might stick to PRC, China, and policy/guidelines. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 08:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

you still don't get it. I'm not "arguing", I'm trying to have a conversation here; as a matter of fact, I'm on the fence. So — convince me instead of throwing rules at me... actually, "convince me" is more directed at the people who are against this move. I understand common name quite well. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 08:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

One difference between the usage of China and America is that America is rarely, if ever, used in formal documents and the like, whereas China is used in them all the time. The CIA factbook, to take an american example, uses "United States" to title its page about the USA, as do most other websites with pages about each country. America is often not even mentioned as an alternate name. China is used on basically all of these (as shown in the list above). Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: The support votes above support moving [[People's Republic of China]] to [[China]], but do not support moving [[China]] to [[Chinese civilization]]. Discussion of the latter is missing and should be addressed for any move to occur.--Jiang (talk) 02:59, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I think support for move of China to Chinese civilization is implied with support for the PRC to China move as its not problematic. Is there a good reason that someone might support the one but not the other? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe it is implied; it is implied only insofar as the existing article has to give way, either dumped out of the article space or under a separate name. Argument (not necessarily my personal view): There is no reason for a "Chinese civilization" article to exist. References to historical China can either link to history of China or where the modern state might be implicated, China itself. I don't see why a requested merge is not provided as an alternative.--Jiang (talk) 03:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. I'd agree a separate article from history doesn't need to exist. Perhaps we should agree that no move will be made immediately after this process, but will be delayed maybe a week while we discuss what to do with it then? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:04, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

You mean if we form a consensus to make the move, we should delay the actual moving of the articles until after concluding a "what's next?" discussion that will presumably include both a possible merge and how to handle links? I like that idea but I'm not sure how we would do such a thing given the number of editors involved. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:49, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

If people aren't interesting the current "China" article and aren't addressing it really shows that they don't think its as important as the PRC. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Another thought( and no, I'm not making a formal request^[yet], I just want to understand the whole range of opinions here): Those who say PRC should be moved to "China" per common name — would you also support moving "ROC" to "Taiwan" (obviously also common name)? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:47, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Taiwan is only one of the of the several islands controlled by the ROC. Moving the "ROC" article to "Taiwan" would be like moving the "United Kingdom" article to "Britain". --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Ah, UK semantics. Comparing anything to those will only make it more confusing. The UK would be fine named "Britain" in terms of names, as that is an acceptable synonym. The large island is called "Great Britain", which incidentally is also for the UK in some contexts, such as the olympics. Moving the ROC to "Taiwan" would be absolutely fine in my opinion, as it is the name of the country used by many sources (including the ROC). The "It is only one of many ROC islands" is a non-argument, countries aren't named logically. Antigua and Barbuda has more than just the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, the Isle of Man includes a smaller island, Ireland controls other islands as well as Ireland (and doesn't control the whole island of Ireland). English country names aren't logical, and we shouldn't try to treat them as such. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:52, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
      • The common names of the states you listed above are all part of (or the same as) their formal names. This is not the case for the ROC vs. Taiwan, so drawing parallels here is less appropriate. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 13:27, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
        • That's a good point, but they still quite clearly show that its common to have a country with the same name as a geographical body (or bodies) which it is not exactly coterminous to. Taiwan as a name for the country is a case of pars pro toto, and legal or not it is widely accepted and used as the english name for the country. (Out of curiosity, w ho linked Isle of Man in my last post and why? Now it just looks weird!) Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:37, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
          • They are clear and distinct, Just like 'China' vs 'PRC' – one is the geographical entity, the other is a political entity. They ought not to be conflated. It's clear that WP:COMMONNAME would be a disservice to readers if it perpetuates that conflation of the two types of entities; that being the case, it should be jettisoned and each geopolitical 'country' should occupy a namespace separate and independent from its geographical one. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
            • The entities may be, but the words used to describe them are not. English isn't a very accurate of scientific language at all (unlike many others) and things have confusing names. Taiwan could refer to the island or to the ROC when used in English. Also, where does this idea of a geographical China come from? The geography of China is completely defined by its politics. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 13:04, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
              • Just because English isn't a very accurate of scientific language, it does not mean we strop trying to be precise in communicating separate notions. Modern news reporting and communications takes very liberal shortcuts. Notwithstanding, the concept of 'China' is quite distinct from either the PRC or Taiwan; it must include both Taiwan and the PRC. It is thus gross oversimplification on our part to redirect this namespace to the PRC, which by definition excludes Taiwan (except for the reciprocal territorial claims on the entire Chines territory). --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
                • Of course we shouldn't, but calling the ROC Taiwan is perfectly good and standard English; even the ROC webpages have "Republic of China (Taiwan)" on them. I would even suppose that "Taiwan" is more associated with the ROC then specifically with the island itself, as if a source is discussing the island it will clarify that rather than clarify it is discussing the state. Anyway, where does this idea that China is distinct from the political body governing it? It's not; the definition of what makes up China has always followed the borders of its governing body. For the record, the island of Taiwan has historically rarely been included in China. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
                  • • English is plenty accurate and scientific. I know this because of all the amazing amounts of scientific and technical literature written in English. Furthermore, check the sources again, its not only the newspapers which are using the common form of the name. Scientists, Diplomats, China-scholars, etc. use the common name in place of the official name. While the debate is indeed a similar one, we do not need to make a decision about Taiwan here, If you wish to discuss the Taiwan and ROC articles directly then perhaps that should be done at talk:Taiwan. Trying to shoehorn a Taiwan ROC merge into this discussion is an unneeded distraction from an already fairly complicated discussion. 19:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The country article currently locates at Republic of Ireland instead of Ireland. The same is true for Macedonia, e.g. (Btw, do Northern Ireland athletes compete in the Irish team or the Great Britain team?) 116.48.84.190 (talk) 17:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Those countries are indeed at those names, but we actually have sources for the other uses of the term, unlike here; Ireland covers a clearly defined island, while the other prominent Macedonia is a province of Greece. Northern Irish athletes have been allowed to play for both olympic teams. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• This map is not entirely correct. The Republic of China claim Mongolia, Tannu Uriankhai, etc. Those areas should be shaded instead of excluded. The ROC map should be used, instead of the PRC map. 116.48.84.190 (talk) 17:05, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Which map are you referring to, precisely? Zazaban (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Most likely File:Movement.png Quigley (talk) 20:23, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Since we're talking about maps and territorial claims, here's three to clarify what's going on:

• 
  Actual control of the ROC.
• 
  Territorial claims of the ROC.
• 
  Territorial claims of the PRC.
• 
  The claims of the ROC were defined by the National Assembly in 1913 as the areas formerly controlled by the previous Qing Dynasty, excluding areas formally lost to the Russian Empire through officially signed treaties. Here's 1820's Qing for comparison.

What I assume the IP editor was concerned about was that the ROC capitals map excluded Outer Mongolia; though the ROC claimed Outer Mongolia, it was de facto independent during the majority of the time the ROC existed on the mainland, as far as I know. There was a period of time when Outer Mongolia was briefly occupied by the Beiyang Government of the ROC between 1919-1921 though (see Occupation of Mongolia). -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 04:54, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Geographic use of the term China

I see there is a large number of people above claiming that China is used geographically. If this is true then it needs to be made clear how China "geographically" is a different area of land than the PRC and evidence should be provided which backs up the claim. Given WP:POVTITLE and other policies showing that something is in common usage is extremely important. If China really is used geographically you should be able to add evidence to the "used geographically" section I have just created. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Inevitably there will be those who argue that what zh.wp does is independent of en.wp, I would just point out that the article currently occupying the 'China' namespace appears to closely mirror the contents of its zh.wp counterpart. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
• I see plenty of arguments about how the structure and content of the 'China' article is somehow "out of line" and that it should be brought into line with other similar articles. It should be pointed out that The idea of cross-project 'harmonisation' – dare I use that word when dealing with a Chinese topic ;-) – doesn't really exist. Here on WP, articles stand and are created/edited on their own merits. There is no obligation that this, or any other article, forms part of any "unified system". The important thing is to achieve a consensus for this article at a local level – which I don't yet see – but let's not forget the first policy, also a pillar, is to ignore all the rules. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

So far we've had difficulty establishing concensus for changes but the one thing that we have established a consensus about is that the current situation is not preferred. Also you say that the article should stand on its own merits and not be compared to other country articles, but then you argue that we should consider how the article is treated on ZP:WP. In general I agree that we've been making too many comparisons with other country articles, but some comparisons are helpful. To answer your question about why this article is unacceptable, it provides very little of the information that the reader is presumably looking for. What is the population of China? who are its leaders? What kind of economy does it have? etc. Instead the reader gets an article with a bunch of ambiguous references to cross-strait relations. This format is not seen in any other reliable source. Pick up a book called "China" (or similar) and see what kind of information is in that book. You can be sure it won't have a post-1949 history section which focuses on the ROC and cross-straight relations. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Please. That "consensus" was the opinion of one admin, and that one admin and GTB wasn't even in agreement. T-1000 (talk) 04:10, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that's a little bit unfair. Bacchus is highly experienced in page move discussions, and put forth a suggestion that was positive to the discussion of how to handle the thorny problem. It may not necessarily be the one that ultimately finds favour. Some others went forth advocating it which many others still object to a move on these or other terms. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

A "consensus" that two admins cannot agree upon isn't really a consensus, is it? Still, the scope of this dispute is way too big for one admin to solve. T-1000 (talk) 04:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that Bacchus didn't really argue one way or another, other than stating that China was a unique and more nuanced situation and ought not to be compared to other countries. That is an important acknowledgement in itself that many others on the support side seem to fail to appreciate. Also important to note was that some others agreed with the idea mooted as it meant de facto the namespace would become a redirect to PRC, if for no other reason. I also agree that there does not seem to me to be any consensus to move these two page as proposed. This page move request is destined to become a train wreck. There are two articles involved here, thus two separate proposals ought to be made, IMHO. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I have already corrected you on this, T-1000 yet you refuse to accept that GTBachus was clearly not referring to the RM when he made that comment about it not being a "clear consensus". Not only did he not say that there was no consensus but he was referring to a different topic all-together, the Primary topic debate. If you look at the discussion archive following that debate you will see that this is obviously the case. The consensus I am referring to was not just the opinion of one admin as you are claiming, it was the result of the move discussion as confirmed by one admin. You can challenge consensus all you want but it is little more that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT to claim that even when a consensus is confirmed by an admin that it doesn't really exist, by continuing to distort the words of another admin to suit. We don't need to evaluate consensus for an ongoing discussion, please refrain from doing so. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 19:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

And I already responded to this as well. The result of the Primary Topic debate was a lot more clear then the first RM. GTB said that even the primary topic didn't have a clear consensus. If the primary topic debate did not have a consensus, then there is no way that the first RM had any consensus. It proves that different admins have different ideas of what the requirement of a consensus is, and that's why your consensus is only the opinion of one admin. T-1000 (talk) 20:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

I ask you again to stop extrapolating others comments and saying they mean things that weren't said. It's inappropriate. GTB simply said that the talk page he saw did not look like consensus to him, which is fine, but that's all GTB said. Nothing about the first RM was said at all. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:31, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

GTB said that the Primary Topic debate did not have a consensus, and that debate was more clear than the first RM, that's a fact. Not that it matters though, WP:CONSENSUS specifically said that "Sysops will not rule on content", meaning that Admins have no power to solve this dispute. T-1000 (talk) 05:16, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow

I didn't mean to disappear for a week-and-a-half. I'm sorry; our semester began, and I've been very busy. In that time, what a lot has happened! I see that there's been some discussion of what I meant when I said the RFC didn't look like a consensus.

I agree that most people posting to the RFC said that the country they think of when someone says "China" is the PRC. I think the question was poorly posed, though, and that the responses should be taken with a lot of salt. If the question is "what modern nation is meant by 'China'?", then the answer is obvious and uninteresting. If the question is, "what do you think an encyclopedia article on 'China' would discuss?", nobody would expect it to begin with the establishment of the PRC. Furthermore, nobody has argued that a "China" article should begin in 1949.

Now, you could argue that the history of China is the history of the PRC, but what if there's a revolution tomorrow? What if the PRC ends, and the new government is called the... New Government of China - "NGC"? Then would a "China" article be about the PRC? No, it would be about the NGC. All of the history covered in that article would be the history of the NGC, which would include the PRC as one period, following the dynastic centuries and and the ROC period, but preceding the NGC.

In the RFC, people weren't offered a distinction between "China with whatever government is in power at the time" and "PRC, strictly delineated". If that choice had been made apparent, then I'm confident it would not look quite so lop-sided in the favor of PRC.

I'm not claiming that the primary topic of China is "Chinese civilization" - an article on that topic would have a very different feel to it than a "China" article, as I imagine it. I'm claiming that the primary topic of China is the enduring entity composed of Chinese people living in Chinese lands under the Chinese government of the time. Today, that's the PRC, but that's only because we're asking the question while the PRC government is in place. "China" meant China in 1898, and it still means China today. The fact that those are two different states is not really important, because it's not the particular state that we're talking about. It's China.

Please do not interpret this explanation as support for any particular position in the current titling discussion. I think this issue is super-complicated, and I'm not prepared to throw my weight in any particular direction, neither as a mediator, nor even as an observer. It's very complicated.

My suspicion is that a stable solution will involve most of the content currently at PRC being located at China, with significant disambiguation at the top of the page that is tailored to the unique situation of Mainland China and Taiwan.

Sorry again for disappearing so abruptly. If only I could be paid to work on Wikipedia every day... -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's a bite-sized way of putting it: Most everyone would agree with the statement: "The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644." Nobody would say, "The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of the PRC from 1368 to 1644."

Does that make sense? "China" is the PRC today, for most English-speakers, but "China" is more than just the PRC, and they only appear the same when we're speaking in a modern context. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the lack of consensus here is fundamentally because the lack of consensus in the Political Status of Taiwan, as long as Taiwan's status remain disputed, there cannot be a stable solution. T-1000 (talk) 05:50, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

You may be right about that. I guess when I said "stable solution", I meant something more satisfying than the current setup. I won't claim that there's a solution that will make everyone happy. I do think we should strive nevertheless to improve upon the status quo. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• I am largely in agreement with Bacchus above. However, should this be transformed into the PRC article with stronger DABs and hatnotes and whatnots, the solution remains sub-optimal. I'm also tending to see more strongly that the 'China' namespace should definitely not become a redirect to the PRC. The article that belongs here ought to be some sort of a rewritten hybrid article that contains essential information about the land mass, history, economy, culture, etc., that we are accustomed to seeing, but which acknowledges and reflects the ambivalence and dichotomy faced there, and that takes account of the realities and the juxtaposition of two systems of government on either side of the Strait. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:51, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But the China/Ming Dynasty point above applies to every country article on Wikipedia. For example, we might say "Otto von Bismarck was the chancellor of Germany" rather than, of course, "OVB was the chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany" - yet the main page "Germany" is on the current Federal Republic (as well as its history and previous incarnations of "Germany"). We solve that by understanding that these terms are fluid when used in context and by piping links if necessary. Again, by saying the China page should be about the geopolitical entity currently known as the [People's Republic of] China, we are not saying it should simply be about the current government and political system but that that would be the starting point in the lead, as for [Republic of] India, [Federal Republic of] Germany, United Kingdom [of Great Britain and Northern Ireland] etc etc. The UK used to include the whole of Ireland for example, of course; Germany used to include areas now in Poland, and be a monarchy not a republic - but that doesn't stop us doing what we do on those pages. I get the arguments and issues - about Taiwan, the wider concept of "China" and alleged NPOV - but the bottom line is this: what justification is there for treating China differently from every other country page? I don't see that the case has ever been made for that. N-HH talk/edits 13:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

That's because there was no rival claim to Otto von Bismarck as Chancellor of Germany. Note that Konrad Adenauer claimed to be Chancellor of "Germany", but we don't call him that because it was disputed by the rival German state. The same situation applies in China, where you have two presidents purporting to be the leaders of "China", but to label either of them as this without disambiguation and fair representation of opposing claims directly contradicts our policies. Nightw 14:19, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But that situation just isn't analogous to the one at hand. West Germany wasn't commonly called just "Germany". The PRC is commonly called "China". People generally do call Hu Jintao the president of China.TheFreeloader (talk) 14:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. And the Bismarck point was specifically a response to the Ming dynasty example raised above - ie about how it could make sense to imply that the "Ming Dynasty" ruled the "PRC" if we said in narrative text that they ruled "China" (the basic point is of course that we would not be suggesting that). To avoid that example leading onto any separate issues about splits, instead of Bismarck & Germany, try "Umberto II was a king of Italy". We could say that, even though the "Italy" page leads off by focusing on the modern "Italian Republic". Equally, we could pipe the link to Kingdom of Italy. Either way, we human beings can cope with the subtleties and contradictions there. As for the point about divided nations, where you have a genuine, substantial territorial split and global acknowledgement of that division - eg West & East Germany as was, North & South Korea even today - WP should of course follow that. Where you have a very small minority claim that is not reflected in common terminology - eg Taiwan's claim to be the real China or a different China - it is in fact very un-NPOV to treat that as if it had equal weight or is just as common a description in the real world; just as, for example, we would not give equal weight to the idea that both Vittorio Emanuele and Giorgio Napolitano are the head of state of Italy. Again - where is the clear justification for this exception in how we title and treat pages about modern nation-states and the commonly used names for them? N-HH talk/edits 16:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The situation is different not because of its history (Ming/Qing etc.) but its present. The justification for "treating China differently from every other country page" is that there is no consensus to have cross-project uniformity, only consistency within each article itself. Each article is permitted to be different unless required to conform to some policy or overall style element; even then, if it falls to be considered a style issue, its not mandatory because it's a guideline. ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:15, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The Germany point is a good one to bring up. I would argue that the topic of our current Germany article is not the Federal Republic of Germany. The topic is Germany, together with its current government, history, geography, culture, etc. The Federal Republic of Germany is a very important part of any Germany article, especially one written while the FRG is their current government. However, it's clear that FRG is not the topic of our Germany article, because the article doesn't limit its scope to that particular state, but is about Germany, broadly construed. If the FRG falls tomorrow and is replaced by the "United German States" or something, then we won't rename our Germany article to FRG and start a new one about the new country. We'll simply update the current government in our current Germany article, and move FRG into the history section. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:26, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has ever argued that if the PRC article was renamed China it should keep looking the same as it does now. The goal has always been to get the PRC article to look more like other country articles, which includes having a complete history of country and its people.TheFreeloader (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

And hang on GTBacchus, you really can't start using Germany as an example of why we should keep this page as it is. The opening sentence of the Germany page says "Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe". So it *explicitly* is about where "Germany" is now as a geopolitical entity, or at least starts off with that, but also includes the history and the backstory, like every other country page. Equally, applying those same standards, the China page would say "China, officially the People's Republic of China, is Asia's largest country etc etc". Then it too would go on to cover history and politics, as well as points about Taiwan et al. That is what supporters of the move are asking for. The Germany page very clearly does *not* say "Germany is a historical European civilisation that has been seen both as a nation and a cultural area, and which has, at various times, been divided into different political entities and had varying geographical boundaries", which would be the equivalent formulation to what we have here currently. When people like me argue that the China page should be "about the PRC", they are not saying it should be simply about the communist regime in modern China - they are saying it should be about the geopolitical entity of "China" as whole, including its history and how it got to where it is today, but premised on what constitutes that entity in 2011, per common usage and the overwhelming majority worldview. And your argument about what would happen if the FRG changed tomorrow into the USG, and how we would keep all that under the general heading "Germany" but contextualise the FRG as now being a historical manifestation of Germany, supports exactly that point - by the same standard, we should write about China now primarily as the PRC, with details on Nationalist China and Taiwan-as-China etc all part of that "China" page, but as content relating to China's history. Again, that is what every other country page does - and I do think consistency across WP matters here, unless there's a very good reason to avoid it. N-HH talk/edits 17:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

N-HH, I'm not arguing to keep the page as it is. In fact, I'm not taking any position about what we should do. I'm not ready to take a stand anywhere, but I am willing to think aloud, and consider just about any suggestion.

I'm largely in sympathy with everything you've said here. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:53, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, the current PRC article covers the current government, history, geography, culture, etc., which it would still do if moved here. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to head out of this debate now as I've already expended far too much time and text here, but I would just add that this is surely one of WP's easier naming/primary topic disputes. If we look at WP rules - let alone basic common sense - on common names, real-world use, consistency in style between different country pages here and npov (genuine npov, that is, with appreciation of wp:undue, not veto by minority viewpoint) the answer is obvious. There are far more genuinely complicated and contentious issues of this sort out there. N-HH talk/edits 18:36, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

It sounds to me like we are moving more and more towards consensus for merging the two articles to end up with an article that begins something like "China, officially known as the People's Republic of China, is the largest country in East Asia...", has a country infobox with PRC flag, and whose scope includes all historical regimes commonly referred to as "China". This does not preclude our moving the pages as proposed first. It should be noted that the PRC article did include history prior to 1949, but that was very recently removed, as someone felt that the history should begin all-the-sudden and without any clear explanation. Also since I'm the one who posed the RfC question, allow me to defend its wording. My goal was to establish which topic is the Primary Topic for the term "China", whatever that meant to the editors involved after they read the guideline. It is not appropriate for me to word the question in such as way that the respondents are limited to looking at Primary topic or the PRC in only a few prescribed ways. I then followed the question with some notes from WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and arguments that I felt made it clear to me what the primary topic was. They could see it my way, disagree with my statement, or more likely, make their own arguements. I think the result of the RfC shows pretty clearly how most editors understand the question and its answer. I don't, however, expect one RfC to answer all the questions that we have. I would also like to argue that while the Germany article includes historical information which predates the FRG it is primarily an article about the FRG, or Germany as it is today. The first line is a hint, "Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany" and the rest of the article follows the same pattern. The China article which is primarily about the PRC should do the same and include history prior to 1949. I think we can form consensus for that, and such a decision does not interfere in any way with this move proposal. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I think my issue with the RfC is a subtle point, and I don't mean to fault the way you asked the question. I didn't see anyone in the RfC making a distinction between what the primary topic is in a modern context and what it is in general. Some people suggested Chinese Civilization, but that's not quite the same.

When the article begins, "Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany," I take that to mean, "Germany, whose current official name is the Federal Republic of Germany". The article is not about FRG. It's about an entity persisting much further back into history, whose current official title is FRG.

The FRG is only one aspect of Germany as it is today. The physical geography of Germany has nothing to do with politics, so I would dispute that the geography section is "about" the FRG. It's about something much older than the FRG, and which will endure longer than the FRG. The physical geography of Germany is the same thing, no matter which government is in effect. A lot of what's in that article would be unchanged if the government were to change tomorrow. That's why I say it's not quite about the FRG. On the other hand, of course it's about the FRG. Where else would you read about that political entity?

You see? It's kind of a subtle point.

I agree with your estimation of where the consensus-wind seems to be blowing. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

One point to note, the pre-1949 history on the PRC article was added in on August 20. Within two weeks, these changes were challenged by the editor LLTimes. So the stable version before the discussions was the only that only has the PRC history. T-1000 (talk) 02:52, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree the distinction is subtle enough to be missed, but I see it as an important one that cannot be fudged. We see shorthand being used all the time, and the 'common names' generated often result in ambiguity if stripped of context. To wit: there's currently a proposal to have 'America' to redirect to 'United States' which is pretty extremely similar to what was being proposed for this article. WP:COMMONNAME cannot be a runaway train, else 'Downing Street' would become a redirect to the 'Government of the United Kingdom' and 'Beijing' would become a redirect to the 'Government of the People's Republic of China'. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

We've been over this before. That some other COMMONNAME based redirect proposals exist which you do not agree with is not a valid argument against this move proposal. Reliable sources reflect the problematic ambiguity you are pointing to with "America", that is, they consistently avoid using simply "America" without clear context. Reliable sources use "China" without qualification to refer to the PRC on a consistent basis, even sources which use very particular and technical language not intended for the uninitiated. "China" is used in this way because it's the convention and it is not ambiguous. A more apt analogy might be using "U.S." or "United States" instead of the "United States of America". - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 05:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No exception at all

There are quite a number of articles that are named as a result of the discrepancies between the territorial extent of modern states and geographical regions. These include Macedonia-Republic of Macedonia, Micronesia-Federated States of Micronesia, Ireland-Republic of Ireland, Congo-Republic of the Congo-Democratic Republic of the Congo, etc. (the last of which had in some point of history a kingdom spanning across the modern states). I see no reason why the China and People's Republic of China articles cannot be part of this party.

In addition, the People's Republic's football team is named 'China PR' by FIFA, and products from the People's Republic are frequently marked as 'Made in PRC'.[20] [21] [22] [23] [24] I see no reason why 'People's Republic of China'-'China' difference shall be disregarded on Wikipedia. 203.198.26.228 (talk) 14:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but as with US/America, there's real ambiguity in those examples, in terms of common use. Eg if I say I am "going to Ireland tomorrow", a likely response is "to the North or the Republic?"; if someone says "Congo is going to pass new laws banning X", a likely request for clarification would be "DR Congo or Congo-Brazzaville?". That immediately suggests the need for a disambiguation page (which I note Ireland does not have, which is another whole matter ...) or some other slightly convoluted solution. However, if I say "I am going to China" or "China yesterday said ..", the chances of someone assuming that meant Taiwan/ROC are near zero. Yes, there's an almost existential issue about Taiwan-as-China, but in 2011 it's seriously at the fringes. Getting wrapped up in that and arguing about political legitimacy, alleged ambiguity, China-as-PRC being an objective and definitive "error" of some sort that WP should be correcting for people, or alleged un-NPOV endorsement of the PRC by WP is, at best, inventing problems that aren't really there and just over-complicating all this. And, in fact, if we look at someone typing "China" into the WP search box, porcelain is a more likely end-wish than Taiwan. Also, citing examples of when the PRC is referred to as something other than simply China is looking at this back-to-front: most things have multiple alternative names, the question is what do people - as well, for example, as most international institutions - generally mean when they do refer to China.

As for the related and wider point that "China" has a broader political, geographical, cultural and historical sense than simply the modern [People's Republic of] China - well of course it does, depending on context, but, again, this is all covered in the "Wow" discussion above: why is this different from [Republic of] India, [Arab Republic of] Egypt, [Federal Republic of] Germany etc and how we deal with those ancient, complex and shifting nations/civilisations? We foreground those pages with the modern, generally accepted, manifestation, and then row back and expand through the history and past political/geographic incarnations, noting territorial and political disputes, with hatnotes and internal links to more specific pages - such as Ancient Egypt or Germania etc; or, in the case of modern issues re China, Politics of the PRC, Cross-Strait relations etc - where needed. If by 2025 the political system, geographic scope and official name of what we know as China shifts again, the China article in 2025 will in turn reflect that, especially in the opening sentences and in the up-to-date content - while the 90% of the page relating to history etc remains substantively as it ever was.

I know we have to start from where we are, but I do wonder what the reaction would be if we did currently have a China page in the more usual country format - ie, per the above, with a primary focus on the PRC in the opening and in so far as it discussed modern times, but with a fully detailed and broader history of China included - and then someone put in an RM, saying that what we really needed was an over-egged disambiguation page that opened with a rather discursive statement about the meaning of the term "China" and which then also proceeded, in its narrative, to give equal weight to Taiwan and the PRC as being China. I'm pretty sure that would be seen off fairly quickly, without too many walls of text on the talk page (apologies) - but because we are starting from that point, even though most people can see the flaws, it's getting the benefit of some inertia. N-HH talk/edits 17:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

RM has been externally canvassed

The request move above has been canvassed on EN:WP pages followed by Chinese editors, ZH:China, and external Chinese blogs. This is guaranteed to numerically fail the RM. It must be closed by strength of argument, the closer should take a deep look at the table created during the RfC. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

From what I can see, the table isn't on this page. I think it was archived in 23 or 25 or something. You're talking about the Pros/Cons table, right? nvm, looks like you've copied it back. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 15:14, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

That would explain the recent comments by new accounts from zhwiki, most of whom are making nonsensical statements. Nightw 16:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see it that way. The large influx of comments after promotion ("canvassing") simply suggests that the previous RFC was not adequately publicised, and has therefore arrived at an invalid consensus which the community is now reconsidering. Deryck C. 16:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I posted a notice about the RM on wikiproject China and I hope that we can agree that this was not a form of canvassing, posting on external blogs and ZH:China however is certainly inappropriate. Any admin who closes an RM based on vote count shouldn't be given admin privileges. If you notice that a participant in the RM doesn't have any edits other than this page you can mark their comment with {{subst:spa}}. That will help the closing admin take account of users who may have been invited here from a Chinese blog to disrupt the discussion.

To the editors considering canvassing for votes, don't do that, its very disruptive and there are sanctions for those caught doing so. see WP:CANVAS - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 16:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

To post on zhwp is hardly canvassing -- it's the same project but in a different language. Ideally, we'd all have the same content under the same rules. This is why we have global accounts, guys. I patronise the French Wikipedia regularly but I simply don't edit that often. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Obviously a new account making no edits other than on this discussion should be tagged an SPA, however I'd urge everyone intending to make such tags to be cautious and refrain from tagging editors coming in from other Wikimedia projects as SPAs. Deryck C. 17:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Why? this isn't other wikimedia projects, we have a different set of guidelines and a different culture, things are done differently on different wikimedia projects so someone with no experience editing English Wikipedia should be so marked. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 17:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Anyone for whom this is their first en.wiki edit should have their contributions marked as being a single purpose account. Personally I added it to the village pump but that is on en.wiki. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:42, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

That isn't what WP:SPA means. Claiming that edits on other Wikimedia projects aren't relevant edits is simply English Wikipedia chauvinism, which is unwelcome among the greater Wikimedia community. Deryck C. 03:03, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it is within the SPA definition, and "English Wikipedia chauvinism", while a nice phrase, hides the fact that Eraserhead's point is a good one; we have different policies. If these people are from the Chinese Wikipedia, we can guarantee that they generally support our goals. Their knowledge of en-wiki policy, protocol and conventions may not be so fixed. Ironholds (talk) 05:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I've taken a look at the possible people who haven't made many edits and although one editor has only made 4 edits here most of the others have made at least 10-15. While it seems likely that they were externally canvassed - they could well have been following one talk page or another on en.wiki where it was posted. Additionally they have voted for both sides in roughly equal numbers so it isn't a one sided canvass - and there are IP editors who may be new or may not be new - who also have voted for both sides. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:24, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The good news is that we really don't have to worry about this very much. The move request will be closed based on the merit of the arguments made not vote counting. Let's just be sure that those of us involved in the discussion do not make references to the number of votes as arguments for or against. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment to closing admin - I have to admit I was surprised at the quantity of Oppose !votes, since the policies seem so clear. I understand that there are pro-Taiwan points-of-view, but we should be checking our POVs at the door and looking at this objectively. I urge the closing admin to closely review the policy-based arguments, and not rely simply on vote-counting. Comparison with other articles such as Russia, India and so on should make it clear what is best for readers. --Noleander (talk) 19:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• The problem is not so much the arguments but instead the fundamental interpretations of the policies are different, as Admin have no power to interpret policies, this cannot be solved by an admin. T-1000 (talk) 03:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• So you think you have it? That is far from the case. The underlying arguments to each side are the same as they were in 2008. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 21:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Lets wait for the discussion to be completed. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

This is funny. One would figure that the Chinese know more about their country about most of the Anglosphere. One would figure that expertise from those who know the subject best would be appreciated rather than dismissed. Is insight from outside voices a bad thing? These discussions are meant to be open, and consensus isn't based on numbers of !votes (we even went through the trouble of calling them "!votes"), yet users here seem disturbed that users besides them are aware of the discussion (is awareness a crime?), and they seem extremely concerned by quantity of !votes rather than the quality. Only on Wikipedia is the opinions of experts belittled. Only on Wikipedia do users attempt to keep discussions on a certain article contained to established watchers of the page. WP:Canvassing is a abused policy meant to stop outsiders from scrutinizing Wikipedia activity or participating in a discussion. Rule 1 and 2 of Wikipedia seems to be "You don't talk about Wikipedia." --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Who are you arguing against? no one has belittled the opinions of experts and no one has suggested that this discussion be limited in any important way. Many of those participating in this section, including myself, have actively promoted awareness of this discussion. We're talking about inappropriate canvassing, which I'm sure you understand can be quite disruptive. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

More disruptive than the steps that you have taken regarding this set of 4 articles? I doubt it. One (violating the peace) can give rise to the other (potential canvassing), you know. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 21:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that this dispute is all my fault, a dispute that has been around for 9 years? Even if that's the case it's irrelevant. Saying my actions are disruptive doesn't make someone else's actions less disruptive. I'm actually attempting to help settle this dispute, not "violate the peace". - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

@Xiaoyu of Yuxi, that's well out of line and a personal attack. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:56, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

@Metal lunchbox: So you think the dispute would be settled one and for all if you had your own way (I like the DAB at China model best, and that's not the status quo)? No, not at all. So long as the political repercussions of this civil war have not been completely resolved, no one will be satisfied with ANY arrangement regarding PRC, ROC, China, and Taiwan. If peace is defined as no large discussions of this sort, you have certainly done your best to erode it.

@Eraserhead: Far from it. I have merely stated what he has done. —Xiaoyu: 聊天 (T) 和 贡献 (C) 22:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Whatever, let's drop it and just stick to the topic from now on shall we? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 22:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Michaeldsuarez, it is not anything against attracting editors with an expert opinion or outside voices it is that ZH wiki is over-represented by Taiwanese and Hong Kong editors that hate the PRC as a political position. That is what WP:CANVAS is meant to avoid - purposefully attracting an audience predisposed to voice a one-sided opinion. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

No, as those TI POV pushers would love to equate China with PRC and try to POV push that China is a foreign entity to Taiwan. T-1000 (talk) 02:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

It's generally unhelpful to speculate on the political motives of people considering this move, because there are aspects of both the proposed setup and the current setup that are desirable and undesirable to people of every conceivable viewpoint on cross-strait relations. Quigley (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Schumucky implied that the ZH Wikipedia has a one sided opinion, which just isn't true. T-1000 (talk) 02:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Michaeldsuarez referred to zh.wikipedia editors as "the Chinese", uniquely qualified to speak about "their country". Schmucky replied that zh.wp is overrepresented with Taiwanese and Hong Kong editors, many of whom don't identify as "Chinese" (中国人) or with "China" (中国). That's a fair statement. Quigley (talk) 02:38, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Schmucky replied that the Taiwanese hate the PRC would oppose the move request. I am saying that the Taiwanese who hate the PRC might also support the move request, like those TI POV pusher. There is no one sided opinion. T-1000 (talk) 02:46, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe we could just avoid speculating about the political motives of other editors participating in the RM discussion as that is generally not productive. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is, there's no consensus on this issue in Taiwan and Hong Kong either. T-1000 (talk) 03:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

No consensus on what issue? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:18, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Don't play dumb, please. T-1000 (talk) 03:26, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

If you are saying that there is no consensus that the People's Republic of China should generally be referred to as "China" then I'd advise you to have a look at the #sources above. There is a consensus which is represented by every major English-language newspaper, every major English-language China travel guide, popular china-studies textbooks, popular culture and public affairs magazines of all stripes, the largest and most prominent international organizations, official sources from the US, UK, ROC, and the PRC, etc. In fact there is such amazing consistency among reliable sources that "consensus" is a gross understatement, more like near-unanimity. Not one source has been provided yet which genuinely establishes that there is any real controversy about calling the PRC "China", despite repeated requests that such a source be provided. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 04:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Those are popular, not scholarly sources. elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (be free) 22:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Take a closer look at the sources, most are popular but there are many scholarly works in there as well, such as the journal "Science". You show me a single english-language source popular or scholarly which states that using the term "China" to refer to the PRC is controversial enough to avoid. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:47, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I am talking about the consensus to merge/rename China and PRC. T-1000 (talk) 04:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Pre-judging consensus is entirely inappropriate. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Schmucky, I think you're mistaken. Hong Kong is under-represented on both the Chinese Wikipedia and English Wikipedia. I'm not sure about Taiwan on the Chinese Wikipedia, but they're worse-represented than Hong Kong on the English Wikipedia. If Hong Kong is over-represented anywhere, I won't be reverting you that often. Deryck C. 03:47, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really compared to the Chinese mainland which is what counts in this discussion. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:39, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

This argument, when used on the English Wikipedia, always amuses me. How much weight ought the fact that English is an official language in Hong Kong but not the rest of PRC or ROC to bear? (I think Hong Kong and Singapore are the only places in the world where English and Chinese are both official languages.) Deryck C. 16:27, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

There are quite a lot of people who speak English in the Chinese mainland and it does have a population about 500x bigger than Hong Kong, therefore it should have about 500x more representation on the Chinese Wikipedia and probably at least 10-20x more representation here - if it doesn't then its under-represented. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:14, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Wiki is blocked by the Great Firewall of China. The vast majority of Chinese users have no idea that they are not getting the full Internet. If they do know about the problem, they can read Wiki by downloading Tor. But you can't edit this way. Perhaps we can request an exception to this policy. Kauffner (talk) 04:43, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really, when I was in Canton, I could access it using a regular internet connection. T-1000 (talk) 04:55, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, for the RM above there are 5 users whose main wikis are zhwp (including me), while three of them opposed and two supported. That dosen't change much, does it? Moreover, on zhwp the so-call "canvass" is just a IP user asking people to have a look at this RM request (he/she didn't say anything for or against it). However, for the blogs I don't know much about it.--Jsjsjs1111 (talk) 08:09, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't have posted to ZH:WP but I wouldn't criticize whoever did either, it sounds innocent enough. Soliciting responses outside of wikipedia is another story. In general we don't need to worry about this as there has not been highly disruptive behavior so far. Its just important going forward that the editors are made aware of the WP:CANVASSING guideline. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 08:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

False, dubious and borderline ludicrous information about China having the largest economy at some point on history!

I have thoroughly gone through the book mentioned in the article and the book just gives an "estimate" of China's historic wealth. Nowhere do we come across any references to China's wealth, there are no reliable statistics regarding China's historic wealth. I think it should be changed to "one of the most advanced economies", cuz I think ancient civilizations like Rome, Greece, India and Egypt can make similar claims. India's wealth, in particular, finds mention in almost every major civilization's literature and is also mentioned in the Bible. Rome had the largest treasury in Europe and was a lot larger than China, geographically. I think this statement should be amended.

JadeSchultz (talk) 12:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

China is generally regarded as having the largest economy throughout history, and no, I don't think any of the other civilizations mentioned can claim that. Though you're right about there being no way to prove this, so the text should clarify it as 'estimated as'. The Bible is not a reliable source. 64.180.40.100 (talk) 17:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Bible? ROFL--Luke8956 (talk) 03:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 91.153.122.141, 6 September 2011

I would add a link to finnish article of China.

91.153.122.141 (talk) 20:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

From what I can tell the Finnish article on China is actually about the People's Republic of China which does have a link to the page. --Jnorton7558 (talk) 01:35, 7 September 2011 (UTC)