Talk:China–Africa relations

Nanjing Anti-African protests

The Nanjing Anti-African protests (or background info) might be a point of interest. heqs 20:16, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I just added it. Szvest 20:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up™}

Name

POV? I think the title of this article is either POV or at least inaccurately vague, as there are two "Chinas," and this one arbitrarily chooses the People's Republic of China. The relations with the Republic of China (or lack thereof, or unofficial via other agencies) have just as much a right to be under the name "Sino-American relations." Thoughts? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 22:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

You may be right Koavf but the Sino is universally used to refer to People's Republic of China. You may find this category and academic references using it. Cheers -- Szvest 18:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

China At least some of these refer to ancient China or the PRC via ancient China, which makese more sense. I'm still not exactly convinced that it's used universally, but that having been said, Wikipedia is not a soapbox, and consequently can't advocate one side or another in a dispute. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 19:14, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. It just means that the article also should cover African-ROC relations. --- Hong Qi Gong 19:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure That makes the most sense to me. Of course, we would also need to change the map and/or add a new one. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 19:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Koavf, i assume you know better than i do re this matter. Of course Sino is widely and universally used.

Sino-American (378.000 google hits)

Sino-Japanese (1,180,000 google hits)

Sino-European (87,400 google hits)

Sino-Asian (1,210,000 google hits)

Sino-African (38,000 google hits) -- Szvest 19:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Granted No doubt, and since the majority of the world's states recognize the PRC as the Chinese state, I've no doubt that a majority of these sources will use this terminology, but that hardly makes it NPOV. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 19:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Another issue with the name

African-Chinese relations Why is it Sino-African instead of African-Chinese? How does one decide who goes first? If anything alphabetical order in English seems like a fair way of naming, which would of course, reverse the word order of this title. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 19:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Again Koavf...

African-Chinese relations (5 google hits)

Sino-African relations (814 google hits) -- Szvest 19:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Google While useful, Google is not the be-all nor is it the end-all. It has biases of its own, and this still doesn't address the fundamental issues of naming that I'm raising here. Should we name all articles whatever gets the most hits on Google? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 21:04, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Naming foreign relations Sino-XXX is just a common naming convention, that's all. To me, it's not a big deal what the name of the article is. --- Hong Qi Gong 04:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Again, granted At the same time, foreign relations Russo-XXX is another common convention. Why not Russo-Chinese relations instead of Sino-Russian relations? There should be some uniformity, especially if there is a print Wikipedia. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 04:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought the uniformity here was to precisely name China's foreign relations as Sino-XXX...? Honestly, I don't care if the name of the article starts with African or Africa. Not everybody will agree with you though. --- Hong Qi Gong 05:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree with me? Agree with me about what exactly? I'm not proposing anything really - I'm begging a question. These aren't just China's foreign relations with X, they are simultaneously X's foreign relations with China (whatever "China" that is.) To name all article that have to do with Chinese relations "Sino-XXX" is giving an undue preference to the Chinese, is it not? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 06:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree with you - that the name of this article is problematic. Isn't that the point you're trying to make.....? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh well I guess we're talking past one another. Let's just agree with that last statement of yours. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 00:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Re XXX-Chinese... Justin, it's not google in fact. It's the media and academics who opt for the Sino-XXX fashion. I, myself, am not a fan of google hits but Google, most of the time, follows the trends. Just try it out at Google News this time. -- Szvest 15:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Universal? Look up "Russo-Chinese" and you'll find 35,000+ hits, so I'm hardly convinced. (Especially when who knows how many of the 187,000+ "Sino-Russian" hits are just mirrors of Wikipedia...) -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 00:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Justin, look it up on Google news instead to avoid those mirrors. The media is more precise. Mainichi Daily News uses it 3 times, the rest is from Eurasia Daily Monitor and United Press International. Now try it out w/ Sino-russian. By the way, is this that important? -- Szvest 11:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Standards There should be a uniform standard, for people creating new articles, to coordinate similar articles, and in the event that these are published. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 14:22, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree w/ you. We need standards over here. I've tried in vain a few times. I'd like to organize w/ you something similar. Any thoughts? -- Szvest 14:38, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Alphabetical order' The only thing that makes any sense to me is to take their shortform names in English and use alphabetical order. "African-Chinese relations," "Sino-Russian relations" (from "Chinese," of course), but I'm not sure what to do with America. I guess we would use the shortform name "United States" rather than "America," making "Iranian-American relations" and "American-Vanuatan relations." -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 14:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd have no objection w/ that. We only have to respect also the common usage such as French-American, etc... I suggest that we discuss this at the Village pump to gather more opinions. -- Szvest 14:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

So does that mean the alphabetical order paradigm would not be applied to "common usage" terms like French-American? --- Hong Qi Gong 14:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

That was my point. Common usage comes first of course. If there's no common usage than Koavf idea is correct. -- Szvest 15:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

And what decides if a term is common usage? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply Hong and Justin. I have this examples and Wikipedia:Search engine test...

Mainly, common usage considers the ease of spelling, pronouncing, etc... Usually, people keep calling a thing the same way the first one to call/name it did. I believe people used Sino-XXX for those reasons. An example; Sino-Tibetean may be considered biased toward China but i think it has nothing to do w/ that but to do w/ the ease of usage.

If this issue is really important, it can be discussed it in depth at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (China-related articles). -- Szvest 22:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks (I hate these semicolons, by the way) I looked into the naming convention articles and WP:Google, too, but I still couldn't get a bead on where to go about this issue. Furthermore, not all of the articles are China-specific, so I don't know where to take this, really... -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 16:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I also see Wikipedia talk:Village pump as a suitable place. Just paste the same request there. That way, we'd at least get an opinion or a view. -- Szvest 17:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course! Village Pump was made for this. Thanks, Fayssal. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 20:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

History

Relations between China and Africa started long before the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It started as early as the 15th century Cheng Ho voyages, or even earlier. This article should be expanded to cover the history of Sino-African relations. — Instantnood 22:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I was thinking about it but wasn't sure if it belonged to here. I think we can add it. -- Szvest 15:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I added some stuff to the history section (Zheng He voyages and Chinese relations to the ANC in the 60's). It is certainly not complete, but I'll come back to it as I have time. Please let me know if I haven't used the correct citation forms for something. gamblingbear 17:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Chinese population in Africa

It would be very interesting to see some numbers on this. Technicians, engineers, medical staff, managers, traders, businesspeople, etc are to be expected. However, I have heard that some countries host substantial populations of Chinese labourers, which seems odd as Africa does not lack labour. Any sources? BrainyBabe (talk) 20:11, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

copyedit and comments

Per FayssalF's request, I have gone through the article and copyedited, used annoying templates to mark points requiring improvement and left commented-out remarks on various issues. More generally, I would like to suggest:

• Make sure that the lead section is a summary of the body of the article. In at least one case that I fixed, the lead had more information on an event than the article body. Similarly, once editors are happy with the article body, they should make sure it is adequately reflected in the lede.
• There is a lot of language, "now", "currently", "is doing", that is either dated already or will be shortly. Please attempt to avoid such wording as much as possible, and use {{Update after}} if there is no other way to state a thought, so at least dated statements will become obvious as they require updating.
• The modern sections of this article deal almost entirely with the PRC. More details on Taiwanese political, economic and military engagement would round out those sections.
• The "Events" section is basically trivia. As with trivia sections, these items should be merged into the body of the article.
• In the "Further reading" section, is there any particular reason that almost the entirety of the resources are written by Ian Taylor? It makes one suspect that the article has been subject to a conflict-of-interest attack. The most recent and comprehensive of Taylor's work should be sufficient; perhaps a new article for Ian Taylor could have his complete works.
• The formatting of citations is haphazard. While editors are free to standardize any way they wish, I would suggest {{citation}} just to keep things simple.

Good luck. - BanyanTree 11:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

For Ian Taylor, he is simply a key expert on 'China in Africa' and China's Africa oil diplomacy. I should admit that its works are clear, frank, and clever, which make a pleasure to read them ;) Yug (talk) 12:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Student Brawl at Nanjing

I fail to see the significance this event in the grand picture of whole Sino-African relations, even though the protest it triggered might worth a mention. Spending 3 lines giving detail of a student brawl while event as major as "Chad changed its recognition of the Republic of China to the PRC" only gets a short sentence doesn't seem to be the most logical solution to me. JonovaL (talk) 17:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Chinese involvement in Africa has much information, but needs significant improvement. Its topic is essentially the same as Sino-African relations, but this article is the more conventionally-named one. Therefore, the content from Chinese involvement in Africa ought to be cleaned up and merged into this page. Having multiple pages covering essentially the same topic constitutes a WP:POVFORK, which should be avoided. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested to change the current Sino-African relations article into a diplomatic and history oriented article. Yug (talk) 12:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm unclear. So, do you support an eventual merge, or not? --Cybercobra (talk) 19:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about a merger. It would be a massive project, as the other article is close to 100k bytes. And while it does cover some of the same info, the Chinese involvement in Africa page is much more specific to Chinese trade and such, while this page is over the broader topic of Sino-African relations. I am slowly working on that page, trying to clean it up so that it is readable. I think that once its cleaned up, info from that page can help to expand this article, but I do not think that a complete merger is feasible or necessary. I am in favor of a cleanup, but not a merger. Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 06:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Onopearls :

1. his on going clean up of Chinese involvement in Africa may allow to understand better how to manage this 2 articles ;

2. the Sino-African relations may stay a short overview of bilateral relation, especially focusing on official diplomatic relations/history ; while Chinese involvement in Africa may longly talk about China in Africa, mainly on the economic side (but also of diaspora and diplomacy since they are the roots of China economic involvement).

In short: wait, and see later. Yug (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

PS: I have my final exam (Master 1 + Bachelor ) next week. The month after, and after Onopearls copy edits, I hope have time to work on this merge/rewriting issue. Yug (talk) 12:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge or not ?

In a nutshell: The trouble is that the subject of "sino-african relations" mainly display the story of Chinese people in Africa.

Well, we face merging difficulties because on the field of Sino-African relation, we almost only have sources on "Chinese in Africa". In this case, make an article [China in Africa] and an other [Sino-African relations] is meaningless. Indeed, [Sino-African relations] talk almost only about Chinese in Africa.
I'm sad to say it, but it may be need to explose Chinese in Africa in five middle size articles... -__- thus rewrite [Sino-African relation] into a shorter '4 pages overview-introduction'. Then, the articles will talk about the same subject, yes (mainly: Chinese in Africa), but then CLEARLY at different level of precision. Currently, the two articles are different subjects, but contain similar contents.
An other possibility is to rename Sino-African relations into "(History of) Sino-African diplomatic relations". Thus, [China in Africa] become the main article, and [Sino-African diplomatic relations] become a diplomacy oriented article. I like this solution too. So, What do you thing ? Yug (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Currently

• Chinese involvement in Africa (current) : really long, focus on : RECENT, ECO, AFRICA, + Diaspora, Diplomacy, limits.
• Sino-African_relations (current) : Diplomacy, Politic, Trade. => an overview. Should equally talking about Africa in China, but mainly talk about Chinese involvement in Africa (that's the trouble).

Yug (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think a merge should be avoided. Sino-African relations should be mainly about diplomatic ties and China in Africa should probably be renamed and look more at the economic and trade aspects. Some content from the latter could be moved to the former, for example:

We could reduce Section 4 (History of Sino-African relations) from China in Africa to a summary and link to Sino-African relations instead.

The sections dealing with military involvement could also be moved from China in Africa to Sino-African relations, since this is more of a diplomatic issue rather than economic.

Rtdixon86 (talk) 20:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree for the "History of Diplomacy section", which is larger in current [China in Africa] than within the [Sino-African relations] article.

I understand for military suport section : yes, that's mainly a diplomatic action.

Your proposal is thus to move [Sino-African relations] toward more diplomatic issues ; and to move [China in Africa] towar issues more relate to 'Chinese trade in Africa'. Yug (talk) 02:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

It just came to me the idea to compare with more advanced "Diplomatic relate" articles. There is the result :

People's_Republic_of_China–United_States_relations

Latin_America_–_United_States_relations

1 Images and conceptions 2 Country comparison 3 History 3.1 Old China Trade 3.2 Opium Wars 3.3 Chinese Exclusion Act 3.4 The Boxer Rebellion 3.5 Open Door Policy 3.6 World War II 3.7 People's Republic of China 3.8 Korean War 3.9 Vietnam War 3.10 Relations frozen 3.11 Reapprochement 3.12 Liaison Office, 1973-1978 3.13 Normalization to Tian'anmen 3.14 Tian'anmen to September 11th, 2001 3.15 Bush administration 3.16 Obama administration 4 Important issues 4.1 Military spending 4.2 Republic of China (Taiwan) 4.3 U.S.-China economic relations 4.4 Human rights

1 19th century to World War 1.1 The Panama Canal 1.2 The Roosevelt Corollary and the Dollar Diplomacy 1.3 Banana Wars 2 1930s-1940s 3 1940s–1960s: the Cold War and the "hemispheric defense" doctrine 4 1960s: the Cuban Revolution and the U.S. response 5 1970s: the era of the juntas 6 1980s–1990s: democratization and the Washington Consensus 7 2000s: democratic socialism 7.1 Free trade and others regional integration 7.2 Bilateral investment treaties 7.3 The ALBA 7.4 The U.S. military coalition in Iraq 7.5 Bolivia's nationalization of natural resources 7.6 U.S. presence in the Triple Frontier

If we follow these two example, that become really clear : this "Sino-African relations" article should MAINLY talk about HISTORY and DIPLOMACY, and make a quick overview of other main issues. What do you think ? seems manageable ;) Yug (talk) 11:18, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. This seems to be a much better idea, [Sino-African relations] will be about history and trade (and cover both PRC and Taiwan), [China in Africa], can be renamed and will be about trade and the economy, mostly dealing with PRC. "Taiwanese-African" trade could have a seperate article, with a summary included in the "PRC-Africa Trade" article. I'll try and start rearranging the articles soon, if no one objects. Rtdixon86 (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. I oppose the merger, on the basis that the China in Africa article is primarily about economic relations. Instead, the article should be renamed Economic Relations Between China and Africa. Ocaasi (talk) 21:04, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion. This "Sino-African relations" can be about the historical and political interactions. The other on "China's involvement in Africa" should be labelled along the lines of "economic relations". Jingapore (talk) 19:35, 3 October 2011 (UTC)Jingapore

Another source to use

(Not sure where to insert this, so I'm just providing the link here.)

Africa Progress Panel, Africa Progress Report - 2010. The section concerning the PRC & Africa includes pp. 12f, & includes some statistics. -- llywrch (talk) 20:20, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I note the n°15 reference is totally unrelated to the Fao Mao of insular Kenya, of supposed Chinese origin. Research on their origin, on Ethio-China hisotric trade and the recent discovery of a special chinese coin inChina definitely deserves more attention. Possible sources, detailed though not academic in value: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11531398, http://etio.webs.com/thenextexploration.htm Marcoetio (talk) 11:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Rename

I'd like to re-name this article's proposed merger candidate page, Involvement of the People's Republic of China in Africa, to Economic relations between China and Africa. The new name is grammatically more clear and also more accurate. If you have a comment, please leave it at the article's Talk page.

As for the merger, this won't prevent that from happening if there is eventually a consensus to do so. (I can't imagine why that would ever happen, since the other article is already very long and almost exclusively focused on economics, though there is some logic in "borrowing" a few of its extensive background sections. On the other hand, I think the article works pretty well by itself, and Sino-African relations is a broad enough topic to potentially have more than one article.) Ocaasi (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the "Involvement..." headline was probably more accurate if the focus of the article was on the PRC in Africa. This is the frame that the books I have read usually adopt. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 14:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

What about the Sudanese oil guard detachment

I'm not too sure if this is A - factual and B - within the scope of this article, but it was reported by some media ~2004 that China had deployed some 4,000 troops as security to its oil investments in Sudan, outside any UN mandate. The claim was it was in response to an attack on Chinese at an oil refinery (or something like that). There was no official confirmation from Sudan or China and they may have just been the equivalent of Western PMC's but it does say in this article that China has only deployed as a peacekeeping force and if that is not true it should not be in the article.--Senor Freebie (talk) 00:55, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

If you produce a source we can add it. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 20:54, 13 February 2011 (UTC)