Talk:Chinese civilization/Archive 27

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Defining "China"

Having followed the thoughtful and earnest discussion over the past month, I'd like to raise a slightly different question to bring greater clarity to this discussion: How are we defining China? For how China is defined in turn determines what we are trying convey about China. The definition of China can take several volumes but in this encylopedia and every other one, it must be done in one or two sentences. I think we can all agree that the current introductory sentence to China -- "China is an entity extending over a large area in East Asia, which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational" -- is less than satisfying. The lack of clarity therein about China contributes to the unresolved discussion above.

"China" is used to convey a variety of different meanings and ideas, sometimes bundled together, sometimes individually. There is China the place, a geographic reference. China, the culture. China, the polity. Each time anyone makes a reference to "China", that person is picking and choosing some but not all of those meanings. One important dimension for the meaning of China is time. Most of the forgoing discussion appears to be about what "China is" i.e. China in the present time frame, where the geographic notion of China and the jurisdiction of the PRC largely coincide and therefore enable us to use China as a shorthand for the People's Republic of China.

However, we are editing an encyclopedia, and what "China is" in an encyclopedia is actually broader than what "China is" in the present tense out in the real world. As a respository of knowledge, an encyclopedia must capture what "China is" and "was ever before." because unlike most users of China which are making a reference to some subset of ideas and meanings conveyed by China, the encyclopedia must account for all variances or as many as practicable. For example, as Septentrionalis pointed out above, "Shi Huangdi unified China" but not the PRC because "China" in that usage refers to the political arrangement of the Chinese civilization circa 221 B.C. From the geographic standpoint, the jurisdictional reach of the PRC indeed accounts for much of what we consider to be China. But from a temporal perspective, the PRC occupies a tiny sliver on the timeline of Chinese civilization. Therefore, the "History of China" is not the same as the "History of the People's Republic of China". Qianlong was an emperor of China, not the PRC.

Supporters of equating China with the PRC above, often invoke the convention or tendency of current English usage to refer to China as the PRC. Hence from the headlines today, we have "China copper imports up but for how long?‎"; "China agree to play hockey series in Pakistan‎"; "China's Renminbi May Supplant Dollar, Subramanian Writes in FT‎" etc. which are all referring to China as the PRC in the present. Aside from the notable exception of "Ma aide to China Post: Cross-strait peace deal plausible", indeed these days much of the published content in English about China is about the PRC. It is natural for language to deal with the here and now. So newspaper editors, travel agents, study-abroad programs, commercial trading concerns etc. etc. etc. all readily refer to the PRC as China. However, they do not need to be as precise as an encylopedia. The PRC is a subset of China, not the reverse. The merger proposal attempts to make the PRC and China as identical sets. This simply does not work.

An encyclopedia covers subject matter that extends well beyond the current or near-present time frame. Camellia sinensis is a plant native to China, irrespective of whether we are referring to China of the PRC, ROC, Ming or Song dynasty. Likewise the "China" in the Great Wall of China also has that seemingly timeless quality of China. Of course the Wall is in the PRC today and the tea plants are there too, but they were there under the ROC and before that as well. The wall and tea plants didn't migrate from the ROC to the PRC. The political state of China changed.

In fact, changes in the political state of China is a recurring feature of Chinese history and civilization. We don't need to go back to the Three Kingdoms or the Ten Kingdoms. If we were having this debate in February 1912, we might be arguing whether to equate "China" with Qing Empire or the newly-founded Republic of China. In 1915, there was a Beiyang ROC regime in Beijing and a Nationalist ROC regime in Guangzhou. Then in the summer of 1927, there were rival Nationalist ROCs in Nanjing and Wuhan and again in 1940 when there was the ROC resisting Japan from Chongqing and the ROC collaborating in Nanjing. Don't laugh, but the Japanese Wikipedia of the day might have auto-linked China to Wang Jingwei regime's regime, citing prevalence of Japanese language usage of the time. While the political state of China continued to undergo changes, the Great Wall and the tea plant, remained part of the same "China".

So to reframe how to define China, for the purpose of our discussion, should the encyclopedia article of "China" be about China, the civilization, or China, the current political state?

The proposal above, by equating China with the PRC in deference to common usage habits among certain English speakers, is designating an article about a Chinese political state as the primary Wikipedia gateway to "China." Essentially, everything about "China" including Chinese history, Chinese civilization, tea plants and the Great Wall would be routed through the PRC article and then to their respective articles. First, given the fairly pronounced distinctions between China, the civilization, and China(s), the political state(s), a case could be made that they should be kept apart even if there were only one political China, because arguably no Chinese political entity can possibly come to represent all that is Chinese civilization. As noted above, China cannot be made a subset any single Chinese state. Even in the PRC, this distinction is readily understood. "Confucius was one of the great philosophers of China's antiquity." Never PRC's antiquity.

Second, given the nuanced nature of China and the context-specific references made to China, it is not apparent that the significant majority of all articles in Wikipedia that link to "China" are intended to be linked to the "China of the PRC in the present or near present" rather than "China" more broadly captured in the "Chinese Civilization."

Third, an encylopedia should seek to make knowledge more readily available and deploy far greater scope of information than news articles or common parlance. It should inform the uninformed rather than to reinforce ignorance. To extent, the China link does not immediately lead to PRC and forces writers and editors casually linking to China to come upon an article about the Chinese civilization, this forces them to consider which China they ought to link to. I don't just mean the PRC/ROC distinction. Marco Polo went to China -- which China? PRC, ROC, Chinese civilization, Chinese history, Yuan Dynasty? There isn't necessarily a clear-cut distinction between whether an article should link to PRC or Chinese civilization. Rather there is a range of possibilities with the more political and more current-day subjects more likely to be suitable for the PRC. If the China link went straight to PRC, many users would probably not even know about other possibilities. Many typing in "China" into the search box intending for the PRC might be surprised to find more nuance, i.e. the story of the ROC on Taiwan when they hit the Chinese civilization page. Surely, it would not be too difficult for readers to discern the difference between Chinese civilization and the PRC and reach their intended target article. Given Wikipedia's mission, we ought to err on the side of being more informative than conforming.

Admittedly, the status quo leaves something to be desired because a user going to "China" for whatever reason and read about "an entity . . . which is seen variously as a nation and/or multinational" I propose to change the first paragraph to the following:

China is a vast civilization in East Asia with nearly 4,000 years of continuous history and two modern, sovereign successor states: the People's Republic of China (PRC), commonly called "China", and the Republic of China (ROC), commonly referred to as "Taiwan." The People's Republic of China, with a population of 1.33 billion and land area of 9,640,821 km2, is the world's most populous country . . . The Republic of China, with a population of 23 million and land area of 36,191 km2, is based on the island of Taiwan and controls a number of islands off the coast of mainland China. . . .

ContinentalAve (talk) 22:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree with what you have said. As for the lede, it would be better toff to say that the ROC "...today is based off the island of Taiwan and controls a number of islands off the coast...", and then either within the lede or a different section, mention that the ROC wasn't always like it is today. Though, I'm flexible with other ways of saying something similar as well, as long as the main gist is obvious. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 00:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The move request was unfortunately premature. The idea was not to have the article titled "China" have the same straitjacketed contents as the article at "People's Republic of China" now: it would have been a broad article that appreciates the longevity of the name but acknowledges that China means PRC in the modern context. Perhaps a merge request would have made that clearer. I support the first part of your proposed change ("China is a vast civilization") but not the second part ("two modern, sovereign successor states"), because it is an anachronism. Yes, both states have "China" in their names, and may have at one time considered themselves successor states to China. No, this is not necessarily the case today, de facto or de jure.[1] Quigley (talk) 01:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

A merge request would have indeed made this clearer. We are again getting caught up in unimportant distinctions between names. We should absolutely have a bias towards what the topic of "China" means today. That there has been political change in china in the past doesn't make China undefinable and it doesn't mean that the China article on wikipedia can't both focus on the PRC and include historical information and summaries of other topics directly related. I don't think that anyone is arguing that the article at "China" should exclude content that does not fit within the strictest definition of the PRC (ie. any history before 1949). A move or a merge would imply that the article would include "Chinese history" as broad in scope as that term is typically treated in reliable sources. Again I need to point out that "China" is a political entity and always has been. That is its a country whose borders are defined by the territory claimed and controled by the state calling itself China. For example, if Tibet were not invaded and annexed by the PRC, we would not refer to it as part of China. These borders are political and have changed over time. Today we define China geographically with respect to the PRC. China is not an island or a continent or a planet that has some clear geographic boundary that is anything but political. The only way that we can have a "China" article that isn't primarily about the PRC is to understand the PRC as an illegitimate temporary occupying force which has yet to fully establish control or is otherwise foreign to China. Reliable sources do not treat the subject in such a fashion. Surely we can agree that when readers search China on wikipedia they should get some general information which is currently entirely absent from this page, information currently at PRC. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

In addition, everything you said above can apply to basically every other country in the world. France and Germany have been discussed multiple times above, and India's been mentioned quite a bit too. Are you suggesting we move each country article to its long name and make their short name about their civilization? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:56, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Why bring up countries that do not have two competing states under the same name. Those are non-issue. Benjwong (talk) 04:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

It was a counterpoint to the specific points given in the above argument, which had nothing to do with competing names. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 05:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

response

Unimportant distinctions between names eh? Confucius said if you can't get your name straight, then what you say will be crooked. The inability to agree on what should go into the China article stems directly from different conceptions of what "China is." Merging instead of moving does not get around this problem.

China is much more than a political entity. It is, to paraphrase the late sinologist Lucian Pye, a civilization trying to fit into a country. The Chinese civilization has had anywhere between one to more than a dozen political entities operating within "China" and its periphery at any given time in the last two thousand years. To be sure the political entities have had a profound effect in shaping the Chinese civilization and have been shaped by it. But none of them alone can be used to define the geographic boundaries of China, which has shifted over time. The territories governed and claimed by the PRC today, provides us with but one version of China's actual and claimed geographic reach. For example, the PRC does not govern or claim nor has it ever governed or claimed Almaty or Hanoi as "integral parts of China", but does that mean those places "were never part of China"?

The coverage of China's geographic expanse (in the China civilization article) should mention the present jurisdiction and territorial claims of the two political successor states of Chinese civilization, the PRC and ROC, which, by the way, are not anachronisms. The two Chinas both exist in the present. They both issue passports that have "China" on the cover (de jure) and they both have Palace Museums (symbolic claim to inheritance of the Chinese civilization). If the ROC changes its name to the ROT and, like the Northern Yuan and Western Liao Dynasties, decides to shed the trappings of Chinese civilization and drift away, then we can revist this issue. The coverage should also talk about how the geographic reach of China has shifted over time, and depending on the level of detail, mention places not currently claimed by China but were part of China. I don't mean this in an irredentist way but just acknowledgment of historical fact. Metal Lunchbox's concern about Tibet somehow not being able to be included in this coverage is misplaced. Foremost, Tibet is and has been part of the PRC. Furthmore, there are past ties that bring Tibet into the Chinese civilization. In the late 13th century, Kublai Khan sent Song Gongzong Zhao Xian, one of the last Song Emperors, to study at the Sakya Monastery of Tibet, which was under his domain. One can quibble about whether Kublai as a "Mongol" counts as "Chinese" but there is little doubt that the Yuan Dynasty is part of Chinese civilization.

To characterize the PRC as the predominant political state of China today is not to belittle or delegitimatize the PRC. In the context of today's nation-state international relations system, the PRC is a permanent UN security council member, recognized by most of the countries of the world. In the context of China's civilization over time, it is also one of the most politically powerful states of China. But the PRC doesn't account for all that's China. Mid-Autumn Festivals and moon cakes, prominent examples of the culture of China at this time of year, exist well apart from the PRC. The PRC is just the current predominant political dimension of China, a multi-dimensional civilization.

Sources provide information for different reasons. Reliable sources about the share price of China Mobile or the score China-Jordan football/soccer match do not need to consider the full magnitude of the Chinese civilization. They can get away with a shorthand. In Wikipedia, China Mobile and the PR China soccer team can have links directly to the PRC. But shorthands can also create blinders and limit understanding. Western news agencies frequently use the China/Taiwan distinction when reporting about the PRC/ROC (Taiwan). During the pan-Blue / pan-Green political struggles in Taiwan earlier in this decade, these media outlets had great difficulty conveying why DPP leaders were trying to declare independence when Taiwan was already independent and why the Nationalists on Taiwan were so vehment in opposing the DPP, going so far as to make amends with the Communists on the mainland. The terminology of the news coverage was not nuanced enough to explain that the DPP while using China PRC as a foil, was really trying to declare independence from China ROC.

Chipmunkdavis asks a good question about China's exceptionalism. First, not all nation-states in the world today as recognized by the UN are created equally. Libya apart from the political state of Libya cannot stand alone in an article about the Libyan civilization. Neither can South Sudan. Not to sound chauvinist but China does have more content to offer. France, especially, and Germany to a lesser extent, are proto-typical European nation-states whose land, people, language and culture were molded through centuries of a nation-state building process. They are not distinct civilizations, however, and the distinctiveness of "France" and "Germany" begin to break down with older subject matter prior to the formation of nation-states. Qi Shihuang united China. Charlemagne is the King of Franks. He is listed as the Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, France and Holy Roman Empire. France has historical names like Gaul. Many articles about subjects of proto-France and proto-Germany can bypass France and Germany altogether using historical names. Caesar conquered Gaul. We have a link directly to Gaul, not France. Genghis Khan conquered China, and we get a link to the PRC?

India is a more interesting case. India, like China, is also an ancient civilization. But the Indian civilization in the present day is divided into different national states on the subcontinent. The fact that these states are called names distinct from India (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal etc.) only masks this division, which makes it difficult to equate Indian state with the Indian civilization (in other words, they can't be merged along the lines of the China civilization-PRC merger approach). For example, the ancient Indus civilization is located outside the confines of the modern India state. Hence, the main article of the history of India covers only pre-1947 India so it can describe in a coherent and continuous manner, the developments in the Indus valley as well as subsequent history common to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh before 1947. The main history of India article must then stop in 1947 and another article about the history of the Republic of India picks it up from 1947. Superficially, the History of China appears to have the same division -- there is a History of China and a History of the People's Republic of China, but the latter forms part of the former as does the History of the Republic of China. Because the state of India cannot claim to cover the Indian civilization, the pre-1947 history of India article is the best that is done to capture the history of the Indian civilization. There is no equivalent article for the whole of Indian/South Asian civilization beyond history. An article about Greater India is a short piece about the conception of Indian culture beyond the state of India, but it is not a broad civilization platform like the China article. China is different.

To conclude, the double-move option is problematic because "PRC" can't adequately handle the load that "China" the civilization is now carrying and will carry going forward. In the coming years, Wikipedia will receive thousands if not hundreds of thousands of articles about subjects relating to China's past. Wikipedia as an encyclopedia also favors adding history sections to subjects. China can take on 4,000 years of history (with little help from readily recognizable historical geographic names like Gaul, Prussia, Anatolia). When Chinese historical subjects are discussed in Chinese, references are invariably made to a particular dynasty. But dynasties in English must often be introduced with "of China" since readers are generally less familiar with Chinese dynasties. "Ibn Battuta visited [link to PRC] during the during the Song Dynasty."

The merger approach is flawed both because China presented through the PRC is unduly constricted and the PRC, when forced to take on broader China topics such as cuisine, traditional culture, etc., can really get overstretched if it were to address each such topic properly. I believe the PRC should focus on socio-economic-political institutions of the PRC state and topics and developments relating thereto. The more political and current day a topic, the more suitable it is for the PRC. The section and article on sports in the PRC, for example, should focus on sports institutions and policies, mass participation in sports, performance of athletes and teams representing the PRC etc. Traditional martial arts and Chinese games such as mahjong, weiqi etc. could be covered separately in an article on Traditional Chinese sports and games.

As an example of constriction, the Geography of the People's Republic of China does not even mention the island of Taiwan. We can amend the article to say that the PRC claims the island of Taiwan, which was ruled by previous Chinese states. But even then, such an article would not be the appropriate place to discuss tidbits of the past like Almaty and Hanoi as part of China. Discussing geography under the rubric of China, the civilization, allows for more expansive, politically-neutral discussion of the topic. Merging PRC into the main China heading article would lead to other generic China article headings to also equate PRC with China. Thus, the Law of China currently covers Chinese legal history, the laws of the ROC and PRC with separate links thereto, but the List of birds of China and list of birds of Taiwan are completely separate articles with no inter-linkage. Merging the PRC into China would encourage more complete bifurcation of China from Taiwan.

On the whole, I think more would be lost than gained by merging PRC into China.

ContinentalAve (talk) 16:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Could you please please write shorter statements. This page is already very difficult to follow. I have not read the above statement and you should not expect others to do so. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 00:57, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Please keep your posts concise. User:ContinentalAve, in particular needs, to take a look at the essay on Walls of Text and WP:COMMONNAME. White Whirlwind  咨  03:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, just to be fair, I've read the whole thing. I won't reply to each point (for fear of another wall of text), but I assure you ContinentalAve that pretty much everything you mention has been discussed already at some point or another. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:42, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Alternative Suggestion

Hi, ROC cannot be completely removed since ROC was a legitimate 'dynasty' after Qing dynasty, and ROC was not completely defeated in the Chinese Civil War...However, I do agree that PRC must be given a lot more weight in this article, based on international recognition and territorial extent, PRC is simply a much larger entity with far superior name recognition for the China status, therefore the article must reflect it. The article should reflect a much greater PRC presence than ROC presence, with ROC not being completely removed. Phead128 (talk) 04:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Question

What is "the reviewing panel"? Jimbo Wales? T-1000 (talk) 07:17, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Three admins. See WP:AN for the discussion. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how three people can solve this when 60 people can't. T-1000 (talk) 16:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Just like a normal move request or deletion or other topic to close they are going to read through the points made and come to a decision. Except rather than a single admin closing it three will. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:11, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Admins has the power to do this. WP:CONSENSUS specifically said that "Sysops will not rule on content". T-1000 (talk) 17:25, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

How the hell do you propose closing discussions if sysops are unable to do so? That's all that's being done here and it's all pretty standard. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

You are clearly not familiar with how the RM process works. Requested move discussions are always closed by admins. They are not "ruling" anything, they merely determine consensus. If there is not found a consensus, things will stay as they are.TheFreeloader (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

All part of the process. I believe this page reached the third opinion/informal mediation part of WP:DR, more or less, before becoming another WP:RM. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 18:57, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

On the admin noticeboard, the Admins said they are going to weight the arguments, one of the admins said: "and try to decide amongst ourselves which ones are more valid and which are less". That's the part I question them having the power to do. Because different admins may reach different conclusions. T-1000 (talk) 19:44, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

That's how consensus works... It's not a straight vote. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying that whether a consensus exists is based on which admins closes the discussion? Looks like they are ruling on content then. T-1000 (talk) 20:01, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Well obviously to some extent it may depend on who closes the discussion. But the idea is to be as impartial as possible. Having three admins will make that decision more likely to be correct and impartial. With regards to any specific case there is generally no reason to think that other admins wouldn't have closed it in the same way.

Obviously like with all decisions you are able to escalate the closure through the dispute resolution process (WP:DR) if you aren't satisfied with it. Given there are three admins a unanimous decision will make that more difficult - especially if it doesn't close as no consensus. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:09, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Based on past discussions, different admins have voiced both Pro and Anti move opinions on this issue. So this isn't one of the "generally no reason" cases. T-1000 (talk) 20:30, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

In which case those admins then are probably involved and/or haven't seen all the evidence. Significantly more evidence has been presented this time. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:03, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Everybody begins as an uninvolved editor. They form their opinions later. And different admins have formed different opinions. T-1000 (talk) 21:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

User:T-1000: Administrators commonly provide some final interpretation on Requests where consensus isn't immediately clear. If you object to that practice, fine; but this page isn't the place to air that concern.  White Whirlwind  咨  20:12, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The point is, there's no consensus on this issue among admins either. T-1000 (talk) 20:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

There is as it's common practice... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:03, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The issue I am talking about is Merging/Renaming PRC and China. There is no consensus among admins on this issue. T-1000 (talk) 21:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the noticeboard, I don't see any immediate evidence that the admins "[have] no consensus." Even if they don't, it doesn't mean disaster. The process continues on. It's not something to be alarmed about. Just go edit some other articles and let the process work its course.  White Whirlwind  咨  23:21, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not necessarily talking about those three admins. I am talking about admins that participated in this discussion topic in the past. And different admins may reach different conclusions. T-1000 (talk) 01:10, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

They'll read it over and derive a consensus or close it as "no consensus". Just sit tight and let them do their thing. There is not a problem here. The discussion is closed pending decision and this process is well within the well-established practices on WP. I'm not sure what purpose this discussion serves except perhaps to preemptively invalidate whatever the result of the RM is. Let's see what that result is first, then move on from there. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:35, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of what they decide, what's to stop the other side from asking a "re-review" with three different admins? T-1000 (talk) 04:08, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, kid, there is no "re-review" with different admins... That's called an "appeal" and that would not apply here. I don't understand why User:T-1000 is so obsessed/concerned about this issue - I'm done commenting on it and advise everyone else to do the same.  White Whirlwind  咨  04:48, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Trust me, you would understand if you read or were there during the past discussions, like I was. Less complicated issues like Ireland went all the way to arbcom. T-1000 (talk) 05:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Less complicated? What a statement :) Anyway, yes, this could go all the way to arbcom. That's again just the process. After this any party may escalate it to another level of DR if they so desire. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 11:44, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, because this issue ties into the Political status of Taiwan as well. T-1000 (talk) 18:35, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Utter garbage regarding China's wealth

sock disruption

I think the following sentence should be removed: "China was for a large part of the last two millennia the world's largest economy" This is baseless, ludicrous propaganda!!!! This sentence insults the intelligence of a ten year old! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.77.126 (talk) 14:21, 18 September 2011 (UTC) I've seen that in many a book about China. And considering that China's been relatively wealthy and one of the largest countries during the last two millennia, on the face of it, it doesn't appear to meet your claim about insulting the intelligence of a ten-year-old, unless said ten year old didn't know the history of the world for the last 2000 years. 70.24.244.20 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:45, 18 September 2011 (UTC). Not done: No, it's correct. Check the reference, or remember that for much of the last 2000 years western civilisation was in the dark ages and middle ages, which it emerged from split into many small states (mostly smaller than the countries today). --JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 14:48, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Comment

Although the three admins are in agreement, User:Tabercil's posting here [2] about "I suspect there will be an appeal to the triumvirate's decision and thus would like to give it a chance to occur" and here [3] "it looks like just about any decision that we come to is going to draw fire from corner or another..." seems to say that the Admins acknowledge that the issue will still not be solved after their decision. Since they are expecting to draw fire and an appeal, it seems that the discussion should be closed as no consensus, because the question is whether the community has form an consensus, not whether or not the three admins formed a consensus. (and face it, if this were a three people decision, the debate would have ended on Aug 31, as the first four opinions were all support). T-1000 (talk) 06:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

And regarding User:GTBacchus's post here [4] about "These moves do not imply that Taiwan is not a part of China. They imply that the common name for the PRC is "China", I would like to hear more about it, as I believe that is exactly the point of contention. T-1000 (talk) 06:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

If you wish to appeal pick an appropriate venue. If not live with it. We've explained that what they've done isn't voting... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:48, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

They've evaluated the arguments and gave their opinion, which is the same thing that everybody else did. T-1000 (talk) 06:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree at all. But if that's what you think I suggest you make an appeal of the decision. Complaining about it here isn't gong to achieve anything. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

That's funny, because GTB specifically said: "I'm looking at the discussion now; soon I'll post with my opinion". Anyway, I am sure GTB will be happy to explain his position. T-1000 (talk) 07:12, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

T-1000, if you disagree with wikipedia WP:DR procedures, raise it on that page or somewhere like the village pump. Raising it here won't get you anywhere. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 07:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

For now, I am asking GTB and Tabercil to speak more about their opinion, is there a rule against that? T-1000 (talk) 07:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

There's no rule against asking, but I'm not sure what more there is to say. I laid out the rationale behind my decision on the move so I'm not sure what more you're looking for from me. Tabercil (talk) 11:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

So, when is the move gonna happen? What exactly are we waiting for?TheFreeloader (talk) 13:56, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Because of the unique closure, with three admins rather than just one, I believe those who made the decision are waiting a day just in case. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Well that's why I'm waiting to make the move - to give folks a chance to wrap their heads around the decision. Tabercil (talk) 14:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

What happens to the naming conventions? Does this mean we now have to write out [[China|People's Republic of China]]? Nightw 14:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

If you want to explicitly state at the other end you're referring to the PRC then yes. But do you need to?? Tabercil (talk) 14:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

From the naming conventions page, "As a general rule of thumb, the official political terms "People's Republic of China" or "PRC" and "Republic of China" or "ROC" should be used in political contexts (that is, to describe the existing governments or regimes) rather than the imprecise and politically charged terms "China" and "Taiwan". This is why "People's Republic of China" is written everywhere, not because that's where the article is. Nightw 15:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

No, very few people know about WP:NC-CHINA, but very many people know that the article they want was one click away from the intuitive wikilink. As a result, those that bothered to follow the links on what they were writing wrote out "People's Republic of China", or more commonly piped "People's Republic of China" to display as "China". The naming conventions page currently suffers a lack of credibility as it was (and may still be) dominated by "regulars" who prefer the previous configuration. Quigley (talk) 23:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree. The move consensus makes the NC content out-of-step. --FormerIP (talk) 23:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The naming convention needs work, please join the discussion on the relevant page. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:01, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

"For now, I am asking GTB and Tabercil to speak more about their opinion". Tabercil can speak (and has spoken) for himself; what in particular would people like to hear from me? I will answer any specific questions there may be, or I could simply expostulate about my choice, if that would be helpful. What would people like to hear? -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Moving forward?

Now that the move discussion is closed, I have a couple comments/observations, followed by a couple suggestions on how best to move forward on this issue. First, the observations:

1. The 3 admins determined that, despite the lack of apparent consensus, the "support" side had the most convincing arguments. This is a judgment call, and perhaps if we had no choice but to force a decision to either move or not move, it would be theirs to make. However, is the solution to the problem really black and white? Do we have evidence that they considered some sort of middle ground solution between the status quo and moving the articles - or that they were required to pick a side at all? Parts of the discussion above suggested that a "merge" rather than a move would achieve better consensus. A decision to merge would be mutually exclusive of a decision to move two articles at once, so we cannot both move and merge - is there any reason we are not considering this, considering the lack of consensus in the discussion?
2. Almost no one in the move discussion justified moving the content currently at "China" to "Chinese civilization". The main thrust of the "support" argument was that "China" should be about the article on the modern nation-state, i.e. moving the content at PRC to "China". The evidence provided by the "support" arguments show that "China" is a common name of the PRC, and supports the argument that content at PRC should be placed at "China." However, almost no argument was in favor of removing the content currently at "China" because it would be obscure/irrelevant/inappropriate/inaccessible, etc. under that title. So there lies the option, potentially supported by both sides of the debate, that the article if it were about the PRC, should have a scope beyond and before the PRC. This is something else to think about when favoring a move over a merge.

And what I think should be done moving forward:

1. Given that the current PRC article is entirely about post-1949 China, and no one really justified the "Chinese civilization" article, we should create a sandbox of a combined/merged article. If the articles are moved, the PRC would have to massively edited because it remains limited in scope to post-1949 China. If this has to be done anyway, let's do this in the smoothest manner possible.
2. Edit the Chinese-related Manual of Style to specify when an article should use People's Republic of China, China, Chinese civilization, etc. It does not make sense to change every instance of People's Republic of China to China and every instance of China to Chinese civilization. These topics overlap and these changes would require examining the context of the link, so whoever is making these massive changes to the article text must not only be well-versed in the topic, but have the backing of the community in making these judgment calls.

--Jiang (talk) 14:37, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that those in favour of moving were generally also in favour of merging, so I don't think the move is an obstacle to that. I also don't think it'll be that difficult at all, since most of many country articles focuses on the present day anyway. Shall we start a merge discussion to go into more detail on this?

As for the manual of style, I think again we should discuss that separately. Any link currently linking to People's Republic of China will have a perfectly good redirect for now, so it's the China links that need to be looked over. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I think a merge discussion should be started. I also think a move should be held off until we can gauge the outcome of the merge discussion and edit the Naming Conventions to provide guidelines on how to deal with the links. Two sets of decisions need to be made: (a) for links to [[People's Republic of China]], we need to decide when we use [[China|People's Republic of China]] and when we use [[China]]; (b) for links going to [[China]], it becomes more complicated since it could mean a number of things, including the PRC, so it would be stupid and sloppy to change a PRC-relevant [[China]] link to [[Chinese civilization]].

My point being - to enact any major change like this one, it is better to spend a few days sorting the details out than hastily acting and creating a huge mess in the process. --Jiang (talk) 15:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Great, I'll start a merge discussion below (unless someone beats me to it), with a concrete proposal. A discussion on the naming conventions should take place on that page, and I think that may also be a good place to discuss the naming of subarticles, which is another discussion that needs to occur. I think the current article will need to move to Chinese civilization because it needs to move somewhere, to preserve edit attribution, but I think Chinese civilization should redirect to History of China. I'm not so bothered about whether the proposed moves happen now or shortly in the future, but I doubt it can wait until we sort out every single wikilink and article title, especially as sorting them out will involve the move anyway. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree that the move must be held off. If there is a general consensus for a merge, it can be performed gradually after the move. I don't think we need a grand plan beforehand for how a merged article is going to look, I think this can be found out as we go along, with content gradually being moved from Chinese civilization to China.TheFreeloader (talk) 15:42, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

My temporary concern is not as much about the content at the pages themselves, but the thousands of links directed at these two articles. Hundred now point to the wrong place. If we merged instead of moved, this would not need to happen, and the readers currently clicking on the link would not need to be as confused as they are going to be.--Jiang (talk) 16:03, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, moves been made. Let's deal with the fallout as quickly as possible shall we? Merge proposal below. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Civilization article obsolete? Merge content into other articles?

In the discussion of the move proposal a merger of this article (with what I'm going to call the PRC article throughout this for continuity with previous discussions, but by which I mean the article currently titled China) the PRC article seemed to me to have received significant support. However, not all of the article here may be relevant to the PRC, so I've gone through this article and looked at the information provided in each section to figure out if it's worth saving, and if so where to.

• The Etymology section in this article can simply be copied over to the PRC article as is.

• Both history sections prior to 1949 are badly sourced, so there's not much sourced information to save either way. I don't think the history in the PRC article needs to be any longer, and as there's little sourced information to include, I'd suggest merging the prior to 1949 section on this page with History of China instead. The PRC history section can be left to further editorial discretion.

• The post 1949 section of this article is more difficult to shift. It mixes information that needs to be merged with the PRC article, the Republic of China article, and the Cross-Strait relations article.

• The Historical Political Divisions subsection's information is already included in its main article, so that's dealt with.

• The Geography and Climate section has only two sources, so much of the information there could probably just go. What people thinks needs to remain can be simply merged to the PRC article, as the only mention of Taiwan is that dust has blown from northern China to it.

• The Economy section (all three sentences of it) can just be merged with the PRC article.

• The Culture section here contains a lot of information, but it's questionable whether the PRC article needs all of it. I think it should be shifted into the Culture of China article. It's already neatly arranged, and can easily go into Philosophy, Arts, Scholarship, and Literature sections.

• The ethnic groups information in this article is interesting, but is unsourced. I'm in favor of merging it into the PRC Ethnic Groups section for now, but unless later sourced it'll have to go sometime.

• The language subsection here should just be shifted over to the PRC article.

• The current religion section is almost completely unsorted, and the current PRC religion section has many more sources. The information on traditional religion could be shifted to either the Religion in China article or even the PRC article, but in general I don't think there is much here not covered elsewhere better.

• Sports should be merged with the PRC article.

• The Science and Technology section here is quite unsourced and basically covers history. Anything people want to save should be moved to History of Science and Technology in China.

After this is done, I think Chinese civilization should redirect to History of China. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I know speed has advantages but isn't it worth doing a full RFC lasting 30 days? There may not be a consensus for the merge. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:04, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

In general, I agree that the material in Chinese civilization should be moved into other articles (History of China, Culture of China, Religion in China, China/PRC, etc), and that Chinese civilization could be redirected to History of China. But I wonder if the word "merge" could confuse some editors, since it may imply combining China with Chinese civilization? Maybe it would clarify things if this Talk page section were re-titled to "Is Chinese civilization obsolete/redundant"? --Noleander (talk) 17:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I re-worded the title of this section a bit to make it clearer (to me, at least :-) Feel free to undo if it is not an improvement. --Noleander (talk) 17:11, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Title doesn't bother me at all! Anyway, I just posted the above based on what seemed to be a consensus for an eventual merge in the move discussion, along with the conversation with Jiang. I personally think a merge would be useful, getting the information here into articles it is likely to be found in. At the moment, this is probably an orphan article. If an RfC is needed, then RfC it is. At least the above is there, to be considered. Specifics probably look better than a vague notion it should be merged somehow. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the RfC idea: I'd wait 3 or 4 days, and if no editors strenuously object to moving the Chinese Civilization material into other articles, then I would skip the RfC. But if there is strong objection, then by all means do an RfC. Haste makes waste, and all that. --Noleander (talk) 17:42, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I support the analysis provided by Chipmunkdavis. I also am concerned that calling it a merge is problematic. I think we should consider a piecemeal approach with the general understanding that we're making a larger change. There's no time limit for the changes and for the most part I think the article China needs to evolve on its own, mostly keeping (and adjusting/improving) the content it already has. Picking a few of the more obvious section merges first will allow a more straight-forward larger merge. I'm worried that with the volume of discussion on this page and talk:China, a process labeled as "Merge" will result in a tremendous amount of confusion. Let's consider template:Move portions instead, starting with those portions we want to move into China. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 18:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Concur with ML. --Noleander (talk) 18:47, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes now the articles have been moved despite very clear divided opinion people may as well put this article on the bonfire and move everything to other articles (most of it being consumed by the country article), something that was bound to happen if this move went ahead. Yet the main focus was on simply making page moves not on deleting the civilisation page all together and moving most of its contents to the country page, i dont notice that being mentioned in the verdicts of the 3 admins who decided the China move either. Whilst its always made sense to have the country article at China, neutrality and fairness is what got in the way, but i guess that is out of the window now and on the bonfire like this article will be. Looks like the One China policy has now been effectively implemented on wikipedia, The Communist party of China must be so pleased. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, what we now have is a One China, One Taiwan policy, which is how Taiwanese independence advocates characterize the present and wish to create as official reality in the future. The Communists and Nationalists prefer the Two China formulations to One China, One Taiwan. By leaving no room in China for Taiwan, the recent name change has effectively foreclosed the claim of the ROC to the name "China" in Wikipedia. That trademark has been given to the PRC but it's the movement to create the ROT that should be celebrating. They can then attack the Nationalists for clinging to a name that's denied to Taiwan even on the politically-neutral, respect-the-truth forum of Wikipedia. ContinentalAve (talk) 14:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Moving content out of this article into others is a separate matter undertaken of its own merits, not thoughtlessly tagged onto the move decision as a means of pushing the CCP's POV. If you disagree with moving portions of this article into other articles then maybe you could give us a relevant argument. The articles have indeed been moved now and for the time being at least we should consider that matter settled. In case you missed it the main reason this content seems better suited elsewhere is that the whole article is just a big WP:COATRACK. The organization of the topic has changed. China which focuses primarily on the contemporary PRC is the main country article and some sections logically belong there and not here. Whether or not the Communist party of China is pleased is of no importance here. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree the moving of content should take place, and that this article is no longer needed or relevant. All im saying is, despite it being a predictable outcome there was very little focus on the fact the page would be killed off and turned into a redirect to History of China and most of its contents put on the country article. Most of the focus was just on switching China/Chinese Civilisation around in a page move. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:33, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

The only reason this page existed was to occupy "China" with something other than the subject that is commonly called China. There was no original content or well-defined concept, and in the move request many supporters of this page considered it a sort of disambiguation page between the PRC and the ROC that tried to give equality to both claims to "China". Since we have a hatnote pointing to the ROC on China, this page has become obsolete. Quigley (talk) 21:58, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Civilization sounds better than History of China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.7.2.108 (talk) 16:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Implementing moves to China article

As per the rationale discussed above I'd like to start dealing with some of the sections of this article that now appear to be better placed on a different article with what I believe will be the least controversial. Now that this article is no longer titled "China" the section which discusses the names "China" and "中国" should be included in the article currently at that title, China. Does anyone oppose such a move? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 21:13, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 14:10, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that should be moved. Id think it would be more controversial and problematic not to included the things in that section on the main China article, seems pretty useful information. BritishWatcher (talk) 16:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems kind of obvious that it belongs on page named "China" so I was bold and made the move. If someone has a good reason why this was not a good idea they can revert and/or share their arguments here. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 17:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I've been bold and merged the non-history sections to their respective sections in China, or articles like Religion in China, Geography of China, etc. The information was very often duplicative. Now this page redirects to History of China, which is a more informative and relevant destination. Quigley (talk) 20:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

That all seems logical. I'm just concerned about this talk page. It's one of the most active article talk pages I've ever seen and now with the redirect its a little difficult to find. Is there anything we can do to improve this situation? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 23:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I added a note to Talk:History of China directing interested users to this talk page. Quigley (talk) 23:39, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

We also need to clean up the links (redirects are the most urgent), its not always exactly clear what topic the term "Chinese civilization" is referring to in a given context but consider linking to History of China, Culture of China and China depending on the situation. I also discovered that Chinese civilization links to History of China while Chinese civilisation (with an 's') links to China, funny eh? Should they both point to History or China? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 01:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

How strange. They should both point to History of China, I dread to think of the reactions to their pointing simply to China. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 01:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Maybe Chinese civili(z/s)ation should point to China (disambiguation) for now. As a real disambiguation page, experienced disambiguators with semi-automated tools like Woohookitty would be alerted to and could clear the backlog. Quigley (talk) 02:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Could you explain? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind, there are very few links we have to correct, so we can do it all by hand. Both z and s should point to History of China, until more historical information is added to China, because right now the article is still mainly about the PRC. To compare, Classical civilization and Hindu civilization point to history; Western civilization and Persian civilization point to culture; Islamic civilization points to a disambiguation page focusing on history. Quigley (talk) 02:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Many of the links I'm finding seem like they should go to China more than History of China. In particular I'm finding piped links labeled "China" nested in a list of un-piped country links, like "were also cast with this type of material in [[Japan]], and probably also in [[Chinese civilisation|China]]." In those cases I'm just un-piping them back to China. Otherwise I'm defaulting to History of China. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I found a couple that would better point to Culture of China, and one I simply unlinked, as it really could lead to nothing useful. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The distinction comes from when one is using "Chinese civilization" naturally (then you would expect a link to Culture of China) or when one is using "Chinese civilization" to point to the former article that was about China as a historical supranational entity. Chinese civilization points to History of China now because links need to be fixed, but eventually it should point to Culture of China as that is the non-wiki-jargon use of "civilization". Quigley (talk) 02:39, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty familiar with non-wiki English, and I have to say that "Chinese Civilization" very often refers to the History of China more than Culture of China. One example, I can think of off the top of my head, is the very popular (at least in the U.S.) China studies textbook titled Chinese Civilization: a sourcebook. Its really a collection of source texts for the student of Chinese history but then there's no alligator-filled moat separating Culture from History. You could just as easily say the book is a collection of historical texts for the reader seekng an understanding of the foundations of Chinese culture. I agree that much of the links are un-natural and normally more would refer to culture. Did you know that Fujian is on the southeast coast of [[Chinese civilisation|China]]. I didn't until I fixed all those links. Civilisation with an S is done, nothing but some talk pages and such linking to it. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 02:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

All links appear to be fixed, anything else that needs doing to clean up after splitting up this page? - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:02, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

What do we want to do about the child pages, categories, templates, etc. that unnecessarily used "People's Republic of China" just because the main article was that way? For example, 2011 crackdown on dissidents in the People's Republic of China, where "China" is just not ambiguous, or cases where an unnecessary dualism exists, like 2011 in China being a disambiguation page? Quigley (talk) 03:07, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

That's a much tougher question. The example that you give is indeed unambiguous, but I have this weird feeling that a group of editors is not going to like the renaming. It seems most wise, and most in line with WP practice to take that on a case by case basis. There used to be some kind of understanding that one always had to use the complete official name whenever possible, that idea is now gone. Making a sweeping decision about an open-ended category of articles is not appropriate for us, the community of this talk page to undertake. I say whenever we see a page like that we make an argument on that article's talk page explaining why it would be better to have a title using the common name "China" instead of the People's Republic of China and let the editors of that page participate, the same way every other renaming discussion works. It may also make sense to bring those cases here for extra advice and attention.- Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Some cases are so unambiguous that it may be best to make the move without debate, but we should leave that up to the discretion of individual editors. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to wait a momment for the current changes to sink in and then work on revising WP:NC-China or whatever its called. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Even if a clear unambiguous page is moved, if it is done by an editor heavily involved in the discussion, I would suggest they post a note of this somewhere, such as on the guidelines page. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Quigley, these moves are fine, as long as Culture of China and similar articles remain focused on the nation of China as a whole (i.e., separate from Culture of the People's Republic of China). If they don't, this article will have to be reinstated. Nightw 11:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean when you talk about a "China as a whole" that excludes the PRC. Excluding PRC culture from Culture of China is unreasonable, but if you want to keep ancient Chinese culture in that article, nobody said they were opposed to that. Quigley (talk) 21:52, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The PRC culture page should really be renamed Culture under the People's Republic of China in my opinion. At any rate, some China subarticles will remain as they are, Culture as noted and history for example. I'm sure everyone agrees to that. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I mean that Culture of China should not exclude information on Taiwan and the other islands. Nightw 05:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Even if one claims that Taiwan is part of China, it is clear that Taiwan has not been a large force in the culture of China throughout history. Leaving Taiwan out of the article on the culture of China would hardly be noticeable and would not therefor imply that Taiwan is not part of China. On the other hand, including Taiwan in the article would clearly imply that Taiwan is part of China and would therefor violate NPOV. Readin (talk) 06:24, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

But what about the Pop Culture of China? Taiwan has been a major driving force in the development of Chinese pop culture. Should Taiwanese content be excluded from pop culture of China because China is now equated with the PRC and the China main page contains virtually no content about the current Taiwan/ROC (i.e. geography, population, economy etc.)? ContinentalAve (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I have made a move request at talk:Culture of China#Move request which is related to the issue of inclusion/exclusion of Taiwan. I have recommended it be moved to Chinese culture. Its a better title anyways but it helps alleviate the unintended political implications of including information about some residents of Taiwan in the article. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 06:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

That's what I was talking about. If Taiwan is deliberately excluded from those kinds of articles, then this article will have to be reinstated and I'll have no problems with doing the reverts. I suppose moving it to Chinese culture helps a little bit, but that was only one example of an article where information was moved. Nightw 07:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Well name (article) names and maybe we can come up with appropriate solutions if you think there is a problem. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 07:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

No problems at the moment since they all discuss Taiwan. I'm talking about future implications, if that information is removed. Nightw 06:35, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Very good point about future implications. Much of the content that should and could go into Wikipedia's various China-oriented articles have yet to be created. How those articles are named will affect how future writers will contribute to them. Simply renaming "[topic name] of China" into "Chinese [topic name]" cannot overcome the consequences of the recently and hastily adopted "China" article naming policy -- which is effectively, a One China, One Taiwan policy. E.g. Economy of China can't be renamed "Chinese economy" and get around the PRC/ROC problem. ContinentalAve (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

When do sources discussing the Economy of China ever include Taiwans economy as anything other than a steadily expanding economic partner? Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The original point that Nightw raised was that the Culture of China and other articles of China now carry a presumption of excluding content about Taiwan because now China clearly is equated with the PRC and Taiwan ROC can't be equated with the PRC. To overcome this problem, Metal lunchbox proposed changing the title of Culture of China to Chinese culture, to make the title more inclusive-sounding. Nightw then said currently most of the Taiwan culture article is about Taiwan and not about the mainland but in the future that may change. This is where I noted that renaming to Chinese may not work in every instance -- like economy. Despite growing integration, the economies of the PRC, ROC, HKG and Macau are still tabulated separately. However, the inter-connectivity is itself interesting to readers. Taiwanese businesses play an important role in the Mainland economy. See e.g. Foxconn, the maker of the iPhone. The mainland is also playing a greater role in Taiwan's economy. See e.g. ECFA. If there is a platform apart from the PRC economy, ROC economy, HKG economy that is more neutral, we can devote greater attention to these interactions. This could take place under the economy section of the Chinese civilization. ContinentalAve (talk) 17:26, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Civilization should stand on its own (and not be auto-redirected to any other page)

Chinese civilization is much too broad a topic to be autolinked to the History of China or Culture of China. Linking to "History" implies that Chinese civilization exists in the past and extends to the present only insofar as the History of China reaches the present. Chinese civilization covers language, history, food, music, food, medicine, culture, religion, holidays etc. One can create separate Food of China, Languages of China, Music of China articles. But there are at least two reasons for a Chinese civilization article:

First, under the effective One China, One Taiwan policy recently adopted, "China" is now equated with PRC and ROC with Taiwan, so that each of the component articles of Chinese civilization no longer covers Taiwan. Under this formulation, the Food of China, Culture of China articles do not cover Taiwan, ROC. There are separate Culture of Taiwan, Food of Taiwan articles. Without a single Chinese civilization page which can discuss the interlinkages of food in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc., common subject matter would reside in separate Food of China and Food of Taiwan articles. The connections would be lost and the impression given is that Chinese and Taiwanese cuisines and cultures are separate and apart from each other.

Second, there is growing cultural diffusion and economic interaction within the Chinese civilization these days, which the current China article (PRC) cannot adequately address. The Economy of China is centered on the mainland's economy. Same goes for Economy of Hong Kong and Economy of Taiwan. Chinese civilization can discuss all three and their interactions with each other. Same goes for culture -- the influence of Taiwanese and Hong Kong pop culture on the mainland for example. Chinese civilization is the most natural place to organize these discussions and serve as launching point for separate component pages.

Lastly, Chinese civilization is fairly distinct compared to other civilization articles on Wikipedia in that,

• it is an ongoing civilization (compare to Classical civilization which redirects to Antiquity and Hindu civilization which redirects to the Vedic Period)
• is multidimensional and content rich (compare to Islamic civilization, which currently is a disambiguation page with links to Islamic Golden Age, Muslim world and Caliphate) and
• is bigger than one country (i.e. PRC, ROC, Hong Kong, Macau) so that the PRC/China country page alone can't provide adequate coverage but does not have so many countries such as (Western civilization).

ContinentalAve (talk) 14:10, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Surely it's a contentious claim to say that Hindu civilisation no longer exists, or that Islamic civilisation is not content rich? Or vice versa? Both of those also cover more than one country (eg India/Nepal, Egypt/Iran). I'd be interested in how external sources define or discuss Chinese civilisation. I'm fairly sure it would discuss it in terms of its cultural legacy, which is what a redirect to Culture of China would do. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:21, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I just reported on the current state of other civilization articles mentioned further up in the discussion to inform you that those articles, in the state they are now in, are not appropriate points of comparison. I make no claim as to what those articles ought to contain. To answer your question about how sources characterize Chinese civilization presented this way, I would refer you to academic compendiums -- books that gather articles written by specialists across the field of Sinology. For example, The Chinese: Adapting to the Past Facing the Future edited by Robert Dernberger, Martin Whyte, among others that include perspectives on China from leading historical geographers, political scientists, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, etc. that discuss China's past as well as the present and linkages. [5] Many of these books also include comparative perspectives from Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of the broader Chinese civilization -- e.g. James Watson's work on food and society in Taiwan, food rituals in Hong Kong etc.

Chinese culture by itself cannot capture topics such as the economy -- cross-strait trade and investment, special economic policies that the PRC grants to Hong Kong and Macau, the special restrictions that Taiwan ROC places on mainland investments etc. and special political arrangements that now exists among PRC, ROC, Hong Kong and Macau. (e.g. Travel by mainland Chinese to Taiwan is restricted, but people from Hong Kong can travel freely to Taiwan, even though HKG is part of the PRC). In short, the Chinese civilization envisioned would be the platform that previously existed as "China" but before the requisite content could be added, that platform was removed and replaced with a much narrower space -- either as History of China or Culture of China. ContinentalAve (talk) 16:27, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Chinese "civilization" refers to China's history, because that word is not often used to refer to modern countries. Whether you want to include Taiwan in Chinese cuisine or Chinese culture or not is your choice. Nothing in this move request prevents it, and if you won't do it because your personal biases prevent you from "implying" that Taiwan is a part of PRC, then that's your fault. The supranational China-Hong Kong-Taiwan concept you're looking for is already located at the article Greater China. Quigley (talk) 16:03, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

(1) Civilization can refer to modern countries -- see, e.g., countries of the Western Civilization. The word is not restricted to civilizations of antiquity. China is more than one country. (2) My personal view does not determine what content that can and cannot go into certain articles. It's the article titles that define what can go in. For example, under the current "China" article, can you add "See main article Geography of Taiwan, Politics of the Republic of China and Administrative divisions of the Republic of China under each of Geography, Politics, and Special Administrative Divisions? Surely some would complain that they should not be part of an article about the PRC. (3) Greater China includes the Chinese diaspora which is beyond the original scope of the Chinese civilization article. ContinentalAve (talk) 16:38, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

More reasons for a Chinese civilization article.

Third, under the original plan for the Double-Move, the old "China" article would be moved to the "Chinese civilization" article and the old "PRC" article would move into the China article. As executed, however, PRC is now China, but the old China article never made it to Chinese civilization. It redirects to the History of China, with some of its old content moved to China and other parts simply gone. The move proposed here merely restates the original proposal, which was discussed and debated by more than 50 people. Whether we like the outcome or not, we at least ought to abide by it and then discuss further changes rather than this ad hoc change.

Fourth, if you want to have a well-written, well-sourced China article, you ought to think about length. If each of the current headings is developed to its proper extent and other relevant content is added to China (gaokao, Traditional Chinese medicine, television, music and film, to name a few) the article will be considerably longer. It's already longer than the United States in byte size and longer than the much better cite-source supported United Kingdom in text length. At some point, it'll be unwieldy and difficult for readers who want to get the quick facts about the PRC they are going to "China" to get. Wasn't that one of the main reasons for the move? A Chinese civilization article, rather than being a parallel of the China article, would include topics that do not quite fit into China and would also create space to include Taiwan without imputing sovereignty. Right now, the China article effectively forecloses the claim of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to "China"ContinentalAve (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The reasons for why the old "China" page was merged are located at #Chinese Civilization article obsolete? Merge content into other articles?, #Implementing moves to China article, and earlier discussions about a merge instead of a move proposal. In short, that page's raison d'etre was to act as a sort of disambiguator, giving equal claim of the PRC and the ROC to "China"; ergo, it could only exist as long as it occupied the title "China". I feel like you're trying to continue the debate from the move discussion, which is closed. English language sources—including those from the PRC, from the ROC, and from outside observers—near unanimously refer to the PRC as "China", and to the ROC not as "China" but as "Taiwan". If anyone has '"effectively foreclosed the claim of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to "China"', it's not been us. We're just following the sources. If your political tastes inhibit you from including discussion of Taiwan in the "China" article, then work on Greater China, which is the term English-language authors give to your supranational China-Hong Kong-Taiwan concept, not "China" or "Chinese civilization". Quigley (talk) 18:56, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Passports of China

The ROC Passport still has "China" on it.

Now, you are overstepping what the move meant, Quigley. By overreaching, you are on a much less defensible position and risk a much greater blowback. The move, based on current common parlance, transferred PRC content into China without taking a position on whether Taiwan ROC is also part of China. It does not say that China can only mean People's Republic of China. The redirect is meant to help uninformed readers locate information about the PRC through China. But the move does not take a position and certainly does not foreclose ROC's claim to China. The ROC hasn't renounced its name as ROC. Just because some English language sources in Taiwan calls the mainland China does not mean that the ROC has renounced its claim. In fact, in about three weeks, we will have the centennial of the Xinhai Revolution which led to the founding of the Republic of China. Do you think the government in Taipei will shrug and act like what happened in "China" 100 years ago has nothing to do with "Taiwan" today? If so, read this English Taiwan source: Poh-hsiung Brings Up ROC Centennial during Cross-Strait Forum As I've said before, each source refers to China for a particular purpose. Wikipedia has to account for more purposes than a newspaper or magazine reporting about "China" today. Greater China as the article itself says, is a fairly new term with little consensus over what it includes and is fraught with political connotations of Chinese expansionism, which is why Chinese civilization is a more neutral platform to address all those aspects of China that is not necessarily PRC. ContinentalAve (talk) 20:04, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Quigley, if you can add, under the current "China" article, "See main article Geography of Taiwan, Politics of the Republic of China and Administrative divisions of the Republic of China under each of Geography, Politics, and Special Administrative Divisions and keep them there, then I would be happy to drop my objections. ContinentalAve (talk) 20:13, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any special power to "keep" those links there against the objection of other editors, but I did add them. Your arguments about the ROC actively pursuing a "claim" to China were discussed and refuted in the move discussion, including by me. Quigley (talk) 20:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, thank you Quigley for putting those "see main articles references to ROC topics" in the China article. Those insertions signal that China does not only mean ROC Taiwan and that ROC Taiwan-related content can also be discussed in the China article. Those are my main concerns. I will be happy if they stay up there. As they are up there now, I have no objections now. I am a bit perplexed by the notion that you or anyone managed to "refute" the reality that ROC maintains their claim to "China". If they print "China" on the ROC Taiwan passport, doesn't that indicate some claim over the word China? ContinentalAve (talk) 20:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be arguing for treating Taiwan as a part of China as though it were uncontroversial. It is not uncontroversial. Care needs to be taken that Wikipedia avoid taking sides in this dispute. Creating an article specifically for the purpose of putting Taiwan, HK and mainland China together is clearly a violation of NPOV.Readin (talk) 00:55, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

"Claim over the word China" and "claim over China" are different things, it seems. No? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:37, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Both points were subjected to scrutiny in the move discussion, and there was very little evidence that the ROC did either. Being named "Republic of China" (changing the name is not really a choice) does not automatically mean that the ROC has or pursues a "claim over the word China". Greece has a vigorous claim over the word "Macedonia", disputing others' rights to use it however they please. Taiwan simply does not do this, and calls the PRC China and itself something else. Quigley (talk) 03:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

"Do you think the government in Taipei will shrug and act like what happened in "China" 100 years ago has nothing to do with "Taiwan" today?" The government surely will act like it was important. But I suspect most of the people of Taiwan will shrug and won't care much about what happened 100 years ago except in that it today prevents them from gaining international recognition for their country.

Remember, "official" and "neutral" are not synonyms. The government of Taiwan is not a neutral source for the status of Taiwan. It is a significant voice and its opinion needs to be given appropriate weight in our articles, but it is not neutral. Readin (talk) 01:01, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

With regards to this article people were prepared to write what must have amounted to a doctoral thesis of content on the move discussion and article titling this year alone. Therefore there is clearly interest in this topic. If there was valuable content to be written about the Chinese civilisation given that interest surely it would have been written long ago and it wouldn't have been so simple to merge the articles?

Possibly rather than being a redirect this article should be a disambiguation page that points at the History of China and the Chinese culture articles?

Of course if I am wrong about this article having good unique content I would have thought the best solution would be to create a new unique article for this page in userspace that can be considered. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 11:06, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Eraserhead1, I like that last suggestion very much. I would reply to one point you made: "If there was valuable content to be written about the Chinese civilisation given that interest surely it would have been written long ago and it wouldn't have been so simple to merge the articles?"

Considering the level of controversy surrounding the China article before the recent move, I wouldn't make any assumptions about what "surely" would have happened. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:05, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

There's a possibility that any unique information became bulldozed over by the other content in the previous article, so I'd welcome a userspace draft by anyone who thinks there is unique content. However, I reckon any article would end up as a content fork of current articles, especially Culture and History. As for disambiguation vs redirect, I think the redirect o culture would be better. That's how it's more often used in real life in my experience. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:59, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Pending a unique article that isn't just a content fork, I wouldn't oppose changing the redirect to Chinese culture, although my feelings about it aren't strong one way or the other. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:24, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the term is fairly ambiguous in English. I'd say most of the time it is referring to Culture but there is an emphasis on continuity, therefore historu. In general the term seems to be used in different ways depending on the needs of the author. It may be more informative to look at incoming links. Those have since been changed but the ones I changed were mostly towards history or to China, Chipmunkdavis appears to have had a different experience. With no incoming links and the somewhat ambiguous nature of the term I don't think its that important whether it points to the one or the other. I think its okay pointing to History of China but Culture of China does seem slightly more appropriate and if others support such a change then that is what we should do. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 17:58, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Given views on where this page should redirect I have boldly created a disambiguation page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:29, 26 September 2011 (UTC)