Talk:People's Republic of China

Largest nation in Asia? Siberia's in Asia, ergo Russia is the largest nation in Asia (by land area of course). --Larry Sanger 12:38, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Maybe I need to quit using these mercator projections... =P Shanya Almafeta 13:19, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Shanya Almafeta wrote: "Still waiting on someone who's versed and unbiased in this topic to edit". Ah, but there is no requirement that persons be unbiased, only that they write without bias. --Larry Sanger 12:40, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Yes, but it certainly doesn't make creating an unbiased, no-point-of-view article any easier to do. Shanya Almafeta 13:19, 28 January 2007 (CST)

China is the second largest country in Asia by area (after Russia and Canada) --Alex Leung 19:46, 7 February 2007 (CST)

Well, instead of talking about this, I guess I'd better go on and edit the article myself. --Alex Leung 19:47, 7 February 2007 (CST)

China vs. PRC vs. ROC

We can't just call this article China and then say that we are really talking about the People's Republic of China. On Wikipedia, there is a distinction between China as a civilization, the People's Republic of China as the country on the mainland from 1949 on, and the Republic of China on Taiwan. If we are not clear about this on Citizendium, it will just invite edit conflicts.--Dana Lutenegger 11:56, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

I agree with Dana. When you come right down to it, China is a country with several thousand years of history, and the PRC is a state with 50 years of history. They are not the same thing.—Nat Krause 13:37, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

Not to mention that the RoC claims to be the legal government of all that the PRC claims, and then some.

However, we don't have to solve the problem the same way that Wikipedia has. Another possibility would be to create a disambiguation page at China, and have it list Chinese civilization, People's Republic of China, Republic of China, Chinese people, Chinese language, and whatever else needs to be listed there. Anthony Argyriou 15:02, 2 April 2007 (CDT)

People's Republic of China article created

I have written a new PRC article which focuses just on the post-1949 situation; I think this China article needs to focus on Chinese civilisation generally (3000+ years as opposed to 58). John Stephenson 04:12, 18 May 2007 (CDT)

merge with People's Republic of China ??

Should we not merge this with People's Republic of China --why should they be distinct articles?Richard Jensen 19:05, 7 December 2007 (CST)

There is no reason I can see not to merge them or better rewrite completly. I think some people wanted to me the PRC article about the politics rather than the country but that would be like saying an article on the 'Republic of France' should only deal with french republicanism and not talk about France. Such political focuses could be covered under articles like Communist Party of China or similar. There is a long standing idea in China of the Mandate of Heaven that ties the present government and state to all the previous incarnations. So the PRC is just the present incarnation of China, it's not different form china. Chinese culture didn't end in 1949. Derek Harkness 19:53, 7 December 2007 (CST)

I don't think anyone would argue that the PRC—its core territories, at least—is separate from China, only that it does not comprehensively equal China. Wikipedia is in the midst of extensive and, for the most part, intelligent discussions, on exactly this topic. Generally, they have drawn the conclusion not to merge the "China" and "PRC" articles, for precisely this reason.—Nat Krause 12:47, 8 December 2007 (CST)

the kids over at Wikipedia reject expertise and so don't know what they're doing. Our PRC article is pretty weak and probably should just be dropped. Richard Jensen 12:58, 8 December 2007 (CST)

Well, have you read the discussion in question? It seems mostly intelligent to me.—Nat Krause 15:42, 8 December 2007 (CST)

A weak article is no reason to drop it and as far as I've noticed in any news, media, etc... China and PRC are never the same entity. And I believe they cover two different eras of China's history anyway. --Robert W King 15:01, 8 December 2007 (CST)

when the new media say "China" they always refer to the country ruled by the PRC. They do not include Taiwan, Singapore or Chinatowns in Canada.Richard Jensen 15:21, 8 December 2007 (CST)

The Chinese media doesn't use "China" in a way that excludes Taiwan. In English, people do often use "China" to mean the PRC when the context is modern politics and related subjects. In other contexts, in can mean something else; for instance, "Confucius was a scholar in ancient China", or "The Tang Dynasty is sometimes seen as China's golden age".—Nat Krause 15:42, 8 December 2007 (CST)

yes I read the Wikipedia discussion by a bunch of teenagers with little serious knowledge and few conceptual skills. In any case the CZ article should include the current economy, politics, diplomacy, etc. I don't see any role for the PRC article (which at the moment is a collection of personal reflections and not a serious work.) Richard Jensen 16:04, 8 December 2007 (CST)

I don't rate the wikipedia discussion, or there way of handling the articles on China, all that highly. When I read their talk page, all I see is Taiwan this and Taiwan that. This isn't really the issue. Whither Taiwan is in the PRC or not in the PRC is quite irrelevant to the question of whither the PRC is China or not. We can argue over the status of Taiwan when we write an article about Taiwan but for now lets concentrate on China. In every respect possible, the PRC is China - It is China in the same way that the Qin dynasty was China; in the same way as the Ming dynasty was China; in the same way as the Qing dynasty was China. The baton of the name passes form one dominant power to the next dominant power. So the PRC is China. Lets concentrate on describing thing as they really are and not as some politicians might want them to be.

The article at China should deal with all aspects of China. History, culture, geography and government. It should be all inclusive of everything that is connected to China in the same way as the article on Ireland (State) deals with everything relating to the country Ireland. There may be a case for a detailed history article like the 'history of the PRC' or as Richard will probably call it, the People's Republic of China, History of but as far as the country article, there should only be one.

Turning to naming conventions. I'd have rather we had the United Kingdom of...da da da and the United States of America rather than United Kingdom and United States but since we seem to be defaulting to the common names, if we have to choose only one name, it will be China. Derek Harkness 05:50, 9 December 2007 (CST)

"In every respect possible, the PRC is China - It is China in the same way that the Qin dynasty was China; in the same way as the Ming dynasty was China; in the same way as the Qing dynasty was China". Well, that's a political opinion which is contentious; therefore, it shouldn't be included as a fact in an encyclopedia.—Nat Krause 22:33, 8 December 2007 (CST)

The way CZ handles contentious issues is to present both positions, not ignoring it. What experts say this is a "political opinion"??Richard Jensen 22:47, 8 December 2007 (CST)

It hadn't really occurred to me that it might not be a political opinion. Have you reviewed the works of experts and found that the consensus that it is not a political question? Also, I certainly never said that this issue should be ignored—only that it should not be treated as a fact, as in the current intro, "China, formally The People’s Republic of China,".—Nat Krause 11:45, 9 December 2007 (CST)

I went through the world's major English newspapers and magazines yesterday--NY Times, Toronto Globe, The Australian, London Financial Times, London Telegraph, London Economist, Newsweek and Time. Every one treats China as a nation and calls it China (not PRC)--as does the Taipei Times in Taiwan. I have yet to find a serious source that says otherwise. Richard Jensen 12:10, 9 December 2007 (CST)

revisions

I added a sketch of 20th century history, tightened the discussion of the economy and politics, made the human right section more specific, reduced the speculation about religion and dropped a citation to a non-scholarly political source.Richard Jensen 10:25, 9 December 2007 (CST)

Country name

It is not correct to follow the simplistic journalistic habit of calling the PRC China, and then failing to distinguish properly from a region, an historical entity, and the popular usage of the name China. This all has to be changed, with a disambiguation page for China. Otherwise, it simply does not make sense. How can we have an article on one of the most important countries of the world that does not make sense!

Derek: I can trust you to advise us on how to do this. Please make some concrete suggestions. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 20:06, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Martin seems to be proposing new articles on China-2 and China-3 -- the content of which is unclear and the authors are unknown. When those articles are written we can disambiguate them. Richard Jensen 20:24, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Martin, please refer to my comments further up this page. We only need one article to cover all the aspects. In the future we may have to disambiguate this page with china (porcelain). Also this page needs allot more work. Having a history section that reads "Dynasty followed dynasty" to cover a period of 3700 is just not sufficient. Also, one of the books referenced at the bottom of the page hasn't even been published yet. I assume that someone got an advanced copy or have we started accepting advertising blurb as suitable reference material? Derek Harkness 03:11, 23 February 2008 (CST)

Well, I defer to your judgment on this, Derek. My feeling [as a complete ignoramus on China] is that it is very difficult from reading the article to distinguish between the historical China, the geogra[hical region [if it is one], the different political entities and their controversies, etc... These things should be made apparent from the outset, which is why I thought a disambiguation page might be in order. Anyway, as it stands the article needs to be much clearer about basics...Martin Baldwin-Edwards 03:54, 23 February 2008 (CST)

As for the book by David Ownby that has not been published yet, this well-known author has given many talks and papers that make his findings clear. see [1] and [2], which prove that 60-seconds of research is called for before making unfortunate statements. Richard Jensen 04:09, 23 February 2008 (CST)

If the book is not published, it cannot be referenced. That is a simple fact. There is nothing unfortunate in saying this. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 05:55, 23 February 2008 (CST)

Scholars make references to not-yet-published books all the time. In fact, most style manuals (e.g., the Chicago Manual of Style) specify how such books are to be cited: e.g., with terms such as "Forthcoming" or "In press" instead of a publication date. If academia considered it improper to cite such works, then surely the style manual of the prestigious scholarly publisher, the University of Chicago Press, would not specify detailed instructions on how to do it. Scholars often show copies of their manuscripts or page proofs to other scholars before the official publication or physical printing of a book, and those not-yet-published works can be and are cited. Whether that's the case here, I have no idea, but a blanket statement that a not-yet-published book "cannot be referenced" wouldn't seem to be entirely correct. Bruce M.Tindall 10:16, 23 February 2008 (CST)

It is not common to reference unpublished books at all. The only normal way is if it is your own book, or you have access to the final ms of someone else. It is not appropriate or necessary to do either on CZ, in my judgement. Furthermore, Richard's claim that previous publications by the same author indicate the content of a forthcoming book is bizarre and certainly not permissible.Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:29, 23 February 2008 (CST)

Country name (again)

I've changed the introduction to remove the claim that 'China=PRC'. This doesn't reflect the relationship between Taiwan's government and Beijing, namely that there is only "one China" (i.e. since the "1992 consensus") and neither the mainland nor Taiwan are outside it. I think it is better to incorporate information on both the PRC and ROC into the article. John Stephenson 09:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Developing the "History" section

I've recently added some text to the "History" section of this article as well as to the separate article entitled "China, history", but have decided for the time being to work on only "China, history", and then later come back and produce a much-abridged version for the "History" section here.

I wouldn't presume to tell any other authors what to do, and eagerly invite collaboration -- but if and when anybody else wants to work on articles involving Chinese history, this message is to make them aware of what I've been up to, so that we can, if necessary, discuss what we're all doing, avoid unknowlingly duplicating effort in two different places, and not step on each other's toes or edits. Thanks. Bruce M. Tindall 17:25, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Restoration of the PRC article

I revived the People's Republic of China article I started some years ago since there has been a link to it atop the China article for a while now. Basically I have incorporated a lot of the material from here into there. In some places, the material was rather biased against the PRC (lots of references to "propaganda", so I have tried to neutralise that and also shorten this article. Those biases remain in this article, but it should be shortened anyway. The reason for all this is that previously there was an editor-led insistence that 'China' and 'PRC' are synonymous, which is not accepted by either the mainland government or Taiwan, which both insist that there is only one China and the latter is part of it. The disagreement is over which is the legitimate government. John Stephenson 14:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Restoration

I revived the article I started some years ago since there has been a link to it atop the China article for a while now. Basically I have incorporated a lot of the material from there into here. In some places, the material was rather biased against the PRC (lots of references to "propaganda", so I have tried to neutralise that. John Stephenson 13:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

2008 Olympics section statement

I am questioning the accuracy of this statement regarding China being the 'oldest continuous culture in the world'. I have no doubt that it's one of the longest extant cultures in the world, but how can it be longer than the continuous culture of India stretching back before written records? I would like to see this rewritten not to be so exclusive to China.

While the modern PRC was established only in 1949, its people are arguably the latest generation of the oldest continuous culture in the world, stretching back over 4000 years.

I recommend something like: While the modern PRC was established only in 1949, it contains one of the oldest continuous cultures in the world, stretching back over 4000 years.

Any objections? Jack S. Byrom (talk) 23:12, 19 May 2023 (CDT)

How do you define continuous, anyway? Peter Jackson (talk) 05:23, 20 May 2023 (CDT)