Talk:Cross-Strait relations

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[edit] Taiwan and mainland China, or ROC and PRC?

Most of this article is about government to government relations. We should be saying "Republic of China" and "People's Republic of China" rather than "Taiwan" and mainland China". Readin (talk) 13:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes I think we should, per NPOV policy.--123.243.102.34 (talk) 13:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Say "PRC and ROC" if it is government-to-government relations. Say "mainland and Taiwan" when it is not. There is no formal governmental contact between the two sides. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:36, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the relations are formal, they are still relations between the governments. The ARATS and SEF may be "unoffical" but each is controlled and funded by its respective government to handle cross strait relations.

The second paragraph talks about the Chinese civil war, which was a war between governments - the PRC and ROC, not a war between Taiwan and China.

The third paragraph talks about more military conflict - again the actions of government. It also talks about how the governments prevented contact. It also talks about negotiations to create "three links" and again these negotiations are being conducted by the governments and will be concluded when the governments agree.

A large portion of the article talks about the actions of Chen, Hu and Ma - presidents of their respective countries.

Readin (talk) 06:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hu doesn't dictate?

On March 20, 2008, the KMT won the presidency in Taiwan. It also has a majority in the Legislature. Compared to his predecessors, who often dictated conditions to Taiwan, Hu has been proactive in seeking ties with Taiwan on the basis of the "One China Policy", especially with the pro-unification Kuomintang party.[4]

How did Hu change? He's still dictating that Taiwan accept "one-china principle" before talks can begin. What has changed to justify the above quote that suggests Hu doesn't dictate terms like his predecessors did? Readin (talk) 16:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The source has this to say

But Hu does not dictate conditions to Taiwan. Instead he has built channels to influence Taiwanese politics. He has established solid ties with the pro-unification Kuomintang (KMT) and possibly also with the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. He has acquired political mobility, which in politics, as in military affairs, is crucial for victory, or at least to avoid defeat. He has done this by being proactive, and not simply expecting Taiwan to come to him cap in hand. Rather, he took a big political risk as Beijing hosted then-KMT chairman Lian Chan, a visit that turned out to be a huge success.

Unfortunately that's all opinion with no reliable facts. The only fact it does have, about his meetings with the KMT, tells about his meetings with an opposition party, not anything he did to avoid dictating terms to Taiwan. Readin (talk)

Go according to what the source says. It is not up to us as editors to go behind sources: add in contrary opinions if another source has a different opinion. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:35, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Opinions should be attributed, not be presented as the view of Wikipedia. Unless some facts can be presented or the text says that the statement is an opinion of the source, then it needs to go. Readin (talk) 12:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Opinions need to be attributed only if the source is less than reliable, or if there is some dispute. If the opinion reflects broad consensus, and there are no significant contrary viewpoints, then it is fine as is. Most statements, remember, are in truth opinions even when they describe or summarise "facts". Is this source unreliable? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

The piece is an opinion piece. It is not presented as a news story and makes no claim to being objective. It is not encyclopedic information. Do you have any evidence that the opinion reflects a broad consensus? Coming from a newspaper that lumps Taiwan into a grouping with China while giving Japan and Korea their own individual sections, I hardly consider the newspaper as a whole unbiased. They call the grouping "Greater China" which is a bit to reminiscent of Greater Serbia and Greater Germany. The Wikipedia entry for "Greater China" says it is an economic term, but in this newspaper there is a separate section for "China Business". So I do not consider the newspaper an unbiased source of opinion. The article is clearly only an opinion piece. And I've seen no evidence that it represents a consensus view. Have you looked to see what the DPP has to say about Hu's policies? Readin (talk) 02:19, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, actually, Greater China is a politically NPOV designation. I find it a bit objectionable, since it makes a distinction between so-called "Greater China" and "China".

Given that both the PRC and the ROC have committed themselves to the 1992 Consensus, the conception of China as one entity seems to me to be fairly NPOV - though of course it is not completely so since it is contrary to the opinions of hardcore Taiwan separatist supporters.

Moreover, it is reliability that matters, not "NPOV-ness". Of course, complete lack of neutrality often goes hand-in-hand with unreliability, but the two concepts are distinct. As far as I know, Asia Times is a reliable and professional news source. Of course, the conceptual paradigm that it works under is appreciably different to yours. That, however, does not of itself make it unreliable. That said, I have no issue if you want to qualify the sentence with "According to some observers", or indeed, "According to so-and-so's analysis".

What, precisely, is it that you are objecting to about this line? If you can bring up a couple of contradictory sources, then we can balance the different opinions.

I am not aware of what, if anything, the DPP has against Hu's policies. Could you elaborate? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Enough politics, I think

The article has enough politics to establish the background, I think. I think what it needs more of are:

actual relations: cross-strait marriages in recent years; defections, visits, whatever, in earlier years;
cultural exchanges, other types of collaboration, etc.
investment, economic co-operation, cross flow of money.

Your opinions? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Relations between countries are generally thought of in political terms. If you look at other articles about foreign relations of the China (Sino-Japanese relations, Sino-American relations, China-India relations) and Taiwan (Japan-Republic of China (Taiwan) relations) you'll find they are almost entirely about politics. As such I don't seen any great need to include non-political relations in this article, particularly since the term "cross-strait relations" was coined as a politically correct term for the political relationship between the two nations.

On the other hand, more information is better than less information. Just because information isn't provided on other important topics doesn't mean it shouldn't be provided for this important topic. If we go forward with this we should work to provide similar information about other important international cultural exchanges such as the cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Japan and the high rates of marriage between Taiwanese and southeast Asians.

The one big question then is where to put this information on non-political relations. Should it be in this article which uses a named for the political stuff, or should it be in another article and if so, what should we call it? "Sino-Taiwanese Exchanges"? Readin (talk) 13:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, this isn't about relationships between "countries" - in fact, the PRC and ROC have no official relations. All the relations have been political non-relations, plus semi-official and non-official exchanges.

The Chinese wikipedia article, which is featured, I think, divides the article into two broad sections: "Political relations", which broadly covers the topics we've dealt with so far. Then several sections on things like economic, cultural, etc exchange.

I agree with you that obviously the political relations is the most important: but the politics is also dealt with in great deal in articles like Political status of Taiwan.

Perhaps what we can do is one section on history and politics (i.e. what we already have), and then another section on non-political relations.

I think the common sense meaning of the word "relations" is broad enough to encompass both official and non-official relations. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 00:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cross-strait relations "occasionally" non-governmental??

I'm not happy about the wording there.

I think cross-strait relations are almost entirely non-governmental, with the dubious exception of SEF-ARATS negotations. Those were alive for only about 10 years out of the almost 60 years that the article focuses on. How about this formulation:

"Cross-strait relations refers to the relations between mainland China, which sits to the west of the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan, which sits to the east. Especially, it can refer to the relations between the respective governments of the two areas, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China."

Your thoughts? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I can agree that most relations between any two countries are non-governmental. Most relations between the US and China are economic and cultural, but when someone talks about "Sino-American relations" they are almost always talking about politics, and the Sino-American relations article is almost exclusively about relations between the two governments. The same is true for Sino-Japanese relations, China-India relations, Japan-Republic of China (Taiwan) relations, etc.. A google search on "cross strait relations" turns up a lot of information about how the governments behave toward each other.

I'm not thrilled about the wording of the sentence either - I'm a better editor than a writer - but I was looking for a way to accommodate your desire to make the article about more than just governmental relations while keeping true to the fact that most of the time (not always, but most of the time) the term "cross strait relations" is used for governmental relations.

Your statement that "I think cross-strait relations are almost entirely non-governmental, with the dubious exception of SEF-ARATS negotations." is simply false, particularly with your qualification of 10 out of 60 years. For a large portion of the last 60 years, the only relations between Taiwan and China were governmental. They were conducted through fighting (small scale fighting occurred on the Taiwan-controlled islands near China long after the war), and indirectly through other nations and international organizations (the fights for recognition) and through public statements. Just because they negotiations and conflicts weren't always "official" doesn't mean they weren't controlled by the governments and therefor inter-governmental. Readin (talk) 11:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with your analogy of "Cross Strait relations" with "Sino-[insert country] relations". Regardless of one's views of the political status of Taiwan, it cannot be denied that the relations between the PRC and the ROC were, for a long time, that between competing regimes of the same country; that this is no longer the case today does not mean that they have somehow become ordinary foreign relations. Neither government treats, nor has ever treated, the other as a "foreign" government - though perhaps a few of the more fanatical supporters of the Taiwan Solidarity Union might wish it was otherwise.

It is simply misleading to draw comparisons with "Sino-American relations".

I also disagree that "fighting" between two governments can be described as inter-governmental relations. It is better described as the lack of relations. There has never been any inter-governmental relations. I think of inter-governmental relations in its full form as exemplified by the system of High Commissions in the British Commonwealth: though the sovereignty of all realms are vested in the same person (the Queen), each government sends High Commissioners as representatives of the government (but not the sovereign). There is simply nothing remotely like that between the PRC and the ROC. All we can talk about on the governmental front is all the attempts to - or failure to - create any such relationship. Rather, the focus of the article already is on the lack of relationship, and the semi-official and non-officil (e.g. party-to-party) relationships.

How about this as a compromise?

": "Cross-strait relations refers to the relations between mainland China, which sits to the west of the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan, which sits to the east; especially, the relations between the respective governments of the two areas, the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China." --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Cross-Strait relations

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[edit] Taiwan and mainland China, or ROC and PRC?

[edit] Hu doesn't dictate?

[edit] Enough politics, I think

[edit] Cross-strait relations "occasionally" non-governmental??

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