Talk:Mainland China

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First Archive

   * 1 "Great Han Tribe-Stan"
   * 2 Rmd redundant text
   * 3 See also mainland
   * 4 Scope of the term mainland China
   * 5 Removed redundant text
   * 6 Edits by Huaiwei
   * 7 Factual accuracy of the article
   * 8 PRC's political PR team / Taiwan as an independent State
   * 9 Extent of mainland China
   * 10 Extent of claims
   * 11 Proposed revision
   * 12 The term "mainland China"
   * 13 Original Article POV
   * 14 "Continental"
   * 15 wow  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.204.224.227 (talk) 03:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC) 

contained at Talk:Mainland China/Archive 1

Contents 1 "Informal" 2 "Usually excludes" 3 Edits by Huaiwei 4 Ma Ying-jeou is not a Hong Konger 5 (no section title) 6 English term "Mainland China" considered inappropriate in PRC 7 Hainan 8 References and sources 9 Should Taiwan be mentioned?

[edit] "Informal"

Whether the term is informal and used only in informal contexts is disputed. See /archive 1 for arguments previously presented. — Instantnood 12:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

tl;dr, but nobody there is agreeing with you, and that conversation is from March 2005. Are you going to leave this dubious template in the article until 2007 when you obviously have no concensus? SchmuckyTheCat 15:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Who's telling you there's nobody? Am I the only participants in the discussion to have such view? What about the facts that several participants had presented? — Instantnood 16:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

You linked to "Edits by Huaiwei" and the only conversation there is between you and Huaiwei, except at the end, where an anon comes along and disagrees with you as well. So yes, I'm telling me there's nobody and that you are the only participant in that section that agrees with you and the several participants in the section "edits by Huaiwei" are figments of your imagination because they don't exist. SchmuckyTheCat 17:40, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Please read other sections in the page as well. User:Huaiwei and I are not the only participants. And please note #Edits by Huaiwei and #Factual accuracy of the article are not the only linked sections from here. — Instantnood 18:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

OIC, you've linked to several sections in one word. tl;dr, but it still appears that consensus exists that the term is informal (though sometimes used formally) and usually (but not always) excluded HK and MO. SchmuckyTheCat 18:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there any evidence presented showing it's always informal and never formal? Is there any evidence presented justifying that it's usually but not always excludes? How would you justify your bold claim that user:Huaiwei and I were the only participants? — Instantnood 18:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

If it's not informal and if it's not formal, how about simply removing the word "informal"? I don't see every term in Wikipedia being dubbed with "informal" or "formal", and since it's contested here it's quite unnecessary. Aran|heru|nar 09:33, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Usually excludes"

Whether the term always or " usually excludes ", as said by the article, is disputed. See /archive 1 for arguments previously presented. — Instantnood 12:57, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

nobody there is agreeing with you, and that conversation is from March 2005. Are you going to leave this dubious template in the article until 2007 when you obviously have no concensus? SchmuckyTheCat 15:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the dubious template will stay there forever. Because Instantnood and Huaiwei will never agree. Every article about China has these two people arguing. Usually Instantnood is right - he is also right in this case. The wording should just be "..however, it excludes the two.." without any mention of always or usually. 219.77.110.110 13:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Please refer to my response above. — Instantnood 16:34, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

You linked to the "factual accuracy" section of the archive. The only conversation there is between you and Huaiwei. It stands to reason that you're pounding sand. The term does not always exclude, so the word "usually" is appropriate here. SchmuckyTheCat 17:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Please refer to my response above. — Instantnood 18:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edits by Huaiwei

---I agree. The USA also has terrorities outside its mainland, such as Hawaii, and Alaska, but you wouldn't hear of anyone refering to USA as mainland USA, unless it was a Hawaiin, Puerto Rican or Eskimo speaking. Likewise, we shouldn't refer to China as mainland because it would be following the speech of Taiwanese, rather than going with what locals say, which would typically be "guonei". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chinoiserie (talk • contribs) 15:00, March 12, 2006 (UTC)

FWTFIW, the Mainland is used to refer to the “lower 48” in Alaska, although I’ve been told its use is usually facetious, and my homegirl’s staying in Hawai‘i right now; the Mainland is definitely used there, too. I’ve used Mainland in a U.S. context ’cause it’s fewer syllables than 48 states; if another English speaker tells me the Mainland in reference to China, I assume they’re excluding the SARs. Otherwise the standard term is "China." —Wiki Wikardo 6 in the bloody morning, 23 April 2006 (PDST)

At most time when the press talks about China, they're actually meaning mainland China. In every issue of The Economist, for instance, separate figures for "China", "Hong Kong" and "Taiwan" are listed on its last page. The same is true for stories in newspapers and news magazines, as well as TV news channels. Sometimes the word China does, however, include Hong Kong and Macao, but that really depends on the contexts. News articles are catered for general audience who don't have to posess much knowledge with the subject matter. That's not the case for Wikipedia, an encyclopædia. — Instantnood 21:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Careful there Chinoiserie - we aren't in the business of saying what terms people 'should' use. In fact, 'the mainland' is commonly and consistently used (at least here in Hong Kong) in exactly the way this article describes. Earthlyreason 08:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ma Ying-jeou is not a Hong Konger

Last I noticed, he was using his ROC passport, not his Hong Kong SAR passport to travel. I really don't see how Ma is Hongkonger. Citation for this?--Jiang 08:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't add that. But I re-wrote the chingrish of the person who did, and after reading the pages mainlander and ma ying-jeou, I reverted Instantnoods removal of it. I'm not all that familiar with the man at all, other than reading here. A quick google search did turn up that "political rivals accusation that he was a 'Hong Konger' and not Taiwanese," [1]. So obviously some people do claim he is. Maybe the other user is Taiwanese and disagrees politically with Ma and wants him considered a Hongkonger. To me, it illustrates that (some) Taiwanese consider Hongkongers to be mainlanders and that's an important addition to the article. SchmuckyTheCat 14:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Average Hongkonger are not considered by Taiwanese to be Mainlanders. Ma was born in Kowloon, with little, if not no, connection with Hong Kong other than his place of birth. And that's the only reason he's called a Hongkonger by pro-independence politicians, e.g. Chen Shui Bian, who said Ma was " 香港腳走香港路 " (going Hong Kong's way with Hong Kong feet) in an interview. — Instantnood 19:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

This is certainly a fringe view. Ma spent a total of one year in Hong Kong, and his parents were not permanantly settled there. I am removing the reference since one article consisting of political mudslinging does not constitute verification that people truly identify Ma as a Hong Konger. If I tried to call John McCain "Panamanian" I would be promptly reverted.--Jiang 20:40, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed that it is fringe, political insults often are. The point that the article should make then is: 1) that politicians use the "mainlander" designation in an insulting way to imply divided loyalties and 2) that there are Taiwanese that call Hongkongers "mainlanders". SchmuckyTheCat 22:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Point (1) is not made through the example of Ma Ying-jeou and point (2) is irrelevant because Ma Ying-jeou is not a Hongkonger. Actually, I would argue that neither terms (waishengren and daluren) are actively applied to Hongkongers at all. The sentence "Political opponents of Kuomintang politician Ma Jing-yeuo have used his Hong Kong birth to disparage him as a mainlander." does not make sense because it is not his HK birth that necessarily makes him a mainlander, but his family's origins in Hunan (both his parents were from Hunan and fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War). On the flip side, Lien Chan was born in Xian, but is not usually called a "mainlander" because his father (and his father's family) were from Taiwan and fled to the mainland during the Japanese colonization. Ma Ying-jeou's birth is irrelevant here: had he been born in Taiwan, he would still be called a mainlander on acct of his family origins.--Jiang 00:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (no section title)

"The term Mainlander can also refer to dàlù rén (大陸人, literal meaning: "Mainland person(s)"), meaning the people who live on the Mainland now and the very small number of people who have emigrated to Taiwan recently." This passage does not make sense. Apley. 4-28-2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.239.94.156 (talk • contribs) 08:01, April 29, 2006 (UTC).

Well, it makes some sense to me, though I agree it's not exactly well-written. Aran|heru|nar 09:27, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English term "Mainland China" considered inappropriate in PRC

The term "Mainland China" implies that there exists another "Taiwan China", leading to the existence of "Two Chinas", which is considered inacceptable by the PRC government.

The politically correct English term is "the Chinese Mainland" or "the Chinese Motherland". These are the terms that you will hear on the government controlled Chinese Central Television (CCTV). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wooxuexue (talk • contribs) 22:49, May 3, 2006 (UTC).

regarding cross-strait relations, they use "the mainland" or "the Chinese mainland" as it were a political entity synonymous with the central people's government, such as "15 new policies announced recently by the Chinese mainland to benefit Taiwan compatriots".--Jiang 05:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Is this (17600) convincing enough? — Instantnood 14:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hainan

Probably should also be some mention of Hainan, which is considered part of "Mainland China" politically (if not geographically) 82.35.13.34 19:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it mentioned in the map? :-D This term is rarely defined and comprehended geographically, by the way. — Instantnood 21:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References and sources

The administrator demand for references and sources is too severe. Many of those highlighted points are merely part of the basic definition. The expression is in widespread usage, so it's hard to do more than provide examples. (But some statements do need backing up, just not all of them.) Earthlyreason 08:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should Taiwan be mentioned?

The definition of mainland China says:-

"...is a geopolitical term usually synonymous with the area currently governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC), including off-shore islands."

Taiwan is commonly known that it is not governed by the PRC. Should it even be mentioned at all? I wouldn't personally.--Pyl (talk) 15:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)