Talk:Politics of the Republic of China

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Reviewed version: June 24, 2007

Contents

[edit] Templates

I don't see the need for a footer template. I think that the side thing will suffice. On small pages, it adds clutter, and on large pages, well, it also adds clutter.

I think we should remove them. --Richman271 00:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)


I added the name of some more very minor political parties. I got the list from the ROC Government Information Office website. There are many listed I only used the ones that I could find English Translations for. --- I redid the list of political parties to make it roughly in order of strength. Also changed Chinese New Party to New Party. Also added content about Taiwan's voting system.

The Wade-Giles in the administrative divisions section needs to be converted to the for each locality uses. --Jiang

[edit] No home at all for Old Guard?

I have been struck by the recent characterization of the fundamental division in politics on Taiwan as between those who favor a permanently independent Taiwan and those who support the PRC government,with the KMT and PFP both called "pro-Beijing".Is none of the parties listed a natural home for the traditional opponents of the Taiwanese-nationalist current,namely unreconstructed Chiang Kai-shek fans longing to invade and destroy the PRC?I'd be amazed if such sentiments had vanished completely.--L.E/le@put.com/ 12.144.5.2 04:51, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Old Guards were promised lands and special privileges by the Chiang Kai-shek to destroy PRC back in the old days. Now, PRC are giving the same special privieges to the ROC people. Of course, they are going to kiss upon feet of PRC and lick their asses. If they were to fought for ideal like democracy, China would have them long ago, but these small ROC over-privileges people are more concern on swindle the poor Chinese dry in their workshops than giving them the same privieges they have. I'm not a bit of surprise that people in Taiwan would rather be independent if not for the PRC military threat.

Iron_Jackal_Tw

[edit] Title

Should the title of this article be rename as Politics of the Republic of China (as well as the template)? — Instantnood 19:36, Feb 14 2005 (UTC)

Quoted from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese): "the word "Taiwan" should not be used if the term "Republic of China" is more accurate.". — Instantnood 19:35, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)

The term "Republic of China" is little understood and confusing to most people worldwide. The first principle of writing good articles is to not confuse the reader. We should therefore use the only generally understood term, which is "Taiwan", jguk 19:41, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That all depends on the political views of the reader. Technically, "Republic of China" is more accurate because the People's Republic of China require this terminology. However, most countries' with diplomatic relations with Taiwan refer to this nation as Taiwan. The same goes for a majority of Taiwanese citizens.

If all others refer to Taiwan as Taiwan, then just use Taiwan because it's even more accuate for most countries. Of course, if you are a mainlander that live on Taiwan, I wouldn't be a bit of surprised that keeping ROC is more important than an ideal such as democracy.

Iron_Jackal_Tw

[edit] Page move

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it be moved:

[edit] Politics of Taiwan → Politics of the Republic of China

Quoted from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese): "the word "Taiwan" should not be used if the term "Republic of China" is more accurate.". — Instantnood 19:49, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)

The same applies to List of political parties in Taiwan → List of political parties in the Republic of China and Elections in Taiwan → Elections in the Republic of China. — Instantnood 19:51, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)

See also the ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Politics of Taiwan. — Instantnood 10:54, Feb 20 2005 (UTC)

  • By nominating I support moving the articles. — Instantnood 19:49, Feb 16 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Taiwan is far better known as the name, and the Taiwanese government and people prefer it. -XED.talk 20:11, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • half the Taiwanese population, probably those who voted for the current president, prefer it. see comment below.--Jiang 21:04, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • when half the Taiwnese population knows it as Taiwan, and the rest of the world knows it as Taiwan, then its pretty clear it should be called Taiwan. Even recent passports issued by the Taiwanese government are starting to emphasize the name "Taiwan". - XED.talk 21:45, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • That's the POV of the current governing party DPP and the president. In fact there was a debate over printing the word "Taiwan" on passports. — Instantnood 07:55, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
          • Please take note: The debates exist. The general public supports the move.Mababa 01:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
            • Yes the debates exist. And the general public prefer keeping the current situation (neither reunification nor going independent). But that's not relevant, as its the Wikipedia's principle to be NPOV. — Instantnood 18:02, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose Taiwan is a much better known name, G-Man 20:26, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • But it is not accurate. — Instantnood 07:56, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
      • Its not accurate because the politics of Taiwan extend far earlier than the existence of the Republic of Chin, the move was wrong. --68.161.174.39 19:38, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE. I recall that this and other Taiwan → Republic of China requests have been made on several previous occasions. And is should be noted that the naming convention you have chosen to cite has been edited back and forth over this issue without resolution or consensus for the past several weeks. Without any such resolution, it is impossible to apply this "convention" much less state that such an unstable tete-a-tete is in fact a "convention." However, these facts substantiate why I oppose this move: First–by renaming these items "Republic of China" you potentially can confuse people who may think they are reading an article about the "People's Republic of China." Second–Taiwan receives 44,700,000 hits on google [1], while "Republic of China" receives 3,880,000 [2] (however, in light of the confusion mentioned above, I have also searched under "Republic of China" -People's which reduces the total to 1,350,000 [3] and likewise to avoid confusion with Mainland China's "Province of Taiwan" I have searched "Taiwan -'Province of'" which reduced the Taiwan total to 27,100,000 [4]) While I don't advocate google test results without analysis, a 20:1 ratio after the search is qualified is sufficient in my opinion to judge "Taiwan" as the more common choice. Third–The general convention on Wikipedia has been to label articles using the conventional short form of a country's name, hence Politics of Mexico and not Politics of the United Mexican States, &c. Fourth–The CIA World Factbook has only a listing for "Taiwan" and none for "Republic of China", and further states on the Taiwan article [5] that there is no conventional long form of the county's name (which if there were would be "Republic of China" but according to the CIA, that doesn't exist as a CLF most likely because the U.S. doesn't formally recognize the government in Taipei.). The U.S. State Department refers to "Taiwan" in an article on the People's Republic of China (the mainland), but does not refer to any entity known as the "Republic of China" [6] also stating under Note 3 on a list of Independent States of the World With the establishment of diplomatic relations with China on January 1, 1979, the US Government recognized the People's Republic of China as the sole legal government of China and acknowledged the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. Fifth, the article for Taiwan's/ROC's communist counterpart is China and their politics article as Politics of China, which is in keeping with the third premise I stated above. Sixth, Politics of the Republic of China is a cumbersomely long title for the article when concise brevity is generally the norm. The only counter position is that Taiwan only refers to one of the several islands under the control of the Republic of China, however, because the more common usage is to umbrella the ROC's islands as "Taiwan" in the same manner that the Hawaiian Islands are collectively called "Hawaii" in addition the fact that most of the English-speaking West refers to "Taiwan" popularly rather than the cumbersome "Republic of China," this counter position is moot. —ExplorerCDT 20:42, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment: The country template exists at Republic of China, not Taiwan. The article for communist China is at People's Republic of China, not China. On technical grounds, calling the Republic of China "Taiwan" is as much accurate as calling the United Kingdom "Great Britain". There's the island of Taiwan, which excludes the Pescadores and Quemoy/Matsu and there's the ROC's Taiwan Province, which excludes Taipei, Kaohsiung, Quemoy, and Matsu, and the PRC's Taiwan Province, which excludes Quemoy and Matsu. Neither of these definitions, either political or geographical, are completely synonymous with the Republic of China. In the case of the Hawaiian Islands, there's the political entity, the state of Hawaii. When President Chen made statements last year and the year before saying "Taiwan is the Republic of China and the Republic of China is Taiwan" there was widespread opposition by not only unification-leaning groups in Taiwan, but the People's Republic of China (as evidenced by Xinhua news reports protesting the statements) and the United States (seeming to suggest moves away from the status quo). Therefore, saying they are the same is not neutral. The US position is not neutral either: in recognizing the PRC, it "acknowledged" the PRC's position that the Republic of China is a defunct entity having been replaced by the PRC. Of course they can't call it the "Republic of China"... Please note that Foreign relations of Taiwan has been moved to Foreign relations of the Republic of China in the not so distant past. I won't take a stand on whether the politics article should be moved, since this is no big deal, but I would like to see some consistency. Either move this to ROC or move that one back to Taiwan. Foreign relations of the People's Republic of China should be dealt with similarly. --Jiang 21:04, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • It seems we have several articles...China, Mainland China and People's Republic of China. I believe, due to the reasons I stated above, that the consistent position should be naming the articles "Taiwan." —ExplorerCDT 21:09, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • However, among those, the template resides at People's Republic of China. The naming conventions have been well-enforced within articles for the most part. Try searching for references of "President of Taiwan" or "Flag of Taiwan" (you wont see these linked to in this manner). These pages are only such because the rules are being ignored--they existed before the templates were moved. If I wanted to play by the rules, I would support moving--Jiang
          • It is also a matter of consistence. — Instantnood 07:57, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
    • (To ExplorerCDT) Nearly all webpages about "Republic of China" would mention the word "Taiwan", and "Taiwan Province" is not only a claimed province by the PRC, but also a streamlined province of the ROC (Taiwan Provincial Government website). By searching with "Taiwan" -"Province" it eliminate webpages about the Taiwan Province of the ROC.
      The US Department of State is POV, as the United States does not regard Taiwan or Republic of China as a sovereign state. And that's the prerequisite for any country to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC. The ROC is however listed as a special territory under the title "Taiwan" without dealing with the official title "Republic of China", probably to avoid any trouble from Beijing.
      "Taiwan" is not accurate. Matsu Islands and Quemoy are neither part of the island of Taiwan nor the province of Taiwan, although they are territories under ROC's control.
      The sentence from the conventions that I have quoted has been there without modification for months. (despite edits to the page over the past few months) — Instantnood 08:04, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
      • Comment: By googling "Taiwan" "Province" limit to .tw, only 41,400 came out[7]. Even the ROC did not provide much information on that province. The name "Taiwan" is still more representitive for that government than the official name "ROC" which has been for gotten by the rest of the world.Mababa 07:48, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia has to be accurate, NPOV and encyclopedic. Taiwan is simply not an accurate and NPOV designation. — Instantnood 18:05, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There is a policy to use common names. --Improv 21:11, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • And unlike the naming conventions that Instanood cited, "use common names" isn't changed every other week. —ExplorerCDT 21:12, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • The naming conventions for China-related articles, spelling out the current setup, has been in place for over a year. The template has existed at Republic of China for nearly two years. What is being changed every other week? I certainly dont see anything.--Jiang 04:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • (to ExplorerCDT) the conventions from which I quoted has been modified several times over the past few months, but the sentence I have quoted has been there for many months. — Instantnood 18:07, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
    • Please also refer to Don't overdo it. :-) — Instantnood 08:05, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No-one outside America would understand the new name, which is totally misleading to non-Americans. Use the name everyone understands, "Taiwan", jguk 21:16, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • I don't think wikipedians who made up the conventions and placed the article at Republic of China are all from the states. — Instantnood 08:07, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The politics in question are those of the political entity called the Republic of China, which is not Taiwan. A.D.H. (t&m) 21:32, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose I would prefer that any Taiwan/ROC article uses simply "Taiwan" ObsidianOrder 21:46, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. Neutralitytalk 22:18, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, tentatively. While article related to geographical features should use Taiwan, this is an article specifically about politics. The state refers to itself as the "Republic of China", whether or not the ruling party is looking to change that. We do similar things with, say Republic of Ireland, which is obviously less commonly used than just "Ireland." john k 03:35, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support with condition Quoted from Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese): "Wikipedia reflects the neutral reality and considers the term "China" not to coincide with any particular sovereign state or government.". This is a written Wikipedia NPOV policy stipulating the term "China" can not be used as any political entity. However, there are so many articles with titles of "XYZ of China" which are mostly dedicated to the political entity called PRC; and quite often, ROC/Taiwan is being included into part of these articles simply because Taiwan is currently ruled by a government bears a name with "China" in its official name. The result of these China/PRC articles is creating an impression that Wikipedia agrees with PRC's POV and regards Taiwan/ROC as part of China. Otherwise why should ROC be listed under a political entity called China? I would support current proposal, if what the naming convention stipulated gets enforced and upheld: making all the "XYZ of China" (which actually equates China to PRC) changed back to the name PRC and stops making China as a political entity. Otherwise, why is that the articles about the PRC are so privileged that they do not have to follow the convention and enjoyed the title of China and also have the advantage to include ROC into it, while the ROC articles are bounded by the convention and can not be called as Taiwan like the world outside of Wikipeida calls her? Specifically the Political divisions of China, and the Province of China. Perhaps it is time for us to change the policy so that PRC gets the name China and ROC gets the name Taiwan as political entities. One more comment, even in side the U.S., I bet quite some people can only recognize Taiwan and knows nothing about ROC.Mababa 04:06, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose In some of my research for wikipedia contributions, I've had to search, and have found Taiwan to be a far more useful key word, and because of that and the context in the articles, I have had to explicity reference Taiwan, even though I was wiki linking to the republic article. It must have been some strained politics that resulted in the wikipedia policy that is being cited.--Silverback 14:43, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Taiwan has never been a real official title for the government controlling the island of Taiwan, Pescadores Islands, Matsu Islands and Quemoy (plus the Pratas and some islands of the Spratlys). — Instantnood 18:12, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
    • You're confusing two things: you're talking about making it easy for readers and editors to find and/or link to articles. That can be accomplished with redirects and disambiguation pages. But that's not what's at stake here. The question underlying the requested move is what would be the most accurate title for the article. While there can be many redirects, as far as the main title of an article is concerned, there can be only one. As explained many times before, "Taiwan" is inaccurate and POV in this context, so it should be replaced with a more accurate and NPOV term and appropriate redirects created. --MarkSweep 11:54, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV section is badly flawed and contains a number of POV statements:
    * "Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China"
    * "Taiwan... should be only described as part of the Republic of China"
    Anyone can agree or disagree with the above points of view. But they are just that, points of view (POV), which have been the subject of sharp debate over decades. Presence of POV statements in a section about NPOV is frankly silly, and it's deceptive to phrase this as some kind of Wikipedia official policy ("Wikipedia treats..."). This section Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV is not some official Wikipedia policy listed under Category:Wikipedia official policy or Category:Wikipedia semi-policy; it's just another page that anyone can edit (and someone should). PS, I am not voting on this particular ROC/Taiwan issue, but I do have an interest in the PRC/China issue (see other requested move above). -- Curps 04:35, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • If you disagree with the rules, then please post on the relevant talk page to gain consensus to change them. Otherwise, the rules stand and cannot be simply ignored. These rules have been in place for over a year, nearly two years. Please check the page history of that page. Any additions are quickly reverted, like yours, without proper consensus. It just hasnt been tagged because it's existed for so long before categories even existed. this doesnt mean it isnt policy.--Jiang 04:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • It's very odd that you staunchly defend Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV, yet you yourself ignore it completely by making the unilateral move "X in Republic of China" → "X in Taiwan" that Instantnood wishes to undo. He quotes the wording: the word "Taiwan" should not be used if the term "Republic of China" is more accurate. You yourself obviously believe this wording no longer applies, yet you didn't bother to post on the talk page. If your position is that "Political NPOV" section can just be ignored, you have no standing to object if others take the same position in the future. -- Curps 06:00, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • In that particular case, as I have answered to Instantnood, using "Republic of China" did not make it any more accurate or NPOV. All metro areas listed were on the island of Taiwan. The topic was non-political and geographical/demographic in nature. Thereofre, Taiwan should be used. I dont believe I ignored the naming conventions there. --Jiang
          • The definition that that article based upon is a definition by the ROC government, which is applied and applicable to all territories under its control. It is possible for some related or similar definitions by the ROC to be fit with places on territories outside the island or the province of Taiwan. — Instantnood 18:16, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
      • Whatever happens to Politics of Taiwan is discussible or debatable. All these politics take place on Taiwan. If we want to add more historical review, we can always add the poltics of Taiwan during Japanese rule or even back to Qing or Dutch rule. It is really debatable if whether the move is necessary. I guess your proposal on redefining "China" is more foundamental; and your previous edits on the convention reverted by me are really POV moves that worth some discussion so that everyone can have a opinion to modify and finally reach a neutral point everyone's happy about. The key is: Talk is cheap; talk is free!! :)Mababa 06:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • Not likely. Elections are also held on Matsu Islands and Quemoy. They are not part of the island or the province of Taiwan. Political events on Taiwan during Dutch, Qing and Japanese rule are covered by other articles. — Instantnood 08:27, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
          • Comment: Those covered article can be merged or partly introduced in this article. I do not see a reason to make that move unlikely. With your support on enforcing the NPOV convention, I would assume you would also support stoping the usage of having the term "China" as a political entity.Mababa 21:57, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
            • Generally yes. — Instantnood 18:19, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
    • (To Curps) The two sentences you have quoted is not POV. "Republic of China" is the current official title of the government currently governing Taiwan, Pescadores Islands, Matsu Islands and Quemoy (and many other islands, such as Taiping Island in the South China Sea). — Instantnood 08:27, Feb 17 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I could agree with Elections or Politics in Taiwan (Republic of China). Gangulf 20:36, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • What about "Elections of.." or "Politics of the Republic of China (Taiwan)"? :-) — Instantnood 18:19, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
  • Support It is not the business of Wikipedia to declare Tawian's independence on their behalf. 172 20:54, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment: I do not see any implication of declaring Taiwan's independence here. PRC's claim over that administration on Taiwan is not further damaged or bolstered by all means. You might want to further explain how you interpret the political implication here.Mababa 21:57, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support there is no such country as Taiwan. Republic of China is the correct name. Grue 07:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment the Republic of China is a highly misleading title as it implies that it covers the whole of China, which it clearly doesn't, it covers a few islands of which Tiawan is the largest. The Tiawanese government may like to pretend that it is the legitimate government of China, but in the real world it clearly isn't. G-Man 19:36, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • The official name of China from 1911 to 1949 is Republic of China (ROC). Following the Chinese Civil War, ROC government retreated to Taiwan, and maintained a stable existence by effectively controlling the island of Taiwan, Pescadores Islands, Matsu Islands and Quemoy. The latter two are on the coast of the continent. The ROC also controls the Pratas Islands, and some islands of the Spratlys. The Communist Party seized control of mainland China following ROC's retreat, and established the People's Republic of China. The ROC has not formally renounced its claim on mainland China (and Tuva and Mongolia) until today.
      The territories that are currently under ROC's control covers not only the island of Taiwan nor the province of Taiwan. And in fact pro-independence politicians who also advocate changing the official title of the country to "Taiwan" (or "Republic of Taiwan") do not consider Matsu Islands and Quemoy as Taiwan's territory. — Instantnood 19:55, Feb 18 2005 (UTC)
    • The claim to all of China was unofficially dropped in 1991...--Jiang
    • The name "Republic of China" is both official and accurate. Even after 1949 it was meant to cover all of China, since the ROC constitution was never amended. This is contradicted by reality and you may think it is misleading, but then again you could bring a charge of being misleading against any "Democratic People's Republic" or the "Holy Roman Empire". That doesn't make those names any less appropriate as article titles. --MarkSweep 12:12, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support, to be consistent with the rest of WP this article should be moved over the redirect from politics of the Republic of China. We have plenty of articles about countries, and almost invariably they take the form "COUNTRY NAME" for the overview article and then "Politics of COUNTRY NAME", "History of COUNTRY NAME", etc. for the specialized articles. The situation is clearly more complex here, but for the sake of uniformity this should be "Politics of the Republic of China". As an aside, note that we have both history of the Republic of China and history of Taiwan, which are clearly distinct as they focus on different aspects. Another comment: Common names are sometimes wrong or misleading, e.g. "England" is used sloppily to refer to all of the United Kingdom, "Holland" to the Netherlands, etc. Likewise "Taiwan" is arguably imprecise, referring to a geographic entity and (at least informally and/or for some people) to a political entity, namely the ROC. There is no doubt that the political entity is meant here, so the narrower, more precise term should be used because it is unambiguous. It is only in certain historical contexts that it makes sense to talk about "Taiwan" in connection with politics, e.g. Political divisions of Taiwan (1895-1945) is clearly appopriate. --MarkSweep 00:49, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. For an encyclopedia to name its articles according to possible readers' ignorance rather than according to what's accurate is an appalling notion. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:21, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. As ADH says, the politics here is the politics of the political entity known as the Republic of China. Here's what I think should be the rule of thumb (a very, very simplified version of a rule of thumb; there are going to be complex exceptions): if the article is about geography, use Taiwan. If the article is about culture, use China. If the article is about politics, use Republic of China. —Lowellian (talk) 09:24, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise

I had some discussion with Instantnood and I suggested the compromise to name these kind of pages ..of Republic of China - Taiwan. I think this might be less POV Gangulf 22:14, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Gangulf agreed with "..of Republic of China (Taiwan)" but she/he prefers "..of Republic of China - Taiwan". — Instantnood 22:21 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)
  • Are you saying that the compromise is to name or rename ROC-related pages currently named "Republic of China" to a new name substituting or incorporating "Taiwan?" Or using both simultaneously? or are you just patting yourself on the back and saying you had some discussion and made a suggestion? There is no entity known as the "Republic of China" it died in 1949, and the U.S. and other countries do not officially recognize a "Republic of China" but they officially recognize a successor state known as the "People's Republic of China." The West, in popular parlance, knows it simply and unconfusingly as Taiwan. You say ROC to the average Westerner and they'll immediately think Beijing. If that's the compromise, I continue my objections for the reasons enumerated hitherto. —ExplorerCDT 22:19, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Just being curious, would vote backed with false evidence be counted? — Instantnood 23:15 Feb 20 2005 (UTC)
      • Rhetorical appeals by deception don't work...here or elsewhere where you have tried to implement it. You claim false evidence, prove it. Otherwise, you're a mini-Goebbels repeating lies hoping that after a few times people will think them true. —ExplorerCDT 07:03, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • If I were repeating lies, probably I weren't the only one. — Instantnood 11:35 Feb 21 2005 (UTC)
          • You're alone on that one, mini-Goebbels. I make a habit of backing up my claims and rationale sufficiently...something evident if you read through my comments in opposition. —ExplorerCDT 16:45, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • trolling? the US did not recognize the PRC until 1979. It recognized the ROC until December 1978. The ROC represented China in the UN until it was replaced by the PRC in 1971. Neither usage is NPOV. Taiwan is not NPOV. We have no choice but to use the "whatever name the party exercises sovereignty over uses" rule. This is done at Republic of Macedonia, Diaoyu Islands, etc. Perhaps using both is a compromise--Jiang 03:53, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • Trolling, no. Statistics show Taiwan is the most used in the general sense, and google shows a 20:1 margin for Taiwan over ROC. But if you don't want to step on anyone's toes we might as well use all three, ROC, Taiwan, and Province of Taiwan, in order to keep Instantnood, the Red Chinese, and everyone else happy. Mao is probably rolling over in his grave wishing posthumously that he nuked that stupid island. —ExplorerCDT 07:03, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • Please stop it. I don't know if you're trolling, or if this is mere desparation; it's not important. But posting flame bait is just not cool. --MarkSweep 02:14, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • I'd just add that while both "ROC" and "Taiwan" are POV, "Taiwan" is also actively wrong, in that neither side recognizes the entity referring to itself as the ROC to be coextensive with Taiwan. john k 06:39, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • Never said anything about co-extensive, just stated long ago that a 20:1 margin on google of Taiwan vs. ROC and common usage should trump nationalistic sentiment and overcumbersome title construction. —ExplorerCDT 07:09, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • There is most certainly "an entity known as the 'Republic of China'." Whether that is an appropriate name is, of course, up for grabs, but that is certainly what it calls itself. And it is certainly referred to as that in the world at large, at least some of the time. john k 06:36, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
      • It calls itself that, sure, but does the world recognize it? No. Run a search through any newspaper and you'll see Taiwan is the word of choice, tromping usage of ROC. —ExplorerCDT 07:03, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • so newspapers, save the Communist Chinese media, use "North Korea" and "South Korea" over "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" and "Republic of Korea", respectively. Does that mean no one recognizes the latter usages? Perhaps the most important issue in cross-strait relations, especially within Taiwan, right now is the debate over the meanings of "Taiwan" and "Republic of China". There's no need for wikipedia to dumb things down. Newspapers have to keep it short, we dont --Jiang 07:57, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
        • Much of the world may not recognise the government of the Republic of China as the sole representation of China, but that is entirely different from the recognition of the fact that the name Republic of China exists!--Huaiwei 08:25, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
          • Right. Two dozens of countries maintain diplomatic relations with an entity called "Republic of China". Many of the rest keep de facto diplomatic relations with Taipei, although they have to avoid using "Republic of China" and angering Beijing. — Instantnood 11:39 Feb 21 2005 (UTC)
  • I support the compromise of having both ROC and Taiwan being in the same title, and I am open to whether it takes the format of ROC (Taiwan) or ROC - Taiwan. The only issue is that it looks sadly "unprofessional" and quite unbecoming for an encyclopedia. Personally, I prefer XXX of Taiwan to be automatically redirected to XXX of ROC so long that the article is refering to the political entity of the ROC, and not merely the island of Taiwan.--Huaiwei 08:25, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with Huaiwei. I can live with "Republic of China (Taiwan)" or something similar. In any case, this should not be a popularity contest. Here's another analogy: people say "ancient Rome" all the time to refer to either the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic or the city of Rome (which wasn't even the capital after things went south in the west). But that doesn't mean we have to be as imprecise here, just because most people don't care enough to get it right. --MarkSweep 02:14, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Support compromise rename. Both "Taiwan" and "Republic of China" are ambiguous in this case. We need to keep in mind that the Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a newspaper or magazine, so it is the most accurate description, and not the most popular name, that should be used. Since the article is only about the politics of the modern-day Republic of China, the article should be "Politics of Republic of China - Taiwan" (with a redirect from "Politics of Taiwan"). BlankVerse ∅ 06:08, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. Using hyphens or parentheses or whatever—no matter which case, this results is an extremely clumsy and inelegant construction for names. —Lowellian (talk) 09:35, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Perhapse it should be explained to everyone how the name "Republic of China (Taiwan)" can be used. Take [[Western Front]] and [[Western Front (WWII)|]] which wikipedia expands to similar looking links Western Front and Western Front. This is because Wiki treats names which end in brackets in a special way. The links are to different pages although they look the same. [[Republic of China (Taiwan)|]] will look like this Republic of China while [[Republic of China (Taiwan)]],without the "|" symbol, will appear on the page as Republic of China (Taiwan) Philip Baird Shearer 15:03, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Having "Taiwan" in brackets in titles is in fact a compromise to people who opposed "X of/in the Republic of China" because they thought it's confusing. "X of/in the Republic of China (Taiwan)" looks less confusing to most readers. It does not imply that there is another "Republic of China". "Taiwan" in brackets is not a disambiguation.
      In fact, Most of first paragraphs of these articles already tells the article they are reading is about a political entity called "the Republic of China" but it is based on "Taiwan". — Instantnood 09:32 Feb 24 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A time of crisis

What I see of the recent discussion over whether to use PRC, ROC, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao is that it reveals a deadlock over an encyclopedia built up by ordinary internet users. It is not easy to preserve the professional style of editing which an encyclopedia needs, as Huaiwei has suggested. People who supported and opposed the move had different concerns, whether to preserve accuracy, or to make it easy to use for average readers. If there isn't any ressolution to the deadlock, the number of votes for each side could be meaningless. — Instantnood 11:47 Feb 21 2005 (UTC)

  • I've said this elsewhere before: We need a better way to enforce editorial policy (to the extent that this is desirable at all). It is pointless to argue about whether the ROC even exists on this page; we can have these arguments, but the sole purpose of this page is to decide whether and how pages should be moved/renamed. In this case, the (re)naming is governed by the naming conventions for China-related articles. Objections to and discussion of those naming conventions are simply out of place here. The only relevant question is whether the requested moves would result in better compliance with the naming conventions.
    What I'm advocating here is a better separation between policy making (deciding what the naming conventions should be) and implementation of policies. We cannot re-open policy discussions when it's time to implement an existing policy. The whole point of a separate policy is to ensure consistency and to centralize the discussion. And the best way to achieve consistency is to implement the policy uniformly. This requires that users be able to separate what they think is the Right Way To Do Things from what the policy says. On this page, we're talking about policy implementation. The only question we're trying to resolve is whether the original article name or the proposed new article name (or something else entirely) is more desirable according to the existing naming conventions. Personal opinions about the appropriateness of those naming conventions should play no role in the debate. --MarkSweep 02:39, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, there are no deadlock. I just see bunch of non-Taiwan people decide on how Taiwan should be called.

Iron_Jackal_Tw

[edit] Alternative solution

It's too bad that we can't simply transinclude the page on one of the pages to the other. -- AllyUnion (talk) 11:20, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Is there any way out? — Instantnood 17:41 Feb 25 2005 (UTC)
Yes. Instantnood - please take on board that the term ROC is not widely understood, Taiwan is. Let me be blunt: I'm not the only one fed up with your pre-occupation of trying to convert all the Taiwan articles that are named in a way that everyone understands to a form that few understand and many would find most confusing. I had not even heard the term "ROC" before coming onto Wikipedia. Please stop! jguk 20:09, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Please bring the issue to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) if you disagree with the conventions. Thank you. — Instantnood 20:32 Feb 27 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Poll

Was anyone here aware Instantnood is running another poll to move "XXX of Taiwan" to "XXX of the Republic of China" at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/NPOV/Taiwan vs. ROC? The poll "started" a week ago, but since no pages link to the polling page, I thought maybe it was a little onesided and needed some publicity... SchmuckyTheCat 21:27, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please kindly check Special:Whatlinkshere/Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/NPOV/Taiwan vs. ROC (except those added by SchmuckyTheCat just now), for what pages are linked to it. Thank you.
Please also note that the polls there are enforcement of the naming conventions. — Instantnood 21:50, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Disclaimer

I first suggested to proceed to have a poll as a solution on March 10 at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/archive4#Solution, and there was no objection. More than two weeks later on March 26 I suggested to have polls on a case-by-case basis (at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/NPOV#Solution). A link was added at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)/NPOV#Solution to direct readers to the polling page on March 31, at the time when the polling page was created.

SchmuckyTheCat is wrong for accusing me for starting the polls with no page linked to it, that it might resulted in onesided and lack of publicity. Please note this is an accusation, though I am pretty sure opinion wouldn't be affected easily. — Instantnood 06:39, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A delicate balance

I think Taiwan is a special case that doesn't fit neatly into the Politics of XXX scheme. We need at least two articles:

The part about the national assembly, constitution, and who the past and present presidents are, could just as easily go into the Republic of China. After all, Republic of China is the name of a goverment.

But there is more to Taiwanese politics than the internal goings-on of the ROC goverment and/or its foreign relations with friendly goverments (yes, there's a handful out there). Moreover, since the politics of Taiwan is dominated by the elephant in the corner I think we need a distinct article just to talk about that "elephant". That is, the cross-claims of PRC and ROC, with the PRC's claims getting the nod from the UN and so forth. And the de facto / de jure split.

Hey, but what do I know? I ain't Chinese, and I can barely even use chopsticks. ;-) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 14:26, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

(to Uncle Ed's comment at 14:26, Apr 14) I compiled a list of useful articles during a previous discussion. — Instantnood 15:49, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

I removed the following first two paragraphs of the introduction and reverted back to the old introduction:

The politics of Taiwan is complex, since two opposing bodies each claim jurisdiction over it, and tensions remain high.

The Peoples Republic of China (PRC} claims de jure sovereignty over Taiwan, but de facto controls only "mainland China". The PRC's view that Taiwan (or Formosa) is a "rebellious province" is accepted by most countries, but the U.S. and some other countries tacitly oppose this view. (For example, the "American embassy" on Taiwan is nominally a trade ministry.)

The PRC's claims to Taiwan and how other countries view Taiwan's status are best discussed in the article Political status of Taiwan. The politics of Taiwan article is supposed to talk about how the ROC is governed and the political parties that influence the government. While PRC's attempts to influence the politics of Taiwan is important, it is not important enough to be in the introduction. And information about the PRC's claims to Taiwan definitely should not be ahead of information about the territories that the ROC currently administers. Allentchang 05:56, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Where is the consensus for a move?

This article was moved from Politics of Taiwan to Politics of the Republic of China. It looks controversial to me, and I don't see a consensus. Taiwan should be more neutral given that it could refer to Taiwan plus all other islands without saying one way or the other about independence, official title, etc. But could someone point me in the right direction? Where was the consensus that this should be done?--DownUnder555 02:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

i'd have to concur. to concede taiwan as the disputed 'republic of china' at the outset sends a biased taint throughout the remaining article. the original Politics of Taiwan conveyed greater neutrality by comparison, as it didn't instantly implicate the entire feud by way of name alone. the necessity for change was terribly unfounded. --Blackinferno 10:12pm, 18 November 2005

I concur as well. The politics of Taiwan also goes back for centuries before the Republic of China, for example the Qing Dynasty, the Portuguese, etc. This is a farce and implies that Taiwan's political history only involves the Republic of China and erases all other history. Politics of Taiwan =/= Politics of the Republic of China. --68.161.174.39 18:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mainland trade

Instantnood removed the words "and Hong Kong" in this edit [8] with the edit summary "Taiwan and HK trade directly". Which, of course, misses the point. Taiwan doesn't trade directly with the mainland. An overwhelming majority of trade destined for the mainland goes THROUGH Hong Kong, as well as most of the trade TO Hong Kong being destined for the mainland. Taiwan doesn't (and can't) keep direct statistics of mainland trade so it estimates how much of it's trade goes to the mainland by subtracting a proportional amount from it's trade with Hong Kong.

Thus, I'm going to restore that deletion. I'm going to change it to "through Hong Kong" instead of "and Hong Kong". SchmuckyTheCat 21:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

True... but then can we make sure that figure is only for Taiwan-mainland trade through Hong Kong, not including those going through Macau, South Korea or Japan, for instance? — Instantnood 05:53, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
IT IS A QUOTE FROM A GOVERNMENT AGENCY AND IT IS HOW THAT AGENCY CALCULATES IT. Are you even reading the context of this sentence or do you just see Hong Kong and mainland near each other and start deleting? What's wrong with you? "The ROC Board of Foreign Trade estimates that indirect trade between Taiwan and the mainland through Hong Kong, reached about $22.5 billion in 1998" Why don't you go arguing with the The ROC Board of Foreign Trade? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? SchmuckyTheCat 06:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
There's no external source presented showing what the figure is referring to. — Instantnood 07:04, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
It's true substantial amount of the indirect trade between them goes through Hong Kong, but the amount going through Macau and other East Asian countries is not insignificant. Anyways I've replaced it with the 2004 figure [9] (linked from [10]) from the Bureau of Foreign Trade website. (FYI, There's separate statistics for Hong Kong and Macao [11] [12] on the website.) — Instantnood 07:09, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Since this seems to be the target of frequent vandalism, i vouch for some sort of secured-editing method ?

[edit] GA Failed

I failed this article for one main reason - the lack of inline citations from section five and on. There's also a citation needed tag in the "Current Political Issues" section. Cheers, Corvus coronoides 21:48, 24 June 2007 (UTC)