Talk:Republic of China/Archive 4

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Contents

Map

As the title of the article is "Republic of China", and there hasn't been an official redrawing of boundaries, shouldn't the map include all of the RoC? Including the mainland, Mongolia, etc.

Changed some incorrect statements

"Although the national boundaries have never been officially redrawn, the ROC government ended claims of sovereignty over mainland China and Mongolia in 1991..."

This is not a true statement. The ROC did not officially (ie constitutionally) renounce these claims through the national assembly.

There is no national assembly and there won't be. The sentence makes clear that the end of claims does not mean constitutional change, so there is no reason to change it. -anon
Lee Teng-hui said in 1991 "We do not dispute the fact that the Chinese Communists control mainland China." This statement does not renounce any claims. It is only an acknowledgement of the status quo. They're not disputing "the fact" but whether the Communists have a right to control mainland China is left unstated.
The task of changing the national borders now requires a constitutional amendment passed by the Legislative Yuan and ratified by an absolute majority of all eligible ROC voters.) --Jiang 04:39, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Good, you understand that the national assembly is abolished. Why did you make the mistake of talking as if it hasn't been?
Anyways, while your interpretation is entertaining, I take that of the _US State Department_ to be authoritative: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35855.htm
"The authorities in Taipei exercise control over Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, and the Penghus (Pescadores) and several of the smaller islands. Taiwan's two major cities, Taipei and Kaohsiung, are centrally administered municipalities. At the end of 1998, the Constitution was amended to make all counties and cities directly administered by the Executive Yuan. From 1949 until 1991, the authorities on Taiwan claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all of China, including the mainland. In keeping with that claim, when the Nationalists moved to Taiwan in 1949, they re-established the full array of central political bodies, which had existed on the mainland. While much of this structure remains in place, the authorities on Taiwan in 1991 abandoned their claim of governing mainland China, stating that they do not "dispute the fact that the P.R.C. controls mainland China." " - 61.59.12.88 06:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
The State Department is wrong. They are wrong on a bunch of matters. The Taiwan Provincial Government was not abolished--it was streamlined much in the way Fuchien had already been streamlined earlier. By "the authorities" they are referring to Lee Teng-hui. stating that they do not "dispute the fact that the P.R.C. controls mainland China" does not automatically imply that they "abandoned their claim". Maps continue to be published with the old ROC borders and the seal of the Marine Corps and other govt bodies include an outline of the old ROC. Can you find me a statement from the ROC government directly stating that "abandoned their claim" over mainland China? I don't think such a statement exists.
Some more mistakes from our friends at the State Department: "In 2002, Taiwan authorities announced adoption of the pinyin system also used on the Mainland to replace the Wade-Giles system but its use is not consistent throughout society..." Wrong, Tongyong Pinyin is nat also used on the mainland. "In June 2004 the National Assembly voted to dissolve itself, leaving Taiwan with a unicameral legislature." they got the date wrong. and the National Assembly never "legislated" in the first place. --Jiang 07:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

"Because the PRC claims sovereignty over Taiwan, the ROC's diplomatic recognition since the 1970s has suffered as a result of the One-China Policy that it itself had insisted on. As the much larger PRC has grown in economic significance, China's diplomatic maneuvers have become more effective and Taiwan's foreign relations have further suffered."

The first sentence makes it seem that it is only the ROC, not the PRC, that is insisting on the one-china policy. It also implies that the ROC still insists on the one-china policy, which is not the case. The second sentence should follow the wikipedia:naming conventions (Chinese) on the terms "China" and "Taiwan". And what "diplomatic maneuvers"? the term is too vague. --Jiang 23:43, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Fixed. By the way, by "word change" you mean delete a lot of information that pertains to the modern ROC. Why hide links to democracy, state, and multiparty? Afraid of what people might find? --anon
democratic=describing a democracy and republic is a form of state. The information that was "deleted" already exists in the second sentence of the third paragraph. There is no need to be redundant. --Jiang
You have an incorrect understanding of the past perfect. "it itself had insisted on" makes perfectly clear that the ROC no longer insists on a one-China policy. Diplomatic maneuvers is not vague at all--what should replace it then? - 61.59.12.88 06:30, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
if "diplomatic maneuvers" is not vague, then can you clarify on what the term refers to?
and what do you have against the term "democratic republic"?

For those that are interested in this discussion please see below, "Introduction Discussion". I made several changes which make these changes outdated. I don't want to say I merely compromised on the discussion here, as there are sound reasons for the edits I made and I didn't just pick something in between these two positions. It is though, probably something in between what the back and forth edits of the above users was.--DownUnder555 09:34, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Economy Subsection

Instantnood, you can't say it's from 1949-Present since Taiwan's economy begins much before that.

Introduction Discussion

This is meant as an explication of the introduction and not just a reason for the edits that I just made, as awhile back, I helped clean up a lot of structure in this article. Good writing doesn't just have the right information--it's also grammatically correct, stylistically smooth, and structurally sound.

First paragraph: This paragraph should be a broad introduction of what the ROC is today. It can be ambiguous, though we try to avoid it, but it must be short and current. History and detail should come later, and of course there will be some repetition to the broad strokes of the first paragraph as details are filled out.

"De facto" has negative connotations and prejudices the later discussion of the ROC's legitimacy. De facto implies not de jure or not legal. But that's only the PRC point of view. Both the KMT and the DPP, the two biggest points of view in Taiwan, would disagree quite strongly with de facto. The KMT may like to unify with China in the future, but they would not discount the current ROC's legitimacy over Taiwan. I considered using "currently" instead of "today" but currently feels too ephemeral, as if the PRC army is invading tomorrow, so that's no good. Today is neutral, and it's very clear that the PRC strongly disagrees with the ROC's legitimacy just a few sentences later.
Democratic republic is poor word choice as well. Click on the link and you'll see what I mean. There is no reason to link to it since the ROC is a real democracy and doesn't even contain democratic republic in its name.

Second and third paragraph separation: The ROC on mainland China and the ROC after it moved to Taiwan are very different eras. Two paragraphs help the reader realize that something big just happened--the ROC lost control of mainland China and moved to Taiwan.

Fourth paragraph: The last paragraph shows yet another significant change. The ROC began to function as a real democracy and localized, taking into account realities of Taiwan that it did not previously consider.

Old:"Although the national boundaries have never been officially redrawn, the ROC claims over mainland China and Mongolia have been largely ignored, and the tense standoff of the Cold War era has largely subsided."
New:"Although the national boundaries have never been officially redrawn, the ROC no longer pursues its claims over mainland China and Mongolia, and the tense standoff of the Cold War era has largely subsided."
The good thing about passive voice is you can avoid naming a subject. The bad thing about passive voice is that you avoid naming a subject. Who is ignoring the claims? The international community? The ROC government? The PRC? Local Taiwanese? "No longer pursues" is much better wording, as it leaves open the question of official boundaries. It can be explained in more detail later in the article why it is just "no longer pursues" but not official. Even die-hard KMT who value the ROC's past historical link with China will agree that the claims are no longer pursued.
Old:"The PRC claims sovereignty over Taiwan, thus the ROC's diplomatic recognition since the 1970s has suffered as a result of the One-China Policy and because of diplomatic maneuvers by the larger and more economically-significant PRC."
New:"Because the PRC claims sovereignty over Taiwan, the ROC's diplomatic recognition since the 1970s has suffered as a result of the One-China Policy it itself had previously insisted on and because of diplomatic maneuvers by the larger and more economically-significant PRC."
The old sentence is grammatically incorrect. "it itself had previously insisted on"--By inserting previous, it is crystal clear that the ROC no longer insists on such a policy and wants to enter the UN and other international organizations.

For future edits, make careful consideration before acting. --DownUnder555 09:22, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Nice edits on a whole, but several objections:
  1. The use of de facto in that context did not bring into question the legitimacy of the Republic of China. It is meant to imply that the current borders, a product of civil war and not any official declaration or peace treaty, are de facto. It does not call the ROC or Taiwan a "de facto state". I don't see any negative connotations in the context it was used and there are many instances of the term de facto in many other wikipedia articles: [1]. I don't think "today" does enough to emphasize the official status of these borders.
  2. I question the use of "vibrant" in the first sentence. How is this word necessary? It seems somewhat POV to call the state "vibrant" as the word brings praise to the system. You can also say black gold and legislative fistfights make the place not-vibrant.
  3. The sentence "Although originally intended as a democracy, throughout its tenure on the mainland, it was mainly a dictatorship." is an inaccurate portrayal of the KMT regime. Under Sun Yat-sen's doctrine, the liberal democracy would not come about until a period of "political tutelage" had passed. The KMT did not intend this period to end until the new constitution was promulgated in 1947. The ROC was not "originally intended as a democracy".
  4. "it itself had previously insisted on" implies that the "one-China policy" promoted by the ROC was the same that is currently promoted by the PRC. There's a huge difference: the ROC's "one-China policy" states that there is only one China and that is the Republic of China; the PRC's "one-China policy" states that there is only one China and that is the People's Republic of China. Support for the ROC's one China policy was once seen by the PRC as support for Taiwan independence (or at least touted as such).
I still think we should not be state the same thing in both the first paragraph and the first. The articles of modern democracies in wikipedia do not start out by introducing them as democracies. For example: "The French Republic or France (French: République française or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in Western Europe..." "The United States of America—also referred to as 'the United States', 'the US', 'the USA', 'America' (more loosely), 'the States' (colloquially), and 'Columbia' (poetically)—is a federal republic of 50 states, located primarily in central North America." "South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK; Korean: Daehan Minguk listen? (Hangul: 대한 민국; Hanja: 大韓民國)), is a country located in East Asia, covering the southern half of the Korean Peninsula. "--Jiang 20:17, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

First, on usage. Wikipedia's article on "de facto" could use some work, so let's not rely on that too much. On both Wikipedia and in the larger English linguistic community, "de facto" is used to differentiate from something that is "de jure" or legal. In other words, if something is "de facto" and "de jure", it's not logically incorrect to characterize it as "de facto", but it is a linguistic error--it'd be incorrect usage of "de facto".

Now, you may claim that the ROC's constitution says so and so, or that the PRC's bigwigs say so and so, but since we are talking about international borders--DownUnder555 11:04, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

what is "de jure" is in dispute while what is "de facto" is not. we are purposely leaving the de jure part unstated. I don't see anything inaccurate in the statement. how about using the wording "effectively consists of..."?--Jiang 00:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

The meaning that is to be conveyed is that it is not a nominal democracy and has an active civic society (which political scientists view as critical to democracy, i.e. democracy is not a bunch of votes and that's the end of it). Vibrant, of course, doesn't mean it's not over-the-top... You have a word that could more appropriately convey this?--DownUnder555 11:04, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

the level of detail you are going into here on Taiwanese democracy really belongs in the politics of Taiwan article and not in the lead section of this article. vibrant implies the democracy is functioning very well and everyone's voice is heard. this is an inappropriate characterization. --Jiang 00:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
No that's not what vibrant means. Vibrant means active, actual participation, loud, boisterous... how do you get to something so specific as everyone's voice is heard? What does that even mean?--DownUnder555 14:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
"actual participation" implies that democracy is functioning very well and everyone's voice is heard because in a democracy, those participating share the power. that is how this political system is defined. Why is this even necessary? --Jiang 10:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes it was. Please see Sun Yat-sen (how about taking a look at the ROC section?). And you are conflating ROC and KMT. The KMT was founded after the ROC was founded for the very reason that the realities of China at the time made democracy susceptible to undue influence by military strongmen. Dr. Sun is reacting against the warlords and his inability to effect a democracy without military power--thus he allows someone like Yuan to force his way into becoming President of the ROC, but his original intentions were not to allow a "good guy" military strongman to take over the Republic. This is a big misunderstanding if you do not understand Sun's original ideas. Maybe he's naive, maybe he's idealistic--but that's how it started out and many elections took place before 1947 (later ones of course being shams).--DownUnder555 11:04, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Sun Yat-sen was part of the group of thinkers (like Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei, and others before him) that believed Chinese society was not mature enough to handle a true western-style liberal democracy. He called for a period of dictatorship so that the peasants (and other low elements of mass society) could be educated on how to participate in the affairs of government. Sun envisioned three stages of national development: military unification, political tutelage, and constitutional democracy. After the Northern Expedition was completed, the KMT declared the first stage over. After the 1947 constitution was enacted, they declared the second stage over. Nowhere in these three stages of national development do "military strongmen" have a role. I am focusing solely on the KMT's period of control. Even then, they did not intend to immediately enact a democratic system. We don't even have to move back to the warlords to show that democracy was not the original intention. --Jiang 00:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
But what did they do right at the beginning?! 1947 is way too late for it to be original intentions. That makes no sense.--DownUnder555 14:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
The at first had a provisional Senate appointed by various provincial governments that had declared independence and a president somehow selected by the revolutionaries. There were no elections, not until 1948. even those are suspect. --Jiang 10:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

No. The one-China policy here refers to the fact that both the PRC and ROC agreed that there is one China and thus you must only recognize the PRC or the ROC as the representative of all of China and you can't recognize both. They both agreed to this. The one-China policy refers to this forced choice. Check out this Slate article: http://slate.msn.com/id/1005379 . The other part you added and is not a part of the one-China policy. It would be right to say that the PRC believes in the one-China policy and that it was the real China. Not just that they have a one-China policy.--DownUnder555 11:04, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

They are both "one-China" policies but it would be wrong to suggest that they be the same. You can say both subscribed to the one-China policy, but you cannot imply they were the same thing. It took until 1992 for them to agree to disagree. Otherwise, if they both agreed, why would they be lobbing shells at each other?--Jiang 00:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
They agreed that there was one China. They didn't agree on who was the one China and that is what they fight about. The first part is called the one China policy, the second part is not. Today, the ROC seeks representation in international organizations and does not seek to kick the PRC out of said organizations. In the past, it did. It is much more difficult for countries to say today okay, we are just going to recognize both, because there is the legacy of the one China policy.--DownUnder555 14:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
The one-China policy can be defined to go beyond one sentence. how many policies are only one sentence long? after one sentence, there is sharp disagreement.--Jiang 10:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It is not saying the same thing though. To use your logic, is it wrong to mention ROC in the first paragraph and then in the second? Is it wrong to use the word "the" and then use it again in the next sentence? The first paragraph says what it is today. The fourth paragraph says that it changed from something else to what it is today; this is saying that there was this process of change. You can't isolate a noun phrase that's used twice and say that it's redundant. They are providing related, but different information.--DownUnder555 11:04, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

how are they not providing the same information? Saying that it changed from something else to what it is today, in process, says what it is today. I dont follow your logic. --Jiang 00:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
No it's not. An analogical situation. Let's say I want to characterize myself. One thing I might say is that I don't drink alcohol. Ok, interesting, maybe I'm Muslim. But then I say I used to be an alcoholic and today I am completely dry. Did I just repeat myself? No, not at all. In fact, it's pretty surprising that I'm completely dry given that I used to be an alcoholic. Same deal with the ROC description.--DownUnder555 14:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
A more analogical situation: 1. I don't drink alcohol. 2. I used to be an alcoholic and today I don't drink alcohol. We could do without the first sentence and not lose any information, could we? --Jiang 10:18, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Mate, think about how a lot of Wiki articles are written. It's written in a way that makes it so that people can take varying amounts of information depending on their interest and time. The ROC article contains several section summaries and readers who want to read more can click on the link and read a full-length article. Same situation here. The first paragraph is the like a soundbite on the evening news--really short, really broad. The introductory section as a whole is the executive summary--gives you a little more of what's important but still pretty general. The article as a whole is a 10 minute introduction to the ROC. If you have more time, you can read all the little related articles and then afterwards, you'd probably know just as much as reading some travel books about the ROC/Taiwan (actually probably more). Of course there's overlap but it's a more and more specific view.--DownUnder555 20:58, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

POV

What a load of POV this article has become. I don't have a stance on this issue and I simply don't care who governs Taiwan, but I would expect a bit of neutrality regarding this subject. This article, and the whole treatment given to the Taiwan/Republic of China issue throughout Wikipedia takes the shape of: "Oh, the poor people of Taiwan!"/"Bad, bad PRC!". It's laughable. I'm not even going to try to attach the POV tag to the article, as it would be removed after 1 milisecond. —Cantus…☎ 08:39, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

perhaps it would help if you were a bit more specific... --Jiang 09:23, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I just came here from the Taiwan article and my issue is not so much with the POV, but the needless duplication of some sections:

Some differences make sense, but others are just rewritten duplications that need merging.

And here are some weasel words from the intro that look POV, or at least, unencyclopedic:

  • For some, this suggests that the ROC implicitly admits that its sovereignty is limited to the areas that it controls.

-Wikibob | Talk 22:40, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


I have to agree that some sections in this article isn't really worded from a true NPOV. I've changed the bit about the military favouring Pan-Blue. Whoever wrote that part before has made it too politicial sounding. Maybe you should keep up with current events more and look at what kind of people A-bien is promoting to General & Flag officer ranks.

- Alan

Constitution and sovereignty

Removed:

"Also, the now defunct National Assembly has passed constitutional amendments that give the people of Taiwan, Pescadores, Quemoy, and Matsu the sole right to exercise the sovereignty of the Republic through elections of the President and the entire Legislature as well as through elections to ratify amendments to the ROC constitution. For some, this suggests that the ROC implicitly admits that its sovereignty is limited to the areas that it controls."

This should be mentioned somewhere in the article, but I would like to resist attempts to further expand the lead section, which is already too long.

I also disagree with point being made here. The Constitution uses "free area of the Republic of China" and not "people of Taiwan, Pescadores, Quemoy, and Matsu." The terminology itself implies there must be an "unfree area" for a "free area" to exist (or for the term/qualification to be necessary in the first place). This just reinforces the notion that the Republic of China is larger than the area the government controls. --Jiang 09:36, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

  1. The information may need to be moved, but that's not what you did. You just deleted it. Also, if you disagree, that's fine, since it says "for some, this suggests...". That clearly means that you and other people disagree. Plus, you ignore context. Prior to the ammendment, the ROC on paper was supposedly all of mainland China, Mongolia, and Taiwan. That hasn't been a position of the ROC for some time, but before 2000, there wasn't even discussion of free area. So if you take into account context, it actually is a big move towards recognizing that the ROC is just Taiwan, Penghu, Jinmen,...
  2. The historic Republic of China is important as is the history of Taiwan. The history of Taiwan's economy has nothing to do with the history of the economy of the Republic of China. It is only because the article is defined as wherever the government called Republic of China is that we include both. The other choice would be simply to delete the economy section and leave it to the China and Taiwan sections since economies never move. Also the military had two distinct phases as well. Conscripts after moving to Taiwan all of sudden were all Taiwanese. It ended actively fighting, which it was doing throughout almost its entire history on the mainland. This is a big change. Later, is the change to the current mission of defense against invasion. That makes no sense for an ROC army on the mainland.

--DownUnder555 15:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

1a. The problem is that the way the text is worded, we are better off starting over. First, we are to Wikipedia:Avoid weasel terms. Second, to be NPOV, we must provide a counter-argument. The argument is unsourced, does not make logical sense, and does not have an accompanying counter argument. Since I cant find logic and reasoning in the argument and have never seen it before, I cannot source it or make a counter argument. Can you?
What are the weasel words exactly? There's nothing illogical about that statement. It's the idea of popular sovereignty--that legitimacy comes from self-determination and democracy, what everyone was supposed to get after World War II and the UN. You can't call it weasel unless you are specific and show how it's weasel. You claim it's POV, then find the opposing argument.--DownUnder555 20:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
The wording "for some, this suggests..." is an example of weasel words. For whom? Who is "some"? I told you it is difficult to find a counter argument here. I can't only point out inadequacies. The statement "For some, this suggests that the ROC implicitly admits that its sovereignty is limited to the areas that it controls." is inadequate because it uses weasel words and "The Constitution uses "free area of the Republic of China" and not "people of Taiwan, Pescadores, Quemoy, and Matsu." The terminology itself implies there must be an "unfree area" for a "free area" to exist (or for the term/qualification to be necessary in the first place). This just reinforces the notion that the Republic of China is larger than the area the government controls." Here I repeat myself. Check the archives if you would like to see me repeat myself even more.--Jiang 06:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
1b. The ROC Constitution, if you read it, makes no mention of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, or Matsu. The "free area" term was used as early as the 1991 revision, which called for the Legislative Yuan to be entirely elected by citizens in the "free area". so I really don't understand your point in stating "Prior to the ammendment, the ROC on paper was supposedly all of mainland China, Mongolia, and Taiwan. That hasn't been a position of the ROC for some time, but before 2000, there wasn't even discussion of free area. So if you take into account context, it actually is a big move towards recognizing that the ROC is just Taiwan, Penghu, Jinmen,..."
There was greater recognition. The ROC still has yet to redraw official national borders. So on paper it still "claims" to be the ruler of all of China and Mongolia. Now, we compare real policy with the ROC's constitution. If there is such a big difference then, and then later we see moves in the constitution, in both 1991 and 2000 that move it towards reality, we have to say then that real policy must have shifted. It's contextual. If I always claim my business makes 50,000 a year and it usually makes 150,000, but one year I say, hmm, it's 100,000, then you'd have to think that 150,000 changed or that I don't really want people to think that it's 50,000 anymore even though I haven't really made it in line with the actual number yet.--DownUnder555 20:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
"Prior to the ammendment, the ROC on paper was supposedly all of mainland China, Mongolia, and Taiwan. That hasn't been a position of the ROC for some time" vs. "The ROC still has yet to redraw official national borders. So on paper it still "claims" to be the ruler of all of China and Mongolia." I don't get it. Do you?--Jiang 06:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
2a. "The history of Taiwan's economy has nothing to do with the history of the economy of the Republic of China." exactly. "It is only because the article is defined as wherever the government called Republic of China is that we include both." This sentence makes absolutely no sense. please clarify. This article is on the Republic of China and the territories it governed. Anything else is not relevance. The history section shold only start where the Republic of China was established. There's a reason Taiwan is a separate article: anything relating to pre-1945 Taiwan is not relevant here. Otherwise, we should merge these two. --Jiang
I have a hard time believing you're making this argument. Show me one (yes just 1!) serious economist who references a Republic of China economy that begins in mainland China and then talks about it in Taiwan as the same thing. What do you mean exactly? There's nothing obvious about what you're saying! No one else would create a history of an economy that goes from mainland China pre-1949 to Taiwan post-1949!--DownUnder555 20:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
This is why there are two sub-sections in the section. We called it "economy of mainland China" and "economy of Taiwan". The section division is clear: they are not the same economy. We've clearly separated them. --Jiang 06:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
2b. "Also the military had two distinct phases as well. Conscripts after moving to Taiwan all of sudden were all Taiwanese." Wrong. Many of those mainlanders who fled were soldiers, and career soldiers. Even to this day the military leadership is dominated by mainlanders. "It ended actively fighting, which it was doing throughout almost its entire history on the mainland. This is a big change." Same military. Does doesn't seem to be a reason to violate the rules set by the wikipedia:Manual of Style. one-paragraph sections should not exist. "Later, is the change to the current mission of defense against invasion. That makes no sense for an ROC army on the mainland." Again, same miliary. We didn't call it the "military of mainland China". it is still the "military of the Republic of China", which is historically continuous with the forces organized by Sun Yat-sen in 1917 to overthrow the northern warlords. historically continuous. same military. same organizational structure and institutions with badges depicting mainland China. of course militaries move with territorial changes and soldiers die off... --Jiang 10:10, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Badges aren't so meaningful. What about southern states with confederate flags? Do you want to resurrect the Confederacy based on signs of history that have not caught up with reality? Conscripts by the way, are never officers. Career officers, yes, today, there are still a lot of mainlander Taiwanese, like yourself. You are confusing the argument with minor signs. It is not saying it is not completely the same military nor is it saying it is exactly the same military. I don't quibble with you that the institution that was the military of mainland China moved to Taiwan and had a different existence. I think there should be separate sections so we can talk about this history more. The section right now is only one paragraph but could use expansion. It's not a style problem--it's a content problem.--DownUnder555 10:59, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
we could be separating it into more meaningful sections: the revolutionary armies of the alliance, the armies of the Beiyang warlords, the whampoa-trained revolutionary army, the communist guerrila forces (integrated into the army under the second united front), and finally the army on Taiwan. These would be too many! The article is long enough. The military section doesnt need much expaning and one paragraph sections just shouldnt exist. If you look at other wikiproject countries articles, you normally do not see many subsections since there are so many sections in the template. --Jiang 06:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
It's only a problem because you're defining it as a problem =). We could separate the military section into a zillion sections... or we could use this separation and extend the section.--DownUnder555 16:57, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Demographics subsection

Erm... Why isn't there one in this article? Those things are kind of standard in the nation articles...--71.112.234.168 09:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

This is a regime/state article, not a nation article... that could be why. --Sumple 03:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Lead section

The Republic of China: "...is a multiparty democratic state that exercises sovereignty over the island of Taiwan and the island groups of the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu." ---> "...is, since 1949, a disputed state in East Asia that is effectively composed of the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu..."

The method of governance of the state, per wikipedia convention, is not usually stated in the first sentence of the article. This can be found elsewhere in the lead. However, the status of the Republic of China is in dispute and must be presented up front. This is really important. According to the PRC, the Republic of China no longer exists. To ignore this viewpoint is to violate npov.

Taiwan is labelled an island group here to avoid having to list Green and Orchid islands. --Jiang 23:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

With all due respect, we are NOT ignoring the PRC's viewpoint. This viewpoint is expressed in the following two paragraphs (in your own words, this can be found elsewhere in the lead). To suggest that the ROC's status is disputed is more important than everything else about the ROC can also be considered to be a POV. Therefore to be totally fair, I suggest that we place NO ADJECTIVES in the first sentence with regards to the Republic of China being a state. We'll just simply say that the ROC is a state that exercises soverignty over certain regions. Everything about the ROC's characteristics of being a multiparty democratic state or about a disputed state can be expressed elsewhere in the lead. Allentchang 17:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
If I were to write an article about Great Britain, would I have to list every single island within the control of Great Britain in the lead section? If I were to write an article about Canada, would I have to also mention Vanouver Island in the lead section? Allentchang 17:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The status of the ROC is, for our average English reader, the most important topic in this article. Almost everytime Taiwan is mentioned by the western media, the political status of Taiwan is somehow mentioned. In Taiwan itself, the prevailing debate is over the status of the ROC, whether it legitimately exists, whether it should exist in the future, and how to evoke the ROC in relation to Taiwan. This is unlike other disputed states such as Israel where the domestic debate is not over whether the political entity should exist in the first place. The use of the term "Republic of China" (in just about every instance it is used) is itself a statement of politics, with the Chinese Communists and supporters of Taiwan independence choosing not to use the term, while blue supporters in Taiwan choosing the opposite. In international politics countries with relations with the PRC are being prevented from using it (as Colin Powell was told to stop using the term after he became SOS) while countries with relations with the ROC use it all the time. This makes our lead sentence "The Republic of China is a state" itself a political statement in favor of Pan-Blue. Encarta, on the other hand, presents an anti-blue pov: "The government that administers Taiwan calls itself the Republic of China." (the phrase "calls itself" implies something less than a statement of undisputed fact.) i think the implication needs to be presented up front: that the ROC exists but its legitimacy is widely disputed. otherwise, we come out as being the opposite of the Encarta article. I stand by my version of the lead, but I won't object to the current version unless that "multi-party democratic" modifyer comes back.--Jiang

  • And because of this, people outside of Taiwan keep on asking us who reside in Taiwan how can we survive each second with an obsessive stalker across the Taiwan strait that cannot be stopped by a restraining order. Saying that the status of Taiwan is more important that everthing else can be dangerously misleading. I would consider the survival of the ROC's young democracy also a very important topic.
  • Another thing, while it is true that Taiwan's status is somehow mentioned in the western media, this is not always mentioned in the first couple of paragraphs. Additionally, newspaper articles and encyclopedia articles do not necessarily start their leads the same way (see comments several blocks below). Allentchang 03:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Yet the mainstream Pan-Greens have moderated their position in supporting the existence of the Republic of China for now so long as it means that only the people of the region of Taiwan operates its sovereignty and letting the people of Taiwan to decide what to do with it later through due process. It would seem now that the Pan Blues are willing to get rid of the Republic of China if the PRC becomes democratic enough. I would not think that by now "The Republic of China is a state" is necessarily a statement in favor of the Pan-Blues
  • According to our wikipedia article on a state, the state is a political community, not merely a government. The people of Taiwan and its allied islands are part of this community known as the Republic of China by accepting fire, police, health, etc. services from organizations that have the ROC symbol or flag, by carrying ID cards that say Republic of China, and by electing representatives for this political community.
  • The Information Please Almanac does not start it's lead by saying that the ROC is a disputed state:

[2] "The Republic of China today consists of the island of Taiwan, an island 100 mi (161 km) off the Asian mainland in the Pacific; two off-shore islands, Kinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu; and the nearby islets of the Pescadores chain."

  • The Concise Encyclopedia article [3], which apparently is part of the britannica website, starts its lead as "Island, off southeastern China, and since 1949 the principal component of the Republic of China (which also includes Matsu and Quemoy islands and the Pescadores)."
  • Perhaps we could then argue that the Encarta has a PRC agenda and that the Information Please Almanac and Britannica have a plan-blue agenda. But I don't think so. Allentchang 03:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • That's the reason that I think the only way to keep us all happy is to remove all adjectives and modifiers in front of the word state in the lead section.Allentchang 03:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Im trying to keep everything together so it's easier to follow who said what...

  1. While the status of Taiwan may not be relevant in the first sentence of the Taiwan article, it is relevant in the first sentence of the Republic of China article. This is partly why we have two separate articles. There are separate focuses. People rarely evoke the "Republic of China" unless they are discussing politics or trying to make a political statement. When people go visit Taipei, they say they are "going to Taiwan" instead of "going to the Republic of China", or if that someone is me, then theyre "going to China..." ;)
  2. While the dispute is less than relevant as everyday politics in Taiwan itself, it is very relevant outside of Taiwan because it is the main reason why Taiwan is ever mentioned in the news. But this is not about Taiwan. This is about the Republic of China. Politics is popping out everywhere from that name. Britannica, Infoplease, and Encarta all have their articles under "Taiwan". They do not have two separate articles like we do.
  3. The "Republic of China" being a state that "exercises sovereignty only over the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu" as opposed to the Republic of China being defined as Taiwan itself is pro-blue and not necessarily pro-green (which would be something like "The Republic of China is the formal name of Taiwan, an independent country in East Asia). The blues, according to the current rhetoric, come strongly in defending the existence of the Republic of China at present (basically supporting the status quo) while leaving the far off future ambiguous (as you state, possibly reuniting under a name that is not the "Republic of China").
  4. The dispute is not over whether the Republic of China exists as a sovereign state. This whole article (with sections on economy, modern day politics, Taiwanese culture, etc. as opposed to its hideous state two years ago) assumes that the ROC still exists with a functional government. The dispute is over the legitimacy of the Republic of China, a central part of when and how often the term "Republic of China" is used. I would argue that a significant portion of the population (eg the TSU) does not accept the flag (they surely wont fly it from their house) and are not protesting those ID cards because it would cause them great personal invoncenience to trash them.
  5. I'm not opposed to keeping all adjectives and modifiers out of the first sentence. --Jiang 09:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Another change was of "reforms" to "constitutional reforms" in the lead. I do not think they were solely constitutional reforms. There were numerous personel changes that replaced mainlanders with native Taiwanese in the government. The Council of Grand Justices ruling that removed all the aging mainland-elected legislators and national assemblymen cannot be said to be really a "constitutional reform". Freedoms of speech and other positive human rights were already spelled out in the original constitution. They chose to simply enforce these rights differently. And legalizing political parties (or with the case of the DPP, deliberately not enforcing the law) was a change of law and administration and not of constitution.

Great Britain should not list every single island in the British isles. I was trying to pre-empt the adding of small islands into the lead section of this article.--Jiang 01:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, but recall that the National Assembly passed amendments regarding the existence of a communist rebellion and that emergency powers were in place which curbtailed the rights of the citizens. Even though martial law was abolished in 1987 (and I was there to see it happen), a National Security Law replaced it and in many ways resembled martial law. All the trampling of the rights of the existing ROC citizens did not end until the National Assembly agreed with the President to end the amendments to deal with by then the so-called "communist rebellion."

Allentchang 03:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The DPP was founded in 1986, and though illegal, the government did not try to shut it down like it would 10 years beforehand. Numerous press freedoms were also gradually relaxed during the 1980s. It was not overnight, via a National Assembly vote, that people got freedoms to speak out. During this period of time the opposition was constantly testing the regime and people were still getting jailed for opposing the government, but more people walked out of jail than they walked in. Lee's accession as Chiang Ching-kuo's successor was also a significant step since Lee was 1) native Taiwanese and 2) a technocrat unconnected with the old mainlander faction connected with the military. Isnt the National Security Law still in effect? [4] [5] Theyve never been able to revive the Taiwanese Communist Party. --Jiang 09:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

splitting of "culture" section to template

I do not think we should be splitting the culture section off to a template in order to have identical content with the Taiwan article. Part of the reason Taiwan and Republic of China are separate articles, rather than the same article with one name being a redirect, is so that we can have different focuses. The "culture of Taiwan" in this article is only relevant since 1945, when Taiwan became part of the ROC, and the focus on culture here has a lot to do with the interaction between government and culture (such as by supressing local Taiwanese culture and later encouraging it). Naturally, since the culture section here must share space with discussion of 1912-1949 republican Chinese culture, it should be less detailed than the culture section in the Taiwan article, which needs to also view culture from a broader perspective with government taking a less prominent role. This article is already 39 kilobytes long. Having a whole section on "convenience store culture" (with the same with the same content being duplicated at Convenience_store#Convenience_stores_in_Taiwan, Taiwan#Convenience_store_culture, and Culture_of_Taiwan#Convenience store culture is not needed. The ubiquity of convenience stores has much to do with Taiwan, but little to do with the Republic of China. In addition, some changes to the neutrality of the wording and the accuracy of the content that I made was lost[6]. --Jiang 10:35, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Minnan Dialect

While the Minnan Dialect is not an official language of the Republic of China, the Republic's government has elevated Hokkien's status. On Taipei's subway and Taiwan's rail system, stops and instructions are required by law to also be announced in Minnan. In the new language competency test now required for immigrants who wish to become ROC citizens, the Minnan exam (besides Hakka) is offered as a flexible option to pass the exam. Minnan is the de facto language of the open-air marketplace in Taiwan. Finally, the reason that the government does not mandate a Minnan only cable channel (there are mandated Hakka and indigenous people channels), is because there is well enough Hokkien language programming avaliable. Given Taiwan's special relationship with the ROC, the Minnan word for the Republic of China should be presented. Allentchang 23:54, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Good point. To be fair, I should point out that simplified Chinese characters have no official status in the ROC either and would also have to be removed if we went strictly with what was official. ;) -Loren 23:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

no, i don't think it's very good quality at all.

"only

what the hell is up with using a weasel word like "only"? what is that supposed to mean? that it's supposed to control more? and why would we do that if we're trying to write from NPOV? please, neutral language only.

"the state"

um... someone take an english lesson. "the state that..."... do you realize what you're saying? you're implying that there are a number of possible states and that of these, it's the ROC that "exercises sovereignty" over taiwan. what the hell? why should you assume that kind of background knowledge? if you're not, you just sound retarded trying to answer some question that wasn't asked ("which was it? roc is the one").

"sovereignty over"

a long time ago, in a place far, far away... well unfortunately not that far, but to "exercise sovereignty over" is a term that should be reserved for authoritarian states or for uninhabited rocks that countries send their ships to swarm around or for colonies/territories. hello... this is a democracy we're talking about here. the state _is_ the people. the people are theoretically the sovereigns... they're the ones that vote... CSB may think he's god, but god or not, he's no king. do you get that? he doesn't "control" taiwan. he's president. he doesn't "rule". he governs. do you get this?

so-called successor state

ok, prior to my removal of the term, it was a complete misuse of the term on this page. if anyone bothered to click on the damn link or look it up some, you would see that what successor state means in other contexts (international law, history, etc) is totally different from the one implied here:

  1. what it means: well there are several defs, one of the most common ones being something like "the territory or part of a territory that was formerly controlled by x but is now controlled by y". thus BOTH taiwan and china would be successor states to the former china.
  2. "successor state" here is prc propaganda that the roc previously bought into in order to give legitimacy for itself as representative of all of china on the world stage. they mean something like, there is this one china and there can only be one big man in china, and since we kicked your butt in most of china, we are the legitimate ruler of all of china + taiwan and so you are illegitimate and you should give up. the roc/kmt previously thought that they would rise up and beat back the communists on the mainland and so they said, yes you're right, there's one china, but since you're communist bastards, we're the legitimate ones and after we finish killing taiwanese and start putting them to work, we're going to kick your butt, but till then, we're going to deal with the world and you can sit around by yourself. anyways, it's obvious that there is no real law or anything going on... each side is motivated merely to try to find some advantage/moral high ground. if you're one of those that thinks taiwan is a part of china, "china" has been split many times before throughout history and parts of modern china were never part of it before, so let's make sure we recognize that.

addendum--in sum, there is no necessity of a single successor state of china, and there is absolutely no basis in international law for this. the claim of "i'm the successor, you give up" is something like if you're playing a game if i win 80% then i win all the way. but there is no such a game and there is no rule like this!

"ruling party"

KMT was the ruling party from the beginning till probably... somewhere between 1990-2000... i mean, it's an ongoing development. they just won an election, but they don't win automatically like they used to (fake elections, vote-buying, guaranteed wins). how happy some people are about the KMT win really proves that they aren't the ruling party.

anyways, what the hell does ruling party mean anyways? it means either:

  1. whoever has the most seats in parliament (because then they also elect the prime minister from it, giving them full control of the entire government) or
  2. an authoritarian system with strong-man politics. look, the reason everyone is so confused about what this article should be about is because ROC != ROC. ROC in the period i was talking about meant something like ROC1 = ROC gov't + KMT party + ROC army + ROC controlled territory. today, ROC2 = popularly elected gov't + no single party + civ controlled army + Taiwan + people of Taiwan. thus ROC1 had a ruling party (think about a place like China and its CCP if this makes your head hurt) and could move. but ROC2 wouldn't be able to move anywhere at all.

edits to intro, etc.

Per the discussion with allentchang above, there's really no point in specifying "multi-party democratic..." in the first sentence. This is done nowhere else. If you want to use "multi-party democratic..." then I can do a WP:POINT and change it to "defunct state that the KMT regime has reestablished in Taiwan" because that's also what it is.

"From 1895 to 1945, Taiwan and the Pescadores were a colony of Japan..." is irrelevant. This is an article on the Republic of China, not Taiwan and the Pescadores. The lead section is already too long. Please don't make it longer.

In the political divisions section, putting "(Taiwan)" after the main article link is totally not necessary. It conveys no new information and clarifies nothing. That the ROC is known as Taiwan has been stated much earlier in the article. The section is not just about the ROC in Taiwan. If it is, then expand it. Furthermore, "Fuchien" is the transliteration used by the government. --Jiang 10:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

is that a threat? cause i see no problems with that. go ahead and do it.
no, but since it's about the ROC and since the ROC these days is Taiwan (say what you want, you know it's true, it's the reality), you need to say where the hell taiwan came from. that's why it's relevant. follow conventions of other articles. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)
Republic of China and Taiwan are seperate articles. There's a reason we kept them separate. The lead section is already too long. I tried to incorporate the fact less longwindedly and more relevantly elsewhere in the lead.--Jiang 11:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Republic of China and China are separate articles too. You don't complain about that much. Stop pursuing an agenda.

Some shaky historical claims in the military section removed: "Because of the lack of national unity of the Republican Era of China, several armies are associated with this era." The "lack of national unity" is not cause for several armies. That is called warlordism, which is discussed several sentences later.

"The early Kuomintang had no army and was subject to the whims of warlords, especially Yuan Shikai. Having learned their lesson, with the help of the Comintern, Sun Yat-sen established the..." This is false. The New Army mutineers were sympathetic to Sun's Revolutionary Alliance, and did, along with some other mercernary/provincial volunteer forces make up a substantial military force. Of course, this force was not as strong as Yuan's Beiyang army up north. The second sentence implies that the KMT in Guangdong. had no army until the Comintern came along. It did. It just wasnt strong enough to take on all the warlords.--Jiang 10:49, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

huh? ccp is called warlordism? what is wrong with you? get a clue. warlordism is also a cause of a fractured nature, wouldn't you think? i don't get your logic. they're 100% compatible.
it didn't really though. that was a warlord taking Sun under his wing, not Sun and the KMT in charge of their own army to do whatever they want. so you're wrong. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)
The "lack of national unity" could be in politics, ideology, religion, etc. One doesn't automatically imply the other.
Sun had mercernaries and volunteers he had control over, and co-opted several warlords, some at the same time. Sun did not take orders from the warlords, but rather had them incoporated into his organization (so yes, he was technically in charge: he was president and Chen Jiongming was Governer of Guangdong province). remember that the KMT wasnt in existence from about 1913 to 1922.--Jiang 11:23, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
but not the KMT that put together a real army of its own and united china. you avoid the issue. "incorporated" sounds pretty weak and you know it. that's why you're saying it that way. also--not only warlords is the point. you totally missed the importance of the CCP.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)
It doesn't matter who founded the army. What matters is that Sun had troops under his command.--Jiang 11:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Cite something.
Yes, the KMT army was formed by warlords. Yan Shishang, Li Tsun-jen and all those KMT generals belonged to non-Whampoa cliques. BlueShirts 03:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

holy shit, i would've never thought, explanation of why jiang keeps removing the bit about democracy

ok, according jiang

"intro is too long. this is covered elsewhere, see "...its current form as a localized, multi-party democracy where in practice only people in the island groups of Taiwan...")"

now i understand what jiang's up to here. first of all, "intro is too long" is obviously a bullshit reason, so let's put that aside and examine the second bit. "in practice only people in the island groups of Taiwan..."... wow... so jiang's claim is that the roc means something like china + taiwan and china is not democratic, so the ROC is not a democracy! holy shit! do you think you can find people in taiwan that don't think the ROC is a democracy? so what the honorable mr. jiang is really saying is that we either IGNORE what the political system of the ROC is even though we proceed to describe the government of the ROC OR we say that the ROC is a multiparty democratic state with territories currently occupied by the CCP under communist/authoritarian rule. just wow. i mean, POV if i've ever seen any. look, we devote plenty of space (in my opinion too much) to this historical controversy of who's supposed to be "legitimate" but the fact is, under NPOV, we should be talking about what the reality is. and the reality is that the ROC is a democratic state.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

The intro is too long. There's no need to state that the ROC is a multiparty demoracy twice.--Jiang 17:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Let it be known to all non-partial observers that care about writing a good wiki article that the gentleman Mr. Jiang reverts without commenting. Now it may be claimed that he reiterated his point that the introduction is too long, but let it be noted that there are several points in the introduction that are repeated upon and expanded upon later in the article, but he so chooses and insists that this is the only part of the introduction that must go. Let it also be noted that the good sir also ignored several other points that I brought up, including that his command of political expertise is, well, to say the least, quite lacking, overeagerly mistaking "strong-man" for lowly speech, when in fact it is a specialized, refined term of, well, those who know. Additionally, and now more sadly, let us also observe his lack of commenting, other than his tired refrain that the introduction is too long, and how he had so urged me to comment and gain consensus before making improvements, yet he himself provides false, empty words to explore what I dare say is nakedly a POV agenda.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

I think it'd be best to mention the multiparty pan-green presidency and pan-blue legislature/local level in teh politics section. I don't think you see that kind of detail in the intro of any national profiles. BlueShirts 20:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear KMT supporter, I must inform you that actually the multiparty bit is much more relevant than the KMT ruling party bit as the former is present while the latter is historical. And while I do agree the state profiles should include some certain basics, each situation is different and requires sensitivity to the peculiarities of history and place. Had you real proof that introductions to country profiles might constrain themselves to lofty guidelines, I urge you, enlightened one, to write wikiguidlines of your own. And may "Zhong Zheng" live forever! The dream of one, united, authoritarian China lives on!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

take your head out of your ass and read my profile a bit more closer, please, Chen supporter. BlueShirts 21:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

If you take a look at what I said, you will see that I am pointing out a particular political bias in the remarks and reasoning given by Jiang (sometimes people around Wikipedia call this POV). On the other hand, I do not see a pattern of edits on my part that could be construed as me being a Chen supporter.

you completely ignored my point. There is no reason why we should state the same thing, in the same amount of detail, within the introduction itself. why call it a multiparty democracy twice when one time will get the message across? and please start an article on strong-man politics if you are so inclined.--Jiang 00:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

i'm not inclined. would you please consider doing the research and doing it yourself, as you are unfamiliar with the term?

Everyone please cool it so we can discuss this rationally. I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about as the specifics of who the ruling and opposition parties are already covered in other sections. In fact, if you compare the current intro to comparable country articles such as United States of America or Republic of Korea, the ROC intro is way too long and goes into details that should be covered in other sections. Consider for example the ROK article which makes no mention in the intro of who the ruling party currently is or its authoritarian past. This has nothing whatsoever to politics or ones stance on political status and no one is trying to hide anything. I see no point of delving into specifics in the intro. All that needs to be said there is where the ROC is, what it's jurisdiction is, it's date of founding, and the current political system, as well as a blurb or two about disputed status. Right now it looks more like an article within an article. -Loren 00:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed intro

I'd like to propose the following intro to the ROC article seeing as the current one has mushroomed into something way too long and convoluted. The removed information is already covered in other sections. For exmaples of good intros, please see United States of America and Republic of Korea. -Loren 00:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposed version

The Republic of China (traditional Chinese: 中華民國; simplified Chinese: 中华民国, Wades-Giles: Chung¹-hua² Min²-kuo², Tongyong Pinyin: JhongHuá MínGuó, Hanyu Pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó, Pe̍h-oē-jī: Tiong-hoâ Bîn-kok) is a state that currently exercises jurisdiction over the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu. Established in 1912 by revolutionaries who participated the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, the ROC exercised sovereignty over all of mainland China until 1949 when its government was forced to evacuate to Taiwan following the fall of the mainland to the Chinese Communists who then established the People's Republic of China (PRC). The name "Taiwan" is often used synonymously with the modern Republic of China, while the term "China" usually refers to the People's Republic of China or mainland China. For much of its history the Republic of China was closely associated with the Kuomintang, a party formed by the revolutionaries that originally established the Republic and was the ruling party of the ROC for many years under martial law. However, with political liberalization beginning in the late 1980s the country has transformed into a multiparty representative democracy. Because the PRC claims sovereignty over Taiwan, the political status of the ROC and the territories it currently controls is disputed, and its diplomatic recognition since the 1970s have suffered as a result of the One-China Policy and because of diplomatic maneuvers by the larger and more economically-significant PRC.

Comments

Qualified support; if it were going to be cut down to size in this way, there should be "see" links to the topics being eliminated in the intro, I think. --Nlu 00:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to stick See this article in the intro, however I think it may be possible to work links to those articles into the intro. -Loren 08:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Support; I see my addition of political liberalization has gotten in so it's okay by me. BlueShirts 01:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes I think are needed: 1) The ROC is not "composed of the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu". It is "effectively composed of the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu". Saying that the ROC is "composed of the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu" amounts to saying "Taiwan is the Republic of China" and is a political statement. 2) the link to "China" in the second sentence is inappropriate. It should link to mainland China. 3) the fourth sentence ignores warlord China. keep in mind that from about 1913 to 1919, there was no such thing as the Kuomintang in China, and from 1912 to 1926, the Kuomintang (in all its incarnations) was not a dominant political (or military) force.--Jiang 01:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the first two points, but I would think that's a bit confusing for anyone who's not familiar with the situation. For the third point, I think we can say that the KMT was fundamental in building a modern unified ROC or something like that, but again that's going to too much details. BlueShirts 02:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
If it's confusing, then we need to clarify it. Wiping the losers out of history in favor of the victors is systemic POV and needs to be countered. The proposed text implies that the KMT has existed ever since the ROC's founding and has since been the ROC's dominant political force. This is false and gives the wrong impression. After the Second Revolution and before Comintern showed up, Sun Yat-sen was reduced to dividing his time being a warlord in Guangzhou and being an agitator in exile in Japan or the foreign concession in Shanghai.--Jiang 02:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Jiang, your thoughts regarding "wiping the losers out of history" seem interesting. What specifically do you argue is being done to minimize "the losers"? Who are the losers you are talking about?
The warlords lost to the KMT and did not live to write any modern day history books. --Jiang 09:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I don't think it's got anything to do with POV. How about just say the KMT has been a unifying force in establishing the ROC as we know today, or anything similar in that line. BlueShirts 02:22, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The first 16 years of the Republic, especially if you take the viewpoint of the PRC and consider the polity to have ended in 1949, is too long a period to simply ignore for being insignificant. I think it was significant. The warlords government was the internationally recognized government at this time and warlordism had quite an impact on the politics of the era (not to mention the May Fourth Movement, which was instigated by protests against the Beijing govt).--Jiang 03:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Blueshirts, they were at the beginning, but later it is better to characterize them as the party apparatus of an authoritarian Leninist-style one party state, where lines between party and state are heavily blurred (ironically the same structure is found in the CCP of the PRC). So please be careful of the tense of what your saying.

Also, the ROC replaced the Qing Dynasty sounds a little odd. How about just say it overthrew the dynasty. I notice that some past reverts were about replacement or successor state, so maybe overthrow would be a more neutral word. BlueShirts 02:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't see how the succession of states theory is disputed here.--Jiang 03:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I apologize Jiang, but though I am what many consider to be quite versed in comparative and international politics, I don't understand what you mean by "succession of states theory". Other than the "one China" idea that the PRC/ROC dreamed up (well, it was driven by 1 UN seat, but still... let's be real here). Burden of proof is on you.

I don't think the lead needs to be cut this drastically. I think it should be cut it down to two paragraphs (given the large size of the paragraphs, since according to wikipedia:lead section, we're allowed more than that). The article body needs some major pruning, esp the politics section. Details need to be moved into the daughter articles according to wikipedia:summary style.--Jiang 02:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Loren has shown us a good example in proposing a real constructive solution rather than simply reverting. Jiang, how about thinking your thoughts through to be consistent and detailed and taking Loren as a model? Would you show us your proposed moves to daughter articles?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

I made some revisions addressing some of the concerns mentioned above:

  • ROC currently exercises jurisdiction over...
  • KMT was the ruling party for many years.
  • ROC overthrew the Ching Dyansty.

I'm not sure how we could work links to relevant subsections into the intro, but would appreceate suggestions. Comments? (P.S. to the anon: Please stop sniping at other people, and a quick reminder that I don't like being patronized.) - Loren 03:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Remaining objections: 1) No 2 (see previous comment) 2) My comment above was also in reference to the sentence "From its early days to its move to Taiwan to the early 1990s, the Republic of China was closely associated with the KMT". "early days" implies the beginning. the beginning, 1912-1928, was not "closely associated with the KMT". We may not be able to avoid a complete rundown of history like how it is already done. 3) the ROC did not overthrow the Qing dynasty. the Revolutionaries did. then they (the revolutionaries) established the ROC (a polity, not a group or person). I think this part was fine before it was changed. --Jiang 03:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, changed the part on the revolutionaries and modified the part on the KMT some more. -Loren 03:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I still think this is too drastic a cut in content. Take the perspective of a average dumb American [or insert any non-ehtnic Chinese nationality here] stumbling on this article the first time and unable to differentiate between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China. They read the first sentence and think "what the fking hell, i thought Taiwan wasn't really part of China." They read the second sentence and think "since when has China been a refugee and forced itself to evacuate to Taiwan? i didn't know countries could run away like that". And they fall into a deeper and deeper hole of confusion...
The current version says that the KMT evacutated to Taiwan. That is much more accurate and neutral. We can also say the ROC government evacuated to Taiwan. The ROC, the state, cannot have evacuated to Taiwan unless we support Chenism and adhere to the Four-stage Theory of the Republic of China. ROC=mainland China+Taiwan+outer Mongolia+Tuva. It either went defunct (according to CCP) or still exists (according to KMT), minus the Chenism. For the story to make sense, we need to state that the KMT fled to Taiwan and brought their government with them, the Communists proclaimed a new state (on the mainland of course, since this is not clearly implied in the proposal) that claimed to be the successor state of the ROC, and that the KMT clung onto the notion that they controlled the Chinese government (this is the very reason we have a Republic of China controlling only some islands instead of a province of the PRC or a Republic of Taiwan). Furthermore, the political status of the ROC is not a "controversial issue" (I would prefer the term "disputed") because the "PRC claims sovereignty over Taiwan", but because we have an incomplete succession of states and a whole debate on legitimacy from the Cold War era that hasnt resolved itself in the present day.
The ROC, due to its political status, is a special case and I think we're better off just trying to chip away at the existing intro. Stuff like Taiwan having been acquired from Japan in 1945 (this is not an article on Taiwan) can go, but I'll be reverted by some dirty mouthed anon if I try to remove it.--Jiang 09:58, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
uh... excuse me. take the US as an example. the people come from england. but there's people there already. the history of native americans thus becomes a part of American history. you're "this isn't the Taiwan" article refrain is as empty as your "the intro is too long" refrain. it's illogical.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)
The United States does not have seperate articles for "United States of America" and "America". Why did we bother with seperate articles for "Taiwan" and "Republic of China"? Are we to add everything from the Yellow Emperor, Shang Dynasty, Qin Dynasty or whatever into the history section because the ROC existed on mainland China too? --Jiang 00:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Look, forget about "Chenism," nobody takes him seriously and I doubt anybody has even heard of the made-up four-stage theory. I think it's perfectly fine to say that the ROC evacuated to Taiwan. The state is still there, except that its territory has gotten a lot smaller. BlueShirts 18:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

All of this is predicated on some kind of so-called "succession of states" theory. What is that? What are your sources? I think you're making this up. Something so fundamental to your argument yet so unclear...

Do you mind signing your posts with four "~". BlueShirts 19:12, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
see Succession of states theory. --Jiang 20:05, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

nothing there relevant to here.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

then want to make an argument on how the Republic of China is not the successor state of the Qing Empire? --Jiang 00:26, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Jiang, please look around on google for differences between "successor state" and your so-called "Succession of states theory". They are not the same thing. Successor states have a very broad use and basically mean "this state/kingdom/country/political entity/tribe used to be here, now there is something else". In contrast, succession of states theory's only formal backing is a relatively modern concept and has to do with a country being recognized by others or having access to property that was formerly that of the previous state that it claims to have succeeded (this is things like... embassies, museum pieces on loan, etc). I'm not the one that needs to make an argument here. Your argument isn't backed up by anything with the semblance of scholarliness or authoritativeness.

Some stuff about ROC claim area

Additionally, although the ROC has not constitutionally renounced sovereignty over Mainland China (including Tibet), outer Mongolia, and Tannu Uriankhai, though in 1991 President Lee Teng-hui it stated that his government does not dispute the fact that the Communist Party rules mainland China. The DPP government under Chen Shui-bian has made moves to ignore such claims, including removing outer Mongolia from the ROC's official maps and the establishment of a representative office in Mongolia's capital, Ulan Bator. One reason the ROC has never officially dropped its claims is fear that the PRC would use such a move as a pretext for invasion, calling it a move towards Taiwan independence.

I have some problems with the bolded text. To me, this sentence sounds like a rather bad justification for ROC's territorial claims to be actually bigger than PRC's. Also, a statement like this would be rather difficult to substantiate, since it's really just the editor's own take on why the situation is what it is, rather than any concrete, verifiable claim. (Like PRC saying "We will invade if you dare to become independent.")

Thoughts?

-- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 00:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Basically I think in a real encyclopedia they wouldn't make it sound so much like the ROC really holds on to some claim over China. For all intents and purposes, in all its behaviors, the ROC (Taiwan) does nothing to indicate that it still thinks that either China, Tibet, or Mongolia belong to it. None. In addition, the idea about "official maps" is interesting because if we consider "official borders", they were originally only of China, not inclusive of Taiwan, and by the constitution, the borders/territory cannot be changed by constitutional amendment--thus Taiwan by ROC constitutional law is not a part of the ROC. So now who wants to go by some maps? The president's current political powers don't really match up with ROC constitutional intentions either. There's a lot of problems when people talk about these maps or constitutional laws that were made under dictatorship and with the attempt of trying to cover over a reality that was quite different.

The fact is, there's a small minority in Taiwan that came from China when the KMT fled China that wants to make this claim because it functions as a way for them to maintain a cultural link to China, not because it's some kind of true intellectual position. This happens to fit together with PRC intentions as well--as long as Jiang Jieshi's ROC makes wild claims over being the "real China" (they don't anymore in actuality), then they are Chinese too. That's what it is about. This gross POV should be exposed for what it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, were you replying to my message? I'm not saying it's not factual or it's POV, I just think it's a selective choice of words to subliminally imply something. -- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 04:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

"two sides of the strait"

this language is a political term invented by the PRC and used by those that support unification with china. many people would take offense at "two sides of the strait", with the implication being that it's not two states that people are talking about (china and taiwan).Moveapage 19:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

it's politically neutral languauge, like "mainland China" (refer to article). it does not imply that both sides are party of China. I don't see your point. --Jiang 19:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Do you read Chinese news? The origins of this term is to avoid recognizing the ROC/Taiwan. People that only read English might not know that. Let's not partake in introducing political propaganda into the English language.

海峽兩岸/海峡两岸. Tell me how it's PRC propaganda. -- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 00:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
In English language media, this is almost always rendered as "cross-straits talks/relations/etc.", for exactly the same reason: people want to avoid characterizing the political relationship between the two sides. It is completely neutral: a person who believes that the ROC is an autonomous state can use it without contradiction, as can a person who believes the opposite. --MarkSweep (call me collect) 00:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
the origin of the term is to use a geographical-spacial description avoid characterizing either side, as doing so would almost automatically reveal prejudice. It is not to avoid recognizing the ROC/Taiwan. It is not political propaganda. If you think it is, just dont say so. prove that it is. --Jiang 23:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
err... they *aren't* two states on each side of the straits. that is the point... "two sides of the strait" is neutral. --Sumple 03:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

"jurisdiction over"

this is an incorrect way to describe the composition of the ROC on Taiwan. jurisdiction implies a scope specified by law. this is possible within a country, like "the FBI has jurisdiction over this case", but not here.Moveapage 19:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

jurisdiction="Authority or control". The government contols tw, penghu, kinmen, matsu. it is the most neutral way to characterize the situation, given that there are those who argue ROC = mainland China+Mongolia (regardless whether this is a defunct ROC or one that moved to Taiwan). --Jiang 19:17, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Any understanding of any language recognizes that usage is different from dictionary definition. The way people use it is not in this way. If you're interested, do some lookups on corpus linguistics. It's obvious that one couldn't create grammatically correct sentences merely be reading a dictionary anyways.Moveapage 19:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

So answer one question: What is a dictionary for? If "Any understanding of any language recognizes that usage is different from dictionary definition", why on earth do we have dictionaries? -- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 00:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

err... use a better dictionary! if you use the penguine little dictionary for primary school kids or something, of course that won't give you all the definitions.

Lead section edits

The consensus is that the lead section needs to be shortened (see #Proposed intro) even though I disagree with the others on the degree of shortening. Please stop adding text to the lead section!

Some text I removed/modified:

  • "is a state that is composed of the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu." --> "is a state that currently has jurisdiction over the island groups of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Kinmen, and Matsu." This is inspired by the proposal above. The former adheres to Chenism and is POV. Whether the ROC=Taiwan is subject to debate. I don't see how the latter can be disputed.
Excuse me, but jurisdiction is simply just bad English. Ontology is also a complicated question. I'm not sure your vague equals sign is the same thing as composed. Things are not necessarily just what they are composed of now are they (baseball team anyone? the team is not merely pitchers plus 8 other guys (NL baby), even though that's what it's composed of)Moveapage 19:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
yes it is. i dont see your point, and i dont see how jurisdiction is bad english--Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "Some people view the current ROC that exists on Taiwan as the continuation of the ROC state that from 1912 to 1949 exercised sovereignty over all of China. Others view the state on Taiwan as existing separately from Republican China." --> "From 1912 to 1949 the ROC encompassed all of China." Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words. who are these "some people" and "others"? The sentence is too ambiguous to be useful. Again, I don't see how the latter shorter wording is POV or inaccurate.
Uh, you're the one that thinks the intro is too long. Merely bringing up the fact that this is the position of some people (such, oh say... the PRC), is important since it helps to warn the reader.
wikipedia:avoid weasel words. refer to the discussion above, i dont think this intro is as long as changlc, nlu, and blushirts think it is. this is not the position of the ROC. the PRC does not view Taiwan as existing seperately from "Republican China". it views Taiwan has sovereign Chinese territory. and using "Republican China" here, mate, is bordering on bad ambiguity and a play on the English language. --Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "modern Republic of China" --> "existing Republic of China". "existing" is less ambiguous than "modern". when does "modern" begin? It also smacks less against the PRC's version of events.
the PRC doesn't recognize any ROC so your reasoning is wrong. Existing is too ambiguous also.Moveapage 19:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
the PRC implicitly recognizes the existence of such a government under the name "Republic of China". It shows up in quotation marks in the state media. existing is less ambiguous that modern. --Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "warlordism" --> "warlordism". why the dewikification? the link is relevant.
No argument there. I put it in.Moveapage 19:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  • removed "which had been reclaimed from Japan in 1945". this is not an article on Japan. space is limited. why does this belong in the lead? This is in the history section.
This is important as the ROC previously had never controlled Taiwan.Moveapage 19:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
so? what is the important point being made here? the important point is that the ROC moved to taiwan. what Taiwan was before the ROC moved there is not relevant in the lead.--Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "the KMT set up what it called a provisional capital in Taipei" --> "the KMT declared Taipei the provisional capital". the latter is much shorter. the POV of regarding Taipei a provisional capital is alleviated by using the word "declare". The KMT declared. That is not disputed, even not by the PRC.
But declare comes afterwards. You need to bring it up in the beginning then. Reword that.Moveapage 19:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
what? comes after what?--Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "the Communists proclaimed the People's Republic of China and claimed to have succeeded the ROC as China and that the Nationalist government in Taiwan was an illegitimate representative of China." --> "the Communists proclaimed the People's Republic of China and claimed to have succeeded the ROC over all of China and that the ROC government in Taiwan was an illegitimate government." The PRC not only disputed the KMT as a representative of China in intl organizations and elsewhere. It disputed the very existence of the ROC and its very legitimacy. The former is misleading and wrong.
On what basis? Please cite something.Moveapage 19:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
"after replacing the government of the Republic of China in 1949, the government of the PRC has become the sole legal government of China, enjoying and exercising sovereignty over the whole of China, including Taiwan."--Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Removed "While the tense standoff of the Cold War era has largely subsided". Text formerly here about battles is gone. this clause is no longer necessary
Still necessary to show a shift from a standoff between two sides that purported themselves to be true representatives of China (just like E-W Germany, N-S Korea/Vietnam) to the conflict of its current form, where Taiwan does not want to "take back the mainland".Moveapage 19:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
we never claimed there to be a "tense standoff" in the first place. we implied that there is a dispute, but we did not imply that there was a "tense standoff" complete with missile bombardments. and saying the "tense standoff has subsided" does nothing to imply that "Taiwan does not want to take back the mainland" That is found in the next sentence, "the ROC no longer pursues its claims over mainland China and Mongolia." --Jiang 00:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Removed "on both sides of the Taiwan Strait". Redundant. It is contentious everywhere (in the realm of international relations etc). and this is too obvious since these are the two sides in contention.
Fine, plus it's also propaganda.Moveapage 19:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Removed "and one of the original five Security Council members". removed in the interests of brevity. keep this in the foreign relations section. a mention of the UN membership is enough.
Fine.Moveapage 19:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "Most major countries now recognize the PRC as having succeeded the ROC as the representative of China" --> "Most countries switched their recognition from the ROC to the PRC in the 1970s" The former is wrong. These countries have established formal relations of the PRC, but merely "acknowledged" the PRC's claims over Taiwan. They have not "recognized" Taiwan as a province of the PRC and conduct de facto relations, treating Taiwan as if it were seperate.
I don't know where you get the "recognize Taiwan as a province of the PRC" from. Doesn't follow.Moveapage 19:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
your addition "Most major countries now recognize the PRC as having succeeded the ROC as the representative of China" is not really relevant in this day and age. The sentence implies that we still of a tug a war over who can represent China and that Taiwan is part of either China. What concerns our reader is the recognition of the ROC as a legitimate entity governing Taiwan.--Jiang
  • "recognized by 25 countries" --> "recognized by 25 states" "states" is more accurate. --Jiang 19:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
You need to explain why. You want to belittle these island countries =P? They are mostly pretty small states.Moveapage 19:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
refer to the defitinon of "state" and compare it to the definition of "country". "state" is a more relevant word when we are concerned about official recognition.--Jiang

To edit out the fact that the national boundaries havent been redrawn while leaving in the fact that these borders arent being pursued is not npov. There is currently no valid argument here for not using "has jusrisdiction over" in the lead and leaving out stuff about the Japanese colony of Taiwan. Please discuss this and gain some consensus. --Jiang 02:08, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

Since there are different views on the ROC, they must be recognized. You can't eliminate just because the lead section is long. Republican China is recognized as a period that has ended by the PRC, Western academia, and people in Taiwan. There is actually only a small minority of people, consisting mostly of mainlanders, that like to emphasize the ROC historical link to China because they want Taiwan to unify with China. There ethnic identity, of course, isn't Taiwanese because they were merely refugees in Taiwan, with many only having had planned on staying in Taiwan for a few years, but ended up never returning to China.Moveapage 19:21, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

please provide concrete examples on how the current wording is not NPOV. I have provided reasons above on how the longer version inserted POV (rather than removed it). please back your statements with evidence so we can make any changes. of course we all want the article to be NPOV. now where's the problem? --Jiang 19:24, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

The key is that Republican China is generally regarded as having ended. This whole article's makeup, actually, is really one big POV, but barring changing the whole organization, the next best thing is to recognize it as such.Moveapage 19:49, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

How is the ROC generally regarded as having ended? Regarded by whom? Last time I checked the country's name is still ROC. Saying otherwise is pushing a pov. BlueShirts 19:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. But calling something a name does not make it so.Moveapage 20:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You're not making any sense at all. It's not just the name. It's also about the Constitution which specifies the name, national anthem, and all sorts of government bodies and regulations that all support the ROC. Unless a referendum or the legislative yuan decide to have the constitution amended to include the change of ROC to ROT, then whatever points you bring up just don't hold up. BlueShirts 20:04, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

It does. I am not advocating a ROT. What I'm saying is that historians study a Republican China, and guess what, it doesn't include Taiwan. Now you tell me what doesn't make sense about it? Can a "state" really move? My view is no, as is that of most mainstream academics. In any case, your POV is represented is it not?Moveapage 20:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

A state doesn't move per se, but its boundaries and borders can change, even decrease. The ROC ruled all of China (including Taiwan since 1945) all the way up until 1949, when it gave up on the mainland. The truth is that the ROC has been in existence since 1911. And when most historians study Republican China, they don't include Taiwan because Taiwan was a Japanese colony, retrocessed in 1945 when Japan surrendered. Saying that most historians don't include taiwan in the ROC doesn't realy bring anything to the discussion. BlueShirts 20:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Again, everything that you're saying is POV, which is fine, but must be recognized as such. That's the problem, not that you're partisan, but that it has to be mentioned.Moveapage 20:34, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

You gotta be kidding me. How is it POV? The constitution and the government serve the ROC. There is no ambiguity as far as official records are concerned. If you want in later sections, you can say that pro-independence folks regard the ROC state as having ceased to exist since 1949, but this view is definitely not the view of mainstream historians, not even the ROC government and Chen himself. BlueShirts 20:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

It obviously is by your own admission if there are people with contrary POV. I should clarify, I meant Western historians. If you can cite non-KMT sponsored historians (academic we're talking about), then I'll consider.Moveapage 20:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

you're not making sense again. What western historians? Most books about Republican China like Eastman's Seeds of Destruction don't even mention Taiwan in detail because Taiwan was a Japanese colony during the majority of ROC's lifetime before 1945. Does that mean the retrocession of Taiwan in 1945 was by any means invalid? I don't think so. Not mentioning it does not mean that it was wrong. The official name of the state that administers over Taiwan is Republic of China, not Taiwan or Republic of Taiwan or anything other than ROC. Can you tell me which historians say that the ROC ceased to exist after 1949? And please don't cite people like Huang Wun-hsiung. BlueShirts 21:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Several reverts by Jiang

I have in good faith compromised with Jiang, while he has been insistently reverting me. If you look at the above discussion on revising the intro, you'll see that many of the changes he wanted to implement were already challenged and he is not "reverting" to some kind of previous equilibrium. I encourage you to look at the history of revisions to verify this, but wanted to point it out for people first.Moveapage 20:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

While I do not wish to pass judgments hastily, from what I've read of your comments, they have been quite confrontational. Also, I believe you have been in violation of the 3RR, while more than 1 editor have disagreed with your edits. Perhaps you should resolve your differences on the talkpage before just reverting. -- Миборовский U|T|C|E|Chugoku Banzai! 00:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

country vs. state etc

"country" refers to the geographical entity. "state" refers to the political entity. "state" should be used here as the article is on a political entity, while the geographical entity is subject to a bunch of interpretations/definitions. It is also bad form to be starting the article with an adjective to decribe the main subject. Just which FA does this? Adding "contemporary" in front of "Republic of China" implies that the non-contemporary "Republic of China" wont be mentioned. "Political divisions" should not be renamed "Regional political divisions". Refer to the template used at wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. Why should there be an exception? --Jiang 07:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

First, I think it's ridiculous to be too rule based and inflexible. Second, that template doesn't even apply since that template applies to countries and the ROC is not a country.--140.112.185.129 09:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

If there's consensus to ignore the rules, then any rule can be ignored. but there's definately no consensus here. If the template does not apply, then please revert to Revision as of 15:59, 12 July 2003. Oh it's my mistake! Really...not. --Jiang 19:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Can anyone tell me what purpose does "contemporary" serve in a country profile? BlueShirts 02:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Contemporary means of the current period of time, just like it does anywhere else. The reason we say this is because the ROC wasn't always composed of Taiwan.

well, the next sentence says the ROC currently has jurisdiction over Taiwan and some islands, so I don't see how it adds to the article besides being ugly. BlueShirts 19:16, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

You're commenting on something outdated Blueshirts. In any case, this discussion is dead.

Parallelism

I made a change so that we would use "encompassed" consistently for both time periods, but Jiang reverted without providing any reason. Encompassed is extremely neutral. Why are you so stuck on "jurisdiction", a term that other people don't like? Why not just pick the consensus term?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.59.83.208 (talk • contribs)

please sign your comments. it does nothing to help you look like a new user.
"encompassed" is not neutral because it implies that the claims over the mainland are a bunch of phooey. a big deal were made over them in the past and we cannot simply ignore them. "jurisdiction" is much more neutral, a term that only you do not like while you have not provided a good reason why you do not like it. repreatedly trying replace the term is not a reason. the word "encompassed" is used in for the older time period because the ROC government (there were actually several) never firmly controlled all the areas it claimed in the first place so it would be misleading.--Jiang 10:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

well jurisdiction implies that they rightfully have control over them so you've made my point for me. given your grammatical mistakes, i would say that you should defer to others in the case of subtleties in meaning. jurisdiction implies it is backed by a law or that it's only for the time being. whereas encompasses merely states that that is what it is consists of, rightfully or wrongly. if i'm a new user, then let my words speak for themselves. i don't care to use a "i've cleaned up a lot of articles" therefore i'm right in this case to help my case. read my comments and explanations of edits, one at a time. i don't mind that. take a critical eye to it. it's fine.

sign your posts! it's good practice so others can keep track of who said what. otherwise, it will look like I'm arguing with myself...
if the problem with "jurisdiction" is over its implications of legitimacy, then we can replace it with "currently controls" or "currently governs". Isnt that objective enough? The word "encompasses" is inappropriate because the national boundaries of a state are not always deemed to be the areas its government controls. It is not NPOV to imply that the ROC is synonymous with TW, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu when there are parties claiming otherwise.
also, you have never responded above re your other edits. respond and gain consensus before trying to reinsert disputed changes. According to the Manual of Style, one paragraph does not make a section, so your edit to the history section is inappropriate. --Jiang 11:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I've moved the KTV typhoon reference to Culture of Taiwan. That article should not be shorter than the section here. This article is already too long. And it really has to do with Taiwan and not the Republic of China. --Jiang 12:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Main things that are not captured in this article

The ROC as China from 1911 until 1949 is pretty straightforward--they claimed to be China, and exercised at least nominal control over most of it, though the Japanese and Communists took large swaths of it. Few questioned what the legitimate government of China was.

The ROC on Taiwan has gone through several changes in identity. The time periods overlap because it's hard to say when one begins and the other ends:
1) 1949 till 1990s. The ROC claimed to be something of a "government in exile", the rightful China that had been pushed out by the CCP. When it came to diplomatic relations, it pursued recognition of itself over recognition of PRC. As China is huge and Taiwan is small, most countries starting recognizing the PRC instead. This occurs in the middle of the cold war, when many Western democracies preferred propping up authoritarian dictatorships over recognizing communist government. The recognition of the ROC over the PRC was a Cold War decision motivated in the same vein as in the S. Vietnam over N. Vietnam situation, or in the S. Korea over N.Korea situation.
2) 1980s to present. Cold War is over. Taiwan isn't important anymore as a stronghold against a Communist China. The ROC no longer wants to "counter-attack" the communists in China. Taiwan is now a democracy with local Taiwanese holding the power now. However, China now wants Taiwan for nationalist reasons, rather than for reasons of crushing the vestiges of the KMT/ROC, and so even though the ROC would accept a country holding relationships with both Taiwan and China, this is forbidden by China. With democratization and localization, people on Taiwan are confused about their identity. Even if Taiwanese are Chinese, in the past, you never had to make such a big deal about it, I mean, just to say that Taiwanese are Chinese is something that didn't need to be done in the middle of the Cold War. Taiwanese is taken as a symbol of Taiwanese identity and political discussion in Taiwan all of a sudden shifts almost completely to exclusively Taiwanese, but it's a struggle because Taiwanese does not have as large of a written base as Cantonese in HK does; Chinese is the language everyone has in common and is the one that everyone is educated in. At the same time, Taiwanese Mandarin has already shifted a good deal away from Mandarin in China.

The current article makes it sound too much like there's still this "we're the real China" business going on when clearly there's not. The never-manned "mongonlian affairs" tables in official government buildings are some of the best evidence of this.

Unresolved issues

I am still waiting for a response from 61.59.83.208 on why 1) mention of Japanese colonial rule is so important that it deserves a place here 2) how removing note that the official borders havent been changed while leaving in that these borders aren't being pursued is npov 3) why we should ignore the manual of style and have one paragraph sections and 4) why some minor and irrelevant reference about young people singing karoke and playing majong deserves mention here. --Jiang 15:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, the addition of "the government did not completely exercise control over these areas during this era" is an misleading characterization of events. The word "the" implies that there was only a single government. There were multiple governments claiming to be the Republic of China, so we can say that the ROC encompassed all of mainland China without qualification.--Jiang 15:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I also removed some stuff that just isnt true: "Both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China celebrate the Double Ten Holiday on October 10th, which commemorates the Wuchang Uprising that occurred on October 10, 1911." WRONG. Oct 10 is not a national holiday in the PRC. "...became the New Cultural Movement, commonly known as the May Fourth Movement." WRONG. The two are not synonymous. New Cultural Movement began before the May 4th protests.--Jiang 09:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

2000 years of imperial rule?

Where does the 2000 come from? If we're using the Qin Dynasty (221 BC to 207 BC) to mark the start of imperial China, then it should be 2200 years. --BenjaminTsai Talk 01:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not count from Zhou or Shang dynasties? BlueShirts 20:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
How about from Xia Dynasty? One of the reasons for using Qin Dynasty seems to be because "much of what came to constitute China proper was unified for the first time in 221 B.C." [7]. --BenjaminTsai Talk 20:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the Xia dynasty has less concrete archealogical record than either the Shang or the Zhou dynasty. BlueShirts 20:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
it comes from the Qin, which would put us somewhere around 2133 years. if there's no emperor, then it's not really "imperial", is it? --Jiang 20:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right of course. I'm embarassed to say I was using the wrong ending date. --BenjaminTsai Talk 21:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
how about just say autocratic or monarchic? BlueShirts 20:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
"feudal", is the standard term used in china, isn't it? and it counts from the late zhou dynasty. Sumple

Links to foreign languages

For some awkward reason, this article is linked consistently to disambiguation pages and redirects with the name Republic of China (where the name is Taiwan and a redirect was located). This incorrect conduct. Even if one gives preference to the name Republic of China, we should be respectful of the decisions made by the editors of each Wikipedia. gidonb 12:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

On one hand I agree the decisions by the editors of other language versions of Wikipedia must be respected. But at the same time we have to recognise the fact that the NPOV and other relevant policies of the English-language version of Wikipedia regarding the ROC are among the strictest, although consistently challenged by some certain users. — Instantnood 13:18, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello Instantnood, since I do not follow what is happening here, I cannot comment on your last statement. I did notice, however, that this talk page is well filled and that in addition there are three archives. I am glad that we agree on all principles. Regards, gidonb 13:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Unbelievable, all the interwiki's returned to what they were before I fixed them! gidonb 02:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
Elaborating on this first impression, few returned to the disambig pages, none to the redirects, many were plainly deleted. They all returned to link to the articles that are named China, which is disrespectful of the fact that some Wikipedia's call the political entity Taiwan. Please note before trying to convince PRC or Taiwan are correct, that this does not interest me. I am interested in good connections between the languages and the preservation and continuous improvement of Wikipedian information. gidonb 02:37, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Blue Shirts

Blue Shirts in this article needs to remain NPOV and because it's controversial, sources need to be well-cited and they need to say why it's okay to write something counter to conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is that they were a secret police/fascist force within the KMT-ROC under authoritarian rule. If you want to prove it's not, you have to prove a lot of people wrong, but since most people don't think that they weren't fascist (at least not yet), you'll have to let it sit as just another point of view. As, just another point of view, you will have to write it in an appropriate manner, instead of deleting what you please.--Moveapage 11:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The Blue Shirts was not fascist and was not founded by Chiang. Its official name was Three People's Principles Implementation Society (Sanminzhuyi Lixingshe), and the term "Blue Shirts" has only appeared once in an internal party document calling for KMT reform. However, the name Blue Shirts has been used extensively by faulty Shanghai Municipal Police intelligence and the Japanese, who tended to portray the Lixingshe as a terrorist fascist group responsible for most anti-Japanese activity in the 1930s. The term Blue Shirts also has nothing to do with Black Shirts or Brown Shirts. Blue Shirts in Chinese is lan (blue) yi (clothes) she (society), and Chinese translations of German Brown Shirts is he (brown) shan (shirt) dang (party), Italian Black Shirts is hei (black) shan (shirt) dang (party) and Irish Blue Shirts is lan (blue) shan (shirt) dang (party). Yi(clothes)/Shan(shirt) and She(society)/Dang(party) are different, and it's wrong to think that the Lixingshe was modelled after European fascists just because their english translation is the same, albeit inaccurate. One book I read points out that if the Lixingshe has anything to do with fascists, then it must have been more influenced by the Japanese Black Dragon Society, which the founders of the Lixingshe had knowledge of when they studied in Japan. And the Chinese site is not a POV site. It's a book review by the University of HOng Kong BlueShirts 19:15, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism in Economy part

The section titled Economy of Taiwan, history and current situtation (sic) has largely been lifted from the CIA world factbook page on Taiwan.

Wikipedia Article:

The Republic of China on Taiwan has a dynamic capitalist, export-driven economy with gradually decreasing state involvement in investment and foreign trade. In keeping with this trend, some large government-owned banks and industrial firms are being privatized. Real growth in GDP has averaged about eight percent during the past three decades. Exports have provided the primary impetus for industrialization. The trade surplus is substantial, and foreign reserves are the world's third largest. ... Today, agriculture constitutes only two percent of the GDP, down from 35 percent in 1952. ... Because of its conservative financial approach and its entrepreneurial strengths, Taiwan suffered little compared with many of its neighbors from the Asian financial crisis in 1998–1999. Unlike its neighbors South Korea and Japan, the Taiwanese economy is dominated by small and medium sized businesses, rather than the large business groups. The global economic downturn, however, combined with poor policy coordination by the new administration and increasing bad debts in the banking system, pushed Taiwan into recession in 2001, the first whole year of negative growth since 1947.

CIA Article:

Taiwan has a dynamic capitalist economy with gradually decreasing guidance of investment and foreign trade by government authorities. In keeping with this trend, some large government-owned banks and industrial firms are being privatized. Exports have provided the primary impetus for industrialization. The trade surplus is substantial, and foreign reserves are the world's third largest. Agriculture contributes less than 2% to GDP, down from 32% in 1952. Taiwan is a major investor throughout Southeast Asia. China has overtaken the US to become Taiwan's largest export market. Because of its conservative financial approach and its entrepreneurial strengths, Taiwan suffered little compared with many of its neighbors from the Asian financial crisis in 1998. The global economic downturn, combined with problems in policy coordination by the administration and bad debts in the banking system, pushed Taiwan into recession in 2001, the first year of negative growth ever recorded. Unemployment also reached record levels. Output recovered moderately in 2002 in the face of continued global slowdown, fragile consumer confidence, and bad bank loans. The essentially vibrant economy pushed ahead in 2003-05. Growing economic ties with China are a dominant long-term factor, e.g., exports to China of parts and equipment for the assembly of goods for export to developed countries.

--128.103.29.10 07:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

In all likelihood you are correct, and the majority of this section was taken from the CIA source. However since the World Fact Book is produced by the CIA, (a branch of the US Gov) it is within the public domain. See also Work of the United States Government for more clarification. Hence there is no copyright issue to be concerned with for this work, however there is the matter of citing this as a source. While the Factbook is listed as an external link, it might be more appropriate to list it as a source. -- malo (tlk) (cntrbtns) 18:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction in the article

The article is written as if the ROC on China and the ROC on Taiwan are a single entity and the strains in maintaining this type of conception are more and more apparent in the growth of this article.

Consider the non-political examples of culture and the economy:

1) Culture. Pre-1949 the article talks only about culture of China and ignores the culture of Taiwan, which was a Japanese colony for 50 years prior to World War II.

Only a very, very, very small percentage of people from China moved to Taiwan so it is hard to see Taiwan as some kind of continuation of Chinese of the culture in China at the time (though if you go back historically, yes, most people on Taiwan were from China originally--but that's a totally different issue not relevant here). Things like the May 4th movement and all the instability of the 20th century that occurred in China never occurred in Taiwan and had little, if any perceptible effect on Taiwan.

2) Economy. Okay, economies are always about regions, regardless of their political status. Thus, we can coherently talk about the economy of Hong Kong, despite its return to China, and the economy of say, the Pacific Northwest of the United States. There is no such thing as the economy of the ROC which means China prior to 1949 and Taiwan afterwards. Whatever is Taiwan's future, it will most likely continue to have a distinct economy for a very long time, just as it has for the past 100 years.

We need to contemplate what really goes in the article called "Republic of China". Do we have one article here or two? Why are there ridiculously strained sections in this article? How can we avoid political bias?

The fundamental problem is one that it seems everyone involved has been trying to avoid, that is defining the status of the ROC today. We already get plenty of edit wars and vandalism over whether or not the ROC should be refered to as a state, and that's not even getting into the whole debate over whether Taiwan or ROC related articles should be listed or catagorized as part of China. If we mention only the information pertaining to Taiwan people are going to complain about bias towards the Green POV. If we concentrate on the historical aspects of the ROC between 1911 and 1949 people will complain about bias to the Blue and/or PRC POV. Consequently the solution up till now is to mention both, which tends to lead to a confusing article. The general idea up till now is to refer to the ROC as the "state" in relations to Taiwan related articles (see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese)). Personally I tend to lean towards supporting seperate entries for the pre and post 1949 ROC regimes to avoid confusion since the continuity over 1949 seem questionable to me, but those are just my thoughts which run the risk of being yet another POV. If you have a better idea that is still NPOV I'd be happy to hear it as I'm somewhat burnt out on the whole issue myself. -Loren 08:09, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
The culture of the indigenious peoples, culture brought by early settlers from across the strait, mainly Min Nan speakers, by people from all of China following the retreat in 1949, and by the Japanese all contribute to the Taiwanese culture. A major portion of modern Taiwanese culture is subset of the broader Chinese culture. The article on Taiwanese culture talks about this, and that article does not cover the cultural aspect of the non-Taiwan parts of modern-day ROC, which have not been colonised by Japan like Taiwan (including the Pescadores, same above and below) did.

As for economy, I'd suggest i) economic history of China, a general article on the economic history before 1949, ii) economic history of China (1912-1949), a children article of the former specifically on the ROC era, iii) economic history of Taiwan, on the economic history of Taiwan before 1945, and from 1945 to 1949, and iv) economy of the Republic of China, focusing only on the post-1949 ROC economy (i.e. Taiwan, Quemoy and Matsu). — Instantnood 18:35, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Instantnood, mate, you completely missed the point of the original comment. It's a question of how the framework can be fixed, not how we can bend, twist, dance to fit data to this ridiculously strained fiction.

The nouns of consensus:

  1. Republican China/ROC 1911-1949: There was an entity that existed from 1911-1949 that was the government of China, not including Hong Kong, Macau, or Taiwan, and called itself the Republic of China. More generally (because the ROC had questionable stability and is hard to really pin down), this is called the Republican Period of Chinese history. Notably, the ROC did not make claims to Taiwan during this time.
  2. People's Republic of China: There is an entity that exists from 1949-present that is now the government of China, including HK, Macau, called the People's Republic of China. It claims, but has never ruled Taiwan.

The tricky ones:

  1. China:
  2. Taiwan:
  3. ROC from 1949 on: Well, actually, they only called themselves the ROC, and during this time, they're really the ROC-KMT. The question is, do they have a legitimate claim to the pre-1949 ROC that ruled China? The core identity, the ontological center, of the ROC is a group that claims to rule China. If they don't rule China, how does it follow they are still the same thing?

The different POVs:

  1. PRC POV: No, we rule China.
  2. die-hard pan-Blue POV: No, we're the legitimate government of China (this of course is a very, very small minority)
  3. convenient pan-Blue: We don't care or we don't care much. Let's not piss-off China. The tell-tale sign? If you actually believe you are the old ROC, you'd have to claim that you are also ruler of China, Tibet, Mongolia, etc. But they won't say that. (this group is big)
  4. moderate pan-Green: We do care. We obviously are not old rulers of China. But let's not piss-off China. The difference from convenient pan-Blues is they still support some moderate steps of symbolic change, such as the current Chen Shui-bian administration getting rid of emblems and statues of Chiang Kai-Shek, etc. (this group is big)
  5. die-hard pan-Green: Let's go ahead and tell everyone we're not the ROC even if it pisses off China (this group is small).

Looking at this, we see the outright majority is that there is a break. There is a Republic Period from 1911-1949. And then there is something on Taiwan called ROC from 1949-on (the PRC views it as illegitimate, the convenient pan-Blues abstain or know it but don't want to say it, the pan-Greens obviously don't agree with it). Additionally, we may consider throwing out the PRC POV since the PRC's formal position is highly self-contradictory; in that case, we're still left with a large majority that does not see such continuity from Republican China to ROC-KMT on Taiwan.

I don't think any reworking should ignore the die-hard pan-Blue position, but it should recognize where it comes from and that it is very minority. --203.73.175.28 04:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Just to play the devil's advocate for a moment POV#1 should probably be "We rule China of which Taiwan is a part, the ROC is defunct", Well, while I agree with the minority opinions being a minority opinion and not in agreement with what (I consider to be) reality, making definitive statements about this sort of thing is going to be very messy once the die hard ideologues start coming in, which is why we have to tiptoe around a lot of stuff that may seem perfectly obvious to you and me. At this point, I think the most we can say is "The ROC is a state exercising de facto soverignty over Taiwan and some other islands" (and even that can and will be disputed (see: [8] and [9]).
Also, I'm no big fan of lumping ROC and PRC related articles under some large all-encompassing "$NOUN of China" (i.e. Category:Military of China) categories as you end up implicitly taking sides on the whole "Is Taiwan part of China?", "Is Greater China part of China", "Are the ROC and PRC like East and West Germany?" question. Unfortunetely, as this also seems to be used on other geographical regions such as Korea, which leads to some really weird situations like PLA and ROC Military stuff being crosslisted. An example of something that I personally feel would be better is the example of Congo, where subcategories corresponding to the two seperate states are not crosslisted. (Quote: Each country has its own menu, and articles should not be placed directly in this category. Any articles which relate to both countries should be placed in both national categories in the same way as they would be if they related to two neighbouring countries with entirely different names.)
But getting back to the 1949 continuity problem, I think this issue does bear some further exploring. Particularly the issue of continuity of government with the (now mostly forgotten) resignation of CKS in January 1949 and the subsequent succession and collapse of the government of Li Tsung-jen. Admittedly CKS was still the de facto power behind the scenes the whole time, but this does raise some questions. Of course, making any definitive statements about this would probably be POV as well. Though ya gotta love the fact that pretty much everything in ROC/Taiwan related articles is de facto.
Anyhow getting back to your point, I agree that our entire system of categorizing ROC/PRC articles could use overhauling. But I'd like a community consensus before proceeding, otherwise I might get accused of "fanning ethnic hatred" or something ;)-Loren 05:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh god, please fix the intermingling PRC/ROC categories and articles. It shouldn't be a problem to create "historical" categories for overlap, pre-1949, etc. SchmuckyTheCat 05:42, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to retool the military related categories along the lines of Category:Congo. As usual, comments welcome. -Loren 06:36, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
(response to user:203.73.175.28's remarks at 04:03, March 22) We don't have to care who's POV. What we have to do is to describe the facts, and to title the articles based on the facts. Before 1949, there was no ambiguity with what China was. Since 1949, Taiwan (with Pescadores), Quemoy, Matsu, etc., no matter legal or reasonable, are collectively ruled by a government which official name is Republic of China. It's also a fact that the PRC, since its establishment, has never exercise any sort of power over area held by the ROC (and Hong Kong and Macao until 1997 and 1999 respectively). — Instantnood 19:33, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

First, Instantnood and SchmuckyTheCat are known to be ideological on this issue and to push their views inapporpriately, to the extent of being banned on Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_Chinese. Their credibility is suspect.

Second, history is not straight line the way everyone presumes it to be in this very, very weird ROC article. Take Tsing Hua University for example. It is obvious, that there are now two universities called Tsing Hua (one spelled Tsing Hua and one spelled Tsinghua, but the same in Chinese) and that BOTH derive in part from the original Tsing Hua that existed during the Republican Period. If we take the Republican Era as a period instead of some kind of intrinsic part of the state currently called ROC, often referring to itself in variations of ROC on Taiwan, ROC (Taiwan), and known by both media, its people, and commonly throughout the world as Taiwan, then we free ourselves of drawing straight lines where none exist.

Examples: Military of Republican China--Elements were incorporated into the PRC Liberation Army, but this article would never recognize that. In part, the main of the army we can say moved to Taiwan and it draws history from the Republican period. The ROC army is no longer the violent third arm of the ROC-KMT-ROC army triumvirate, but (purportedly anyways =)) the protector of its 23 million masters living in the democracy

Economy would never be politicized in the way it is in this article. Describing the historical reality of the pre-1949 roots of say Academia Sinica is one thing. Putting together a crap section that talks about the economy of China prior to one time and the economy of Taiwan another is retarded. There are Taiwanese nationalists that would like to forget the Chinese historical roots of many of the things in Taiwan today (whether those things, such as the previously authoritarian KMT, were good or not, or whether the Taiwanese people wanted to accept them or not); we should not recognize their POV, though we can describe it, and describe the reality of these Chinese historical roots. On the other hand, we shouldn't be beholden to the tiny minority of pan-Blues that think that the ROC is representative of all of China and try to twist and bend a history to fit this kind of POV. We need to recognize reality not be bent out of shape by some kind of minority POV (though we can and should state the way they view things in any reorganized article).--DownUnder555 15:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think except for the history and politics section, we don't even need to have that many paragraphs on pre-1949 situations. Some mention is needed, but dividing the section into pre-1949 and post-1949 is an eyesore. Why not just merge them and in context let the readers know that the ROC only exists on Taiwan after 1949? This article should be concise and to the point, like on the CIA world factbook. All other details should be addressed in the History of the ROC article. BlueShirts 23:01, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Category changes

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese). -Loren 16:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[10] — Instantnood 19:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)