Talk:Taiwan/Archive 2

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Removed text

This is the most euro-centric article i've read on wikipedia..

The current status of the Republic of China is that it is de facto independent from China while technically it still calls itself the de jure government of China (see the ROC Constitution).

This implies China=PRC for it to be "de facto independent from China". The Constitution does not call the ROC the de jure government of China.

Thus, although these two parties are bitterly opposed to each other, and each represents roughly half of the voters (see Presidential election of March 20, 2004), there is actually no dispute about what the correct policy should be -- preserving the status quo. The only dispute is about the reason for that policy.

People can't agree on the status quo. There is a dispute. For example, creating a new constitution could be seen as disrupting the status quo. --Jiang 08:04, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

And the same goes when PRC tries to make its so called "anti-separatism law".It could be seen as disrupting the status quo,too. It is ridiculous that a country lacking the tradition of the legal system like PRC wants to enact a law on a disputed land, especially it has never governed the land and doesn't have any treaty to justify its claim.In fact,what PRC has now is just an excuse for future expansion and annexation. besides, it is also strange that PRC dare not enact a law on any other disputed land, which makes its law like a joke.Of course The only reason is that PRC only dare bully the weaker, and we know this very well.--anon

I would rather suggest that they all agreed on preserving status quo (enjoying de facto sovereignty but refraim from announcing de jure independence and this is probably the most basic concensus on the so-called status quo), but disputed on the measure to preserve it. Thus, IMO, the new constitution debate does not conflict on their concensus on their intention of protectin status quo. It is the question whether a new constitution would disrupt the status quo being disagreed. I do not have strong opinion on the removed text. But if I was asked, I would support keeping it.Mababa 21:58, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Taiwan-related topics notice board

Dear All,

I have started a Wikipedia:Taiwan-related topics notice board in the hope that contributers on Taiwan related topics can have a place to discuss on different proposals.

I also made a page List of Taiwan-related topics (by category) so that we can keep track on the topics by category. I hope this would be useful for us. Mababa 07:22, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Map image

Note: Image:Taiwan map large.gif has long had no information as to source, and is listed on Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images. If anyone has information on the source and copyright status of the map, please add it to the image page. For more information on Wikipedia image copyright policies and practices, see Wikipedia:Images and pages linked there. Thanks, -- Infrogmation 05:03, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to change the notice

I would like to suggest changing the disambiguation notice to " This article is about Taiwan as an island. For the political entity commonly known as "Taiwan", see Republic of China. For the province with the name "Taiwan", see Taiwan Province. ". — Instantnood 13:42 Mar 3 2005 (UTC)

why? we want it short and concise. "Taiwan as an island" is confusing. --Jiang 22:28, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I have no problem with the current notice, but I'd just suggest that the first paragraph of the article itself should at least have some note of the political status of the island. john k 05:53, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Huh..... It would be something long. For example: Taiwan is currently adminitrated by ROC whose legality is challenged by the Taiwan independence supporters who dispute any Chinese sovereignty and also challenged by the PRC who claims that Taiwan to be a renegading province and that ROC to be a defunct government.
I think it would be redundantly long, and since the second paragraph served the purpose of infoming the readers on this aspect, it is not really necessary. I am not very certain if the political status of the island could be condensed into one simple NPOV sentence due to the entangled political conflicts and legal arguments.Mababa 06:12, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

(response to Jiang) Yes it has to be short and concise. But unlike many other articles on provinces, that Foo Province redirects to Foo, the articles about the place and the province is separated for Taiwan. Some may be expecting for information about the province at Taiwan. — Instantnood 10:43 Mar 4 2005 (UTC)

yes, but when people refer to Taiwan Province, they refer to it in the whole. It is nothing more than a streamlined definition. Even taiwanese people use the phrase "Taiwan Taibei" even though Taipei is not part of the province. When people speak of the province, they call it "Taiwan Province". When referring to Taiwan by itself, they mean the island. --Jiang 19:09, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Jiang, Taipei is a special district akin to DC. It is no less a part of Taiwan than DC is not part of America. If you took the Chinese line, Taiwan altoghther, including Taipei, is a renegade province altogether. Chinese speaking people never use ROC--the reality is that they use Taiwan to refer to the island, the government, and all things associated with it. People in China refer to the Taiwan problem, not to the ROC problem, not to the Taiwan Island and Taipei/Kaohsiong and various other islands problem. Sounds silly doesn't it? It is the same as America or any other country name. It could refer to the country or the place. Stop trying impose artificial sharp lines on definitions of words because few words except technical ones actually can be defined so sharply.--160.39.194.93 03:47, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
and your point is? According to this article, Taipei is part of Taiwan because we are going by the geographical definition. we dont have the option of using all definitions at once since these definitions are contradictory. see wikipedia:disambiguation--Jiang 04:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You know as well as I do that no one in Taiwan says Taiwan and means only the island (not including Penghu) or that they mean Taiwan Province and not Taipei or Kaohsiung. You're being silly. America means Alaska and Hawaii and DC too. That's my point. This Taiwan--ROC distinction is really ridiculous. What does the ROC article contain? History of rule in China, then stuff about after they moved to Taiwan. What does the article about Taiwan contain? Only stuff supposedly about the island, but attempts to limit discussion of political rule of Taiwan.
I'm still working on a proposal that I want people besides you to respond to, but basically, I believe there should be articles in the following manner:
1) Taiwan in modern day English, in modern day Chinese, means Taiwan the geographic island but also the govt and also the culture--thus it includes both the main island and some nearby islands. For specific discussion of nearby islands, one should refer articles about the islands. But for all intents and purposes, their politics and culture today is inextricably bound up with that of the main island and just as we do in so many aspects of our language, Taiwan represents both the island and minor islands (same as when we call a car a set of wheels or call a red-haired girl a red-head). Historically, the article can cover just as it does now the control of the island by different parties, from the Dutch, to the Japanese, to the KMT/ROC, to democratic rule today.
2) ROC article covering its rule of China and subsequent fleeing to Taiwan. However, it does not make sense for it to also be a depository for Taiwan information being that ROC is no longer what it was. When ROC was almost synonymous with KMT, there was a case for saying that the ROC in Taiwan was the same as the one in China. But since native Taiwanese control their own politics now and the KMT is just one of four major parties and no one makes the claim that the ROC controls all of China, there needs to be a break. When people say Taiwan and you point them to ROC, do you think anyone really wants to be reading about ROC that ruled China? That's not what they mean if they want to know about the political entity of Taiwan. If they wanted that historical ROC, they would've just looked for ROC, not Taiwan.
3) Article on the province of Taiwan, describing a mid-level of gov't of ROC (Taiwan). This is different from the idea that China considers Taiwan a province since there is no reason to believe that if China were to successfully gain control of Taiwan that they would use this government structure. When China says Taiwan must unify with China, they mean that the political entity of Taiwan along with all the islands must join up with China, not just the island, and not just the province of Taiwan.--160.39.194.93 09:29, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

C'mon Jiang, it's only a few words. Wikipedia is international and its readers are not required to be aware there is such a distinction among people in/on Taiwan. I don't think it's a bad thing to add a link there, if readers are in fact looking for information about the province. — Instantnood 02:30 Mar 9 2005 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely that readers are specifically looking for the ROC division (ie, the institution within the Executive Yuan). Even if they do, they can find their way since it is prominently linked in the first sentence of the political status section. Having it there spills the disambiguator into too many lines. What are the chances someone will be looking for the division? It might even confuse people... --Jiang 02:55, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In what way might it confuse people? — Instantnood 04:50 Mar 9 2005 (UTC)

Few people are aware that "Taiwan Province" (the ROC division) exists. They just think it's a "derogatory" term used by the PRC to label Taiwan as part of its territory. Evidently, they wont know the difference between Taiwan and Taiwan Province and will then get confused in that manner.--Jiang 04:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Don't be spewing your POV all over the place. China calls Taiwan a province because they want to invade those suckers. If that's not derogatory, then I don't know what is. You know what's good about the Taiwan province article? It explains the exact distinction you say no one knows about.

I agree many readers may not know the province exists within the ROC. But both articles provide good explanations. Putting Taiwan Province on the notice wouldn't be confusing. Should we have a vote on it? — Instantnood 05:49 Mar 9 2005 (UTC)

Do you really think that we should vote on everytime when you do not agree with others?Mababa 06:11, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No. But it's rather meaningless to have the discussion carried on in this way. There are only two people, and both produce sound arguments. — Instantnood 06:16 Mar 9 2005 (UTC)

I saw five participants in this column. Which two are human and which three are not by your definition? I highly recommend that we should at least reach some consensus within the contributers familiar with the topic here. I think the previous votes were quite nice examples reminding people to gather consensus in the talk pages for preparing an efficient vote before directly bringing the issue onto a ballot.Mababa 02:22, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

John k's comment was not relevant to my proposal, and yours was a response to that piece of comment. I am afraid no consensus will likely to be met between Jiang and me. I agree bringing to ballots will be the last resort. — Instantnood 06:04 Mar 10 2005 (UTC)

Article Bias and Lack of Clarity

The introductory text is biased to make it sound like Taiwan is a province.

The situation is complicated because the definition of words shift through time. Take the idea "Republic of China". This after the fall of the Qing dynasty was the formal name of mainland China. It was governed by the KMT, which is not equivalent to the ROC. After their defeat by the communists, the KMT fled China and began rule over Taiwan. Essentially, an extra-island (we don't have to say foreign to avoid the dispute here) government came an imposed rule on native Taiwanese people. This extra-island force also declared that they were the real rulers of ALL of China despite their de facto control of only Taiwan. Thus they setup a two tiered government reflecting their claims--national ROC government and local provincial Taiwan government (even though this is the only province they governed). For awhile, they even had a seat on the UN representing China though this was changed later.

Under former President Lee's leadership, Taiwan became a democratic country and relinquished its claims over all of China, now almost a comical claim. They have largely eliminated their provincial government since essentially the national government and local government were ruling over the same thing. So now Republic of China means something totally different--Taiwan is not controlled by the KMT, which is now a normal political party, not single authoritarian one, and it makes no claims over all of China. When it was controlled by the KMT composed of former Chinese government and military officials, there is a basis for saying that Taiwan claimed to be China (though the Taiwanese people did not). Now though, to draw an equality between today's Taiwan, nominally called ROC, and the past Taiwan, meaningfully called ROC, is simply a linguistic confusion. This is not clear in the article.

The status quo now is also not clear in the article. It must be mentioned that Taiwan is de facto independent and this is not what is being disputed. More to come when I have time.--160.39.194.93 03:57, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The ROC since 1949 has more than one province. It maintained rule on Tachen Islands until 1955. And the Fukien Province still nominally exists until today (or else they might have to transfer the two countries to Taiwan Province). — Instantnood 11:52, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
That's not the above user's point. Although there are multiple provinces under the national government of Taiwan, Taiwan province is the main one, and the county is the main division now. The two levels were created with the idea that the ROC was China and only temporarily limited to just Taiwan and a few islands. It's a big fiction that no one with only ruling Taiwan in mind would setup. Anyways, it's still not important to discuss Taiwan province as the first thing, and I strongly agree with the other discussion that Taiwan should be about the political, geographic, and cultural entity Taiwan.
The only political entity bearing the name "Taiwan" is the Taiwan Province. At the national level there's no such political entity called Taiwan. Its geographical extent is Taiwan plus something, and its present name, until this minute, is "Republic of China". — Instantnood 08:13, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
But usage-wise both China and Taiwan agree that Taiwan refers to the island government and people and area. China calls Taiwan (the whole thing) Taiwan and so does Taiwan. If they mean the island of Taiwan, in Chinese, they say, Taiwan Island, not Taiwan. If China says Taiwan province, they mean the whole ROC. If Taiwan says Taiwan province, they mean the subdivision. But no one says Taiwan and means Taiwan province. Why do they call it ROC (Taiwan) except to clear up the ambiguity between formal names and actual usage?

--160.39.195.88 15:23, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Recent Changes March 8 2005

Under political status, it is best and most important to talk about 1) the kind of government (democratic) and 2) explain the roots of that gov't (ROC WAS KMT from China, but today it is locally elected gov't). Thus 1930 ROC is not equal to 1955 ROC is not equal to 2005 ROC. I made sure to call it a state since Taiwan is de facto self-ruled without responsibility to any higher authority and is in relations with several other states showing that it has the capacity to do so, though it is not actually recognized by most countries. State I feel is the most neutral word we can use to avoid controversy about "country" and ideas about nation (some people in both China and Taiwan consider themselves Chinese ethnically though divided and perhaps incompatible politically).

I removed the attempt to put Province at the beginning since that is clearly POV from the PRC perspective and I removed the reference to Taipei as the temporary capital given that it has been "temporary" for over 50 years now. The political status still makes clear reference to the fact that China claims that the government in Taiwan (formerly KMT/ROC but now democratically elected ROC and we shouldn't confuse the two), but this is Wikipedia and we still have to explain the clear reality even if the political and the legal is highly controversial and disputed.--160.39.194.93 17:13, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This article is on the island but Taiwan is more than just an island

I removed and replaced:

Taiwan is a democratic state with a popularly elected president and legislature. It is formally called the Republic of China (ROC), which has its roots in the Kuomingtang or Nationalist Party of China. The Kuomingtang was the former government of mainland China before fleeing to Taiwan after its 1949 defeat by the Communist Party of China. While maintaining authoritarian one-party rule, the Kuomingtang via the Republic of China claimed to be the legitimate rulers of all of China, and thus created a redundant two-tier system of Republic of China and Taiwan Province. Today, the Kuomingtang has morphed into just one of many democratic parties and no longer makes claims over Mainland China.
Taiwan's largest city Taipei serves as its capital, while Jhongsing Village in central Taiwan near the city of Taichung is the capital of Taiwan Province. Because Taiwan Province is the only province under the Republic of China and includes the same geographic area, in 1998 the provincial government was largely removed, leaving the county as the main division.

The whole reason the template is not here is because we want to avoid the POV claim that Taiwan=ROC. Calling the provincial division "redundant" is also POV. Theyve simply moved the functions of the provincial division into the EY. Please also watch the spelling of "Kuomintang". --Jiang 17:53, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It is absolutely redudant for Taiwan to have a national government and a provincial government that govern the same area. You can't accuse POV to justify YOUR POV. If it's not redundant, why is it that no other country has a system like that? It's unheard of and in Taiwan they got rid of most of it because it is redundant. Also, being that Taiwan refers to the island of Taiwan and ROC refers to the island of Taiwan, what is the big deal about saying they are the same especially since the article says in common usage (which is what Wikipedia is about) says Taiwan is often equated to ROC. Jiang, you're from mainland China, right?--160.39.194.93 18:32, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The counter-argument is that the province and central government served different functions and that Lee Teng-hui was trying to cut Soong's power base. This is not necessarily my view and no, I'm not from mainland China (not that it matters). But for the sake of NPOV, it is inappropriate to simply represent one view, yours, and disregard the others. Just leave the whole discussion out.

Taiwan Province and the Republic of China do not govern the same areas. Taipei City and Kaohsiung City are central municipalities and Kinmen and Lienchiang Counties are part of Fujian province (http://www.fkpg.gov.tw). To further say that the ROC and Taiwan are the same is POV. When Chen Shui-bian said it, all sides (including the PRC and Lee Teng hui) objected for opposite reasons. It can also be factually disputed since on the one hand, Kinmen and Matsu are part of Fujian and the ROC hasnt changed its official borders, and on the other hand, the legal status of the ROC is disputed, particularly by extreme supporters of Taiwan independence. The political entity has its own article, Republic of China. This article is on the geographical island. It discludes Penghu, Quemoy, and Matsu and anything that deals with politics. Common usage is neither POV nor accurate. We have reasons for not following it. Please read previous discussions.--Jiang 19:03, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My guess? You only say you're not from Mainland China because you currently live in Europe, probably England, and your English gives away that you are not a native speaker. You can't be from Taiwan because, well, you wouldn't be so biased, but also the romanization of your name is in pinyin. But regardless, your roots go back to China and you have an irrational Chinese nationalistic bias.

Look at the facts and at Google, because if you look at other discussions, that kind of common usage IS how decisions are made on Wikipedia to back up assertions. If you put in Taiwan into Google, you will see that for the most part Taiwan IS equal to the ROC. Taiwan's government calls itself "Republic of China (Taiwan)". The CIA World Factbook lists Taiwan, under surprise, not ROC, but Taiwan, regardless of whether you consider it a country or not (I mean whether either Taiwan or the ROC is a country). You also missed my point--the main feature of Taiwan's government is that it is democratic and that it calls itself ROC (Taiwan). Taiwan Province was a fiction created by the KMT back in the day, and whatever the reason people removed large parts of that apparatus, the fact is that is was removed and so there is absolutely no reason it should be in the opening line about political status. You're also confused about central municipalities--this is similar to the situation in the US where Washington DC is administered by the national government--but it doesn't make DC the 51st state.

I also don't know why you want to say that Taipei is provisional except to imply that ROC is provisional--which is clearly POV.

We need to keep the boundary between de facto and de jure clean. What the political status should describe is who actually rules what, what the main features of the government are, and then you can talk about all the legal controversy and all the future direction controversy.

These are important points of de facto that the article must make clear regarding political status: 1) Taiwan is a democracy both at legislative and presidential levels. It is multiparty. 2) Taiwan is a de facto independent state. How does one talk about reunification if you attempt to deny that they are a state in the first place! The reason one might still have to in some people's minds declare independence is that there is argument that they are not de jure independent. 3) The main government of Taiwan is the national government (Even if you want to deny them that they are a nation, you know which level of gov't i'm talking about). Provincial level government is just not that important. Sorry, whether it was politically motivated or what, it's going away. I don't think two random islands that supposed "belong" to Fujian, but are controlled by Taiwan make a big difference on teh overall fact that Taiwan province is just not important. In any case, if you're going to toe the mainland line, then neither the national nor the "provincial" government is legitimate so why emphasize the mid-level structure of an illegitimate government? What's the point of that? It's neither de facto nor de jure. 4) Taiwan calls itself "Republic of China (Taiwan)". If you have a problem with that, tell their government and ask them to change it. Changing it on Wikipedia makes no difference. --160.39.194.93

All your assumptions about me are wrong. (You just have to visit my user page) Please see wikipedia:no personal attacks. where I am from is irrelevant.
A whole bunch of the points you've brought out have been hashed out at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (Chinese). I won't repeat them here unless you ask specifically, but we've given our reasons for not following the dumbed down mass media version of the issue. Please visit that page.
The Taiwan Provincial Government still exists (though streamlined): http://www.tpg.gov.tw. We called Taipei the "provisional capital" because that is its official status, according to the ROC. According to the PRC, it is the capital of Taiwan Province. According to the ROC, it is the provisional capital of the Republic of China. It is only "provisional" because Nanking is the official capital. Using that term by no means implies that the ROC is not legitimate.
The rest of what you posted belongs at Talk:Republic of China because this is not the entry on the political entity ruling Taiwan. There's a reason Republic of China and Taiwan are separate article. This article is on the geographical island. Please read through all previous discussions before commenting because I don't want to repeat myself. --Jiang 23:20, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You're seriously basing your changes on the previous discussion? I read it and all it says is a lot of people disagreeing with you and mainly you disagreeing back? How then does your point of view become the default? Look, any word might have several usages. First, there may be common usage, and by common, I mean among those who use the word, not those who have no knowledge of the subject at all. Second, there may be technical usage. For something like a nation-state, there is the actual state of affairs of who controls what and there is politics and legal-speak. Because Taiwan does not want to piss-off China, they have not reformed their constitution nor have they changed their name. We can differentiate between reality and what arcane legal documents and politicians say. These things need to be enforced in order for them to be reality so we can't just cite them in a naive way. Please respond to my points that are relevant to this article because 1) there was no consensus in the discussion page you referred to, at least not regarding these issues, and 2) I made several newer points.
The rules are stated at wikipedia:naming conventions (Chinese). The biggest issue in Taiwanese politics is over the status of Taiwan and whether Taiwan is synonymous with the Republic of China. Saying Taiwan and the Republic of China are the same is making a political statement. No, it is not reality just because the western media oversimplifies the situation. We shouldnt oversimpify it there. I can arguably say that Taiwan is either 1) Taiwan Province or 2) Taiwan island. Neither is factually synonymous with the ROC just as Great Britain and the United Kingdom arent synonymous. We've clearly defined that this article is on the geographical island, not the political entity commonly known as Taiwan. If you do not like the setup, then propose an alternative and show how it will still comply with our rules. Please see NPOV and stop making political statements. Wikipedia is not a debating forum. I wont argue against you when you're under the assumption that this article should be on the ROC because the two are somehow viewed as syonymous. --Jiang 04:39, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Of the political statements being made, I think the most ridiculous one would be to say that people that say Taiwan mean Taiwan province. That is the smallest of the minority usages. Taiwan either means the de facto state (yeah yeah I know you think it's de jure part of China so you don't want to call it a country, fine, but reality is what it is) or the island but I don't think people really mean to exclude the smaller islands as much as they share a common government and language with the larger one. And the two are inextricably bound up, just as the China article is a land and a culture and a nation, whose geograhic boundaries have changed greatly over time. It is so POV to call Taiwan a province when while there exists a Taiwan province structure (which doesn't even include the whole island and which is not the Taiwan province that China refers to when it claims that Taiwan is a province) no one usually is looking for information about that midlevel structure and there are few contexts in which one means Taiwan province.--160.39.194.93 19:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
What's the purpose of repeated emphasis on "democratically elected government"? What is the relevance? also, saying it "only claims to rule Taiwan" is POV and can be debated. I can dispute that fact based on Chapter 1, Article 4 of the Constitution. There's a reason that A-bian, in proposing a new Constitution, had to promise not to redefine the national borders in the new document. This is because the state of the national borders is a contentous issue--Jiang 04:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would like to see if I can have somehow moderate this debate. Jiang is indeed a decent American protecting the neutrality of the Wikipedia. I have been having many discussions with Jiang and most of the times I realize that he is right in almost every discussion. Still, I have some personal feeling/grouges about his preference using Mr. Happy guy as his proxy for his political position. :) I have yet bring this up to him though.

Indeed ROC and Taiwan are different, in my opinion. Please refer to the article legal status of Taiwan and you will realize the legality of this ROC government is realy questionable. The fact that ROC is current a democracy may or may not help to gain sovereignty of Taiwan. Please also note that it is not necessary of the benefit to the Taiwanese peopel to advocate the legality of the ROC government. Separating Taiwan from ROC, in a way, is protecting Taiwan from any sort of Chinese sovereignty. Perhaps you should know that it is the exact reason people would advicate making a new constitution.

Even former president Lee Teng-hui refered to the SFPT to refute the legitimacy of ROC/PRC:

  • Lee told the audience that Taiwan is not a part of China from a historical perspective, pointing out that in the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, signed by 48 countries, Japan only officially renounced all rights, title and claim to Taiwan and the Penghu islands.[1]

However, I would still say that there are many POVs could appear in many different places; and it requires everyone's joint effort to correct them. I personally felt the current NPOV policy palatible, but not necessarily the best. By rejecting the common usage Taiwan=ROC government, we are getting convenience of avoiding dispute at the expense of a large population's view point. I am not sure if this actually conforms to the NPOV policy of Wiki. This is actually creating POV and should not be considered as neutral either. This being said, Jiang has been correctly maintaining position comforming to the NPOV policy which sort-of works. Perhaps it is time to further improve the policy to include the common usage ROC=Taiwan. One thing we should kept in mind: by presenting, we not necessarily convert this view point into fact. But again, is it really beneficial to do so?Mababa 05:15, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think this is productive discussion, and I propose archiving the discussion here and restarting it in an organized way. In the form that it is in now, the article is really schizophrenic and confusing, and makes no distinction between what is reality and what is politically controversial to the point that it does not do what a good wikipedia article should--give a general reader who may have little knowledge on the topic to easily access accurate information. Yes, there are POV issues, and I think one of the issues is allowing facts to be called POV when it is not. I will try to come up with a rough framework of what issues should be hashed out and if people disagree it should be more organized disagreement than the current discussion page.--160.39.194.93 22:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am not quibling with the POV issue. Omitting the common definition/usage, IMO, does constitute POV. However, please also note that a hidden percentage of Taiwanese would reject equating Taiwan with ROC. In their mind, assuming the ROC title is not only illegal but also would embroid Taiwan into a sovereignty dispute with the other China. This caveat has been more and more awared among the Taiwanese people. On the other hand, many people are making legal arguments against ROC sovereignty since 1945 to make sure Taiwan outside of the Chinese civil war. And I think the support on these theory is getting increased. Previously Jiang was kind enough to shown us an news article about Lee Teng-hui criticizing A-bien's ROC=Taiwan equation in his presidential inaugeration. There are also more and more articles on the newspapers reminding the difference between Taiwan and ROC, for example: [2]. I personally do not regard ROC equal with Taiwan and I tend to disagree with your position. However, this is my POV and I respect your position.Mababa 07:21, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A tiny little note, though should have been a disclaimer: Mababa does not consider ROC rule in Taiwan legal. She/he considers renounce of Taiwan by Japan at the end of the WWII should not have led to ROC annexation. She/he refers to something in history rather than the present situation. In other words, I would say he is a supporter of Taiwan sovereignty. Readers should be noted that this is not NPOV. Please read the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV for an earlier consensus of NPOV on the ROC/Taiwan issue. — Instantnood 11:26, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

Readers should also be aware of that calling my position is POV is also a POV. Thank you for giving me this label. Perhaps I should also make a disclaimer suggesting that Instantnood may as well be a HK identity supporter (though I do not know if you have evolved to support HK independence yet). I do not think that behavior quick for labeling other contributers is an appropriate habit.

Hey you're labelling people as independence supporter like the way the big guys in Beijing did to Hongkongers~! lol~ — Instantnood 22:52, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)
You also have to love how labels like "Chinese nationalist" and "pro-reunification" get tossed around like derogatory terms, as though people with those perspectives are any less valid sources than "pro-independence" or "Taiwanese nationalist" biased individuals. Any good historian will use two conflicting viewpoints to balance each other without implying that one is "lesser" than the other. Doing otherwise is a subtle case of POV. Either leave out one-sided labels, or refer to both types of sources by their self-titled labels. Xuanwu 08:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Back to the topic, present situations always are evolved from historical events. Current reality is always based on the history. You may not agree with my interpretation, which has already gain relative popularity in Taiwan; but labeling or suppressing opinions is always POV and not neutral either. Regardless of so-called unification or independence of Taiwan, I am only reminding 160.39.194.93 that historical events which sets Taiwan sovereignty in debates potentially would direct people to believe that Taiwan sovereignty is outside of ROC's hand. Of course, this is one of the many point of views. However, when the truth is debated, every point of view is POV. That includes the Chinese sovereignty supporters'. That being said, unification/independence is not part of the question of Taiwan sovereignty. Though Taiwan sovereignty could be out of ROC's hand, unification is still possible as long as the people of Taiwan are willing to and believe that's where the benefits lies in.

Readers should read the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese)#Political NPOV for that earlier consensus of NPOV on the ROC/Taiwan issue and learn about whether that specific consensus does preclude the point of view I have just presented or not. To the best of my knowledge, it does not. On the other hand, if it does preclude different interpretations on Taiwan sovereignty or decide which POV should be used as neutral (in this case, perhaps Instantnood's Chinese sovereignty), then that specific consensus should be trashed into garbage can and be revamped since it would constitute a blatant violation of the Wikipedia NPOV policy. Mababa 06:26, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes I don't agree ROC's rule on Taiwan was/is illegal. Taiwan was made part of Qing in 1683 after the fall of Tungning Kingdom, and it was ceded by Qing to Japan in 1895. When Japan renounced Taiwan's sovereignty after the World War 2, ROC, as the widely recognised, and perhaps legal, successor to Qing, naturally got the mandate to reclaim the island and resume its rule. — Instantnood 12:07, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
See also Jiang's comment at 02:32 18 Jun 2003 at Talk:History of Taiwan. :-) — Instantnood 12:14, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
Your statement is a POV. Please refer to the article legal status of Taiwan for discussion in detail.Mababa 05:45, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I know. But when the unequal treaty was null, as were there no such treaty, it's natural for the former sovereignty holder to re-exercise its control. — Instantnood 08:16, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
Your response is an example of typical Chinese POV, which is not true. That unequal treaty thing does not apply onto dispositive treaties. As someone from HK, you must know this better than any other people. Britian did not drop HK's sovereignty once China calls the treaty of Nanking an unequal treaty. Your revered Margaret Thatcher personally rebuked PRC's claim on their abrogation with the unequal treaty doctrine.
戴卓尔夫人9月24日在北京举行记者招待会上则声称：‘这三个条约（指1842年，1860年和1898年中国清朝政府与英国签订的不平等条约），从国际性来说是有效的，我们现在的一切行动，也是以这三个条约为依据的。’她在北京两次对英国广播电台记者谈话时又谈到：‘我的观点是这样：我们遵守我们的条约，如果有人不喜欢这些条约，解决的办法是由有关双方进行讨论，经双方同意而生效，但不能毁约，如有一方不同意这些条约，想废条约，则任何新的条约也没有信心执行，任何新的条约必须遵守[3]
Your claim of unequal treaty for abrogation is not internationally recognized. Nothing has been reverted or nullified by China's label of unequal treaty. The Britain congress formally ratified the terms in the joint communique to relinquish HK island sovereignty. If these unequal treaties were null, then why your Britian congress has to pass the terms for retrocession? And you knew how illegitimate and useless the so-called unequal treaty doctrine is for claiming HK sovereignty better than any body else! If not, please ask your Britian ex-HK governors.Mababa 06:00, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, being British, I feel a certain detachment from this issue and think I've identified a clear problem with this article. If this article takes the position that ROC is not equal to Taiwan, then I do not think former President Lee meant that he believes his own election is illegitimate, but rather that Taiwan's government today is not the ROC. Meaning, democracy gave him legitimacy, but that as far as the constitution and the roots of the government going back to the ROC go, it is not legitimate. In this case, it is clear that the Taiwan article should be about the place, the people, and the government--the democratic one that is not the same as the one in the past that claimed to be the ROC. Even in this case, though, we could talk about Taiwan's government today, talk about how it is different from the ROC of China, and talk about how some people in Taiwan do not even believe that it makes sense (legally) to call Taiwan's government the ROC. On the otherhand, if Taiwan is equal to the ROC, then mate, we clearly must talk about the government in this article as well. Either way, the article seems a bit dodgy and should include information about political government of Taiwan that is equal to ROC or Taiwan that is not really ROC but exists nevertheless. Controversy shouldn't be met with silence, yeah?--81.132.244.108 00:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes the mandate, or the sovereignty that the ROC has its foundations, had changed. But even since popular elections were introduced the ROC today does not equal to Taiwan. There are certain territories administered by the ROC outside of Taiwan, namely, Quemoy, Matsu, Wuchiu, etc. People's in these places are also entitled to vote in presidential and legislative (parliamentary) elections. — Instantnood 12:07, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)
Just a quick question so I can understand a little better how the naming convention goes: is President Chen said to be the President of the Republic of China or of Taiwan? Or, since Taiwan is a province of the ROC, both? Xuanwu 08:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Japanese Influence on Taiwan

March 18: To say that Japan still has a significant role in shaping the culture of Taiwan and listing it as one of only 3 major outside influences is simliar to stating that Rome still has a significant role in shaping the culture of England or that Canada sill has a significant role in shaping the culture of the United States, etc. Japanese occupation was extremely brief and what's left are sushi restaurants.

The same could be said about the Chinese culture. What is being left is the language and the Chinese food there. Go to the street in Taipei and ask them to recite the Confucius and most of them would tell you straight that it is silly to memorize them. The only purpose for their transcient memorization, if people ever need to, is to pass the school exame with the material enforced by the Chinese ROC regime. Since the ROC rule is no much longer than the Japanese rule, I believe it is fair to say, that the Chinese rule in Taiwan is brief and the culture does not have much impact either according to your logic. People only remember the Chinese culture in their teenage. Once you passed that stage in your life, you throw them into the memory dumpsters right straight.Mababa 21:00, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It is really impolite and chauvinistic to tell other people what their culture is.Mababa 21:10, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Are you Taiwanese? I am. You should not say the Taiwanese culture is mainly shaped by the Dutch, the Japanese, and Spain. This is ridiculous. Japan does NOT play a significant role in shaping the culture of Taiwan.

That is a distortion of the original statement in the article. The statement did not say that Dutch, the Japanese, and Spain were the major and the sole cultures shaping the Taiwanese culture. Meanwhile, you may find the Chinese Wiki site 臺灣文化 a better place with more specific information that you can address and dispute on. I saw many Chinese on the island intermingling with many Taiwanese. Please define Taiwanese. Are you a Taiwanese or a Chinese?Mababa 23:13, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You're kidding about your examples though right? Canada NEVER had a big influence on the US, haha, and I'm so confused as to why you would even say that except to troll. England WAS influenced greatly by Rome, both in what they left behind and in the form of some of the descendants of the Romans, the Normans. And you know what's funny? English ARE obsessed with Roman history (this is an outsider's consciousness because I'm not sure they know they are obsessed from within the culture), and in my view, they see themselves as heirs in some ways. Makes sense to an extent right? The Western tradition begins with Classical Greek, then Classical Roman, then Medieval period of dark ages, then the British, and today, you could say the capitalist, democratic, individualistic culture of Anglo-America dominates. In many ways, history is what you want it to be, what you want to claim about your past. No one claims the ordinary, but rather the heros, the warriors, the assholes, the dictators, the myths, the gods. And clearly Taiwan does have Japanese influences and has chosen to emphasize and keep them. Taiwan was fortunate enough to escape most of the brunt of Japanese imperialism during WWII, and that has made it, along with its wariness of China and people that came to China to oppress them (KMT), that they are receptive to Japanese culture. Is that right for them to do that? I don't know. You can't dispute what people do with their cultures. That's just how it is. It's historical fact, but it's also a choice. You could dispute possibly degree, but I think the fact that all the old school males speak Japanese and many were Japanese college educated (Lee Denghui an excellent example) makes for significant cultural influence.--160.39.195.88 15:35, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think that's exactly the point. If you do a search for culture in England, it doesn't state upfront that the Romans significanlty influence today's culture in England. So, why should it say that the culture of Taiwan is heavily influenced by Japan.
You say that's exactly the point but what is exactly the point. The above user does point out one big difference--Taiwan's older elite was educated in Japan. Also the time of influence was much more recent.
Only a small fraction of the elite were educated in Japan. And many of them stayed in Japan to start new lives, taking on Japanese names, and marrying Japanese women, and finally merging into modern Japanese society. The majority of Taiwanese elite were educated in Taiwan. And a bit of history for you: many of the elite class were originally from mainland China, of Han decendency, and made it's way to Taiwan along w/ the nationalists. They took w/ them the majority of the wealth, and continued to promote academia and fine arts while mainland China stifled it. The National Palace Museum is basically a collection of wealth that the nationalists had and took to Taiwan. You have no clue about the Taiwnese elite, and probably don't even speak Taiwanese.
The claim that all were educated in Japan was not mine--I said many. I think that the older generation that is native Taiwanese does feel some affinity for Japan. Colonialism also left quite a big mark on Taiwan--someone familiar with Japanese architecture told me there is more early 20th century Japanese architecture that can be seen driving for 5 minutes in Taipei than you can see in all of Tokyo (Tokyo was burned and bombed). And I would also say that Japanese pop culture today (anything from food to fashion to music) has a significant influence in Taiwan today. The Chinese influence is quite obvious though right? KMT/waishengren aside, Taiwanese were originally from China too. I strongly believe that the events of the 20th century have created completely separate identities on either side of the strait, but it is still the biggest influence. In mentioning the other influences, it is only to say that hey, bet you didn't know about these. I don't think it determines peoples lives or that all Taiwanese accept such influences, but as a society I think it's clear that it has an impact. Almost everyone in East Asia hates Japan, probably for good reason. Taiwanese generally don't. I think that's significant (though of course lack of hate is not important without the cultural influences as well).
Regarding Mababa's point that Confucianism isn't really accepted in Taiwan. Well, I would say that every culture has a high culture that they reference. For the West, that is the Greeks and Romans, and that is a source for political traditions as well as for constructing new terms and for names. Our myths, even if most people don't know them, are important (think about things like names of companies). For Taiwanese, their classical culture is China. There can be no argument there. However, just as you would not say Americans are Greek just because they share a classical culture, Taiwanese is not necessarily equivalent to Chinese.--160.39.195.88 17:59, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)


PRC's political PR team / Taiwan as an independent State

It seems to me that the China's political PR team is at work here. I always thought Taiwan was a separate country. It's got its own flag, stock market, currency, embassies in various other countries, government, Olympic team, etc. How can one country have separate flags, distinct markets, different currencies, and different embassies within other countries, both a communist and democratic society, etc!? I don't know who's in charge of these boards but clearly, the fact that Taiwan is a distinct, self-governing, independent nation is being clouded and covered over by a few editors. (added by 70.242.208.89 at 23:32, Mar 18, 2005)

We report what others say - we do not express new view. You ask how one country can have separate flags, distinct markets, different currencies and different embassies within itself - but you only have to look at Macao and Hong Kong, which are indisputably territories of the PRC to find another example.
Similarly, if Wikipedia had existed in the 1970s and 1980s, we would not have recognised the South African Bantustans as separate countries because no-one (except South Africa and themselves) recognised there independence. Now the fact is that Taiwan is not an independent nation - indeed, even the Taiwanese government does not claim it to be - we report that, we do not put forward our own views on it, jguk 12:13, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Look, the usage even in the discussion of what Taiwan is doesn't even fit the article. Jguk's argument is fallacious because 1) Macau and Hong Kong aren't exactly regular territories of China and 2) we can identify clear differences between Taiwan and Macau/Hong Kong, significantly, the fact that China exerts no direct political influence over the de facto governing of Taiwan and the fact that Taiwan has it's own military.
In any case, Jguk confuses two questions. First, Taiwan the way everyone is using it means the political/cultural/geographic entity. So I see a huge contradiction to be pretending that this article can mean the geographic island and then when talking about said article, using Taiwan to refer to the political/cultural/geographic entity. Second, there is a question once that is settled whether Taiwan is independent or not. No where in any of the other wikipedia articles do I see discussion of Taiwan as de facto a part of China--recognition has nothing to do with whether it is ACTUALLY independent or not.
On the other hand, its de jure independence (related to whether they want to formally, diplomatically say that hello, we are Taiwan and we are not a part of China) is actually contestable. I, for one, wished that countries would recognize on the basis of self-rule, democratic government, and de facto independence. But this is not the case and one can argue both ways about the legality of Taiwan's independence intertwined with the legality of the ROC.--160.39.195.88 15:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
As far as I know no pro-independence politicians in Taiwan dare to say a sovereign State bearing the name "Taiwan" already exist. Rather, although only some of them, argue that Taiwan is already an independent sovereign states under the name "Republic of China". The only step left is to change the name officially. In other words, even pro-independence politicians cannot refute the existence of the ROC. And Chen Shui Bian sworn in officially as the president of the ROC, but not Taiwan. — Instantnood 08:20, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
Then what do the Taiwanese politicians Mababa talks about that say ROC is illegitimate mean? Chen Shuibian is one of the most pragmatic politicians in Taiwan, so you can't use him as an example. He is pro-independence but he doesn't really care how he goes about preserving that independence except that 1) Taiwan preserves its democratic sovereignty and 2) people don't die. Either legal argument, that the ROC gives Taiwan independence and the name needs to be changed to Taiwan, or that the ROC is illegitimate and Taiwan is already Taiwan reaches the same end--a de jure independent Taiwan.--160.39.195.88 15:29, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think Jiang and Mababa work for the PRC. They clearly want to minimize Taiwan to an island and create ambiguity to cloud the fact that Taiwan is a self-governing, very specific entity encompassing all the regions under control by the ROC. It doesn't seem to matter that there is much dissention to what Jiang and Mababa contend, they keep reverting the pages back to their own. Disgusting and offensive; I consider it pure propaganda. Contributed by User:205.174.8.4
The PRC does not accept the legality or even the existence of the ROC after 1949. Jiang does. What we are doing here is to best describe the status quo, that is, Taiwan being part of the territories administered by the ROC. All agree the ROC is now a democracy in the territories it administered. Nevertheless Taiwan is not all encompassing of the ROC. Some islands administered by the ROC, for instance Quemoy, Matsu and Taiping, are not part of Taiwan. (Please sign your comments, and put new string of discussion at the bottom of the page.) — Instantnood 23:47, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
Nobody is attempting to "cloud" anything here. Following Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese), this article does not equate "Taiwan" with the "ROC". If you disagree with this, the talk page for the naming conventions is the appropriate place to air your objections. The particular points you're raising have already been discussed there, by the way, and there does not seem to be a consensus that would support them. --MarkSweep 23:52, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I would like to direct User:205.174.8.4 to the NPOV policy in the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) and also the Wikipedia NPOV, as MarkSweep and Instantnood did, for information on how people reach neutral point of view in Wikipedia. Under this policy, no one would argue on other's edits if the fact is being presented. However, as long as people holds different point of view on certain issues, the edits on those topics are subject to NPOV policy. Here we suffer from not being able to equate Taiwan with ROC because Wikipedia can not bias against the PRC's point of view; at the same time, people from across the Taiwan strait are also deprived from the privilege of equating China with PRC. This is not that Taiwanese point of view can not be presented, it is only that how the point of view would be presented. As I mentioned earlier, I definitely agree that we can think about addressing the government on Taiwan by using ROC as the main article. However, simply equating ROC to Taiwan is a bit problematic. I am not certain the level of support on this idea in the island, let alone the pan blue supporters and many prominent Taiwanese independence supporters who holds the position of Taiwan status undetermined may not approve such equation, including Lee Teng-hui[4], Peng Ming-min, Sim Kiantek(沈建德) and Su Beng(史明). We can for sure say that the government based on Taiwan is a different one from PRC government, but to say current ROC=Taiwan and to say it is different from the old ROC would be a leap that we projected from our own belief. It is not necessarily true. In some sense, equating ROC to Taiwan also contradicts to the Constitution of the Republic of China. Ironically, the exact same constitution did not formally annex Taiwan into part of ROC either. In my opinion, ROC in Taiwan is illegitimate and should have stopped to exist at the term of Li Tsung-jen in 1949. The status of ROC in exile in Taiwan is no better than the Chinese nationalist army in Burma. That being said, the naming policy could still be changed to allow more inclusive point of views, as long as a better policy is proposed and converted into consensus in the convention.Mababa 05:54, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for New Organization (3/19/2005), Please Comment

The Taiwan/China articles are quite confused and I want to give a proposal that is reasonable on organizational and clarity grounds but also is not so deviant from common usage as to be completely confusing to readers. I sign here so that people may comment under each article discussed. --160.39.195.88 16:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

CIA Factbook lists Taiwan as a separate country. I suggest Taiwan(Country).

First, the good

China--means basically the area ruled by the PRC today, but whose borders has varied over the years. It is a continuous culture and through their written language, there is an identifiable unity from thousands of years ago (I'm not going to cite 5,000 because I think that's debatable). An article on China should cover the geographic area of traditional China, the culture, the history, and the political history. Since the ROC and the KMT ruled China for a time, they should be covered for that time as ruling China. Since the PRC and the CCP are the current rulers of China, they should be included as well, as they are. I have few issues with the current state of this article except that it could be extended.
PRC--essentially, this article covers the current regime of China as it should. As with the above, I think organizationally it is fine.
Taiwan province--this actually refers to two different things. One is the subdivision of the government of Taiwan that includes much of the island, but not Taipei or Kaohsiung and some other random islands. Second is the de jure way that China looks at Taiwan. They call Taiwan a "renegade province", since they want Taiwan to unify with China, but this means all of Taiwan--including Taipei and Kaohsiung and all the little islands. Anyways, the article should be about the first with a reference to why all of Taiwan (formally ROC (Taiwan) ) is called a province by China all the time. Which is the current state of the article, and it does a pretty good job distinguishing between the two uses of Taiwan province.

Now the ugly

ROC--a little trickier but I think we can think it through and do it. First of all, the ROC in terms of political power only existed as long as the KMT in its authoritarian state was in power, mostly under the aegis of Chiang Kaishek. It had a specific form in China that was then transplanted to Taiwan. Essential characteristics of the ROC/KMT include claim to rule over all of China, authoritarian rule, and the KMT as the instrument of said authoritarian rule. None of those characteristis are true today. No one claims ROC rules China. I don't care what the constitution says because everyone who makes that point also knows that China has threatened that changes to the ROC constitution is equivalent to declaring independence and China threatens Taiwan with war if they declare de jure independence.
I think that it does make sense to cover some of the ROC's history on Taiwan, but not all of it and definitely not the democratic era of Taiwan. Today, Taiwan is called formally "Republic of China (Taiwan)", has a democratically elected government, and the KMT has morphed into one of several democratic parties on Taiwan. It is not even possible to claim that ROC has the same name anymore because ROC (Taiwan) is the new name. The former ROC was driven by the socio-economic conditions of China of the late 19th and early 20th century and it is nonsensical to couple that with the history of the island of Taiwan, which has a much different history, though still connected in many ways to larger Chinese history. We call apples apples for a reason right? If we made it blue, made it taste like an orange, and called it "apple (orange)" formally but generally people just calling it orange, then are you really going to say it's still an apple? I mean, what is the point of that? You want to know where it came from, but at the same time, you probably want to know what the hell it is you're eating, orange or blue colored orange being much more descriptive.
Taiwan--first, no one ever means just the island. Everyone means the political and cultural entity in wider usage on both sides of the strait. Now, does wider usage justify Wikipedia usage? First of all, there is the issue that you are confusing the heck out of people if you don't follow usage. If people want to know about the political history of the geographical area covered by China, the China article is a good place to find it. If you want to know the political history of Taiwan, the Taiwan article is a horrible place to find it and the ROC article does no better. The ROC article rightfully covers a lot about China, but it is not of primary importance to a reader looking for information about Taiwan. It is true that if one wanted to know why Taiwan was ruled by an authoritarian government consisting of a mainly extra-island population, you would want to know where the ROC/KMT came from. But that is secondary information and a detailed history of the ROC/KMT is way too much for someone wanting to know about Taiwan. Furthermore, using China as our example, with the China article covering both the culture and the politics and the geographic entity, I see little reason for limiting usage to just the geographical feature.
--The biggest feature of Taiwan's government is that it is democratically elected. Mentioning Taiwan province is ridiculously confusing and unimportant.
--De facto versus de jure independence. Taiwan is de facto independece. Read about nations and states if you'd like. That's all there is to it. Not arguable. United States does not recognize Cuba. 99% of Americans believe that Cuba is a separate country. De jure, we can present the debate from both sides. We can give the reasons why China thinks Taiwan is a province. There are clear motivations for PRC to call it a province if you want it to unify later, possibly through military intervention, right? Otherwise it would be an annexation of a foreign country. This way you can call any possible military conflict a civil war. But anyways, we can present the arguments because many people feel strongly about them. We can also present arguments from the Taiwanese side, both that Taiwan is the ROC and a separate country or that Taiwan is not the ROC and a separate country.
--A note for those that feel the calling Taiwan=ROC is a political statement. If Taiwan is equal to ROC, then the convention is to refer to Taiwan, with "Taiwan" not ROC and as I said, ROC is not what it used to be so we need to allow the ROC to be described separately. For those that feel ROC is illegitimate on the Taiwan side (and thus Taiwan not equal to ROC): 1) Taiwan has a democratically elected gov't that those that dispute ROC's legitimacy do not dispute. 2) This means exactly that Taiwan should be its own article!
To avoid additional dispute about the Taiwan/ROC distinction, we can allow overlap in the articles and leave ambiguous at what point ROC on Taiwan ceased to be the ROC it was when it was in China. We know that today ROC is definitely ROC 50 years ago. There is just no unity between the two. On the Taiwan article side we can go back and include some, but not a detailed history of where the ROC came from and how it came to rule Taiwan.

I agree mostly with what is stated, especially that the ROC article is quite ambiguous and schizophrenic. I will add that we could have the proposed Taiwan article about the political/cultural/geographic entity and also have it be called Republic of China (Taiwan). Republic of China can be discussed up until the time of the national election of former President Lee. I checked out a bunch of other island articles and none talk about just the geographic entity when there is a significant political entity associated with it (Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Isle of Man). Looking at the discussion here, one mode of thinking we need to escape from is attempting to make a clear cut division between articles. Articles overlap all the time, which is a reflection of the actual concepts we hold in our heads and the way we organize knowledge. When you're trying to come up with probabilities, then you need clear partitions; when you're writing encyclopedia articles, it's best to recognize overlap and with the web format, we can link all over to clear up any confusion.--Amerinese 14:04, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you're looking for an analogous situation, have a look at Ireland (island) vs. Republic of Ireland (state). Regarding the earlier paragraphs, it is true that the ROC was effectively dominated by the KMT (just look at its national flag, etc.). It's perhaps less clear when that area starts (1927? 1947?) and ends (with the death of Chiang Kai-shek? Chiang Ching-kuo? with the election of Chen Shui-bian?). More importantly, the last major overhaul of the ROC constitution happened in 1947. Some of the exceptional powers during the Chiang regime were due to military law being in effect. While there have been major changes during the last 60s years, none of the fundamental clauses of the ROC constitutions were amended, and nothing has changed that would justify us adopting the POV that the old ROC has been gradually supplanted by the new Taiwan (if I understood 160.39.195.88's argument correctly). So can we please stick to the naming conventions, or at least discuss the naming conventions (since this issue affects several articles), rather than discussing isolated issues here? --MarkSweep 01:28, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The naming convention page you refer to is disputed making it very difficult to accept it as a guide, at least for now. Is there a better place to copy this discussion to? I criticized mainly this article and the ROC article and believe that the biggest changes will come to this article with significant changes to the ROC article as well.
Regarding the constitution. The constitution has not been changed, but you can't argue with the effects. Taiwan is a vibrant democracy that has competitive parties (this was questionable before the election and reelection of Chen Shuibian). I don't think we can say that the constitution really explains what the ROC is or what Taiwan is today. Do you think the ROC rules China? It's written there, but do you or anyone in Taiwan or China take it seriously?
It is not POV to say that the government of Taiwan is fundamentally different from the regime that ruled China under the name ROC. You can't make the name claim anymore either, since the ROC is not the ROC but rather ROC (Taiwan). It is fallacious to say that it is difficult to decide when the ROC on Taiwan was the old ROC and when it is the new ROC. We can say very clearly that today it is not the old ROC. Then, it does not matter that it is hard for us to implement--it is clear that some way should be devised to break the false unity between the two. I think a convention like saying ROC before 1949 and after 1949 would work well, as Mababa has suggested below. It is not perfect but it is better than what we have now.--160.39.195.88 07:47, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As MarkSweep pointed out, it is difficult to call when the old ROC regime ceased to exist and the new ROC(Taiwan) is borned. However, if we really want to make a distinction between the ROC in Taiwan versus the ROC in China, perhaps we can create articles separating the two political entities from each other: ROC before 1949 and ROC after 1949 to refelct the difference. I am not certain if this would work though, since it would put ROC before 1949 into the category:former country.

On the other hand, I do support creating a segment describing the governmental system in Taiwan as you and user 81.132.244.108 proposed in the current article Taiwan, with ROC to be the main article for that segment. Even the article China has already taken note of the common usage of China (commonly refering to PRC) and Taiwan (commonly refering to ROC) without endorsing it. I think that piece of information is something at least we could include into this article. As for whether we should separate ROC from ROC(Taiwan), I do not have much opinion. Perhaps we can adopt some lines from Politcal status of Taiwan about the popular sovereignty theory into this segment to reflect such a prevalent belief in Taiwan without determing where the dichotomy between old ROC and the "new ROC" should be. However, I do have to point out that claiming ROC(Taiwan) as a new country is a POV which we could include as a belief exist in Taiwan island, but not necessarily a fact. From what I have percieved, I think many pan-blue supporters still indulged in the Taiwan=<ROC=<China idea and would not support such an idea. This perception may not be true and I might have under estimate their recognition toward this island though.

On the other hand, while we try to include the common usage of Taiwan into this article, Chinese contributers may not adpot the common usage and may list ROC and PRC together under the article China according to the historical origin of each regime, a potential consequence that you may not want to see. For the sake of staying away from political mess, I would rather leave the article as it is.Mababa 05:57, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)


I apologize that I just can't help but reverting 205.174.8.4's edit because it left so much information on the debate over Taiwan's political status out. Besides, I can not recall reading articles about formaly changing official name of ROC to ROC(Taiwan). :) The edit also did not reflect the public belief that it is the popular sovereignty theory gave the legitimacy of ROC, if we ever want to give the readers some insight why's that many Taiwanese believes in Taiwan=ROC(Taiwan) and ROC(Taiwan)=\=ROC. On the other hand, there are also many Taiwanese do not believe in Taiwan=ROC, from both Pan-green and Pan-blue's sides.Mababa 20:58, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)