Talk:Chinese civilization

RFC

See Talk:China/DiscussRM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.11.234 (talk) 06:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

I am proposing that we split pages on Chinese topic as follows:

Proposed Name	Topics covered
China	Geography of China (no actual text, but links to its counterparts at the Taiwan and PRC article), the different definitions of what area constitutes "China", the constituent entities that lies within it (PRC, Taiwan), cultures and customs
China (Historical)	A bowdlerized history of China, including its successive dynasties (with links to the history section of each of the dynasties), areas ruled (there are wild variations between dynasties) with a cutoff point at the end of the Qing Dynasty.
People's Republic of China	People's Republic of China as it stands today (no change whatsoever)
Republic of China (1912)	ROC as it existed before it retreated to Taiwan
Republic of China	ROC after its retreat to Taiwan (aka: Taiwanese Government)

Arbiteroftruth (talk) 22:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You'll need to change two things to make it work. First, the China can talk about the different definitions of what area constitutes "China", and even different definitions of what "China" is, but when you start talking about "geography" or more problematically "the constituent nations that lies within it (PRC, Taiwan)" you run into trouble. Your very proposal lacks NPOV by including Taiwan in the constituent nations. And if you talk about geography you'll have no end of trouble trying to decide whether to include that big island off the coast of Fujien province. By not equating China with PRC you'll even run into difficulties trying to decide whether to include that big plateau and montain range pushed up by India colliding into Asia. But if you stick to just describing the different definitions and providing links to articles with more info you'll be fine. It will be like a deluxe disambiguation page.

There is no need to break the ROC page into two pages because of Terroritral expansion and shrinkage. T-1000 (talk) 01:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not? The territorial change was very significant. There could even be three articles because the democratization was significant too.--Jerrch 01:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It pushes the POV that Taiwan is not a part of China, which violates NPOV. As for democratization, we don't have separate articles for United States (Pre 1865) and United States (post 1865), despite there was signifacant democratization. T-1000 (talk) 22:31, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It also pushes the POV that Taiwan is part of China. As for the significance, there was not only democratization, but also there were localization, desinicization, and rise of Taiwanese nationalism.--Jerrch 23:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It is, accroding to the ROC's terrortial defintion. There's also signifancant dispute regarding those other terms. T-1000 (talk) 04:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

T-1000, you analogy with the US is misused, and off-topic. Taiwan, as it exists today, is much different legally than the ROC that exists before. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

different legally? such as? T-1000 (talk) 04:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I am advocating for the split, because the ROC before and after its relocation to Taiwan are different not only territorially, but legally and constitutionally as well. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 01:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The Republic of China has maintained the same constitution since 1948 (before the withdrawal/retreat/relocation to Taiwan), so constitutionally it has not changed, with of course minor changes to the parts concerning legislative duties and powers (i.e. the dissolution of the National Assembly and majority of its powers transfered to the Legislative Yuan). nat.utoronto 03:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Second, rename Republic of China (1949) to Republic of China (Taiwan) (1949).

Readin (talk) 23:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I will amend the topics covered for China, but I am not going to change the current ROC page to Republic of China (Taiwan), for we might violate NPOV, as that title might be construed by some that we condone Taiwan Independence. The issue of China is no joke, and we need to be careful. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 23:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the idea that we shouldn't split the ROC article into pre and post 1949. While the territory changed, there was continuity of government. The same dictator and autocrats remained in power; and the structure of the government remained. The ROC article is about the government, not about either of the countries it ruled. The fact that you think adding the territory governed post 1949 to the title condones independence, while it is clear to me that the territory governed is integral to the article and - it is the very reason for having a post 1949 article and avoiding it would violate NPOV, shows that the split might now work anyway.

Let's keep the ROC article as one article focused on the government. The Taiwan article can continue to deal with non-governmental aspects of the modern ROC. That leaves us with a hole for the non-governmental aspects of 1912-1949 China. Let's call that "China during the Republican Period" or something similar, or perhaps lump it in with "China (historical)".Readin (talk) 02:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I have set up this sample page here to show what the Republic of China (1912) article could look like. It is work in progress, but it's a start. Also, for ROC after 1949, I think we could suffice with the current name, instead of adding "(1949)" after it. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 02:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think splitting is good, because of the radically different governments involved. Yes, there was continuity, but after the move to Taiwan, the government underwent radical changes that make it more localized to Taiwan. Also, the size of the ROC article is within the area where splitting is suggested. This is a good chance to truly delineate the ROC article into a pre and post Taiwan stage. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of this needs to be merged onto one single talk page. China (Historical) should just redirect to History of China. The history of China is a succession of states (dynasties), all of which will have the "former countries" template applied. It is impossible to apply the template on pre-modern China as a whole.

As posted before, the succession of Republican governments must to seperated from the succession of Republican states. There is a clear succession of governments, all of which need articles showing this succession, and something as major as the Nationalist Government really needs an article. The state existed more-or-less undisputed throughout the Republican era, but no single government gained complete control over it (so what the heck do we mean when we say the Republic of China "ruled" all of China before 1949?) and at times (e.g. WWII) there were rival governments going by the same name and flag. There are clear breaks in rule in 1912, 1916, 1928, 1937, 1945, and 1949. How many Republic of Chinas do we need? --Jiang (talk) 17:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I would generally argue that the watershed for the ROC happened in 1949, when they moved to Taiwan. That is where we draw the line for the ROC, and create a page for the ROC before, and the ROC after Arbiteroftruth (talk) 03:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Your proposal for co-ordinated rewrites is a starting point. I picture a variation thereof, as follows:

• China — Geography of mainland China; history of the Chinese people; historical summaries of the Sun Empire (<1912), Republic of China (1912-1949) and People's Republic of China (1949-present). See-also's to include Dynasties in Chinese history (essentially unchanged from current Article), History of China (essentially unchanged from current Article), Republic of China (see below), People's Republic of China (see below).
• Taiwan (officially Taiwan, Republic of China) — Geography of Formosa; History of Formosan people (under Sun Empire, Empire of Japan and Republic of China suzerainties); Administrative structures of Taiwan governments by era.
• Republic of China — Governmental structure under the Zun Yatzen and Jiang Gaishek Administrations and reorganization of 1948; notable legislative acts in mainland China, 1912-1949, and on Taiwan, 1949-present; related data. (Essentially the current ROC article, with appropriate major amendments.)
• People's Republic of China — Governmental structures under First Secretaries Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, &c.; Prefectures and Autonomous Regions; notable acts of People's Congress; related data. (Essentially the current PRC article, with appropriate major amendments.)

This seems to me the best structure for maintaining the most neutral POV practicable at this time, provided that the Articles can be properly coordinated. The one unanswered question is whether it can be done sans edit wars. B. C. Schmerker (talk) 06:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I still believe that a split of the ROC article into the ROC today (which will be covered by the ROC article currently in existence) and the ROC of 1912 is a good solution. The ROC article is way too long anyways, and cutting some of the fat out of that article and transfer it to the ROC (1912) page would be good. The French and Spanish Wikipedia, I believe, work under the same principle. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 06:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I still like the Arbiteroftruth's proposal at the top of this section. To be acceptable however, the ROC post 1949 needs a "(Taiwan)" in the title to make it NPOV. Without that change it fails the fundamental NPOV test. If Arbiteroftruth is opposed to doing so, I'm also ok with keeping the ROC eras in a single article. Arbiteroftruth's description of the China article is not perfect - he's making too much effort to have Taiwan be part of China, but the details can be haggled over while writing the actual article. A possible China article description is shown below.

Proposed Name	Topics covered
China	Disambiguation with links to PRC, ROC and the dishes, etc.. The different definitions of what area constitutes "China", with appropriate links as necessary to general articles and geography articles (Taiwan, Mongolia, geography of PRC, geography of ROC incluing Mongolia, etc.). Etymology of "China".

The handling of "culture and customs" will need to be worked out. We could include in the China article "Culture and customs of the PRC (culture and customs of Taiwan are already covered in the Taiwan article, and a link to the Taiwan article will have already been provided in the section on different definitions)." Or we might divide the section on the culture and customs of China into different section with a subsection called "customs and culture of disputed regions" that includes or links to articles on the culture and customs of Taiwan, Mongolia and maybe even Tibet. Readin (talk) 14:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Yet more possible POV

Putting aside all my previous arguments for a moment, I have stumbled upon a dilemma:

Is it POV for a geographic article such as Shanghai to include the sentence: "Shanghai is a city in the People's Republic of China"? Surely, according to other contributors' arguments above, and seeing as how the Republic of China claims mainland China as part of its territory, saying that any settlement such as Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Qingdao and many others, are located in the People's Republic of China, is a violation of the "non-negotiable policy" that is WP:NPOV?

Logically it would make sense to assert that mainland China is a disputed territory, and WP:NPOV infers that any location within that disputed territory can't be said to be located within either state. Therefore, the sentence "Shanghai is a city in the People's Republic of China" can only be concluded as a violation of WP:NPOV.

This leads me to wonder if that article and every location relevant, including other settlements, provinces, rivers, terrain features, and anything else of a geographic nature located within the disputed area that is mainland China, and not directly associated with either government, should state its location as "China", instead of "the People's Republic of China". Please note this is purely in a geographical sense, and anything dealing with politics such as Politics sections would require mention of the current administration governing the location.

Opinions please. --Joowwww (talk) 16:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

You could change it to say "Shanghai is a city in China" and you probably wouldn't get any objection. There is no perfect NPOV. In this case saying Shanghai is in the PRC would not, in my opinion, "fail" NPOV. But it would not be quite as NPOV as saying Shanghai is in China. However, saying it is in the PRC is slightly more informative as it gives the official name of the country and clarifies that it is not on that island that some people mistakenly consider part of China. In this case either alternative seems fine. As for using "mainland China", that seems out of place. We use "mainland China" in relation to Hong Kong and Macau, and sometimes in relation to Taiwan to placate the imperialists. But using it when not talking about either of those is awkward and strange. Readin (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

As for your proposal that every settlement or geographic feature located within the PRC should simply say it is in China, that would cause NPOV problems for places in Tibet and maybe even Xinjiang.Readin (talk) 18:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"Chinese civilization" is PRCs civilization

This article needs to be merged with People's Republic of China. There is no such thing as "Chinese civilization" anymore. It is now PRCs civilization. Chinese civilization is nonsense made up term. Merge with PRC. A lot of Western nonsense in this "China" article, trying to say "China" is "ancient" civilization and "multinational" or "national" entity. The people that wrote this has no idea what he/she is talking about. Period. 71.237.70.49 (talk) 05:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't blame it on "western nonsense". The objections to merging People's Republic of China (PRC) and China are largely from a thought process advocated by the PRC itself and by people and the descendents of people who fled China to occupy Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Readin (talk • contribs)

You are so wrong it is unbelievable. This is a political device promoted by politicians to advance their interests. The common people call the PRC "China" and the ROC "Taiwan". --slashem (talk) 23:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

People, we are dealing with a flamer here. Ignore the comments from that sorry excuse of a person. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 02:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"Sorry excuse of a person" is a violation of WP:NPA. --Joowwww (talk) 11:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"Arbiteroftruth" hahaha. --slashem (talk) 05:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

And what is that supposed to mean? Comments like that are not helpful. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 07:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

lol, remember when you said "But I don't have conversations like this with anyone else"? ;) T-1000 (talk) 06:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Before I said what I said, I checked out the posts made by that IP, and they were all none too helpful to Wikipedia. Much of them were soppy edits, griping about something. I don't do things arbitrarily. I back them with evidence. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 07:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Good job ignoring me guys. But hey, just because I've seen every attempt to rationalize these articles fail, don't let it keep you from wasting your time. How's that consensus coming? --slashem (talk) 08:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The Taiwan and ROC issue aside, aren't the PRC and China two separate articles because China refers to historic "China" in an aggregate sense, i.e. from its inception as a unified empire under the Qin Dynasty and its solidified, collective culture by the time of the Han Dynasty, whereas the PRC refers to "China" as the modern country governed for the last 6 decades by the CCP? To reinforce this point, I think most people would say that overall "China" has a much longer history and cultural identity than the history and national identity forged in the last 6 decades under rule of the People's Republic, and that the entire history of "China" is different from that of the People's Republic. Plus, dynastic China really doesn't have much to do with the modern communist regime except for the fact that the former was the predecessor of the latter. In an anachronistic fashion, it's kind of like saying that the modern Arab Republic of Egypt is the same civilization as Ancient Egypt, no? Thoughts?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Pericles. There are many ways to divide a subject up between encyclopedia articles, and this is even more true of Wikipedia because each individual article is so short. Whereas Britannica can have one article titled "China" and have it run for thirty pages, each Wikipedia article is about two or three. From my perspective it is obvious that there are many aspects of China and its history which need to be covered in many different articles, with links between them. However, I think it should be clear that the most common search term users will start with is "China" and so China should be considered the "top-level" gateway article. The real question is what belongs in China and what should be linked to in daughter articles.

The two main sides in this debate are: (1) follow common usage and the convention set by other encyclopedias, where the article listed under "China" focuses primarily on the modern country with a subsection (on Wikipedia, a daughter article) for the history, and (2) try to be neutral by not talking about any modern country in China, which therefore would only be about history.

Since you are familiar with Chinese history, I am sure you know that Chinese dynasties have always come and gone. If you want to argue that the last six decades should be treated separately, why exactly do the previous four millennia belong together? I personally don't think the "dynastic" change to the PRC is so much greater than other dynastic successions in Chinese history. Human beings always believe whatever is closest is most significant, and I think we overestimate the magnitude of the break to the PRC because it is the most recent.

The example of other ancient civilizations like Egypt has been mentioned before. If you actually look at Egypt, you will see that it is a standard country article, with a subsection that summarizes Egypt's (vast) history. This is what I favor for China.

Everyone knows by now that although we are arguing about standards, there is in fact no standard on Wikipedia. Although people keep proposing standards, with various implications for related articles, Wikipedia never has had a real standard and I don't believe it ever will have one.

Nevertheless, it is always a pleasure to speak with you. --slashem (talk) 05:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I see the sides of this debate now, thank you for clarifying. Although I still believe that the People's Republic deserves its own article aside from "China", since the entity of "China" as a unified political unit was born long before 1949 (with interruptions and periods of division along the way), I also think that this article on "China" would be ridiculous if it focused entirely on bygone history and did not include details on both the PRC and ROC in their modern context, or if it made some awkward attempt to ignore the last 60 years at the tail end of the history section of "China". In regards to the modern ROC and PRC, how could one avoid that gigantic 'elephant standing in the living room'? So to speak. I think most people would regard mainland China and Taiwan as integral parts of "historic China", therefore they are integral parts of what is "modern China", despite the existence of two governments.

To make a comparison, I wouldn't dare say that the Kingdom of Tungning on Taiwan, or even the Khitan Liao Dynasty lording over the Sixteen Prefectures for that matter, weren't placed in what is "China", simply because the Qing Dynasty in the former scenario and the Song Dynasty in the latter scenario had a bigger stake or claim in holding most of what we would consider the cultural and territorial bounds of "China". However, since mainland China is such a bigger portion of China and Taiwan a much smaller portion of China, the focus on modern culture, politics, business, etc. should be aimed at what is happening within the PRC, while contemporary culture, politics, business, etc. within the ROC can be explained to a lesser degree. To make yet another comparison, if the ROC was given an equal amount of textual explanation as the PRC in regards to what is "China" today, that would be like going to the article on the United States and filling up half the article with stuff about one region, say, Hawaii. Lol.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

On an unrelated note, doesn't the largely unrecognized independent status of Northern Cyprus in the international community remind you of the status of the Republic of China on Taiwan? Since the latter is not treated by the international community at large as a legitimate separate entity from "China"?--Pericles of Athens^Talk 06:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that slashem was pointing out that the "China" article should be about the PRC with a short section on the history of China including the history of the ROC and the Chinese dynasties. It makes a lot of sense. --Phenylalanine (talk) 11:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. I oppose the merger for reasons I have given above in the previous post.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:00, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Sports in China

The sports in China article currently violates NPOV by only addressing the sports in the PRC. There is also the mess of "Sports in China" claiming to include Sports in Hong Kong, but there is a separate Sport in Hong Kong page.

Also, do the people on Kinmen and Matsu play the same sports as People on Taiwan? If so, that also needs to be cleaned up and renamed. T-1000 (talk) 07:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this gets to the larger issue, the same one that we're having with the "China" article. To include Taiwan in the "Sports in China" article would violate NPOV because it would imply that Taiwan is part of China. On the other hand, T-1000 believes (and a lot of people agree with him) that leaving Taiwan out of the "Sports in China" article violates NPOV by implying Taiwan is not a part of China.

The more this debate goes on, the more I like a modified version of the above proposal by Arbiteroftruth. See next section. Readin (talk) 21:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Currently, "China" = the Civilization. Taiwan being a part of the Chinese Civilization is uncontroversial. T-1000 (talk) 03:38, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is supposedly about China the civilization; is the "Sports in China" article about "Sports in the civilization of China"? Does the "Sports in China" article talk about sports in Xingjiang or Tibet which are not part of Chinese civilization? Does it talk about the national sports teams from the PRC that may include Tibetan and Xinjiangnese atheletes?

If we go with the proposal in the next section, the article would be easy to fix. You would just put a link somewhere in the article saying For sports in the disputed region Taiwan, see Sports in Taiwan.

Readin (talk) 04:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Given the example in Sports in England, sports are tied to the state, not the geographical area, perhaps forked to "sports in the PRC" and "Sports in the ROC"? T-1000 (talk) 05:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Issues like whether something is more closely tied to the government or to the country/region would be sorted out on a case by case basis. In general I would think that something whose identity is tightly coupled to the government (the President, the legislature, the flag, the presidential palace, army, etc.) or tightly controlled by the government (a state-run corporation) would use "ROC" and "PRC" while things that would exist anyway with the government merely helping to organize or regulate (restaurants, tourism, arts, demographics, etc.) would use "China" with links to "Taiwan". Readin (talk) 13:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

New Proposal

Proposed Name	Topics covered
China	Covers disambiguation and etymology (Update: The disambiguation would include an introductory paragraph explaining the many definitions of China with a bit of background on how they came to be.)
''Stuff'' in China unrelated to government	Covers whatever Stuff there is in the PRC. Provides a link something like "For stuff in the disputed region Taiwan, see ''Stuff'' in Taiwan.
History of China	A bowdlerized history of China, including its successive dynasties (with links to the history section of each of the dynasties), areas ruled (there are wild variations between dynasties) up to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It also covers non-government related stuff up to 1949, but provides a link to the Republic of China page for details about the government.
People's Republic of China	People's Republic of China as it stands today (no change whatsoever)
Republic of China	Covers the government of the Republic of China. I don't care whether the article is further subdivided - that can be discussed separately. The key point is that it covers only the government.
Taiwan	Taiwan and islands associated with it (including Kinmen and Matsu, although they and other major islands like the Pescadores will have their details in a separate article). In other words the Taiwan article covers everything prior to 1949, but post 1949 it cover non-government stuff and point to the Republic of China article for more details about government info.
''Stuff'' in China related to government	Disambiguation page pointing to the ''Stuff in the People's Republic of China and ''Stuff'' in the Republic of China pages.

Readin (talk) 21:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

to repeat myself, China should not be a disambiguation page because disambiguation pages are meant to redirect users to mutually exclusive articles on the same term. You can use China to mean "all of the above" or "some of the above". The definitions of China are not mutually exclusive. We tried making Yugoslavia a disambigation page before and that proved unworkable since there were too many instances were the term applied to more than one successive Yugoslav regime. Likewise, there are numerous instances where "China" refers both to the existing China and the historical China, independent of the current regime. It's not going to work.

China (Historical) can redirect to History of China. Why do we need a seperate page?--Jiang (talk) 05:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no way China will ever be a disambiguation page. --slashem (talk) 05:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

First, when I said "disambiguation", I did not mean a simple disambiguation that just contains a few lines pointing to different pages. Instead it would be a brief intro explaining why we have the disambiguations. That is, we would explain that in modern international law, "China" refers to the PRC including the lands it claims but has on control over. We would explain that in modern books and newspapers "China" usually refres to the PRC including only those lands the PRC actually controls. We would explain that during part of the Cold War "China" was used to refer to the Republic of China. Of course links would be provided throughout so people could go find the information they want. As someone suggested earlier, it would discuss the many definitions of "China".

Second, "History of China" works great and I've modified the proposal.

Readin (talk) 15:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

So you want this disambiguation to be not an article, but an explanation depending on synthetic self-reference to inform readers on how Wikipedia has failed to agree on anything? SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Have we not put together stacks of references for different meanings for "China"? How does using them advance any particular cause (as your link to WP:SYNTH suggests you think we would be guilty of)? The reason we can't agree is that the world at large doesn't agree. We didn't make that up on our own. I suppose you could call our discovery of this disagreement "original research" but given that we are writing this article it was an inescapable observation. We wouldn't inform readers that we failed to agree, we would inform readers that many definitions exist, what those definitions are. We might also explain who uses those definitions and when and how those definitions are used.Readin (talk) 17:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Support Readin (talk) 13:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you proposing that most of the content on this page (save the lead) be deleted? If there's going to be text, why not have an article and use Wikipedia:Summary style to accomodate the different definitions?--Jiang (talk) 20:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia:Summary style say

Wikipedia articles tend to grow in a way which lends itself to the natural creation of new articles. The text of any article consists of a sequence of related but distinct subtopics. When there is enough text in a given subtopic to merit its own article, that text can be summarized from the present article and a link provided to the more detailed article.

The length of a given Wikipedia article tends to grow as people add information to it. This cannot go on forever: very long articles would cause problems. So we must move information out of articles periodically. In general, information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new articles to hold the excised information.

Using the Summary Style would suggest that various regions of concern are part of China which would violate NPOV. What I'm suggesting is very similar to the Summary Style but avoids taking sides. The main difference between what I'm proposing and summary style is that we don't put the summary of the "subtopic" in the "main" article because doing so would suggest that the "subtopic" is part of the main article. Instead we just provide the link with the note. Having the link provides balance for not having the summary. The link acknowledges the views of those who say the subtopic is part of the main, while the lack of summary and the use of "disputed" avoids pushing the point.

So far this proposal is enjoying 100% support. Shall we move forward with it?

no. Sorry, I'm too tired from the last big go around and there are implications of this I don't like but don't have the effort to explain. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Good Information

I am doing a project on China (see china-city.webs.com) and I am searching for some general information to start with. This was my first stop, and it has given me 3/4 of what I needed! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.185.212 (talk) 05:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposed

On Talk:People's Republic of China there is a merger proposal proposing to merge China and People's Republic of China. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.11.234 (talk) 06:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• I have yet to see any sensible arguments made to support such merger, especially after you read the articles. Hmains (talk) 20:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Suspected sock puppet

I suspect that User:Singaga is back as User:Eejcliopb. The edits are extremely similar. Perhaps a check user is needed? T-1000 (talk) 21:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Origins of Human Civilization in China

I am having a lot of difficulty comprehending the notion of human civilization anywhere on Earth being dated at 2.1 million years! The two articles referenced adjascent to the article's text making this claim both refer to evidence that cites homo erectus may have been present during the suggested time frame. Homo erectus isn't conventionally described as "human", however - it's my understanding that title is reserved for homo sapiens, our own species.

There's little doubt human civilization in China is ancient in the extreme - but the article is going way to far pointing to origins that predate humanity (homo sapiens) gaining the capacity for sentience, tools, or much of anything else that could be qualified as distinctly human. On this basis I strongly propose revision of the article to use a standard that's a little more based on the conventions of human anthropology than staking a claim to be cradle of human civilization anywhere on Earth.ross613 (talk) 03:45, 13 June 2008 (UTC)