Talk:Chinese Empire

Shortened footnotes with missing targets
This new article uses shortened footnote references extensively, and quite a number of the target sources are missing. @HiddenFace101 – I suspect that you may have copied quite a bit of the article from elsewhere on Wikipedia. If so (a) please make sure that you have made the proper copyright attribution following the instructions at Copying within Wikipedia – I don't see anything in the article history edit summaries – then (b) please install this script, which will highlight the footnotes with missing sources, and add them to the bibliography from the source articles. Thank-you, and thank-you for writing the article! Wham2001 (talk) 11:42, 16 April 2024 (UTC)


 * PS if you don't want to install the script, you can also follow the instructions here for another way to make the errors visible. However the script provides more informative and accurate messages. Wham2001 (talk) 11:44, 16 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I think I've fixed all the Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors. DuncanHill (talk) 12:45, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank-you @DuncanHill – you are a star, as always Wham2001 (talk) 15:09, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Erroneous title and framing
The lead, infobox, and presentation of the content in this article implies that there was a continuous polity named the "Chinese Empire" or "Empire of China". It's widely accepted by scholars that the dynasties of unified China from the Great Qin afterwards form a connect part of Chinese history known as Imperial China, but I've never heard a scholar use the term "Chinese Empire" as a proper noun for a polity rather than as a descriptor. Similarly, 中華帝國 has never been used by any emperor or empress of China for their domain; it's used in a purely descriptive sense. What I mean by this is, for example, especially in older texts, you might see the Qing dynasty described interchangeably as the "Chinese empire" – that is, an empire in China – but not in reference to some continuous empire called the "Chinese Empire" since the time of Qin Shi Huang.

There was no dynastic empire named the "Chinese Empire" or "中華帝國", although there was the failed attempt by Yuan Shikai. This article should be renamed "History of Imperial China" or something similar, and the misleading infobox should be removed alongside references to an empire named the "Chinese Empire" or "Empire of China". Yue 🌙 00:10, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Or perhaps treat the term "Chinese Empire" as a concept (similar to Celestial Empire) rather than a concrete continuous empire since the time of Qin Shi Huang? While Qing emperors of China did use terms like the Latin term "Imperii Sinici" (meaning "Chinese Empire") in official documents such as the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk for their domain (in addition to being described by others as so), it was not truly a continuous empire for China from the Qin dynasty to the Qing dynasty, but rather a generic term referring to the domain ruled by the Emperor of China. --Wengier (talk) 00:57, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Rather amusing infobox. The content also overlaps with so many other articles. Vacosea (talk) 21:06, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed that this article should be named "History of Imperial China" or something similar. "Chinese Empire" is cartoonishly simplistic and flattens out a lot of varied dynastic history. - Amigao (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I think the redirect to History of China should be restored. This is a WP:CFORK of existing articles, under an awkward name. Walsh90210 (talk) 00:38, 6 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I think the article should be refocused. This particular article should be about the term "Chinese Empire" itself, such as the name origin and the usage etc (similar to Celestial Empire). Not about the actual history of Imperial China. After all, the term "Chinese Empire" is commonly used (even more so than Celestial Empire) and can indeed be made an article with its particular focus. --Wengier (talk) 00:45, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how much "article" there needs to be here, but a Disambiguation page does seem better than a redirect. I'll see what people come up with. Walsh90210 (talk) 00:57, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There are a lot can be written about the term "Chinese Empire" (referring to the imperial domain ruled by Emperor of China), and the term is used by many reliable sources as an alternative name for (imperial) China (similar to Cathay, Huaxia, Celestial Empire, etc). Since it can indeed have real relevant contents (see the new "Name" section for example), I think a complete refocusing of the article would be a good solution. --Wengier (talk) 01:02, 6 June 2024 (UTC)