Talk:Five Fingers of Tibet

Non-Indian sources on "Five Fingers of Tibet"
It would be great if we could find some broader reliable sources that explicitly discuss the "Five Fingers of Tibet" to satisfy WP:NPOV. Right now, it's almost exclusively sourced to Indian sources, with the Belfiglio reference being the only exception in the article. — MarkH21talk 00:33, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The fact that this topic is mostly covered by Indian sources is obvious. 3 of the 5 "fingers" are Indian states/UTs, and the other two are buffer states between India and China, one of which enjoys military protection by the latter. We don't have any Chinese sources because of two simple reasons: the Chinese censorship won't allow any non-official critique of this policy, and the official platforms such as the Global Times won't talk about it because it has not been acknowledged by the CPC. It is wrong to assume that this topic has only been discussed by Indian scholars. Majority of the research artifacts about this topic have actually been written by Western scholars. One of them is cited in this article: Texas Woman's University's professor Belfiglio devoted a major part of his PhD thesis to this strategy. I actually plan to expand this article in the future by utilizing his research. Other papers/articles by Brecher, Hudson, and Patterson have also talked about it, but I am not able to find them online. If someone can find any source which presents the Chinese point of view, it will be of great utility for this article. But I doubt if any such source even exists.
 * I have also reverted one of the changes you made to the article. A lot of the sources agree that the "five fingers" construct wasn't simply a personal claim by Mao. It has been termed as a Chinese "strategy", "policy", and "plan". which was even propagated internally in the 50s and early 60s. I am divided on whether strategy or policy is a better word to describe it, but a "geopolitical view" clearly isn't. SignificantPBD (talk) 23:58, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
 * My point wasn’t about Chinese sources. My point was to add more third party sources, e.g. Western sources, because there is currently only one in the article that discusses the "Five Fingers of Tibet" explicitly.It originated from Mao and there has only been speculation about its post-Mao existence. It’s more precise to label it as something from that era, rather than attribute it to just being generally Chinese. What it is currently defined as in the lead isn’t a strategy: considering X to be Y isn’t a strategy, it’s an observation or viewpoint. The strategy is the plan to acquire the "fingers". I don’t dispute that sources may call the "Five Fingers of Tibet" a strategy, but some tweaking is required (one of those sources is an opinion article by the way). — MarkH21talk 07:40, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I would also like the article to have more third-party sources, but their availability is an issue. We also need to understand that Mao wasn't simply a politician from a political party, but the leader of the only ruling party of China and hence he was the leader of China. So a policy given by him will be considered as a Chinese one. If all this seems like a mere hypothesis, the article mentions enough incidents when the official Chinese administration has propagated this policy. Most notable of them being broadcasting it on Beijing and Lhasa radio systems. SignificantPBD (talk) 21:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Original Chinese for the Term
What is the original Chinese of the term? Displaying that could help readers look for any Chinese text related to the foreign policy from the CCP. --Apisite (talk) 07:08, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I put Google Translate to some use and came across an actual Chinese article by a researcher from the Nanjing University which talks about the five fingers policy. I thought that any mention of this policy cannot bypass the Chinese firewall, but this article is clearly a CPC-sponsored propaganda piece. It's from 2017 and makes some very bold claims like using Tibetan culture and trade to decrease the Indian influence over the "five fingers". One of these fingers is Sikkim which is officially recognized by the PRC as an Indian state!
 * Although Google Translate is providing a good enough translation, it will be great if a Mandarin speaker can translate the parts relevant to this article. This can provide a great addition to the article. SignificantPBD (talk) 18:45, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Great, excellent find! It looks like a genuine magazine and this is supposed to be an international relations expert? Certainly a reliable source. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:04, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Quote from Mao
Foreign Languages Press claims, The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party is a textbook which was written jointly by Comrade Mao Tse-tung and several other comrades in Yenan to the winter of 1939. The first chapter, "Chinese Society" [source of the quote], was drafted by other comrades and revised by Comrade Mao Tse-tung. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:49, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Supposed Indian response
, you have been WP:edit warring over this content:

The first sentence is wrong, which I pointed out in the edit summary of my first revert. Newspapers are not reliable sources for history, and you can't insert them into Wikipedia unless you have support from a wide variety of sources. India's arrangements with the Himalayan states were made soon after Indian independence, and they were based on arrangements that were already in place during the British Raj. India has had age-old connections to Tibet and the Himalayan states, which are well-known. Mao Zedong is not a historian, but rather a politician.

The rest of the passage has nothing to do with the Five Fingers claim. And it doesn't belong in this page. Since you are also working on other Bhutan-related pages, let me point out that if you think Sinchulumpa etc. are not widely known, it is best to summarise it as "areas adjacent to the Chumbi Valley". (Bji Gewog is not well-known either.)

Please follow WP:BRD and refrain from WP:edit warring. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't think the points you have raised are consistent with the sources. They might just be your own opinion. Vacosea (talk) 14:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * That is called WP:STONEWALLING. You haven't addressed the points I raised. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:43, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Warning someone over one disagreement right away does not come across as very courteous. You disagree with my source, but do you have a source that disagrees with "Sixty years ago, India began to set about ensuring that quite the reverse ensued, and all five fingers were more closely attached to India, not China?" I've given you days. It looks like I'm not the one stonewalling here. Vacosea (talk) 07:20, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Warnings and alerts for conduct that is not in line with Wikipedia policies is part of the normal working on Wikipedia. You cannot complain about them.
 * As for the The Hindu source, it is a newspaper, and newspapers are considered reliable for only "news", i.e., the day-to-day happenings that the reporters witness or hear about (from their own sources, who may or may not be reliable). But reporters are not expected to be scholars who know all aspects of history, even if they write about them. The fact that the article mentions "five fingers" makes it relevant to this page. It doesn't automatically make it reliable or accurate for history. For authentic history of how independent India's relations with the Himalayan states developed, please consult this paper for example. (There are many others).
 * The Amit Ranjan source is not about "five fingers" policy. It only mentioned it in passing, under the heading China’s Territorial Claims in South Asia. It didn't say that it was relevant to India's actions. The text you have taken from it is not part of the "five fingers" discussion. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The Amit Ranjan source is not about "five fingers" policy. It only mentioned it in passing, under the heading China’s Territorial Claims in South Asia. It didn't say that it was relevant to India's actions. The text you have taken from it is not part of the "five fingers" discussion. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Passage from Doklam
I copied this content from Doklam in this edit, It has been long standing content there.

The first sentence was already part of the footnote [c] here, which I pulled up to the body. The second sentence is sourced to Benedictus, which was already cited here. The third sentence is new, but is verified by the source. Why was this content reverted?

I can understand the issue with the first sentence that it is self-sourced. But why were the others removed? And the Benedictus source as well? -- Kautilya3 (talk) 03:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * They do not mention the Five Fingers of Tibet. On the other hand (no pun intended), my sources in the section above did, yet you removed them. Vacosea (talk) 05:12, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * But they mention Zhang Guohua's statement, which most reasonable people believe to be in line with the Five Fingers policy. If you disagree with that, you need to raise that issue and obtain WP:CONSENSUS over that issue. You can't start removing citations given for Zhang Guohua, while his statement itself is part of the content of this page. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:19, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Where in the sources is China Daily mentioned? My final version with respect to Zhang's statement still had three citations. Maybe there is some technical glitch on your end. Vacosea (talk) 09:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Not China Daily, but China Today. I had apparently deleted the source that mentioned it. I added it back. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:34, 23 March 2024 (UTC)