Talk:President of China (disambiguation)

Comments
I removed the introductory phrase since to accurately explain the situation concerning the Republic of China's claims of sovereignty would take several paragraphs and is explained elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs) 06:35, 18 September 2003 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:President of the People's Republic of China which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 10:30, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Point to actual acticle names
A disambiguation page should point to the actual titles of the linked articles. Normally an entry starts with the linked article and a comma is inserted after the entry when a description is included. See Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages. --Bejnar (talk) 16:36, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Redirect or disambiguation
I noticed that the above mentioned discussion to move President of the People's Republic of China → President of China failed for lack of concensus. Also in looking at the recent edits to this page I see that there is not unanimity here either. It would seem to be appropriate to discuss the issue with regard to the appropriate redirect or disambiguation for this title, rather than just reverting each other. I note that editor JohnBlackburne in his edits of 3 January 2018, 20 April 2018 and 27 April 2018 seems okay with the disambiuation page as appropriate, but by May had changed his mind and felt that only a redirect to President of the People's Republic of China would do. Since for me the primary appelation "President of China" referred to Sun Yat Sen, although he was only "provisional", but he definitely was not President of the People's Republic of China, there does seem to be room for discussion. --Bejnar (talk) 17:03, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Note also the March 2017 discussion at Articles for deletion/President of China where the descision was "keep". --Bejnar (talk) 17:15, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I do not believe I have ever been involved in this discussion at a content level. I see that I reverted changes to the dab page in April; it turned out that those changes were being made by a sock puppet that was blocked less than a week later. As my close of the move discussion at Talk:President of the People's Republic of China stated, there was no consensus to move the page here at that time. President of China has been a disambiguation page continuously since 2003, so considering that JohnBlackburne's move request was not successful, it could be considered somewhat tendentious to continue redirecting the page without further discussion when another editor has reinstated the disambiguation page. JohnBlackburne's point that the phrase is not used at President of the Republic of China is well taken, but at the same time, as Bejnar notes, historical presidents discussed at that page were referred to as such. Reinstating the disambiguation page also allows the number of hatnotes at President of the People's Republic of China to be reduced. On balance, it seems like it would make sense to restore the status quo, and then proceed with further discussion as necessary. Dekimasu よ! 17:27, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * This came to my attention during the rename discussion. If e.g. you search for "President of China" it returns Xi Jinping. Not that‘s the first article, but Google puts him and his portrait before all of the search results, as the only possible individual you could be searching for. The first two linked search results are then to articles here: President of the People's Republic of China and Xi Jinping in that order.
 * Do a news search and the same happens. You get lots and lots of references to Xi and his activities, changing over time with the news cycle but always it identifies Xi Jinping as the President of China (and hardly ever calls him the President of the People's Republic of China, no matter the seriousness of the publication).


 * Conversely Tsai Ing-wen is never known as the "President of China" Sometimes she might be called the "President of the Republic of China", but mostly it’s "President of Taiwan", or just "President Tsai".


 * So it makes sense to redirect to President of the People's Republic of China as the only possible target. Linking it also to the President of the Republic of China is just misleading, and implies that Tsai Ing-wen has a status she neither has nor claims. She is not the President of China, she does not call herself that, no-one does except perhaps as a joke.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 17:30, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Google is useful, but we tend to work with aggregate Google results rather than relying upon its algorithms for ordering results. Here, its decision appears to be based upon WP:Recentism. Google Books and vanilla Google return a large number of results discussing Sun Yat-sen as the "President of China". This has been brought up several times now, but you have not yet addressed it. Dekimasu よ! 18:04, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Sun Yat-sen was known as the President of China over 100 years ago. I am not sure what search would return a large numbers of results with him as president of China, the book search I just tried I needed to go to a second page to find just one such result, making it just 1 in 100 results. But any such usage is very historic. If I searched e.g. for "Google" in 20+ year old sources I would find just references to the number. But now our article Google is about the company. Just as when people say "google" now they mean the company or its search engine, when people say "president of China" they mean Xi Jinping.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 20:14, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Sun Yat-sen was was the President of China over 100 years ago, and is still known as the President of China, albeit not the current one, if indeed there is a current one. I agree with JohnBlackburne that we want to help the reader. But even if the primary goal of a reader searching for "President of China" today is Xi Jinping, that does not necessarily mean that "President of China" should point to Xi Jinping. I would think that more readers would want the historical actual presidents of China, and not presidents of the PRC. Recentism can easily lead one astray. --Bejnar (talk) 20:45, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 *  actual presidents of China, and not presidents of the PRC . I do not understand what you mean by this. China and the People’s Republic of China are the same thing, the common and formal name for the same country. So Xi Jinping, the president of China, is the president of the PRC. as was Hu Jintao, and Jiang Zemin before him. And today, if someone refers to the president of China without qualification they are almost certainly referring to the current holder of that title, Xi Jinping. So much so that Google assumes it’s the only thing you want, and returns an info panel on Xi before any search results (which also are all on Xi). And I think Google is correct here – if the average reader searches for "president of China" they are looking for the current office holder.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 21:50, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * You might be referring to Googol. That aside, article titles do not only reflect the current state of politics. One of the purposes of the encyclopedia is to describe historical topics. Queen of England does not redirect to Elizabeth II on the grounds that she is currently queen of the area in question; former queens are also listed. A Google search for "President of Korea" shows Moon Jae-in with a portrait at the top of the first search page, but we have a disambiguation page at President of Korea. Chancellor of Germany "is about the office of chancellor in Germany throughout its history" and we have a different article at Chancellor of Germany (1949–present) on the current office. ...Book searches that yield results on Sun Yat-sen as President of China include the 23300 results for "Sun Yat-sen"+"President of China", 4300 results for "President Sun Yat-sen", 700 for "Sun Yat-sen, President of China", etc. The point is not that everyone must be referring to Sun Yat-sen; it is simply that the term is, in fact, ambiguous. Dekimasu よ! 20:43, 21 June 2018 (UTC)::
 * The Korea example is illustrative. There is no country today Korea, instead there are two countries South Korea and North Korea. "President of Korea" is ambiguous and a dab page makes sense. But there is only one country China, and referring to the President of China is not ambiguous at all. As for Germany I thought of it too and looked at President of Germany which is on the modern head of state like President of the People's Republic of China and has a hatnote linking to President of Germany (1919–1945).
 * How about this: have a dab page but at President of China (disambiguation). That can link to President of the People's Republic of China as the primary topic, but also to Sun Yat-sen and Paramount leader. The first hatnote at the top of President of the People's Republic of China can be simplified then to just Redirect. This best serves the majority of readers who are looking for Xi Jinping, and puts a dab page in the most obvious place to help those who are looking for more historic presidents.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 21:27, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Hello everyone, as the closing admin of the AFD from about a year ago I was pinged for this discussion. I personally have no opinion either way on this matter but would highlight the prior AFD as somewhere you may wish to review to view the consensus from the time as well as the various arguments raised.  Best, Mifter (talk) 00:13, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * China still claim Taiwan as part of their sovereignty. The Republic of China (Taiwan) is from the mainland China and it still claims sovereignty of mainland China in their Constitution. Most of the nations recognize the People's Republic of China represents China, while only few nations recognize Taiwan as a nation because it has never proclaim independent from China. The constitution in Taiwan is ratified in mainland China.Paul Lincoln (talk) 12:31, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello all, President China was Sun Yat-sen and after the tumultuous civil war was continued by Mao Zedong and his successors as the legitimate Chinese nation. Don't make up your own vague versions, claims or coming up with any kind of confusion, ambiguity or silliness. Be logical, rational, straightforward. Thanks 1.9.216.90 (talk) 09:47, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

This seemed to peter out, but it still did not address my main concern, that the President of the Republic of China, Tsai Ing-wen, is not the president of China, not called that, and we should not be encouraging such confusion by linking to that page. No-one seems to be arguing she or her post should be included, so I have removed that.

I added Xi Jinping as the current president, and the most likely person readers are looking for if they e.g. are looking for the president of China but don’t know his name. I also added Sun Yat-sen as China’s first president and probably the most famous Chinese leader before Mao. I don’t think adding any more makes sense; not only were they not all known as president – Mao was instead Chairman Mao – but adding everyone who was president turns this into a list not a dab page; readers can visit the article President of the People's Republic of China for the full list and their exact roles.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 03:40, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This outcome looks reasonable to me. I would suggest readding President of the Republic of China in a "see also" section. Dekimasu よ! 18:30, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don’t see the need for it. Disambiguation pages are meant to be to help readers find the right article, in this case if they type "President of China". It seems very unlikely they are looking for the President of Taiwan. It does contain earlier presidents but so does List of Presidents of China, which is better as a list focussed just on China and more clearly related by the title.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 08:26, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It's clear that some editors feel otherwise, so it would solve the remaining aspects of the dispute quite simply. I'm reverting the IP edit and adding the see also for now, and we can see what happens. Dekimasu よ! 16:54, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Winnie the Pooh looking motherfucker
In the US dictionary president of China is Winnie the Pooh o and fuck those little dick fuck head said by me WinniethePooh2020 (talk) 09:49, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:President of the People's Republic of China which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)