Talk:Republic of China (1912–1949)

potential merger with Taiwan
Looking at the Chinese language wikipedia, the consensus seems that the "republic of china" article is the same article that describes "Taiwan" as far as nation goes. There may be a separate article about the island of Taiwan, but there is no article like in the English language wikipedia article about the Republic of China (1912–1949) where it specifically indicates "1911 to 1945" on the article, which makes the assumption that the Republic of China, as a country, does not exist anymore. However this is not the case, and Taiwan is still officially the Republic of China. I believe it may be necessary to merge the two articles Taiwan and Republic of China (1912–1949) as Taiwan province is not the only jurisdiction the ROC government has, which includes Kinmen and Matsu of Fujian province and several other islands in provinces such as Hainan. As independence of Taiwan province itself is a politically contentious topic in Taiwan itself, I think it's in bad faith to separate the articles about the Republic of China and Taiwan, as the Republic of China is Taiwan. In the Chinese language wikipedia, the Republic of China is recognized as a country, and it shows both the officially claimed land, and officially administered land (Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, penghu, etc). I think this is a far more objective way to portray these articles and more appropriate for wikipedia. This is true in both the Mandarin language Wikipedia and the cantonese language wikipedia. For the pre 1949 era of the ROC, this is the article known as 中華民國大陸時期, which talks about the history of the Republic of China during the era.

I think this makes a strong case for merging the articles Taiwan and Republic of China (1912–1949) as the Republic of China still exists and has jurisdiction over more than just Taiwan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:101:f000:740::146 (talk) 15:40, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi IP, this article does not suggest the Republic of China ended in 1949, it simply covers a particular period of history, much as you note is done on other language Wikipedias. CMD (talk) 16:50, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Should we rename the "Taiwan" article to "Republic of China (1949-present)"? Jkp1187 (talk) 20:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * that would confuse a lot of people into thinking the article is talking about the Peoples Republic of China 2603:6011:EB02:132E:BCAC:5D73:CF6F:AC04 (talk) 00:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * We should speak things with their real names. Jacques Renaître (talk) 12:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree! It’s weird to separate a country’s history into two wikis… ThomasFrancis12 (talk) 06:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

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Significance of the name quote
The quote from Sun Yat-Sen has several errors, I believe. Such as the US "While the United States, with its fourteen states" quote (unless that was intended to refer to the US in historic times from before it was said) and "All kinds of the rest the industries".

Were these originally in the source the quote came from? GoutComplex (talk) 17:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Extended edit summary (10/20/23)
Some detailed justifications for my edits: SilverStar54 (talk) 02:52, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Giving placenames in Wade-Giles misleadingly implies there has been a name change when there hasn't been (only the preferred romanization has changed). Most historical sources on this period published since the 1980s do not mention the Wade-Giles names at all, or only do so when required. It's only appropriate to give a period name when the Chinese name of the place has changed, or where an alternate name is based on a non-Mandarin Chinese language (e.g. Canton).
 * Postal romanization of the country's name should be included at the start of this article, but not used elsewhere
 * Beijing was never called "Beiping" while it was the capital, so no need to say Beijing/Beijing was the capital
 * Notes about the administrative history of provinces after 1949, excepting general clarifications about what modern provinces a place is part of, have been deleted. The fact that the PRC rescinded the Sino-Soviet treaty of friendship in 1953 is irrelevant to this article, as is the fact that the rump provincial government of Fujian was eventually abolished by the modern ROC.
 * The section on the modern ROC changing its official name will be moved to the relevant article. The name of the ROC (1912-1949) is relevant to the modern ROC, but the opposite isn't true.

The article is confusing the lead sentence seem to imply ROC has ceased to exist
The current first line of lead is that: "The Republic of China (ROC) or simply China was a sovereign state based in mainland China from 1912 to 1949 prior to its move to Taiwan." This could be read to imply that the ROC ceased to exist after its move to Taiwan.

I understand the intent after reading through the edit histories. It seems the use of "was" is because the ROC currently being a sovereign state is contentious due to both ROC and PRC claiming to be the legitimate government of China. Hence, I propose the fix:

"The Republic of China (ROC) or simply China was a sovereign state based in mainland China from 1912 to 1949 prior to its move to Taiwan which it currently controls."

I suspect there will be some contention around saying ROC controls Taiwan, but I believe it's quite fair to say ROC governs Taiwan. ROC may claim to be the legitimate government of mainland China, but as of right now, it is clearly currently administered by the PRC. Similarly, the PRC may claim to be the legitimate government of Taiwan but as of right now, it is clearly administered by Taiwan.

I welcome alternate ways to fix this. I just believe that the current lead sentence fails to clearly communicate the current existence of the ROC. Mathchem.21 (talk) 05:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)


 * In my mind it's not really even an issue of rightful sovereignty or who governs Taiwan (seems to be the ROC to me)—it's pretty clear there's an intact legal continuity between the ROC in 1930 and in 1960. The issue is that: how do you talk about a prior stage of an existing sovereign state in a way that makes it clear that while there was continuity, the state is very different now? It's not quite the same, but I think immediately of Papal states, which also speaks in the past tense, despite there being a legal throughline between it and the present Vatican. Remsense  聊  15:10, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * True. Good analogy. Alexysun (talk) 19:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)