Talk:Sino-Soviet relations

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Sino-Russian relations since 1991 which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:00, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 30 June 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Participants are too split between which articles to be consistent with to decide on that ground. But Sino-Soviet seems to be favoured on common name grounds. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:12, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Sino–Soviet relations → China–Soviet Union relations – The last of such bilateral relations articles that uses the demonyms rather than the names of the countries. Sino and Soviet are not the names of the countries. It's China and Soviet Union. Had it changed at RM, but was changed over there back to Sino-Soviet since it needs a discussion. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:08, 30 June 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. >>> Extorc . talk  08:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose, but should be Sino-Soviet with a hyphen. No need to enforce consistency designed for existing states on historical ones, else we might have to move Sino-Roman relations. Srnec (talk) 01:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The same MOS exists for countries' relations that no longer exist such as Soviet Union–Yugoslavia relations, Czechoslovakia–East Germany relations. Changing Sino-Roman wouldn't apply because that covers a wide range of historical relations of a historical period. This covers Rome's relations with many different Chinese states. Not just one. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 01:43, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support (STRONGLY) per WP:CONSISTENT. Currently, this page is literally one of the ONLY Bilateral Relations page that doesn't follow the established pattern of the other Bilateral Relations page titles. (And secondly, it's not the relations between "those who are Chinese" and "those who are Soviet", it's about the relations between the countries of China and the Soviet Union themselves.) (And thirdly, if this page ISN'T being moved to the proposed title, it would open up a messy can of worms of page moves trying to put things in this bizarre format, which gets even messier for the countries without widely-known demonyms.) Paintspot Infez (talk) 02:22, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:CONSISTENT. Super   Ψ   Dro  08:58, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose (strongly). The term "Sino-Soviet" is very commonly used in discussing relations between these two countries, to merit an exception to the general rule, e.g. Sino-Soviet split, Sino-Soviet relations from 1969–1991, Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, etc. The proposed phrase would actually be awkward and anomalous in the literature.  Put in "China-Soviet Union" in Gbooks, and you'll get a lot of titles insisting on "Sino-Soviet" ("Sino-Soviet Relations", "Sino-Soviet Rivalry", "Sino-Soviet Split", "Sino-Soviet Alliance", "Sino-Soviet Dispute", "Sino-Soviet Competition", "Sino-Soviet Dialogue", "Sino-Soviet Friendship", etc.), and practically no titles using the phrase "China-Soviet".  Walrasiad (talk) 06:00, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose (strongly). The term "Sino-Soviet" is very commonly used by experts. Rjensen (talk) 09:04, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Relister's note : Consensus balanced about whether Sino-Soviet should be prefered because of common use among experts and consistency over other China/Soviet Union relation pages or whether China-Soviet Union should be prefered because of consistency over other countries bilateral relations. >>> Extorc . talk  08:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment Notified the IR project. Could use their input for this discussion. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 19 October 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Again. While the common names of the two countries in question are of course China and the Soviet Union respectively, the issue here is what is the common name of the title of this article's subject, which is not necessarily a simple mashup of the two country names and "relations" slapped onto the end. The argument that the current title is actually more common for this topic is not refuted. Some feel there is consistent naming convention applicable here with which the proposed title is consistent, but there is no consensus about the existence of such a convention, much less that the consistency should outweigh the common name. While the population in general may be more apt to recognize the proposed title, the scope of RECOGNIZABILITY is the subset of the population "that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize". So, with due respect, that argument must be discounted accordingly. The consensus here is clearly to stay put. I must say it is disappointing to see a repeat proposal so soon, especially with nothing new to present. В²C ☎ 06:12, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Sino-Soviet relations → China–Soviet Union relations – The names of the countries are China and Soviet Union. Not Sino or Soviet. Demonyms should not be used to title the article about the relationship between the governments that conduct the affairs of foreign relations. Any search results that use the current title in regard to articles on the web or scholarly sources don't factor in the name of the article because we use common names of countries. The common name of both countries is China and Soviet Union, respectively. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:09, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Support. This change would make this title WP:CONSISTENT with China–Russia relations and virtually all other articles of Category:Bilateral relations of China and Category:Bilateral relations of the Soviet Union, such as Soviet Union–United States relations. Pilaz (talk) 21:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment: The nominator proposed exactly the same move just a few months ago, and the result was "not moved". Has anything changed since then? This is a historical topic, so it's unlikely that common usage has changed so quickly. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 08:30, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose and speedy close. We just did this. Srnec (talk) 20:16, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Move The nomination is sound. I don't think anybody refers to this article has having to do with Sino and Soviet culture which is what those terms tend to be for. --70.23.37.163 (talk) 13:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose Sino-Soviet is clearly the standard and usual term used to describe relations between China and the Soviet Union. To advocate otherwise is like complaining that an irregular verb is irregular. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 16:48, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Then all bilateral relations articles titles should be changed based on this logic. Then it would mean Soviet Union–United States relations should be changed to Soviet-American relations because Soviet and American is the way to describe the relations. My explanation in the nomination reflects the standard for bilateral relations articles. There seems to be some sort of contingency that belives some disaster is going to take place if it changes to the right name. Similar to the Greece-Turkey relations article move discussion. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:29, 24 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Support  The top WP:CRITERIA are recognizability and naturalness, and readers are much more likely to recognize or search for China than Sino-, and also gives consistency with many other article titles that use China. —Michael Z. 18:42, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Support Support moving the article to the proposed title. I don't get how anyone can say this is the proper title as others pointed out over the naming for relations articles. If the name of the categories has China and Soviet Union, then the name of the article should also reflect the categorization of such articles. --72.229.44.69 (talk) 01:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per arguments in previous RM (i.e. that the sources use this) and one-year moratorium on future RMs. The approach of the nominator appears to be to wear out supporters by repeated voting.  SnowFire (talk) 01:22, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * oppose I agree there is no consistency. There are quite a few articles with "sino" in the title like History of Sino-Russian relations, Sino-Indian War. We need a wider discussion/RfC to address this. —usernamekiran (talk) 09:50, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There is consistency for bilateral relations articles. Take a look at all the other bilateral relations articles. And the Sino in other article titles has no bearing on this discussion. There was a discussion about this back from January to February on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (country-specific topics). Don't see why an Rfc would be needed when the IR project has pretty much settled on the naming of such articles. There hasn't been a backlash to the naming of other articles like this. If Sino was appropriate then the article should be Sino-United States relations and not Chian-United States relations. There won't be enough who would support that considering the massive wormhole it would open up. Not to mention the constant change it would require for navboxes and categories created for bilateral relations articles. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)


 * As I said in the last RM, there is no need to force consistency across time. If you want absolute consistency for current bilateral relations, have at it. But it is a bad precedent to demand it for historical relations, even in cases like this one where it is at least possible. There is no way "China–Roman Empire relations" is better than Sino-Roman relations. —Srnec (talk) 22:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So if the historical relations is the major concern, does that mean all bilateral articles for East Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Soviet Union should be changed to something like this? And relations that are "former" still have this form of article titles. For instance, Taiwan-related bilateral articles. Such as Solomon Islands–Taiwan relations. It's going to be very hard for an Rfc to convince the IR project that former relations should be changed to something else. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 23:06, 28 October 2022 (UTC)