Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/President of China

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Mifter (talk) 00:47, 10 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

President of China[edit]

President of China (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This is unnecessary disambiguation. I know of no place where the President of the ROC is referred to as the "President of China"; China, after much back and forth many years ago, is now a settled primary topic. The title, President of China should point to the topic that reflects the President of China, which is the President of the People's Republic of China, the clear primary topic of this term. Reference to the ROC, unlikely as it is, can be handled in a hatnote. bd2412 T 00:02, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep I think this disambig is helpful, both for those unfamiliar with the topic, as well as providing NPOV on the PRC/ROC issue as well. South Nashua (talk)
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Disambiguations-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Taiwan-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect. The relevant policy is WP:TWODABS. Where there are only two articles having a disambiguation page just wastes editors time. Better to redirect them to the most likely target, which is President of the People's Republic of China, much as China and People's Republic of China refer to the same article. The minority who get there looking for President of the Republic of China are best served by a hatnote, which already exists at President of the People's Republic of China.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 17:41, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
JohnBlackburne, WP:TWODABS applies only if there is a primary topic, which is what's being decided here. If consensus is that there is no primary topic, then any dab page with just two entries is fine. — Gorthian (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And there is a clear primary topic. Search in Google for "President of China" and the first thing listed is Xi Jinping – not a search result but what Google says is the president of China. Second and third are two of our articles President of the People's Republic of China and Xi Jinping. The first news result is an article in the economist, "Is China's president the new Deng Xiaoping?". And so on. If you say "The president of China" or "China’s President" overwhelmingly people will think of Xi Jinping.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 18:20, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect This disambiguation should be deleted and redirected to President of the People's Republic of China which is clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Per WP:TWODABS "If there are only two topics to which a given title might refer, and one is the primary topic, then a disambiguation page is not needed—it is sufficient to use a hatnote on the primary topic article, pointing to the other article. (This means that readers looking for the second topic are spared the extra navigational step of going through the disambiguation page.)" AusLondonder (talk) 17:50, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Where's the proof that "President of the People's Republic of China" is primary for "President of China"? Most people typing "president of China" probably want to read about Xi Jinping. Yes, he's president of PRC but it's a different article. But even ignoring that...

I did a Gbook search of "President of China" and tabulated the first 40 results as follows:

Header text President of PRC President of ROC Partial match Unknown
Page 1 5 1 3 1
Page 2 1 1 6 2
Page 3 3 3 4 0
Page 4 3 4 3 0
Total 30% 22.5%

No evidence of a primary topic. Notice ROC has a longer history and List of Presidents of the Republic of China is a much longer article than List of Presidents of the People's Republic of China. Timmyshin (talk) 18:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But that is historic. Obviously so WRT List of Presidents of the Republic of China which includes presidents of two countries, Taiwan and the pre-1949 ROC. But more generally the PRC was not recognised as China until the 1970s; before then, and certainly before 1949 "president of China" did not mean the president of the PRC. We do not though base the primary topic on historic usage, but on modern usage. And modern usage is that the President of China is Xi Jinping, the President of the People's Republic of China.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Long-term significance" is a major consideration for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. That's why it's not going to redirect to Xi Jinping either, just like POTUS isn't a redirect for Donald Trump. "Long-term", by definition, is historic. If what a person watches or reads today is only the news, then we should only concern ourselves with 2017, but that's not the case. As shown, ROC is represented very well in GBooks, and it's not surprising, as before 1983 there were no "President of PRC" (Mao was a "chairman" not "president"). In short,
  • "President of China" = "President of ROC" (100%) from 1912 to 1983 (70+ years)
  • "President of China" = "President of PRC" (90+%) + "President of ROC" from 1983 to 2017 (30+ years)
So in my opinion it's not a good idea not to disambiguate, because a person not familiar with Chinese history may likely encounter something like this and get very confused not finding Chiang Kai-shek's name on President of the People's Republic of China. Timmyshin (talk) 01:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
By the same "historical" reasoning, we could make President of the United States a disambiguation page pointing to one article on the presidents from Washington through Trump, and a second article on Presidents of the Confederate States of America. A person not familiar with American history might be confused not to find Jefferson Davis on the list of U.S. presidents. bd2412 T 04:15, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Then again a person not familiar with American history might not know who Jefferson Davis is! </humor> — Yash talk stalk 16:55, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Good discussion. This is a politically sensitive issue. In my opinion, it's best to have the clearest information possible. If this page helps to make the issue a little clearer to Westerners, then it's good. Jeff Quinn (talk) 05:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The explanation by Timmyshin above is convincing. Long term significance is a major consideration for a primary topic (which is why Palestine is a broad concept article with Palestine (region) and State of Palestine existing separately). In this case, there doesn't seem to be a primary topic and the disambigguation is helpful.
The situation of PRC vs ROC is also unique because both governments claim to be the legitimate government of entire China. There are still about 20 or so countries in the world which continue to recognise the ROC government as the government of China. As there are Two Chinas the disambiguation is helpful. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 11:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep No primary topic, and it would be misleading to redirect to either of the two potential targets. Exemplo347 (talk) 13:20, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - "President of China" is NOT the primary topic for "President of the People's Republic of China" as demonstrated by Timmyshin and for a neutral reader (such as me at least), having a disambiguation is more helpful and clarifying. Redirecting to either of the target would be rather counterproductive and misleading for a neutral observer, as noted by Lemongirl942. — Yash talk stalk 16:40, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - as per above.CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 18:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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