Category talk:Former countries in Chinese history

CFD discussion

• Category was listed for deletion on January 23, 2005. Consensus was to keep.

POV and unmanageable. What is a country anyways? There have been warring "states" in the past but there is only one "mandate of heaven" ruling "all under heaven". Are these states only related to China? Part of China? Some of them are tributary... --Jiang 22:57, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oppose While the term is improper, the category itself makes sense. Two-four thousand years the term "country" might be not very well applicable. I am not a china-historian, but there definitely were quite a few different "empires", "domains", whatever you call it. Mikkalai 03:11, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rename...um...something. Category: Historical Chinese nation-states, perhaps? Grutness|^hello? 04:06, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Keep. This is obviously an attempt to make a national subdivision of Category:Former countries. I guess this cat can include any former country related to China or ruled by Chinese. The listing of a former country in the Chinese history does not preclude it from being listed in any other history, right? --Gene s 15:12, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

the term "country" is sometimes innacurrate or POV--Jiang 19:48, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is a subdivision of the Category:Former countries. Please propose to rename that category as well if you strongly think that the word "countries" involves points of view. -- 10:03, January 26, 2005, UTC

Keep--AznEffects HuangDi 1968 23:41, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

Former countries in China history

It proposed that it be merged into this category.--Salix (talk): 00:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Why?

Why are certain countries, like the East Turkestan Republics, etc. considered part of the history of China? Are these countries, even if independent, considered not worthy of having their own history and just being second tier protagonists, who only can have a history in the context of another one? Is the United States also a country in the history of China? Can I add it to the category? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.2.85.85 (talk) 03:09, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Category must be corrected due to current POV pushing/manipulation

It's become clear after I examined this page and looked into why so many countries that shouldnt be on here are on here, that I have come to the conclusion that this page's definition is not only too vague (and should be fixed), but it's not even being applied properly and in many cases the category is being used aggresively to push POVs.

"Definition: same as Category:Former countries. States under this category appeared in Chinese history, and their appearance in human history is largely found in Chinese records (e.g. Nanzhao, Dali). They do not have to be part of, or tributary of imperial China."

First and foremost, the Former countries in Chinese history is one of the few pages in the categories that actually uses this definition. Contrast this with the Former Countries in East Asia category page. The Mongol, Korean, and Japanese pages do not use this territorial definition, and almost all the listed states of the three pages clearly list states that were identified as predecessors of the modern iterations of the Mongol, Korean and Japanese states. The territorial argument would also create an absurd cascading effect, if we applied this page's category logic, then by extension, the Yuan Dynasty could be argued as a "former country in Korean history" by virtue that it did hold a significant portion of northern Korea, or that the Qing Dynasty is a "former country in Russian history" because of the Amur annexation, etc etc. Imperial Japan can now arguably be a "former country in Korean, Chinese, etc history" on basis that it was technically the ruling country for large portions of territory on various respective countries. The records part is also especially unprecedented, the territorial argument at least could have some merit, the records argument is found only on this category and this category alone.

That's not even touching upon another key point, while I believe the initial definition was well-intentioned albeit misleading, this category is clearly being used to push a POV, because certain editors have not even been applying it correctly on the territorial basis, and the records argument can't even be used on basis that there's scores of countries on here from the medieval era up into the early modern era that have records of their respective kingdoms that aren't Chinese at all.

Here are some examples such as Champa, the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, Tay Son, the Mac Dynasty, Later Tran, Le Dynasty, Ho Dynasty, Tran Dynasty, Ly Dynasty, Early Le Dynasty, Dinh Dynasty, Ngo Dynasty, Early Ly Dynasty.

These are thirteen examples that I have personally found of the exact edits that were clearly POV pushing, though I am sure there are more as I cannot reasonably be expected to find every single example. But here are thirteen "former countries in 'Chinese' history" that were added into this category, even though almost all of them have not held territory in what is now modern day China, and all of which were clearly civilizations that had their own record keeping and cannot in any shape or form be argued as a "country in chinese history" when they're clearly not Chinese. It's very clear the implication of these additions into this category, the clear violation of this very definition suggests that this category is being abused to just add former countries that have both historically not been Chinese and presently do not fall under modern Chinese borders, with the likely intention to suggest that these non-Chinese countries are "Chinese."

This is only touching the tip of the mountain on just how many other countries there are that are added on here that clearly never held any territory in modern day China or barely held any land in modern day China. Lan Xang, a Laotian kingdom is on here, Bogd Khanate of Mongolia (a modern Mongol state) is on here, the Ryukyus are on here even though the territory is under Japanese territory even if we disregard the disputed portions of the Ryukyus, Wiman Joseon which was based in modern day Pyongyang is on here even though it held no territory in modern-day China and could only fall under the territorial argument if we followed the Korean Nationalist revisionist school that suggests it was based in China rather than Korea, there's countless other examples like here and here even though most of these countries either did not hold land in modern day China, or held such a small portion of it that the argument can't logically hold.

As stated before, these additions completely violate the spirit of the problematic, vague definition. The vague definition suggests the countries have to either be in 1) the Modern day territories of China 2) Be a former country that was Chinese or 3) Be mainly recorded in Chinese history. The first one is problematic because that creates a massive cascading effect, the second is the most logical one because that's what most countries follow (or a hybrid of 1 and 2) and 3 is unprecedented and really is only applied to this page and should be fixed.

And yet despite all that, many of these former countries added here are clearly not territorally Chinese both past and present (Lan Xang, Champa, Nguyen Dynasty, etc). They are not ethically or culturally Chinese (Ryukyus, Buyeo, Bogd Khanate of Mongolia). Many of these countries appearances are found in their own records or modern Western records rather than that of China's (Especially all the medieval or modern states, such as Lan Xang, Champa, the Bogd Khanate). On this basis, there can really only be two explanations for why these countries are being added to this category based off the POV pushing, either 1) These countries fall under "Chinese territory" in the viewpoint that Laos, Vietnam, etc are/should be in the modern territories of China (because again, clearly some of these countries never ruled even a small part of China), or 2) that while these countries are not territorally a part of China, they are "Chinese."

This category must be redefined to follow the precedent of the ones of Japan, Korea, Mongolia, etc where it follows more of a state-succession or ethnic categorization rather than this maximalist territorial categorization that not only just adds countries that have inisignificant holdings in present day Chinese territory or even just adds countries that are territorially never been Chinese on here.

This category is clearly being manipulated to push a POV that suggests that various Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, etc countries were "Former Countries in Chinese History" and by that virtue, that these are a "Part of China". While I disagree with the territorial argument, I could understand where this argument could come from. But this category page is blatantly being abused and its not even following the territorial argument, unless the implication is that various former countries that existed in Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, parts of Japan fall under the territory of China, or are Chinese. Sunnyediting99 (talk) 03:56, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@Grutness and @Musikanimal apologies in advance for referencing your edits and/or discussions on the talk page more than a decade ago, but I was hoping for your opinions on this since I did see there was a previous discussion on this topic many years ago (as well as reverting the deletion of the definition).

If you have the spare time, do you mind reading my talk page post pointing out the relatively vague definition as well as the violation of that very definition by various edits that suggest a strong, intended POV push, and providing your thoughts? Sunnyediting99 (talk) 04:16, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to give it a few more days, but if there is no opposition I will delete the pre-existing definition. Sunnyediting99 (talk) 16:17, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello, you have raised a very interesting topic and one that I think is worth discussing. For a start, I agree with you that the definition in this category is slightly vague. I thank you for starting this discussion.

However, for the examples that you had listed, I would object if you were to remove them from this category. The reasons being:

• Champa: This state gained independence from the Eastern Han dynasty and remained in close contact with China. I would encourage you to flip through some of the primary sources in Chinese history to get a sense of the interaction and exchange.
• Vietnamese dynasties: These were tributary states of various Chinese dynasties and whose territories had some overlap with modern-day China, especially at the Guangxi region. Some of the rulers (e.g. Tran dynasty) also had Chinese ancestry.
• Bogd Khanate of Mongolia: this state declared its independence from China, but was not recognised by the majority of the international community, with most recognising it as a part of China.
• Ryukyu Kingdom: a tributary state of Ming and Qing dynasties. Again, I encourage you to read through the primary sources to get a sense of the interaction and exchange.
• Wiman Joseon: territory overlapped with modern-day China, and the founder (according to some sources) came from the Yan state.
• Tokhara Yabghus: its rulers were installed as officials of the Yuezhi Protectorate (月氏都督府) of the Tang dynasty. This was basically an autonomous regime within the Tang political orbit.
• Jaxa: it was basically a bi-product of Sino-Russian border conflict, whose territory was incorporated into the Qing dynasty after the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

The only example I agree with you that is somewhat problematic would be Lan Xang.

It is true that many of the states listed in this category were not ethnically or culturally "Chinese". But the analysis of a country's history is not and should not be defined by the scope of ethnic and cultural history. This is especially true for a country such as China, whose territory (historical and present) is large and has diverse ethnicities and cultural regions. If we were to only analyse Chinese history based on what we consider "Chinese" (which I assume from your post that you are exclusively referring to Han Chinese), then no one would be able to have a comprehensive view of Chinese history, especially since so many non-Han regimes had ruled over China in whole or in part.

I note that including a historical country in this category does not preclude it from being included in another country's category. I further note that the aforementioned countries are also included in the respective categories of Vietnam, Mongolian, Japanese, and Korean histories, among others. No one is excluding these historical countries from other categories.

I would not object if you were to include Yuan dynasty under the category of Korean history as well, given it had indeed played a part in shaping the course of Korean history.

We should not be pushing for an exclusive "ownership" of historical countries (which some of your edits were trying to do, based on your editing history) that did not conform to our present-day understanding of nation-states. This is especially so for historical countries that had helped shape the history of multiple modern countries. There is nothing preventing anyone from including these historical countries in the categories of the relevant countries' history, but this should not be the reason to remove them from the category of Chinese history.

To simply label this as "POV pushing/manipulation" assumes bad intention of the various users who contributed to the articles across many years, and shows a disregard and lack of understanding of the depth and dimension of Chinese history.

Morrisonjohn022 (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

According to the wiki page, the Bogd Khanate was ruled by the Republic of China for a short period of two years. Buyeo was situated entirely within modern China's borders and frankly, Koreans are considered an official ethnicity in China, and most of the records recorded about Buyeo were Chinese. This should be more than enough to qualify both as part of Chinese history from a combined territorial, communication record, and ethnic standpoint. I disagree with tagging polities that were solely tributaries without a combination of the above however. Qiushufang (talk) 02:59, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

You should have pinged me for this since I was part of the revert that caused this argument. I disagree with your main argument because it is based on an ethno-nationalist logic. There are multiple examples of past historical polities that are considered part of a modern country and their people's history without sharing the same ethnicity as the dominant ethnicity in that country. Champa, for example, is not ethnically Vietnamese, and is tagged with former country in Vietnamese history. A country is also not bound by ethnicity nor does the category of Chinese only contain Han Chinese, so the point is moot anyways.

I also absolutely agree with the following logic:

the Yuan Dynasty could be argued as a "former country in Korean history" by virtue that it did hold a significant portion of northern Korea, or that the Qing Dynasty is a "former country in Russian history" because of the Amur annexation, etc etc. Imperial Japan can now arguably be a "former country in Korean, Chinese, etc history" on basis that it was technically the ruling country for large portions of territory on various respective countries.

The Yuan dynasty should be considered a former country in Korean history as well as other countries it ruled. The argument that it should not is entirely based on modern nationalistic ideology of succession. Many countries do not have an obvious and ethnically linked predecessor or were ruled by the ethnic majority or even mainly based out of their country for large portions of their history. I don't see why those would not be considered part of their country's history. Otherwise what would Vietnam put for their entire history for the entire first millenium AD if the Han dynasty or various Chinese dynasties were not considered part of Vietnam's history? It's ridiculous. The Han dynasty and the various dynasties of China that ruled Vietnam are part of Vietnamese history and should be tagged as such if people had the interest to do so. The fact that they're not is largely based on the modern nationalist interests of the authors, but it doesn't naturally follow that the lack or existence of tagged categories are correct or incorrect. It just means that somebody wanted to add that tag.

I do agree that this category overstretches to include the monarchic dynasties of Dai Viet though and that tributaries such as Ryukyu that were not ruled by a polity based in China or owning territory in China should not be included. But that's as far as I would go. Qiushufang (talk) 02:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)