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Define "China" in lead section

My rewritten text included the following sentence, which was removed by User:Beardfrun:

While China most typically refers to the People's Republic of China in contemporary usage, the name can also refer to Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, or other areas in East Asia currently or historically considered Chinese.

Since that sentence was removed, there are no links to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau on the page (nor to East Asia or Mainland China, but those are less central to the notion of "Chinese people"). Notwithstanding Beardfrun's edit summary, "Most of these are explained in the three sections below," there is no explanation of the somewhat controversial relationships among these places on the page. It's my personal opinion that nuanced explanations are not really necessary on this page, but there should be links to pages where the details are explained. Cnilep (talk) 00:01, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

It refers, doesn't it?

Recently User:Bhny edited the lead section with the somewhat elliptical edit summary "WP:REFERS". According to the essay "Writing better articles", leads should avoid the wording "Foo refers to..." in favor of "Foo is...". However, according to the same section of the same page, "Disambiguation pages mention the term, so in such cases it is correct to write "The term Great Schism refers to" etc.

This page is a WP:DABCONCEPT, which might be thought of as an article with disambiguation page-like function. One of the canonical examples of a broad concept article, Football, begins, "Football refers to a number of sports" etc. However, another canonical example, Particle begins, "In the physical sciences, a particle is a small localized object" etc.

So, is this page about the label Chinese people and the various things that refers to, or is it about the concept of Chinese people? Cnilep (talk) 04:07, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to dabconcept. I still think my edit was correct as the whole lead is just one sentence with one meaning. If there were a few distinct meanings, "refers to" would make sense, otherwise it is redundant. Most of the examples on dabconcept don't say "refers to". The lead to this article actually needs expanding and if this results in multiple meanings, "refers" might be appropriate. Bhny (talk) 15:48, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Qing Opening to the Ocean

Another editor added The Qing Opening to the Ocean: Chinese Maritime Policies, 1684–1757 to the References section. Since it was not cited as a reference for material in the article, I moved it to Further reading.

I'm not sure whether the book is relevant to the topic of Chinese people. I've not read the book, but a review in the International Journal of Maritime History calls it a useful history of "the Chinese state's attitudes toward maritime trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth century". This does not sound specifically relevant the topic of Chinese people. Cnilep (talk) 03:53, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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"Greater China" again

I undid these edits "per cited source". Whether to refer to "China", "Greater China", or a specific set of nation-states has been a point of contention on this page, as is common in articles touching on history and politics. In the past another editor placed a "citation needed" tag on the claim that Chinese people refers to Greater China. Harry Harding's article, "The concept of 'greater China'", specifically addresses that claim. Harding suggests that the term Greater China emerged in the 1980s, primarily to refer to "rapidly increasing interaction among Chinese societies around the world". He notes that the reference of the term varies, with some people using it to refer to "commercial ties among ethnic Chinese", others to "overseas Chinese", and still others to a set of places: Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and China, sometimes also including Singapore.

The definition of Chinese people might be said to encompass people from "any regions or countries historically associated with 'China'", but the currently cited source makes no such claim. Cnilep (talk) 05:15, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Infobox

The Infobox listing numbers of Chinese people in various countries seems inappropriate for this page. The point this page makes is that the phrase Chinese people can refer to various things (nationality, ethnicity, ancestry, etc.). Therefore a list of thirty-odd countries with citations to twenty-six different sources almost certainly mixes different meanings. @Lysimachi: added the box, and @Lemongirl942: once removed it then later modified its contents. I'd like to hear their opinions and work out a consensus with other editors before making any more changes. Cnilep (talk) 02:14, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Cnilep:: I don't have very strong preference as to whether those numbers must be put here, but as far as I know all those references mention "Chinese" (in English or other languages), so this is definitely the page where they fit the best. Note that similar numbers can be found in pages such as Vietnamese people, Taiwanese people and Japanese people. I don't see why those numbers cannot be listed here. Lysimachi (talk) 13:52, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
By the way, the reference for Taiwan doesn't say there are "22,287,000" "Chinese" in Taiwan. I doubt its verifiability. Lysimachi (talk) 13:56, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

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Recent page move, redirect, etc.

Patience is appreciated for this somewhat complicated history:

On 30 November 2016 User:Prisencolin changed this article, replacing all content with a redirect to Han Chinese. The edit summary read, "WP:POVFORK of several better written articles, 'Chinese people' is probably WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT into Han Chinese, links won't really be broken due to overlapping meaning". That same day I reversed the change, leaving the edit summary, "Undid revision 752245025 by Prisencolin (talk) de facto article deletion".
I also left a comment at User talk:Prisencolin#Chinese people. In addition to noting my 'undo', I expressed my opinion that the term "Chinese people" refers not only to Han Chinese but also to other ethnic groups and nationalities. I then added Category:Broad-concept articles to the article to reflect the fact that the article treats many related meanings of its title. See Misplaced Pages:Broad-concept article.
My comment at the User talk page received no reply between 30 November and today (4 January). There was also no discussion on the article talk page, or anywhere else as far as I know.
On 3 January Prisencolin moved 'Chinese people' first to 'Chinese people (including minorities)' and then to Chinese people (in general) several hours later. The edit summary of the first move stated, "WP:BOLD, this is sort of a pov fork, WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT into han"; the second noted "sounds pov". Chinese people is currently a redirect to Han Chinese, as it was briefly on 30 November.

It is my opinion that the disambiguator "(in general)" suggests, contra Prisencolin's edit summaries, that this page treats the primary, albeit vague meaning. As I have suggested, Han is a synonym of one common meaning of Chinese people, but the phrase has other equally common meanings, including "citizens of China", "Chinese ethnic groups", and "overseas Chinese" among others.

It would be helpful to hear from users such as User:Beardfrun, User:Lysimachi, User:Lemongirl942, or others who have opinions about the content of this article. Cnilep (talk) 02:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Han Chinese is the subset of Chinese people that are most likely to be associated with the term, thus can be considered a form of WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT. Yes the distinctions between ethnicity, ancestry, and nationality are hazy, but the plain fact is that the Han make up a supermajority of "citizens of China", "Chinese ethnic groups", and "overseas Chinese" and other contexts about "Chinese" and "people". The second paragraph of the WP:BCA says: "However, if the primary meaning of a term proposed for disambiguation is a broad concept or type of thing that is capable of being described in an article, and a substantial portion of the links asserted to be ambiguous are instances or examples of that concept or type, then the page located at that title should be an article describing it, and not a disambiguation page. Where the primary topic of a term is a general topic that can be divided into subtopics, ..., the unqualified title should contain an article about the general topic rather than a disambiguation page." Idea that Chinese primarily means Han is controversial, but as far as the numbers game goes it's not meant to be chauvinist, neo-colonialist or anything else negative. Additionally, considering the current quality of this article, it's probably better to point our readers towards a more complete article that is mostly overlapping with with one. It's either that or perhaps the Han article itself should just be re-titled "Chinese people".--Prisencolin (talk) 03:57, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
I personally think this kind of a move requires an RFC. Technically speaking Han Chinese is a subset of Chinese people. And the term Chinese people is an ambiguous term applying to both ethnicity (in this case referring to Han Chinese) and nationality (in this case referring to citizens of PRC). I have asked to revert the move as it needs a discussion. Personally, I think an encyclopaedia should help readers understand the differences and nuances in the terms. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 01:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

One thing that bothers me and seems rather inaccurate is that the Chinese page linked to this article refers to Chinese nationals (中國人 Zhōngguórén) specifically whereas the more general term for Chinese people regardless of specific ethnicity or nationality (華人 Huárén) is linked to a rather awkward disambiguation page titled Ethnic Chinese. For clarification, while "Han people" is technically an ethnic subset of the Chinese people as you guys pointed out, the Chinese term Huárén more broadly covers Han and all the other ethnic groups traditionally considered Chinese regardless of nationality. However, these terms get mixed up between many Chinese people I know, both in Chinese and English. Many believe Huá people is 100% interchangeable with Hàn people due again, to the predominance of the Hàn in making up the Chinese people. Many Mainland Chinese make no distinction between Chinese nationals (中國人 Zhōngguórén) and people of the Chinese civilization (華人 Huárén), something that Hong Kong people, Taiwanese people, Chinese Americans, Chinese Canadians, and other overseas Chinese put a lot of effort distinguishing. Contrary to this article, usage of the term Huárén is not limited to Southeast Asia and is prevalent in all Chinese communities outside of Mainland China.

My point is that first, I don't think it makes sense for there to be a disambiguation page titled Ethnic Chinese. An ethnic Chinese is technically a Han Chinese. Rather, this page, covering the broad term "Chinese" that in English can refer to ethnic identity (漢人 Hànrén) , cultural identity (華人 Huárén), or nationality (中國人 Zhōngguórén) could be the disambiguation instead. "Ethnic Chinese (disambiguation)" could be merged with this page with the Chinese interwiki link at 華人 Huárén, and this page becomes simply a disambiguation page. A different page could be set up for Chinese nationality (中國人 Zhōngguórén).

If not, and if you guys believe that the primary topic of "Chinese people" is some vague meaning encompassing all ethnic groups conventionally grouped under the Chinese civilization and cultural identity, then this page should remain a full-fledged article, albeit linked with the Chinese page on 華人 Huárén since this is the technical and common term in the Chinese language for this broad meaning. I am of the opinion that in English, when we say "Chinese" we mean Chinese in a very broad and generalized sense, not referring particularly to either ethnicity or nationality, but rather either or. This is why I believe that the primary topic for Chinese people is 華人 Huárén not "Chinese nationals" (中國人 Zhōngguórén) as the Chinese interwiki link suggests. Sol Pacificus (talk) 02:54, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

DNA section

Is this new subsection on DNA/Prima Nocta really appropriate here? This isn't my area. The content seems weirdly sourced. Jessicapierce (talk) 06:12, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

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