I think the fundamental problem is that several parties to this controversy
essentially want an article written from a sympathetic point of view. I
suggest that they should have that freedom on Wikipedia with critical views
in a seperate article perhaps entitled, China: A crititical view.
I stirred up this hornet's nest by inserting a link to [[authoritarianism
and totalitarianism|authoritarian]] into the first paragraph of the article.
I think this is a fair characterization of the regime (regardless of what
ever other adjective might describe it). The problem are not limited to this
particular question but extend to deletion of mention of the democracy
movement and of Tiananmen protests.
Fred
From: Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)bomis.com>
Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 04:51:11 -0700
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
Regarding the policy issue, I wonder if our "standard techniques" for
dealing with a controversy are perfectly adequate to deal with the
issue. Ironically, the effort to clarify the issue for the mailing
list may point the way to resolving the question on the page.
How about this:
China has been traditionally considered a
communist state, although
the Chinese Constitution states that China is a socialist state.
Western scholars are moving away from the label "communist" and
calling China "socialist", "[[late socialist]]", or "[[post
socialist]]".
I'm not saying that this is a really *good* formulation; I'm sure it
could be refined quite easily. But it eliminates a controversy by
stating the controversy. All parties can agree to it.
--Jimbo
p.s. Regarding the content issue, it is my understanding that China
is nowadays a confused and somewhat internally contradictory place.
Shanghai in particular is often cited as being relatively capitalist,
even! I don't really know anything about that other than what I read
in the newspapers and magazines, though.
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