Talk:China

Edit request

Change: "feast Large mountain ranges in the west(...)" in Geography section to: "Large mountain ranges in the west(...)"

Reason: I don't know what "feast" is doing in that sentence ~2026-45407-61 (talk) 15:15, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing that error. I've removed that word. That word was added in this edit by @Generalissima, probably by accident.

Temporary Account: Use this page to make a proper edit request next time. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 15:27, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

I am not doing all of that Wikipedia bureaucracy just to request an edit ~2026-45407-61 (talk) 15:58, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

It's to properly notify appropriate Wikipedia editors and to generate correct edit request templates. If you have too much ego to lose so you're not doing that, it's perfectly okay. I was just suggesting. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 16:00, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Alright, thank you for your suggestion. ~2026-45407-61 (talk) 16:14, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 September 2026

Please change "China's forest coverage" with link (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_China?action=edit&redlink=1) in Geography -> Environment to plain text. Link does not exist. Selanyat (talk) 17:54, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

 Done Dannyjamescarter (talk) 18:58, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I do not see a single sentence in this article mentioning that the Republic of China was one of the 'Big Four' during World War II, which is arguably the most significant aspect of China's history during this period. While the article notes that China was a founding member of the United Nations, being a founding member is not equivalent to being one of the Big Four—there were 51 founding members, but surely not all of them were part of the Big Four.

Furthermore, the narrative here is rather odd: it mentions the United Nations without clarifying that the Republic of China was one of the original permanent members of the UN Security Council upon its creation. My addition of the 'Big Four' concept serves as a balanced narrative connecting China's wartime situation with its position as a UNSC permanent member. The Republic of China became a permanent member precisely because of its role as one of the Big Four during WWII. If the article does not intend to address its status as a permanent member, it should at least mention the 'Big Four,' as this is a key milestone connecting WWII to the post-war order and the direct reason for the ROC becoming a permanent member.Similar content is also described in the US article—it's not exclusive to the China article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by YuelinLee1959 (talk • contribs) 20:45, 25 October 2026 (UTC)

Disputed edits

What exactly is confusing here? The Bronze Age the article referred to points to Erlitou, but that is by no means the earliest Bronze Age culture in China. Cultures such as Majiayao, Lower Xiajiadian, and even Sanxingdui all predated Erlitou. Even the 'History of China' article does not mark Erlitou as the start of the Bronze Age. We shouldn't use inaccurate content simply because the Bronze Age is being mentioned — Preceding unsigned comment added by YuelinLee1959 (talk • contribs) 19:50, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

@YuelinLee1959 I'm not sure what you believe to be inaccurate here, but I would like to point to some policies and guidelines:

Firstly, this is a featured article, which means that per WP:FAOWN: Editors are asked to take particular care when editing a featured article; it is considerate to discuss significant changes of text or images on the talk page first.

Secondly, this article contains slightly over 9000 words of prose, which is already above the recommended length for an article, and according to WP:SIZERULE, probably should be divided or trimmed. According to WP:SUMMARY, articles over 8000 words have a burden of proof that extra text is needed to efficiently cover their topics and that the extra reading time is justified.

Although you are no doubt contributing in good faith, it is not entirely apparent that your additions to the article have conformed to these higher expectations. Re-reverting when your edits are challenged without discussion on the talk page first is also not going persuade anyone to your position. I hope this clears things up a bit. Kisseran (talk) 20:33, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

"As I stated above, the specific inaccuracy is that the article treats the Erlitou as the starting of Bronze Age, which is simply incorrect. Cultures such as Majiayao culture, Lower Xiajiadian, and even Sanxingdui all predate Erlitou, and all three are recognized Bronze Age cultures. Therefore, marking Erlitou as the beginning of the Bronze Age is a clear ferror. If you check History of China, you will see that the Bronze Age isn't marked as starting with Erlitou there either. Since this is a GA article, it shouldn't have an obvious errors, and we need to correct it.Does this make my position clear? YuelinLee1959 (talk) 20:41, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Erlitou is not marked as the beginning of the Bronze Age in the present article. It is merely the first one mentioned. Not having written the article, I don't know if this was a deliberate omission (but perhaps @Generalissima could tell us that). However, there most certainly isn't an "explicit error" here. I'm open to the possibility that this omission is unjustified and that the earlier, unmentioned Bronze Age cultures ought to be mentioned, but so far I am not yet convinced. Kisseran (talk) 20:52, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I wrote the article on Erlitou so I feel I have at least a bit of background knowledge this. There were some cultures that used bronze prior to Erlitou, but the "Chinese Bronze Age" as a period generally said to begin with it. Note Roderick Campbell's 2014 description of it in Archaeology of the Chinese Bronze Age (relevant section inside the free Google Books preview) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:02, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

As I stated in my edit summary, we should clarify the starting time of Bronze Age to distingusih it from the Neolithic. The sentence “Bronze Age culture emerged in the Central Plain, dubbed the Erlitou culture ” itself is actually wrong.

Erlitou's significance lies in its potential link to the Xia dynasty. When it comes to the origin of bronze age, erlitou is no significance  If the article need to clarify the start of bronze age, erlitou doesn't need to be mentioned. From what I know, there are six cultures predated Erlitou and many other bronze age culture exits. If we want to introduce the Bronze Age, why not use Erligang or Sanxingdui instead?

Wikipedia should be grounded in cited sources and facts, not the opinions of some editors

Take Majiayao as an example: Archaeological bronze tools dated to 2900BC which was long before Erlitou existed. This was also discussed by Charles Higham in his Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations. It is factually incorrect to frame a Bronze Age culture that clearly later than six other Bronze Age cultures as the start of the Bronze Age. YuelinLee1959 (talk) 21:08, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Have you used AI in writing this comment? Kisseran (talk) 21:15, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

As far as I know, prior to Erlitou, there were already six cultures that made extensive use of bronze artifacts. YuelinLee1959 (talk) 21:16, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

All of my content is based on actual literature, and the relevant information can be found from several Wikipedia articles. YuelinLee1959 (talk) 21:20, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

All of your contributions? Kisseran (talk) 21:27, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

If you don't know what the Majiayao is, I can write their Chinese name. 马家窑文化 齐家文化 三星堆文化 夏家店文化 马昌文化 All these five cultures predated Erlitou YuelinLee1959 (talk) 21:32, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I know what these are, which is why I didn't ask. I asked if you said that all of your contributions were made without AI. Kisseran (talk) 21:35, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I didn't use AI to look up any information; I found all the Bronze Age cultures and reference/sources myself. What do you want to know by asking this question? YuelinLee1959 (talk) 21:38, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

This has all become very silly. Clarifying that erlitou was not the start of the bronze age is an unambiguous improvement and edit-warring it out based on the grounds of FA status is the worst example of a WP:NOT BUREAUCRACY failure I have seen all week. Simonm223 (talk) 21:43, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that the edit was an unambiguous improvement. Kisseran (talk) 22:08, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I wanted to know if you used AI to write any of your comments or your contributions to articles, because those are not allowed on Wikipedia. You can answer yes, or no, or decline to answer.

In any case, whether these cultures predated Erlitou is not in doubt. What is under question is whether they should be mentioned on this article. To put it another way, what information is included on Wikipedia is up to reliable sources, but where that information goes on Wikipedia is up to Wikipedia editors. Kisseran (talk) 22:20, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

If you dislike my wording, I have changed it. Now can we focuse on the main topic of discussion. YuelinLee1959 (talk) 22:37, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

By the way, if you are referring to my edits on "China" article itself, I did not use AI at all.

To clarify my edition:

Just read the article History of China

It has this sentence: "Written symbols, sometimes called proto-writing, were found at the site of Jiahu, which is dated around 7000 BC"

I just shortened this sentence to

"Written symbols, referred to as proto-writing, appeared around 7000 BC".

Then in History of China，we have sentence "Bronze artifacts have been found at the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BC).[14][15] The Bronze Age is also represented at the"

I rephrased and shortened this to

The Bronze Age was represented by early cultures around 3100 BC.

Are you satisfied with my explanation now?

Most of my edition simply copied and rephrased from other wikipedia article not Ai YuelinLee1959 (talk) 22:49, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

Returning to the discussion: At first, we are editing the History section. The most important thing for history article is begining and ending. If the history section doesn't cover the begin and end, what should it cover? It is typically important to this section for the start of the bronze age and the end of the Neolithic. In another word, to distinguish these two. Then bronze age emerged in is incorrect in itself. GA article should not contain such errors in the first place. YuelinLee1959 (talk) 23:00, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I noticed your post on the noticeboard. I have already proved that I never used AI in both two editions you mentioned ; I just copied from other Wikipedia articles but did not use AI. Can we now focus on the discussion instead of constantly trying to get the other side sanctioned by wiki rule violation? YuelinLee1959 (talk) 23:32, 29 October 2026 (UTC)

I am not trying to get you sanctioned, and I apologize if I made you feel that way. I made the effort to get the conversation going on the talk page so that sanctions could be avoided, because a couple more rounds of silent back-and-forth reverts is what is really going to get people sanctioned. Kisseran (talk) 00:07, 30 October 2026 (UTC)

At first,the discussion here was initiated by me. Although you indeed remind me to discuss first. However, as soon as you remind me， I immediately stopped editing and turned to the talk page to start the discussion. I believe I have been doing my best to reduce the potential contradiction.

Then, there is one thing I think I need to say tanks to you. I wasn't ware that using AI is prohibited on Wikipedia If you din't tell me, I probably never know it. There are many rules I don't know yet. What kind of sanctions does a editor face if he used AI? YuelinLee1959 (talk) 00:18, 30 October 2026 (UTC)

Editors that are sanctioned for using AI have usually ignored multiple warnings to stop using AI, or repeatedly lie about AI-use when confronted with strong evidence. An editor who is acting in good faith and stops using AI upon being warned is very unlikely to receive any sanctions. Kisseran (talk) 01:32, 30 October 2026 (UTC)

Potential AI issues aside, I agree that other cultures aside from Erlitou and Erligang are worth mentioning. However, the current description of Erlitou flows well into the following sentences, due to its unique position of being associated with the Xia; an additional challenge is that the other Bronze Age civilizations often fall somewhere between "prehistory" and "ancient China" (which in Chinese historiography is generally limited to the Xia–Shang–Zhou area), so if a short sentence were to be added, it's not clear in which section it fits best. The exact text added by YuelinLee1959 isn't ideal; we shouldn't be citing the BBC in a high-level summary article like this one, the two sentences could be combined into one shorter sentence, and we shouldn't have the two easter egg links. Toadspike [Talk] 11:00, 30 October 2026 (UTC)

I would be open to improved text covering the same topic. Simonm223 (talk) 11:03, 30 October 2026 (UTC)

We can change some referencess. However, the wording of my edition is appropriate. Both of my sentences are quite short. In fact, these two combined even shorter than some single sentence. Moreover, as I explained earlier, I shortened the text from the History of China article. Change the wording from 'Written symbols, sometimes called proto-writing, were found at the site of Jiahu, which is dated around 7000 BC . Bronze artifacts have been found at the Majiayao culture site (between 3100 and 2700 BC).[14][15] The Bronze Age is also represented at the' into 'Written symbols, referred to as proto-writing, appeared around 7000 BC The Bronze Age was represented by early cultures around 3100 BC'. This is already quite simplified. If these two sentences must be combined into one, I can only think of adding an "and." with deleting some words.

For example, "Written symbols appeared around 7000 BC and the Bronze Age was represented by early cultures around 3100 BC" Can you accept this kind of modification? YuelinLee1959 (talk) 20:12, 30 October 2026 (UTC)