Talk:List of wars involving the People's Republic of China

Why isn't Soviet-Afghan War included here?

China supported the Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War.

This page needs a name change, or serious editing

Nobody would seriously consider several of these conflicts to be "wars". Hell, the 2022 China-India border skirmishes were arguably a series of brawls — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.60.93.97 (talk) 19:22, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@193.60.93.97 if you're still around after eight months, you are (1) correct, and I've attempted to re-start this talk topic below. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:52, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

"Wars" in article name, but many non-wars listed

There is an overarching conceptual problem with this article. It presents itself in the lead as a list of "wars," but then proceeds to list many incidents that are clearly not wars. An IP pointed out earlier this year, for example, "[T]he 2022 China-India border skirmishes were arguably a series of brawls." I focus on the claim that there is an "ongoing" war on Xinjiang and also that it is somehow a "partial" PRC victory. It is evident that many of the conclusions on this article are WP:SYNTH as there is extremely little sourcing.

Are there any views on how to address this? In my view, it is either necessary to change the title to "conflicts" to match the broad construction of the article body or start deleting non-wars to match the narrow construction of the heading. JArthur1984 (talk) 12:51, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I have taken an initial trim of the most obvious "non-wars." A question continues about how to address the remaining various border or territorial conflicts/military clashes. Especially where the Wikipedia article they link to does not describe the conflict as a "war" and no source for "war" is given here. My current view would be to delete these as well. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:09, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

This does seem to be in keeping with most "List of wars involving" pages out there which seem to list a lot of conflicts and wars. I have readded a couple removed as they were more than brief territorial gains and left off a couple that might be questionable. I was unsure about First Taiwan Strait Crisis & Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, but left them off for good measure.--DarkAzure (talk) 01:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I think good to leave off. But a nice thing about the article structure here is that in the See Also heading, there’s a bullet list for “Other conflicts involving the People's Republic of China.” Which is where non-war conflicts of note could be listed specifically. JArthur1984 (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

• According to your logic, we should not have Bombing of Libya, Bay of Pigs Invasion and much more on List of wars involving the United States. The names of the conflicts on this article (as of the present version) includes only those ones where more than hundred casualties happened. You should not create your own criteria unless you have broader consensus for all these "List of wars involving..." articles. Ratnahastin (talk) 15:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  You can now see that this is not my "own criteria" but a consensus that emerged on talk, in this thread and a prior thread (and at least one other editor in edit summaries but not reflected on talk). Of course, you should feel free to re-start this conversation but remember that the Wikipedia:ONUS is on you. You are suggesting the inclusion of non-wars on a page which is cabined in terms of "wars". You are not citing any Wikipedia:Reliable sources. You should show that the balance of RS describe those conflicts as "wars" to avoid WP:Undue.

  Wikipedia:OTHERSTUFF is not a meaningful argument as each page must be addressed on its own merits. I quite agree that in your example, Bay of Pigs should be removed from the US side. Your example of the Libya bombing actually shows why your analogy fails -- our bombing of Libya page immediately describes it as part of a "war". That is a much more understandable inclusion.

  Finally, it might be worth re-naming the page the military conflicts involving the PRC. That is probably a longer discussion of course. But non-wars are outside the scope of the article as it currently exists. JArthur1984 (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  Comment

  re: Page rename:

  I oppose changing the name, however a new outline article similar to Outline of Pakistan military history could be created and would be a great navigation page.

  re: List criteria

  @Ratnahastin:, the article criteria is clear: "This is a list of wars involving the People's Republic of China", please read WP:LISTCRITERIA. Problems in other articles such as List of wars involving the United States do not justify introducing problems into this article.

  .  // Timothy :: talk  17:50, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

  Great point on article re-name. I took a brief look around and my re-name suggestion is a bad one. There are extant appropriate pages like Military history of China and List of Chinese wars and battles where the non-war material can be added. JArthur1984 (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

There are only 2 ways to deal with this content dispute. 1) seek broader consensus for all "List of wars involving..." pages, 2) just rename this article to List of military conflicts involving the People's Republic of China or something else. Ratnahastin (talk) 02:46, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

This is a normal top level article common on Wikipedia and does not need to be altered or renamed.

You could work on Outline of the military history of the People's Republic of China or Outline of the Chinese Civil War as I suggested above and have given a start to; Outlines are standard Wikipedia topical navigation articles (Indexes are alphabetical navigation articles, timelines are chronological).

If you wish to work to change the consensus on the list criteria for several hundred articles, go for it.  // Timothy :: talk  09:53, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Can you at least restore Nathu La and Cho La clashes and Sino-Soviet Border Conflict? Both had higher casualties than Battle of Chamdo which is listed on this page. Though I have no issue if you restore 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes as well. Ratnahastin (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue is what the consensus of reliable sources show.

• Nathu La and Cho La clashes: the sources I have found overwhelmingly refer to this as boarder "skirmishs", "clashes", "dispute", not a war. If you can develop consensus with reliable sources that this is considered to be a war, then it will be added.
• Same can be said of Sino-Soviet border conflict, this was more geopolitically serious, the sources I can find agree with the article that these clashes brought the two parties to the "brink of war", some after the fact sources seem to have a consensus that a war was averted. Again if you can develop consensus with reliable sources that this is considered to be a war, then it will be added.

There are some issues I am thinking about that need to be discussed, re: the PRCs relationship with Taiwan and India.

• I think in some sense events related to India (taken as a whole) represent a sort of undeclared quasi-war with outbreaks of fighting. I think this could be described as a major conflict, the sum being greater than the individual parts.
• Event surrounding Taiwan since the "end" of the civil war can be seen as a continuation of the Chinese Civil War.

I have some sources written down, and have been thinking about how these could possibly be incorporated, but not enough yet to start a discussion.  // Timothy :: talk  22:55, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@TimothyBlue: Others are of the view that a "nuclear war" was averted in the "1969 war" (Sino-Soviet border conflict) between the USSR and China. A number of sources call it a "war".[1][2][3][4]

Nathu La and Cho La clashes is described as a "war" by a number of reliable sources.[5][6][7][8]

This is absolutely enough for inclusion of these both conflicts into this list. Ratnahastin (talk) 08:56, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Reply: Those sources are enough for me to remove my objection. I also had a few sources from JSTOR, but hadn't returned yet to post them. Sources are always the key, I know this can be frustrating, but ultimately the end result will be an improved.

There currently is a redirect from Sino-Indian War of 1967 and Second Sino-Indian War to Nathu La and Cho La clashes, do you think the redirect should be reversed? My personal preference would be Sino-Indian War of 1967 or Sino-Indian War (1967) and moving Sino–Indian War to Sino–Indian War of 1962 or Sino-Indian War (1962) which would better meet WP:PRECISE well and remove the ambiguity. I do not feel strongly about the name (other than removing some of the ambiguity per WP:PRECISE), so I will agree to whatever you proposal.

Sino-Soviet border conflict may be better at Sino-Soviet border war (1969)

These changes would require consensus (you and I would have a consensus if no one objects).  // Timothy :: talk  10:40, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Although some sources have been brought forward, in my experience these would be minority views (my impression being much more confident in the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict). Has anyone run a Google n-gram comparing “war” versus “clashes” or “conflict”? JArthur1984 (talk) 12:18, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

TimothyBlue I am not talking about the page move at all, and I won't recommend it. I am only discussing why this edit should be partially reverted because these two names, Nathu La and Cho La clashes and Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, have been treated as war by enough reliable sources that their inclusion to this page is fully justified. Ratnahastin (talk) 13:49, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Sino-Vietnamese War

Why is it labeled a defeat? The status is labeled as a status quo antebellum in the actual article. This result seems flawed or biased in some way. This is compounded by the fact that American withdrawals from the Vietnam war are labeled as, "Withdrawal" rather than "Defeat". I would like whoever wrote this article be consistent when labelling outcomes of war. Searchingforthecore (talk) 13:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree and made this fix consistent with the target article JArthur1984 (talk) 14:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)