Talk:Amethyst incident

Page name

Although it was clearly necessary to separate the Incident from the page about HMS Amethyst herself, I can't help but think that this is not the most appropriate name for this page. Google shows that "Amethyst Incident" plus the name of the river (with both -tse and -tze spellings) returns 3,420 hits, but "Yangtze Incident" plus the name of the ship returns 12,400. The latter results aren't affected by the differently-spelled film title, since "Yantse Incident" plus the ships name has 13,700. Either way, it's fairly obvious that "Amethyst Incident" is not the most-used term for this event. Nick Cooper (talk) 13:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Viewpoint Bias

The page did not - at all - mentioned the fact that the day HMS Amethyst sailed to Nanking, April 20th 1949, was the day that the peace negotiation between Communists and Nationalists broke apart, and the eve of PLA's operation of crossing Yangtze River to eventually drive the Nationalists away from Mainland China. In the eyes of Communists and PLA, a warship of imperialists sailed in between PLA and Nationalists' territory on this sensitive moment is as intolerable as what Britain would feel towards a Nazi warship crossing English Channel on Day D-1. Whether PLA fired the first round or not was but an excuse comparing to such sensitiveness. Yogomove (talk) 05:57, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It is not mentioned because in itself it would be biased and misleading. Amethyst sailed from Shanghai on 19 April precisely because it was the stated intention of the Communist forces to cross the Yangtze on 21 April if the Nationalist forces did not agree to the ultimatum that was due to expire on 20 April, i.e. it was not the case that, "peace negotiation between Communists and Nationalists broke apart" on that day. Had Amethyst not been attacked, she would have been in Nanking before the ultimatum expired.

Britain was neutral, and the ship clearly marked as belonging to a non-belligerent power, so the comparison with how a German warship would have been treated by a country they were actually at war with is invalid. Nick Cooper (talk) 14:23, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The simple fact is that the ship was merely sent as relief for an RN ship that was already there, HMS Consort, which had already been damaged by shelling. In what was a warzone it would have been foolhardy to sail in with an un-armoured unit. The PLA knew that the nationalists had no warships and the Amethyst was flying the Union Jack (I believe it was actually flying numerous Union Jack flags) so as to ensure there was no mistake. The Amethyst was only an anti submarine sloop with anti aircraft ordinance and was small compared to the Consort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.193.37 (talk) 15:38, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Attempt at neutrality tag resolution

I was initially just searching for lighthouse information on the "Saddle Islands" (possibly Ma'andoa Island or Huaniaoshandao known as the Island of Flowers and Birds), that in a 1920 book was listed as part of the Zhoushan (Chusan) Archipelago, that appeared to be part of the Shengsi Islands. I had found the lighthouse was referred as the Flower Bird Lighthouse, situated at latitude of 30.85 degrees north and 122.67 degrees east, on Flower Bird Island. I have not ventured any farther being side-tracked.

I read the article, saw the tag, and exhausted four hours searching for source or references to address the neutrality tag. I went into this with no assumptions either way, and I used 2 separate browsers and up to 21 tabs in searching. This does not take into account the many links followed in the various tabs.

I found that the article should likely be titled (suggested above) as the Yangtse Incident. I mention this because, aside from available references, it becomes apparent that the the events of the HMS Amethyst are part of an overall "incident" that involved more than just the Amethyst, including the Consort, the Black Swan, the London, a missionary hospital in Kiangyin, and the PLA among others.

I looked into the comments of @Yogomove: "April 20th 1949, was the day that the peace negotiation between Communists and Nationalists broke apart", along with "In the eyes of Communists and PLA, a warship of imperialists sailed in between PLA and Nationalists' territory on this sensitive moment is as intolerable as what Britain would feel towards a Nazi warship crossing English Channel on Day D-1", as well as the replies. Lacking any source it would be original research to insert content as suggest by Yogomove (and I searched) before even getting to "biased and misleading". I feel the added comments made by Yogomove that was an attempt to equate the incident with "what Britain would feel towards a Nazi warship crossing English Channel on Day D-1", was a horrible synopsis, and gives the appearance of defending the actions of the PLA. If there is a source for this then it would not be considered biased but as presented does give such an appearance.

There is article coverage of the "negotiations", that centered around the PLA demanding the British government conceding the Amethyst fired first, which would be a good reason for PLA retaliatory hostilities, and the British unwilling to agree to this. The ship returning fire was later supported by Commander Ye Fei admitting his troops fired first. Trying to go further into the reasoning's of the ships being where they were, in light of the fact that the given deadline had not been reached, does revolve around who fired first.

I removed the word "Communist", that was preceded by "dash for freedom", that to me appeared to be a weasel word.

Conclusion

What I found was content giving neutrality and balance, especially content in the "Description" section and the last three sentences in the "Negotiations" section, need referencing. The article appears written from a NPOV, "which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.", so I feel the tag is not appropriate, and should be exchanged for a tag for lack of references. Otr500 (talk) 16:05, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Well, you're wrong. There is no neutrality or balance at all in this article. With all due sympathy for the difficulty of sourcing, it remains as laughably pro-British as if it had been written by the Foreign Office. The tag should remain until such point as the Chinese side is (a) told at all and (b) told with as much warmth as the other side... which means either including personal vignettes from the Chinese garrisons and the innocent civilians killed as a result of the Amethyst’s actions or—in the alternative—removing all the self-congratulatory phrasing like "dash for freedom", "the famous signal", "fortunately", "at great personal risk", &c.

A good place to start, although still told from a biased British perspective, would be the section on the Amethyst’s anchor in the Zhenjiang section of Winchester's The River at the Center of the World. It would be a disservice to our readers to remove the king's congratulations to the crew but it's also a disservice to have no note that the other side celebrated the chasing out of the Imperial Make-Trouble Vessel, let alone existing Communist messages that Britain's extraterritorial rights in the river were over or whether or not it had the desired effect of ending such cruises into the heart of Chinese territory by British vessels. (Pretty sure, yes, but it needs to be noted one way or the other.) — LlywelynII 16:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

You are free to add material from reliably-sourced English language sources, notwithstanding the fact that we cannot apply post-facto justifications of the actions or attitudes of Communist forces to a point in time when they were not in total control of the country (or even the area in question at the start of the Incident). Nick Cooper (talk) 13:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

No state of war existed between Britain and the Nationalist Chinese, nor did one exist between Britain and the Communist Chinese, therefore the attack on the Amethyst, which was peacefully "going about its lawful business", was both illegal and unlawful, as well as being unprovoked. This makes it technically and legally a war crime committed by the Communist Chinese.

If the Communist Chinese leadership had objected to the presence of the British warships they should have communicated this displeasure to the nearest British Diplomatic Mission, so that something could have been done to prevent any such event as occurred with the Amethyst, instead of opening fire in an unprovoked attack that made them look like a bunch of ignorant peasants with no knowledge of ether rules of engagement or of international law.

BTW, Unlike the US, Britain had never been a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalists other than in supplying them with small arms for their fight against the Japanese, and so the only reason the British had any dealings with his regime were because his was the de facto government of China and therefore the British were obliged to deal with him in their relations with China. At the time of the Amethyst incident Britain had a socialist Labour Government under Clement Atlee that politically had more in common with Chairman Mao than it did with Chiang Kai-shek. So the entire Amethyst incident was rather a case of the Chinese Communists "shooting themselves in the foot". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.223 (talk) 11:45, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

That's funny, because to me, the article seems very pro-Chinese. Maybe things have changed in the past few years, but there's nothing describing China's actions as an unprovoked attack or war crime (which it was) nothing about the British escape in the infobox, and overall reads like it was written by the Chinese Government. Alooulla (talk) 18:52, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

HMS Amethyst

Hi, There are maps, lists of casualties and other resources you are welcome to use at http://www.naval-history.net/WXLG-Amethyst1949.htm.

All best, Gordon Smith — Preceding unsigned comment added by GordonSmith1941 (talk • contribs) 20:55, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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10 2017

The reference source must be verified and inspected checked. By the way, I found the redirect page after a simple check.--O1lI0 (talk) 19:46, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

You're going to have to do a bit better in identify what you think needs addressing. Nick Cooper (talk) 21:07, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

File nominated for deletion on commons

file:c:File:Chinese Civil War 1949-04-20 Amethyst Incident Yangtze Incident.png Reason:All of the user's many other uploads have been deleted for copyright reasons. I can't pin this map to an external source, but I doubt it's their own work. subpage:link 

Message automatically deposited by a robot on 09:19, 2 January 2018 (UTC). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Harideepan (talk • contribs)

References for casualties

Can someone help sort out the sources for the casualties for each ship involved in the incident?

Before you continue to restore the form, I think you should know something.

First of all, the form is not the focus of the article, please do not make the form too complicated.

Second, please confirm that the problem is solved and then remove the template.

Finally, please try to correct the paragraph deleted by IP, and the reference should be added by yourself.

PS: As long as the content not mentioned in the article is written in the form, I will delete the form first, and if the form has a reference, I will move to the discussion page until someone writes the content into the article.Because you are related to an IP group, I will observe you for a while.--Witotiwo (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Location of incident

Note 2 says: Weston gave the wrong latitude in this report; in fact the ship was at 32° 20′N, not 31° 10′N. This could be an error made by the wounded Weston, it could be a transcription error by the signalman, or it could be an error in reading the logs after the event.

The actual location when the ship was first hit was (32.3056, 119.7196) and it then turned south and grounded at about (32.2980, 119.7237). Source: https://www.naval-history.net/WXLG-Amethyst1949.htm

188.78.121.124 (talk) 10:24, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Marco Polo Bridge Incident which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 00:46, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Pro-Chinese Bias of the article

This is more of a question than a statement; but I can't find anything about it being an unprovoked attack on the British (which it was) or a war crime (which it also was), and the infobox is very pro-Chinese; it doesn't mention anything about the British escape, instead using the term 'expelled'.

This cannot be right surely. I appreciate nobody wants a biased view, but it seems to me that this is very biased indeed. Alooulla (talk) 18:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Given that the "right of passage" claimed by the British was the result of the Treaty of Tientsin, part of the Opium Wars, some of the most immoral wars in history, calling the attack "unprovoked" and "a war crime" is something that would need strong sources, not just strong opinion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)