Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Republic of China 2

Evidence of Nanking being the capital

Minguo 16 years, the Chinese(R.O.C.) government declares Nanking is the capital.
The constitution in the autarchy period(训政时期约法) says Nanking is the capital. Although the constitution was declared in 1947, The constitution in the autarchy period hasn't been abolished officially. And the description of capital doesn't break the constitution.
In 1949, Minguo 38 years, the centre government was removed to Taipei. The president, Chiang Kai-shek claimed that Taipei is the provisional capital, while Nanking is the capital.
From 1949 to 1996, the National High School History text book says that Nanking is the captital.
At present,you can refer to the Standard Mandarin Dictionary ("重編囯語辭典修訂本". 中華民國教育部. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)). You can look up "臺北市" and "南京市"in it.

Comment: Here is a translation of the above link: "In the 16th Year of the Republic [1927], the National Government established [Nanking] as the capital". It does not however say that it is still the capital today, which I think it would if that was the case. Also is the text of this constitution available somewhere? Laurent (talk) 09:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The 1947 Constitution makes all previous null and void. I believe it says so but would also be true as a matter of fundamental principles, Constitutions are singular documents that get amended, you don't have more than one active at a time. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

That's an incorrect interpretation of the law. The 1947 constitution superceded all previous provisions of the law if they were in conflict with this 1947 constitution. The 1947 constitution, however, did not have a specific provision repealing all previous laws or proclamations. This view is endorsed by the email sent out by the Ministery of the Interior as discussed in the ROC discussion page. This view is also the official POV of the government of the ROC as evidenced by the school textbooks.--pyl (talk) 11:38, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If that's an official position, then surely you should be able to find plenty of sources for it, and not just unverifiable ones. Actually, even if it really is the official view, then it's still a minority view (that the government itself, somehow, never expresses) and so should not be given undue weight - i.e. we can mention it in the article, but it shouldn't be right next to Taipei in the infobox. The view that Taipei is the capital is a widely accepted one, the view that Nanking is the capital is not. Laurent (talk) 11:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sources I cited above were provided.

In relation to your other statements, I disagree with your interpretation of the Wikipedia policy of undue weight, as it says:-

The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail so the reader understands how the minority view differs from the widely-accepted one, and controversies regarding parts of the minority view should clearly be identified and explained.

You are suggesting that a minority view should be dismissed altogether. Furthermore, there is no evidence establishing that the population in question favour a particular POV so the majority/minority split is quite irrelevant here.

This is a political question, and I don't think it is appropriate to favour people's feeling over the law, as the law is authoritative in determining the location of capital. Using Australia as an example, even though the law states the capital is Canberra, most people feel the capital should be Sydney (and some federal departments are indeed located in Sydney). Wikipedia shouldn't, in this case, favour Sydney over Canberra.--pyl (talk) 12:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It shouldn't because there are obviously plenty of very good primary and secondary sources to support that Canberra is the capital. However, I personally couldn't find any such good source stating that Nanking is the capital of the ROC (and, believe me, I searched). Laurent (talk) 14:15, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the sources I pointed out above are reliable sources from the government. They were shown to you, I am not sure why you are still disputing.--pyl (talk) 04:04, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For your benefit, I am providing links to the Ministery of Education website.

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%ABn%A8%CA%A5%AB&pieceLen=50&fld=1&cat=&ukey=-718290478&op=&imgFont=0

http://dict.revised.moe.edu.tw/cgi-bin/newDict/dict.sh?cond=%BBO%A5_%A5%AB&pieceLen=50&fld=1&cat=&ukey=-718290478&serial=2&recNo=0&op=f&imgFont=0

The Chinese states that "Nanking was proclaimed as the capital by the Nationalist government in 1927". In relation to Taipei, the Chinese states that "this city is the biggest city in the Taiwan Area and is the political, economic, transport and cultural centre, and this city is also the location of the Republic of China government"

I think it's pretty fair to conclude, based on the official sources, that Nanking is the capital, whereas Taipei is the location of the central government. This way is also how it is presented in the Chinese version of the "Republic of China" article: Taipei is described as the location of the central government, not the capital directly. There is a separate section called "Capital" in the Chinese version as well detailing the law, the history and the issues. Perhaps we can do something like that in the English version as well in order to result this issue.--pyl (talk) 04:42, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any section discussing the "issues" of the capital would be borderline WP:OR in my opinion. As you say, we can only "conclude" certain things since it's not clearly written anywhere, which means it's original research. Nanking was the capital in 1927, nobody is denying it. However, we also have a government document from 2004 which states that "Taipei is the capital of the ROC". There's no mention of provisional or official, and no mention of Nanking either. So what should we believe? A statement that has been made in 1927, or one that has been made in 2004? Laurent (talk) 19:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you are aware, Taipei was proclaimed as the "provisional capital" of the ROC in 1949. Therefore the ROC information that you cited is not inconsistent with the Ministery of Education information, because a provisional capital is still a capital. But the fact that Nanking was declared the official capital of the ROC in 1927 should mentioned somewhere.

I don't think describing issues without drawing any conclusions is WP:OR. I feel tha you may want to revisit WP:OR and WP:UNDUE which you cited incorrectly previously. We just have to make sure that we "do not put together information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not stated explicitly by any of the sources". For example:-

Taipei is a provisional capital is sourced.
Nanking was declared as the official capital is sourced.
Taipei is the location of the central government is sourced.

So I don't think my "conclusion" is WP:OR.

But:-

"Nanking was the capital in 1927", by using the word "was" meaning, not anymore; or
Since there hasn't been any announcement made since 1927, Taipei must be the sole capital now and Nanking is no longer relevant.

would be, in my view, WP:OR.--pyl (talk) 06:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

During WW2 and the CCW there were more than a dozen capitol changes. Going back to 1927 to find a source about Nanjing is pretty straw-grasping and obviously irrelevant. It would be just as relevant as Chongquing or Xichang. There are no definitive sources that say today that Nanjing is the capitol. The best source we have does not call Taipei provisional.

If the source for calling Nanjing the capitol is proclamation (via the executive), then the source for Taipei is a more recent and more relevant proclamation (by the bureaucracy, under the current executive).

The call to Nanjing as the official capitol is a KMT tradition that today amounts to political opinion. There should be no problem, in text, stating that many KMT still hold the view that Nanjing is the official capitol. It should not be stated as fact. That opinion does not belong in infoboxes, lists, and almanac style presentations of data. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Chongqing or Xichang were also declared as provisinal capital when the ROC government was losing the Civil War to the Communists. These facts are covered in the Historical capitals of China article. The fact tha they were provisional capitals are not disputed. The last "provisional capital" was proclaimed to be Taipei.

I am not sure what standard you are applying to name a particlar source "the best source". It is, however, my view that in relation to the naming of capitals, the government sources are the "best sources". After all, only the government has the power to determine the location of the capital, not newspapers, media or encloypedias.

Taipei was specifically proclaimed as a "provisional capital", not the official capital. That was what the source said. Therefore in this situation, the latter proclaimation does not repeal an earlier proclaimation as these two are not in conflict.

I don't think it is all about politics of KMT and DPP here. The official sources do indicate that Nanking was proclaimed as the capital. DPP was in power during 2000 and 2008 and the cited sources were not changed. Also, what you are sugguesting amounts to WP:OR, as I incited above, there is no source backing up the claims that you are speculating.--pyl (talk) 05:41, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pyl - I don't want to be picky, but if I'm reading this page correctly, the sources that you're citing as support for Nanking still being the official captial of the ROC are a 1949 quote from Chiang Kai-shek (is there a source for this quote?), a reference to a textbook from 1949-1996 (is there a source we can look at?), a dictionary, a couple of links to the MOE website, and the apparent failure of the 1947 constitution to specifically address the location of the capital of the ROC (can the diffs between the two be demonstrated?). Does that sound about right?

I want to offer my thoughts, whatever they're worth, on these.

Chiang quote - Despite Chiang's position as virtual dictator, I doubt his spoken word has the same legal authority as the written constitution of the ROC. I think that it's pretty clear that the exigencies of 1947 virtually required Chiang to continue to lay some claim to Nanking (and indeed, to the rest of China), despite the ROC's position. However, I think it this sort of quote can be (and is) disputed as political or military posturing and rhetoric, rather than official statements of policy or fact. I'd be pretty skeptical about using something like this as a credible source for statements of fact today.
Constitutional differences - I agree with Schmucky on this one. Constitutions have to be singular documents that supercede previous versions. Otherwise, you'd have legions of lawyers that would have to examine every single minute detail of any previous edition to ensure that no unintended consequences or loopholes are left because some small part of a previous constitution wasn't specifically addressed or amended in a more current version. Rather, when a new constitution is drafted, it completely replaces any previous versions. Since the 1947 version doesn't address the issue of the capital of the ROC, we shouldn't draw any sort of inference from it one way or another.
Textbooks - I'd be interested to see these textbooks and their citations of Nanking as the captial. However, I'm not sure that implying that something written in a textbook is an official statement of government policy is a very reasonable assertion. One would think that given the relatively difficult and obscure nature of ROC political history, if the official policy of the government was to claim Nanking as the actual capital of the ROC, it'd be presented somewhere a bit more accessible than an old textbook.
Dictionary - I'm not sure that's really a very good reference either, though it's probably one of the best (relatively speaking) so far.
MOE links - The links say that Nanking was the capital, and that Taipei is the location of the Republic of China government. I don't think that one can draw reliable conclusions from those two statements about current policy regarding the location of the "capital" of the ROC.

My final thought: I think the problem here is that while I understand the POV about Nanking being the official capital, I keep coming back to this point in WP:UNDUE - Keep in mind that in determining proper weight we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors. That's really the crux of the matter for me. Though I haven't been actively involved in this particular discussion (this time), I've been lurking for a while and have been editing ROC-related articles for a while, and I haven't really seen any really solid evidence to support the idea that Nanking remains the official captial of the ROC. As WP:UNDUE states, the POV should be prevalent in reliable sources, and in my opinion, it just isn't. If nothing else, the evidence is ambiguous at best (like much of the ROC's current status), and making a definitive statement on this issue is not possible. Rather, making a definitive statement of fact in this particular case is taking a decidedly non-neutral (and unnecessary) political stance. I'd suggest calling Taipei the capital, with the understanding that "capital" refers merely to the location of the seat of government (in this case, Taipei).

Like always, that's just my two cents. _{Folic_Acid | talk} 08:37, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Laurent, Could you find any declaration about the change of the capital?Huang Sir (talk) 08:30, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent for easier reading)

Constitutional differences It is a basic legal principle that unless provisions of legislation are specifically repealed, they remain in force. This is why all legislation embodies provisions to do so if that's so intended. This principle is really not disputed in the schools of law.

In the situation we have at hand, the current constitution doesn't have such a provision. When I was in Taipei conducting research on this one, I went into the explanatory memorandum to the current constitution and there was an explanation on why this version of the constitution, unlike the previous version, doesn't have a provision on the location of the capital. The explanation was, this would allow more flexibility to name capitals, as administrative proclaimations would suffice. Considering the situation of China at that time, this was probably in the best interest of the government as a civil war was being fought. A proclaimation was made to declare Nanking as the official capital and no subsequent proclaimations have repealed that one, as they only name the locations of "provisional capitals".

Chiang quote While the proclamation making Taipei was the provisional capital was a Chiang quote. I don't believe the proclaimation making Nanking as the official capital was.

MOE links The link didn't say Nanking was the capital, in the sense it no longer is the capital. A Chinese translation was provided, and the Chinese said it was declared as the Capital. If this information is no longer relevant, then it is pretty reasonable to assume the MOE would have modified that. As I said above, the DPP government didn't do so.

Folic_Acid said:-

I haven't really seen any really solid evidence to support the idea that Nanking remains the official captial of the ROC.

I am not sure why the burden of proof lies on the those to establish that Nanking remains the official and not the other way around. To date, there is no solid evidence supporting the idea that Nanking lost the status of the capital either. There is only solid evidence supporting the idea that Taipei is the seat of the government. I think WP:UNDUE in this case can operate the other way around. Also as I argued above WP:OR disallows presumptions being made that:-

Since there hasn't been any announcement made since 1927, Taipei must be the sole capital now and Nanking is no longer relevant.

as no sources are cited to support such assumptions.

Folic_Acid said:-

I'd suggest calling Taipei the capital, with the understanding that "capital" refers merely to the location of the seat of government (in this case, Taipei).

That's a possible solution.

Or I would suggest that we follow the Chinese version of the Republic of China article, in relation to entries in the infobox:-

Capital place a link to a section of the article called "Issues relating to Capital" which describes the sources we have; and
Seat of Government put it as "Taipei".

This would probably be the most neutral way as, to date, the only undisputed assertion is "Taipei is the seat of the ROC government".--pyl (talk) 10:35, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pyl, although your research is interesting, I guess it hasn't been published by a third-party reliable source, so it's still WP:OR. You took some sources and drawn conclusions from them, which is explicitely discouraged by the policy: "Drawing conclusions not evident in the reference is original research regardless of the type of source."

Likewise, what would the "Issue relating to Capital" section based on? Are there any papers or books discussing these issues? It seems to me that nothing has been published on the subject. Laurent (talk) 13:48, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pyl - thanks for the reply. I'd like to respond to one specific point that you raised, to whit:

Also as I argued above WP:OR disallows presumptions being made that:-

Since there hasn't been any announcement made since 1927, Taipei must be the sole capital now and Nanking is no longer relevant.

as no sources are cited to support such assumptions.

I confess I can't read Mandarin, so I accept your word on what the MOE site says about the capital. However, according to the English version of the ROC Government Information Office, Taipei City is listed as the "Capital," with no mention of Nanking. I can't speak to previous versions of this website under a DPP administration, but I'm guessing that if the current KMT administration felt otherwise, it would've changed this page.

I'd submit that the question we're dealing with is ambiguous at best, and the question of "capital" is a politically-charged one to those familiar with the history of the ROC. So, I'd propose that accept the definition of "capital" as "the location of the seat of government," and leave the "capital" as Taipei (or Taipei City, if that's preferable), with the understanding that calling Taipei the "capital of the Republic of China" is not a political statement, but an expedient one for the info box. The nuances and history of Nanking and Taipei as actual and provisional capitals could be explored in the body of the article itself or in subsidiary articles, so that a reader isn't confused by the info box. Does that sound reasonable? _{Folic_Acid | talk} 14:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Constitutions are a source of law. They are amended or replaced, and if replaced, have no authority remaining whatsoever. If you went into an RoC courtroom and tried to argue a point based on a provision of the 1927 Constitution, you'd be laughed out. Also, as a civil law jurisdiction, old sections of statutory law are very boldly and quietly repealed and replaced, such that all current law is published as current law. You should not have to dig through archives.

The Chinese version of Wikipedia is certainly not exemplary in the area of NPOV. It is not a role to be followed at all.

One thing you said above, which is curious, "I am not sure why the burden of proof lies on the those to establish that Nanking remains the official and not the other way around. To date, there is no solid evidence supporting the idea that Nanking lost the status of the capital either." The reason the burden on proving the case for Nanjing is because of negative evidence. Wikipedia is based on sources, not logic and proofs. Looking at this from a logic position, however: our sources say that "Taipai is the capital of the Republic of China" which is positive evidence. To go on to demand for negative evidence, "Nanjing is no longer the capital" and demand it is still true unless negative evidence arises, is a logical fallacy. The burden of proof lies in the person making the positive statement. Your statement is "Nanjing is still the official capital of the Republic of China" so it is up to you to present sources that are current and relevant. Third party dictionaries, defunct constitutions and war propaganda are not sources.

Finally, if your research was correct that not naming a capital in the Constitution allows for flexibility in naming a capital by administrative proclamation, then uh, the administrative proclamation that "Taipei is the capital of the Republic of China" would seem to suffice, neh? If naming the capital is that easy, then Nanjing as the official capital was true in the past, but no longer in the present, because administrations proclaimed that in the past, and proclaim something different now.

Our source says "the capital" and that statement is unqualified with adjectives such as "provisional", "temporary", or "wartime". It would be WP:OR to add qualifiers.

SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Thanks for your replies.

The research I conducted in Taipei was not WP:OR because the book explicitly stated that conclusion. That was indeed the intent of the law-makers when the capital provision was dropped in the current provision. I can provide the source, but it is currently logistically difficult, as I am not in Taipei at the moment and I didn't buy that book while I was there. If it is insisted, I can provide the source when necessary.

Thanks for bringing the concept of negative evidence, should I reword my statement and say "could you find any declaration about the change of the capital"? Surely, the burden of proof lies on those who wishes to make an assertion.

The sources (but not all) have said Taipei is "the capital" of the ROC. Except for one occasion, none of them are reliable sources as they aren't official sources. As I stated above, only the government has the power to proclaim the location of capital, not newspapers, enclopedias or other media.

To this end, I have done further research on this subject:-

[1] The official website of the Taipei City Council. The Chinese in the table says "1949" "Taipei City" "Wartime Capital"

[2] A legal journal article. In relation to Taipei, the text in Chinese says:-

looking back to 38th year of the Republic (1949), in the last meeting of the Executive Yuan before the relocation to Taiwan, the meeting concluded that "the government will be relocating to Taipei....."
On 8 December of the same year, the Premier 閻錫山 conducted an international press conference in Taipei, formally declaring that "the Executive Yuan decided to started work in Taiwan from September".
There was never any clear intent expressing or proclaiming Taipei as the capital of our country in law. All that was done was informing the fact that the government organisations have been relocated by way of a conference.
On 27 June of the 56th Year of the Republic (1967), ex President Chiang Kai-shek in the speech entitled "the three urgent goals after Taipei becoming a Yuan-governed Municipality" held during the Sun Yat-sen Memorial month at the Presidental Office mentioned "we are currently at a state of war, and we are ready for war at any moment. Taipei is the location of the central government, and is therefore the wartime capital".
Also on 27 August of the 62nd year of the Republic (1973), it was written in the speech entitled the "Written congratutory words to the 19th reprsentives meeting of the Asian people against communism union" that "The 19th representative meeting of the Asian people against communism union is currently being held in Taipei, the Wartime capital of the Republic of China".
Since then, Taipei City has been clearly defined as the "wartime Capitl", and in the current official website of the Taipei City Hall, following the precedence states that "...Taipei became the wartime Capital......" emphasising the placement and function of Taipei as a "wartime Capital".
Other then the above text, "[Taipei] was never officially proclaimed in law". (my emphasis added)

The article went on and said:-

"Taipei is indeed the capital of our country, but currently there is no protection and proclaimation of its status in law. The government should look into this as soon as possible, considering the current situation of the country......". (my emphasis added)

Here. A legal research paper giving out the history of Taipei and its "capital status", and contrary to popular beliefs (including myself), Taipei was never proclaimed as "a capital" or "the capital". It was just merely described as a "wartime Capital" by the government.

So where do we go from here, given the Taipei's lack of legal status? Nanking's legal status as the capital of the Republic of China was never superceded by a subsequent act in law, and that's why the official MOE source left the definition of Nanking that way. I think Folic Acid's suggestion is reasonable, and I think there should be a caveat saying words to the extent that Taipei is not considered a capital in law.--pyl (talk) 07:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about these sources from within .gov.tw: [3] [4] [5] ? Montemonte (talk) 21:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above article has shown that "provisional capital" is a myth, as it was never declared to be one. My own specuation based on the historic overview above is that someone misquoted the "wartime capital" description sometime ago and it has since been misquoted since in numerous occasions.

In any event, I don't think anyone would dispute that Taipei has been serving as the de facto capital since the ROC government relocation. I think that description is the most neutral and uncontentious one.--pyl (talk) 09:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the dictionary, Nanking was corrected. "In the 16th Year of the Republic [1927], the National Government established [Nanking] as the capital. At present, Taipei is the location of the central government."Huang Sir (talk) 03:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Demonym

Sections 26, 64, 91, 141, 151 and 167 of the ROC constitution defines the ROC citizens living abroad as "Chinese citizens residing abroad". Therefore, the ROC constitution implies that the citizens of the ROC are Chinese.--pyl (talk) 11:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Taipei Times Only 6.3% of Taiwan's citizens consider themselves just Chinese. 45.4% consider themselves Chinese and Taiwanese. 45.7% consider themselves just Taiwanese. Readin (talk) 15:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Citing the Taipei Times survey implies that you agree the demonym should be "Taiwanese and Chinese" as well, as you have taken self-identity into account? That, to me, is the most neutral position as "Taiwanese" and "Chinese" are both considered to be part of the self-identity of the people in the Taiwan Area of the ROC, one way or the other.--pyl (talk) 09:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a fanatic about this stuff and I can live with compromises. In this case, the technical meaning of "demonym" would imply that we should be looking for the name based on the location. Everyone agrees the location is "Taiwan", but it is POV to say the location is also "China". But again, I'm not a fanatic and there is a spirit of allowing people to self-identify. Based on that we can easily include both "Taiwanese" and "Taiwanese and Chinese" because each gets close to 50% of the population. If we take this approach, I'm not sure we should include "Chinese" by itself and if we do, we should note that it is less common than the other two. Readin (talk) 13:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to "Whether Wikipedia's mediation process is appropriate to determine political questions"

Wikipedia does not need to take a political stand. We provided sources, so someone needs to decide whether these sources are sufficient to prove the various points, and whether these points should be given equal weight per WP:UNDUE, and per the purpose of the article. Nobody is politically neutral, that's why we can only rely on sources and consensus. Since it didn't work for these issues, we need a formal mediation process. Laurent (talk) 11:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I repeat my grounds for dismissing this process.

Also, since you mentioned that "nobody is politically neutral", I assume you also include the mediator? If that's the case, then this process is certainly not apporopriate since these issues are fundamental political questions and we (Wikipedia and its editors) are not in the position to determine this nor should we endorse a specific POV.

You are essentially asking Wikipedia to determine questions favouring a particular side of politics, to determine the people on Taiwan should be called "Taiwan" or "Chinese" and to determine the capital of a state. Given the vast global readership of Wikipedia, this is obviously not a proper thing to do.

I think the issues involved are very similar to issues presenting to the US courts in Lin v US, where both the district and the appeals courts dismissed the application on the ground that the issues are political questions and the courts are not the proper venue for determining such issues.--pyl (talk) 11:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My point was that we have to work per Wikipedia's policies, and not just proclaim "well, it's political so there's nothing we can do". All the point of views must be expressed, but only in proportion to the prominence of each. Laurent (talk) 12:13, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We all have a POV, including the moderator. But most of us in the dispute have specific POVs about the issue at hand, where the moderator is less likely to.

The biases involve both opinions as to the status of Taiwan and the ROC, and opinions as to the importance of law in describing reality.

I believe one way the moderator can help is to provide an decision on the law question, which isn't necessarily an ROC/Taiwan question but that would help us reach a conclusion. How much weight should a law about the government be given if that law is neither followed nor actively proclaimed. Or to put it another way, how much weight should we give a law about the government that the government does not follow in either form or function, but that remains on the books?

This question is one that would effect many articles, not just the one we are editing. Perhaps an outsider with experience editing a broader set of articles can provide guidance as to how Wikipedia as a whole answers that question. Readin (talk) 13:55, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I welcome guidance, but I am not sure if it would be possible to have a moderator who has the necessary experience in the ROC issue as well as the knowledge of the law and the facts to suggest guidance without being seen as favouring one side of the politics.

I dispute the following statement and would like specific examples of the law is "neither followed nor actively proclaimed".

How much weight should a law about the government be given if that law is neither followed nor actively proclaimed.

Readin said:-

how much weight should we give a law about the government that the government does not follow in either form or function, but that remains on the books

I think the rules say in this case, we should state both the law and also the facts. There is nothing to dipsute here really. I think in our case, the facts are being disputed. Therefore, we should state the law and the reality that the facts are being disputed.--pyl (talk) 04:20, 23 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to me that only the law is being disputed. Is someone disputing the fact that Taipei serves as the capital? Are you disputing the fact that Taipei is serving as the capital? If your company is doing business with the ROC government, and your boss tells you to book him on a flight to the capital, do you have to ask him where he wants to go, or do you just book him on a flight to Nanjing and leave it at that? Would you expect to keep your job? Readin (talk) 15:17, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The law is indeed disputed, but the law is not as you said "neither followed nor actively proclaimed". Your reply didn't clear up the statement you made above.--pyl (talk) 07:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]