Wikipedia: Chinese history/Talk

...though recent archaeological findings seem to provide evidence for the existence of at least the Shang dynasty.

I was under the strong impression that the existence of the Shang had been well-known for a long time. There has been the suggestion that things like bronze working and chariot construction link the Shang to Indo-european or related migrants, like the later Tocharians. Some work in west China found spectacularly preserved clothing, from the era and of Celtic design, though on the whole I think insufficient work has been done. But in any case, none of the speculation (which I think would be worth mentioning) would be possible if the Shang was not known and known for a long time, right?

In English texts, new paragraphs are indicated

Like this

Not
like this. :-)

Concerning the paragraphs: I fixed it. Thanks for the tip, though I should have known it ;-)

Concerning the Shang Dynasty issue:

I think, the question was not if there existed some high culture at this time, the question was rather if the accounts of Sima Qian and others, which are quite detailed, are to be trusted entirely. The underlying problem was this (my apologies if I'm trying to tell you things you know;-) :

Sima Qian wrote a history of China from the beginnings until his time (1st century BCE). At the very beginning of his work, there are stories about "cultural heroes" like Shun and Yu, who are said to have invented things like marriage and the use of characters. Now these stories are definitely not historically accurate, but the events related towards the end of his work definitely are, or at least they seem very probable. So, there arose the question where to draw the line. Since there is no written material from the time ascribed to the Xia dynasty and only very few fragments from the "Shang time", Western historians tended to classify these two dynasties as legendary. The "recent archaeological findings" alluded to are inscriptions from the Shang dynasty, which give emperor names that quite agree with Sima Qian's information, hence the Shang dynasty seems to really have existed.

I think I didn't quite make this clear in the article, but my command of the English language is not quite good enough to fix this. Could you perhaps do this for me?

About the theories of Tocharian influence in the Shang dynasty: I think this material belongs into the [Shang Dynasty]? article proper. The "Chinese history" entry should just give a general overview. But if you think it's necessary, well, I'm not THE GREAT BOSS OF THE CHINESE HISTORY ARTICLE :-) Just go and change it, that's what wiki is for, I guess...

-- Xiemaisi

Ok, I've made what changes I feel are apropriate. You may not be the great boss, but you are the original author, so feel free to adjust them as you see fit. :)

Thanks, looks quite good. Just one minor point: You say If the Xia existed at all, they may have been contemporary. What do you mean? Contemporary to whom? To the Shang Dynasty? I'm not sure if this is quite clear from context... Oh, and if you've got material about the Shang at hand, could you perhaps write the corresponding article? The Chinese history page looks a bit sad at the moment with all these unwritten subentries :'-)

Um.. records back 1 million years? I'd think I would have heard of this before... also, is a histiographer the same as a historian?

The records don't go back that far, but the archaeological records do - remains of people dating back that far have been found on Chinese soil. Historiographers and historians are pretty close to the same, but I think the former emphasizes keeping records over research.

: What is this "1 million year" stuff in the first paragraph? Given that homo sapiens is only 100,000 years old, what kinds of animals "inhabitated" China for the 900,000 years prior to that? --AxelBoldt

I made a lot of changes

I added a note about Xia and Shang being contemporaries
I have some reservations about characterizing the Chou as the first dynasty for which a reliable historical tradition exist. The historical tradition for the Shang matches the

archeological records, while a lot of the stories we have about the Chou are things that we don't know are true or not.

I rewrote the section about the Chou dynasty being feudal. The big problem with using the term is that it is part of an attempt to fit Chinese history into a Marxist framework and assuming knowledge of how the Chou worked that we do not have. I changed it to be NPOV.
Rewrote text describing Spring and Autumn period
The warring states didn't give up without a fight
I have a lot of reservations about the statement that Confucianism was the underpinning of all dynasties up until the Qing, but I need to think about how to reword that.
The Han dynasty section needs to be expanded, but I don't have the expertise to do it

Let me save everything and continue

More changes

Song Dynasty - The Song didn't lose North China to the Mongols
The Mongols really didn't get assimilated so I look that statement out
Not sure I agree with the statement (among the common people)
I changed the interpretation of stagnation into NPOV
I removed the statement about the Ming secluding itself. It was popular to believe this about 40 years ago, but it's demonstratably false, and I don't know of any current historian who argues this and will gladly change this to NPOV if anyone else can. For a more updated view look at (The Sextants of Beijing) by Joanne Waley-Cohen or anything by Jonathan Spence. The treasure ship trips to Africa did end in 1430. The Ming did ban maritime commerce in the 15th century, *but* the ban was lifted in 1520 and there proceeded to be large amounts of commerce between China, India and Southeast Asia.
I changed the view of the Qing to NPOV
I removed the section about no cultural renovation
I removed the section about decline, abundant bureaucracy and military weakness. At best they need to be rewritten as NPOV. Abundant bureaucracy cannot be objectively asserted as the Qing bureaucracy was much weaker than the Ming. Military weakness is a matter of the glass being half filled or half empty.
I removed the section about there being little military resistance. There was a great deal of resistance. It wasn't effective. Also, the reasons for the lack of military effective is far more complex than a general "decline"
Large areas of China were not ceded to the Europeans. The British got Hong Kong
Rewrote section on Qing dynasty. A lot of the motivations were wrong
The view about the 1911 revolution is the one that the Guomindang has traditionally used. Most current historians do not agree with it (See Wakeman's the Fall of Imperial China), and the Guomindang itself really doesn't care that much any more. I've modified it extensively.
The next paragraph need to be rewritten, will do it when I have the time
I rewrote the section on Taiwan. The situation there is extremely complicated and worth a paragraph or two.