Talk:Zhang Xueliang

NPOV edits

removed controversial - I don't know of any current Chinese group that thinks badly of Zhang Xueliang.

Also this article needs a lot of NPOV work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs)

I did some NPOV work. I removed a lot of material on Chiang Kaishek's actions during WWII since these weren't that relevant to Zhang Xueliang, and also gets into the highly controversial question of who was more "patriotic" against the Japanese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roadrunner (talk • contribs)

Pinyin or Wade-Giles

Noting his English name and the fact that he spent a good part of his life in Taiwan, I think Mr. Zhang personally went by "Chang Hsueh-liang" instead of Zhang Xueliang. The pinyin is more popular on google though. Which one should we use? --Jiang 08:48, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I did and no one answered. Why pinyin? The People's Daily used W-G [1] and we use pinyin. How ironic! And Columbia [2], Britannica [3], Encarta [4] all use his WG name. --Jiang | Talk 06:13, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Let's think of remaing to Wade-Giles. Pinyin is from Communist China and I do not consider it proper for his name.--Jusjih 00:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Pingyin for sure and Pingyin Only. Wade-Giles is an English simplification of Chinese pronounciation and it shall not be used as a standard.

Neither system gives the casual English-speaking reader an accurate idea of the Chinese pronunciation. But Wade-Giles is widely said to be the better in that respect. Pinyin has become the standard for many purposes because it has the endorsement of the Chinese government. It may give a more accurate idea of pronunciation to the student who has learned its rules, but these are elaborate and counterintuitive. For major historical figures, in historical books and articles, is it not best to use the spellings in use at that time? All the books I have seen use the spelling Chang Hsueh-liang and none use Zhang Xueliang. All the writings - memoirs and autobiographies and journalism and government documents - of people of that time use Wade-Giles. It seems bizarre to use a spelling not even devised at that time. Alrees

It was the contemporary spelling (since pinyin did not yet exist) and is normal in English. Independently of later politics, this article really should be moved. Both should be used in the article. (Pinyin is as simplistic as WG; both require explanation for people who only speak English.) Septentrionalis 17:43, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Chang or Zhang

This article uses both spellings. We should probably stick to one to avoid confusion

Right, but we better confirm whether to use Wade-Giles or Pinyin. I do not consider Pinyin appropriate for his name here.--Jusjih 00:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Chang resides in the United States after released by Chiang Kai Shek. What was his name written like when he was in the US? — Instantnood 20:16, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

It is a bit crazy to pinyinise every Chinese subjects. This article ought not be pinyinised. 1) Chang is not an ancient figure like Han's emperors. He do have his romanised name with him and he know about it. 2) At Chang's time, it is exclusively using Wade-Giles. If a researcher looks for articles about him from English newspaper at that time, it must be in Chang, not Zhang. The act rewriting others' names is somehow like rewriting the history. — HenryLi (Talk) 21:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Age

According to the article's birth and death dates, Zhang was 100 when he died yet the article says 101. Which part is incorrect?

TJSwoboda 07:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

that latter is probably his Chinese age. According to Chinese ages, people are born at age one and add a new age at the passing of the new year.--Jiang 11:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Zhang Xueliang vs Yang Hucheng

Any idea why Chiang Kai-shek spared Zhang Xueliang, but had Yang Hucheng killed? I couldn't figure why Chiang had different reactions to the both of them. Constrainer 20:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Zhang was a good friend of CHiang, and a much more influential figure in the ranks of the Nationalist army.

Chiang was very similar to Mao. Chiang crippled the KMT from the inside in a paranoid effort to maintain power after the Xi'an Incident (that is, too early), but Mao waited until he firmly controlled China (the mid-1950s) before crippling the CCP from the inside in paranoid efforts to maintain power. Chiang had numerous generals executed after 1938 because he was paranoid about his officers' loyalty; he knew that Zhang was no threat to him under house arrest, so there was no reason to have him killed.Ferox Seneca (talk) 02:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Relations to Mao Zedong

I think this article reflects little over the significant impact The Young Marshal had on Mao Zedongs rise to power. Maybe something should be added?

No, he was a good friend of Zhou Enlai, but had no connection with Mao. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.251.211.44 (talk) 01:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 20 September 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Consensus not to move, therefore, not moved (closed by non-admin page mover) Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 06:33, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

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Zhang Xueliang → Chang Hsueh-liang – The WG spelling of his name should be used, as others have mentioned above. It's simply how his name has always been spelled -- it is the result of both his place and time, and there's no reason or precedent for changing the WG spelling of such a figure's name to its pinyin equivalent. 60.248.185.19 (talk) 03:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• Uh, no. The "others" above are from 2006; historiography are always evolving, and Wade-Giles is gradually being phased out in academic publishings relating to modern Chinese history. There is plenty of precedent that I won't be going into details; a simple indicator would be to compare the search result of "Zhang Xueliang" and "Chang Hsueh-liang" (with quotation marks) in both Google News and Google Books; the news result is self-explanatory; for the book results, compare the years published and a conclusion can be made easily. This RM should be closed. Alex Shih (talk) 09:03, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PINYIN. Pinyin has replaced Wade-Giles as the standard Chinese romanization scheme since the 1980s (ISO 7098). More modern sources use Zhang Xueliang, the pinyin spelling. See NGRAM. -Zanhe (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
• Comment from proposer: Pinyin is the default Romanization for mainland Chinese-related terms and names. Pinyin is not used for primarily Taiwan-related names; look at literally any Wiki article for a Taiwanese person (e.g., Tsai Ing-wen) -- their preferred spelling is used, and this is almost always WG. Furthermore, Pinyin is not applied retroactively, as indicated in the very page linked above ("English Wikipedia uses pinyin as the default Romanisation method for Chinese characters, except where a non-pinyin form of a word is used by modern reliable secondary sources. An example of this exception is Yangtze River.") If you believe you're correct, then why haven't you changed Chiang Kai-shek to Jiang Zhongzheng?60.248.185.19 (talk) 00:27, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Chiang Kai-shek is one of the non-standard spellings that are widely used in English, same as Yangtze. And yes, new standards are applied retroactively, otherwise we wouldn't have names like Qin Shi Huang. And see Ngram above for the "retroactive" use of Zhang Xueliang in English publications. -Zanhe (talk) 03:25, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

To complete the thought, if you have been living in Taiwan, you would have noticed that Pinyin have long been replacing Wades-Giles, see our article on Tongyong Pinyin and the part about "Ministry of Education's approval of Hanyu Pinyin on September 16, 2008" as official romanisation. For instance, my birthplace used to be Hsichih in majority of the sources, but recently most sources will "retroactively" use Xizhi instead. This was a political and ideological issue for the Taiwanese administration, see this source. For names that are primarily related to Taiwan, Wade-Giles continues to be used as the standard, but that is not the case here for Zhang Xueliang. This is not about "believing" one's correct; we have naming conventions for a reason. Alex Shih (talk) 14:25, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - Though older literature spelled him "Chang Hsueh-liang", modern works usually use the pinyin spelling. Applodion (talk) 20:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Pinyin

Wasn't there consensus to keep the article name in pinyin? 92.34.118.138 (talk) 00:30, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Yel D'ohan: Hi! I don't know if you've seen this talk page, but there was a requested move from 2018 that failed. It might be best to do a requested move to the Wade-Giles before considering moving. However note The New York Times used the pinyin spelling Zhang Xueliang in its obituary and the BBC also used the pinyin spelling; it seems recent sources now use Hanyu Pinyin.
• Re your edit summary ("WG is used by himself, historically accurate, and more comment in English texts.") Did Zhang Xueliang ever write in English before he began using the name Peter H. L. Chang?
• WhisperToMe (talk) 22:56, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I probably meant to say "more common in English texts."
  • If this were a person who lived and died in Mainland China for the most of his life, I'd be fine with using modern PRC convention. However the person was an ROC national who moved with the ROC government to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war. All of his official documents would be in WG and there is no ground for retroactively applying Mainland standard on him. Just because Mainland China has more influence today at the international level does not mean we should accept their politically motivated agenda of applying pinyin to everything. This is like forcing a British guy whose surname is "Grey" to change the name to "Gray" just because Americans use the latter spelling. Yel D'ohan (talk) 05:06, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
    • @Yel D'ohan: I would suggest proposing an RFC on this. Read the above discussion, create an RFC, and in the discussion below you can add your reasoning (which acknowledges that modern sources changed to Pinyin but includes your argument on why W-G should still be used here). Hope this helps! WhisperToMe (talk) 08:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

RFC for Pinyin vs WG names

Should the name of this Republic of China national be rendered in Wade-Giles spelling? Yel D'ohan (talk) 14:41, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• To give some background, Pinyin was developed in the 1950s by the People's Republic of China, and became ISO standard in 1982. There has been a transition towards using Pinyin instead of Wade-Giles for transliterating the names of Chinese people, including historical figures that were previously rendered in Wade-Giles. However, Wade-Giles continues to be the standard used by the Republic of China, which moved to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war. The person described by this article was born in 1901 and moved to Taiwan during the Chinese civil war. As such, Wade-Giles would be the spelling used on all of his official documents, as well as the one used in all documents in the first ~50 years of his life. Furthermore, after he emigrated to the US in 1990s, he went by Peter H. C. Chang, which clearly indicates his usage of WG. For these reasons, I argue that we should use WG instead of Pinyin, even though some English sources have used Pinyin. Yel D'ohan (talk) 14:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Pinging previous participants @60.248.185.19: @Alex Shih: @Zanhe: @Applodion: @Jiang: @Jusjih: @HenryLi: @Septentrionalis: WhisperToMe (talk) 00:46, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support : It appears to me that the issue is political. There may be no neutral position possible. Out of respect for the reality on the ground I support the Wade-Giles rendering. —¿philoserf? (talk) 08:02, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
• Both need to be bolded in the lead. I can find academic histories published in the past twenty years that use the Pinyin form [5] and academic histories published in the last twenty years that use WG [6]. Confining one or the other to the transcriptions box is going to be needlessly confusing for readers. As for which one the article should use, I'm honestly not sure. From an unscientific survey Zhang (pinyin) seems to be slightly preferred in more recent works, but this is a bit of a gray area. --RaiderAspect (talk) 14:22, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - According to the China article Manual of Style, "English Wikipedia uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default Romanisation method for Chinese characters, except where an alternate form of a word is used by modern reliable secondary sources." In other words, we always use Pinyin unless most recent secondary sources favor a different romanization system. When it comes to specialist works of history, almost all recent ones use Pinyin. The most recent biographies are "The making of China's war with Japan : Zhou Enlai and Zhang Xueliang" and "Zhang Xueliang, the general who never fought". Just look at this Google Ngram for proof that Zhang Xueliang is now preferred.[7]Talrolande (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • The complete sentence you quoted from WP:PINYIN reads "English Wikipedia uses Hanyu Pinyin without tone marks as the default Romanisation method for Chinese characters, except where an alternate form of a word is used by modern reliable secondary sources." It does not explicitly say that frequency shall be given higher priority over local standard or the person's own usage. The guideline specifically mention articles on people as an example of exceptions. You can find examples of modern WG usage here, here, and here. I suspect the Ngram result only reflects increased publication from China instead of Taiwan. Yel D'ohan (talk) 15:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per point raised by Talrolande above. Idealigic (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• If he himself used "Chang Hsuehliang" and/or there is still a mix of modern sources using the Wade Giles name, I'd support the move. I think about how I asked for "Constantinople" to be used in Ottoman articles, despite some modern sources retroactively using "Istanbul" and I realize this is the same situation. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Change to Strong Support due to the evidence below from User:HenryLi that obituaries used the Wade Giles form. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Wade-Giles is not the official standard in Taiwan; please show me an authoritative source that says that. Chinese language romanization in Taiwan is a decentralized mess, but the latest attempts at standardization in the 21st century were attempts to enforce pinyin.

Also, the current standards in Taiwan are not even that relevant for someone who lived almost his entire life, and who certainly did all the notable things described in this article, in northeast China. Almost all historians of China have switched to pinyin by now. The only ones who don't are self-consciously trying to make a political point, that doesn't even make sense because Taiwan is Taiwan on Wikipedia, no longer the "Republic of China". 체셔🐈 (talk) 14:15, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Chang lived in Taiwan between 1949-1993. The switch to pinyin in Mainland China took place in 1950s. Why would Mainland standard apply to him unless you are taking sides about PRC sovereignty over Taiwan? You bet it's political. This is like an American whose last name is Gray being forced by the British government to change the spelling to Grey. Yel D'ohan (talk) 17:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction about his post-1949 life. However, he did nothing of note on Taiwan, and most people looking at this article would be referencing his role in the Xi'an Incident on the mainland. In other words, you would read about Zhang (spelled 'Zhang') in history books written today about the history of (mainland) China.

Trying to turn this discussion into a debate about 'PRC jurisdiction over Taiwan' is just bizarre. Taiwan does not even teach romanization in schools. Chinese people, regardless of jurisdiction, write in characters and not romanization (except for in a Chinese input system, for which only pinyin is used for MSC). 체셔🐈 (talk) 18:08, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@チェシャねこ: Taiwan is somewhat interesting as while Hanyu Pinyin has often become the standard for romanization of regular words and for some place names, it is typically not used for personal names. Also Zhang lived prior to 2008 (when Hanyu Pinyin became the norm) WhisperToMe (talk) 00:17, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah; the transliterations are simply not systematized. My point is that Wade-Giles is not like the "opposite of Pinyin". Just looking at Tsai Ingwen, Lee Tenghui, Ma Yingjeou, and Chen Shuibian, you see a mix of Pinyin, Gwoyeu Romatzyh and Wade-Giles that aren't even consistent within one name.

But I still think talking about Taiwan-born Taiwanese is a distraction, because Zhang Xueliang is written about for what he did in the Fengtian clique in northeast China. And he's a hero in the PRC for helping form the Second United Front with the Communist Party of China.

What are Zhang's ties to Taiwan? He was held under house arrest by the Kuomintang for a while in Taiwan, but finally emigrated to, and died in, Hawaii! This argument isn't political. It's just to say that there is a lot of mental gymnastics involved to claim Zhang as Taiwanese.

So because it's not WG-versus-Pinyin but Idiosyncratic-versus-Pinyin, the best argument for move would be to treat his name on an individual basis with regard to the most WP:COMMON spelling in high-quality sources.

But notice how the Wade-Giles name (Chang Hsüeh-liang) isn't even mentioned in the move request. It just isn't that common; hence the weird political arguments claiming the entire pre-1949 Chinese history for Taiwan. 체셔🐈 (talk) 12:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Allow me to clarify my argument a bit. I wasn't claiming "he was Taiwanese and WG is the standard in Taiwan". Instead, what concerns me are the following:

1) The time and geographical region in which pinyin dominated never overlapped with Chang/Zhang. Pinyin wasn't invented when his name was first transliterated, nor was PRC his government.

2) This is not some ancient figure who only knew Chinese, but a modern person who knew how to Latinize his name, and he did it with WG. He even added his Christian name when he emigrated to Hawaii. Yel D'ohan (talk) 22:53, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I can also confirm that the Chinese Ministry of Information (here being the ROC) used Wade Giles for most personal names except "Chiang Kai-shek".

As the conventions of the ROC did "carry over" to the Taiwan administration, because Zhang remained loyal to the ROC, and because he was in the ROC territory from 1975 to 1995 (he formally moved to Hawaii in 1995), I think it would be fair to call him "Taiwanese" if that means a citizen of the post-1949 ROC.

I do notice though that the New York Times began using Pinyin for his name as early as 1991

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:21, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support. We should respect the name in historical document during his lifetime, just like the article of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. It help readers to go through historical sources more easily and more reliably. You never found Pinyin in old newspaper, old magazine, and other old document. — HenryLi (Talk) 15:25, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
• Both – how is this not an easy solution? Just phrase it the way that Zhang Heng is done or my article on Cai Lun is: "formerly romanized as..." I think the actual article name should itself remain in Pinyin per the standard for nowadays and the points rasied above. Aza24 (talk) 01:16, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
  • The figures your refers do not use English in his life time. It does not apply to this case. Chang Hsueh-liang is the name he use in English. Don't forget that he lived in USA when he died. — HenryLi (Talk) 14:57, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose, pinyin is both the ISO standard and the Wikipedia standard, as the others have stated above. Félix An (talk) 03:37, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
• Support: Arguments have been made that Pinyin is the modern standard whether in public life or Wikipedia, however, this ignores several points. If arguing for the modern standard on Chinese names, this focuses on Mainland Chinese names. Chang Hsueh Liang lived in Taiwan for most of his life which utilized WG romanization, and according to WP:ZHNAME "Chinese names should be written in Hanyu Pinyin unless there is a more common romanization used in English... or when the subject of the article is likely to prefer a non-pinyin romanization as is often the case with people from Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and older overseas Chinese communities. As mentioned before, he lived in Taiwan which would use WG. Furthermore, even if including his time in the Mainland, it was during an era of WG romanization. In addition, he also immigrated to the United States, which means that his Chinese name would have to be romanized into what it legally needed to be in America, and his legal name was not Zhang Xueliang as he is legally, and of a personal preference, called Chang Hsueh Liang or H. L. Chang. The way Chang Hsueh-liang spelled his own name is of utmost importance. Although he may be a "historical" figure, we have to recognize that he lived into the 21st century and so it should not be necessarily argued from the position that historical figures must use pinyin. Lastly, information on his grave is available online. If one searches up his grave, you can see that he and his family spelled it Chang Hsueh Liang.--火龍風 (talk) 23:37, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Indeed the grave shows this WhisperToMe (talk) 20:58, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Summary of points so far

• Either way we go, both should be included in the lead.
• This issue is political.
• In favor of Wade-Giles:
  • He used it.
  • Historical documents at that time used it.
  • PRC never had de facto no jurisdiction over him.
• In favor of pinyin:
  • It has become more common to spell his name this way.
  • Notable things about his life took place in the Mainland, which uses pinyin today.

Is there an existing Wikipedia policy that can mediate between these conflicting points? Yel D'ohan (talk) 17:47, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Yel D'ohan: In Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/China_and_Chinese-related_articles#Romanisation It does give people as an exception to the usual requirement to use Mandarin Pinyin but gives little details WhisperToMe (talk) 07:17, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I have been adding the Wade-Giles derived forms for geographical terms and surnames thoughout Wikipedia and Wiktionary since about January 2019. Those forms are important beause they are printed in books. To ignore Wade Giles on Wikipedia as we often do is to blind the English speaking world to the history of interaction with China, because up to a certain point, books don't use Hanyu Pinyin derived terms. In Taiwan, the default romanization for personal names into English is via Wade Giles, but at an RoC citizen can use any name they want including using a Taiwanese POJ name or nonstandard spelling because Taiwan is a free country. The drive to wipe out the memory of anything that is not Mandarin and Hanyu Pinyin is very intense in many contexts. I believe that all persons known in media by a Wade-Giles names should have that name be visually displayed on their relevant pages for readers to see, thereby informing them of something they may see if they do research. Putting Wade Giles in that crazy Chinese box is not enough. As for this case, if the person had a passport, we ought to adhere to the passport name, especially if the person acknowledged a certain English spelling consisently over the majority of the course of their life and media sources used that name. You can't go back and whitewash history...or can you? I guess we will see. I am fighting a protracted struggle for the ability of the people and our descendants to comprehend books about China by adding these Wade-Giles derived forms. These vulgar decisions are a secondary issue to me, but I would tend to stick to the name used by the person in their lifetime if they were well known by a certain name or showed a clear preference for a certain name, regardless of the waves of relentless Hanyu Pinyin-only cohorts that will come. Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:21, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

His obituaries in major English newspapers named him Chang Hsueh-liang when he died in 2001 [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]. Chang Hsueh-liang is his name in English, not Zhang Xueliang. Those claims WG in not used after 1980s is absolutely wrong. Chang Hsueh-liang lived in the USA in his last years. Every name in his records refers to 'Chang Hsueh-liang'. It dose not make sense to rename a person to the name he never use. — HenryLi (Talk) 14:49, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much for finding these! I now have "strong support" as per your evidence. NOTE: The New York Times and the BBC do use Zhang Xueliang but all the others use Chang Hsueh-liang. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Edda Mussolini

Is there any actual proof of this affair? ---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.107.112.230 (talk) 22:08, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Yep, he was a womaniser who famously had a dalliance with Countess Edda Ciano, daughter of Mussolini and wife of the Italian minister to China. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/world/zhang-xueliang-100-dies-warlord-and-hero-of-china.html Simpleshooter99 (talk) 15:39, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 6 June 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

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Chang Hsueh-liang → Zhang Xueliang – TL;DR: According to WP:NCZH, pinyin should be preferred unless a "customary transliteration or anglicization is more common". "Chang Hsueh-liang" is significantly less common in modern, reliable sources, so Zhang Xueliang should be used.

None of the reasons in given 2020 to move this page to WG outweigh the importance of using the WP:COMMONNAME. Also, it doesn't seem like the 2020 move discussion was properly closed by an admin.

• "He never used Zhang Xueliang during his life": It is quite common to call historical figures by a name they never used. Averroes is known by a name he received from Medieval Christians. Shakespeare never signed his own name with the spelling that we use today. And historians rarely stick to the unsystematized spellings of Chinese names used in the 1800s, even though they were the only romanized names their subjects knew. There are many valid reasons that historians would choose to do this (I'm sure you can think of plenty). It's not Wikipedia's job to second-guess this decision, just to reflect the consensus.
• "Sun Yat-sen uses a non-Pinyin spelling": Yes, because the majority of historians continue to spell it that way. If English-speaking historians started calling him Sun Zhongshan, then so would Wikipedia.
• "He was a citizen of the ROC/never a citizen of the PRC": There's no hard rule that Wikipedia can't use pinyin to romanize ROC names, or that pinyin can only be used for PRC names. We only treat WG as the default romanization of ROC names in the absence of evidence for a different WP:COMMONNAME. For example, many Taiwanese celebrities are better known in English by an English first name and WG last name, and are referred to as such on Wikipedia. Because there is strong evidence that Zhang Xueliang is the WP:COMMONNAME, his national... affiliation(?) is irrelevant.
• "Most of his English-language obituaries used his WG name" This would be strong evidence that Chang Hsueh-liang is the WP:COMMONNAME, expect for the fact that Zhang died in 2001, when many newspapers still used WG for all Chinese names. Take the Guardian obit as an example: it's talking about "Chou Enlai" and "the Sian Incident"! Since 2001, almost all major Enlgish-language publications have come around to preferring pinyin for Chinese historical figures, and this is reflected in the articles mentioning Zhang that have appeared since, such as: [16], [17], [18].

Let's review the evidence that Zhang Xueliang is the WP:COMMONNAME:

• Google ngrams shows that Zhang has been more common for over two decades, and the gap is widening
• There are a number of recent books that deal heavily with Zhang; almost all use pinyin for his name:
  • Zhang Xueliang: The General Who Never Fought (2012)
  • The Making of China’s War with Japan: Zhou Enlai and Zhang Xueliang (2016)
  • War and Geopolitics in Interwar Manchuria: Zhang Zuolin and the Fengtian Clique During the Northern Expedition (2017)
  • The only exception I know of is The 1929 Sino-Soviet War: The War Nobody Knew (2021), but that work shuns pinyin entirely.

In my opinion, this makes a clear case to move this page to Zhang Xueliang. SilverStar54 (talk) 23:55, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject China has been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 12:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Taiwan has been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 12:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Military history has been notified of this discussion. Векочел (talk) 12:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Tagging the users who participated in the previous two discussions: @Alex Shih, @WhisperToMe, @Zanhe, @Applodion, @Jiang, @Jusjih, @HenryLi, @C9mVio9JRy, @Philoserf, @RaiderAspect, @Talrolande, @Félix An, @Aza24, @チェシャねこ, @Idealigic. Hopefully that's everyone, lol. SilverStar54 (talk) 16:16, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. For WP:COMMONNAME, Chang Hsueh-liang is the common name. Some books using pinyin do not outweigh century load of English document. The earliest I could find online is of year 1928. The list of books citing exact word "Chang Hsueh-liang" on Google Book seems never end. It is very hard to imagine any serious studies citing English sources in his lifetime without mentioning "Chang". Unless a piece of English writing citing only Chinese sources, it is totally up to writer's desire. It is worth noted that Chang Huseh-liang lived in the United States for the rest of his life, and was buried under the soil of the United States. Every English record of his in the United State is "Chang", not "Zhang". His grave was engraved with "GENERAL CHANG HSUEH LIANG".

The book above-mentioned book, Zhang Xueliang: The General Who Never Fought (2012), exactly shows the problems switching name to pinyin on a person with a lot of English exposure. In page xi, "I am particularly grateful to Mr. Robert L. Chang (Zhang Lulin), Zhang Xuelin's son,....", it is obviously his son is Mr. Chang, never Mr. Zhang. This confuses English reader. In page 159, "...the life of Peter and Edith Chang (Zhang Xueliang and Zhao Yidi)... ", again, they are Mr. and Mrs. Chang, never Mr. and Mrs. Zhang. Discrepancy between real-life name and fictitious pinyin name introduces inconsistency and causes unnecessary confusion.

The conclusion of "only one" is far from truth. There are quite a number of books still referring to Chang Hsueh-liang.

Provided by Google Book: Following is a list of recent books, published between 2020 and 2024, referring to Chang Hsueh-liang, not pinyin:

• Deadly Quarrels: Lewis F. Richardson and the Statistical Study of War - By David Wilkinson · 2024
• China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s - By Stephen R. MacKinnon, Oris Friesen · 2023
• Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China - By Susan Blumberg-Kason · 2023
• Japan’s Rush to the Pacific War: The Institutional Roots of Overbalancing - By Lionel P. Fatton · 2023
• The Chinese Journals of L.K. Little, 1943–54: An Eyewitness Account of War and Revolution - 2022
• The Red Army 1922–41: From Civil War to 'Barbarossa' - By Philip Jowett · 2022
• Power of Freedom: Hu Shih's Political Writings - 2022
• An Index to Reproductions of Paintings by Twentieth-Century Chinese Artists - By Ellen Johnston Laing · 2021
• The 1929 Sino-Soviet War: The War Nobody Knew - By Michael M. Walker · 2021
• Owen Lattimore and the Loss of China - By Robert P. Newman · 2021
• Imperial Japan 1926-1938 - By A. Morgan Young · 2021
• The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932 - By Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka · 2020
• Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931–1937 - By Parks M. Coble · 2020
• Japanese Studies of Modern China Since 1953 - By Noriko Kamachi, John K. Fairbank, Chūzō Ichiko · 2020
• Government Control of the Press in Modern China, 1900–1949 - By Lee-hsia Hsu Ting · 2020
• The Dragon and the Iron Horse: The Economics of Railroads in China, 1876-1937 - By Ralph William Huenemann · 2020

Chang Hsueh-liang is commonly used per se.

He is not a Middle Age figure. He lived up to 21st century. His English name is widely documented, publicised and official. It is inappropriate to change to pinyin in this case.

— HenryLi (Talk) 00:41, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Out of the 16 books you cited, only 5 were actually published after 2020. Half of them were published before the year 2000. And critically, none of the books you cited were making an exception for Zhang's name. You just listed examples of books that use Wade-Giles throughout, for all Chinese names. Many modern works written using pinyin make an exception for names like Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen. I have never seen a single work make an exception for Chang Hsueh-liang. Since this is what you're suggesting Wikipedia do, I think you should provide at least a few examples of this being done.

You're right that works using Wade-Giles are still being published! There are many Google Books results for recent books using "Chang Hsueh-liang" - over 5,000. But there are far, far more results for "Zhang Xueliang" - over 15,000. Although the man himself might have never used the name, "Zhang Xueliang" is how he is known to most English speakers today. This is the point of the WP:COMMONNAME policy - to ensure that article titles are recognizable to readers, not to reflect the name that the individual would have preferred. SilverStar54 (talk) 06:59, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

• Strong support Thank you, SilverStar54, for explaining your reasoning so clearly. There is no reason to be using outdated Wade–Giles romanization unless we have very, very strong evidence that Zhang's name is an exception, like Sun Yat-sen. This logical practice is supported by the guideline at WP:ZHNAME. Wade–Giles is extremely problematic, not least because it is very hard for English-speakers to approximate an accurate Chinese pronunciation without doing extensive research into the idiosyncratic rules of the W–G system. Toadspike [Talk] 11:54, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
• Weak oppose: The discussion in 2020 explained why ZHNAME does not apply in this case. "Wade–Giles is extremely problematic" is an expression of personal taste. If pinyin has indeed become the most common name in English language I would support, but I'm not sure. COMMONNAME does not state that "common" should be based on a survey of most recent publications. If older publications are still commonly read and referenced they should be taken into account. I do find it confusing and distracting when Zhang's relatives are named Chang. C9mVio9JRy (talk) 14:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

  @C9mVio9JRy Thanks for being open to reconsidering your position, I respect that.

  You're right that the WP:COMMONNAME doesn't explicitly require recent sources, that was my bad. I was thinking of the conventions for geographic names. But if we weighted old and new sources equally, wouldn't we still be using WG for almost everything? For example, there are more total works published about "Chou En-lai" than "Zhou Enlai", but clearly the latter is now preferred. I think WP:AGE MATTERS here.

  If you want some more examples of "Zhang" being used, here's a sample:

  • Japanese Diplomacy and East Asian International Politics, 1918–1931 by Ryuji Hattori, 2024
  • Zhou Enlai: A Life by Jian Chen, 2024
  • Seeking News, Making China: Information, Technology, and the Emergence of Mass Society by John Alekna, 2024
  • The Second World War: A Global History by Teddy Uldricks, 2024
  • Stalin, Japan, and the Struggle for Supremacy Over China, 1894–1945 by Hiroaki Kuromiya, 2023
  • Victorious in Defeat: The Life and Times of Chiang Kai-shek, China, 1887-1975, by Alexander Pantsov, 2023
  • A History of China in the 20th Century: Volume 1 by Lü Peng, 2023
  • Chinese Government Leaders in Manchukuo, 1931-1937: Intertwined National Ideals by Jianda Yuan, 2023
  • Survey of Chinese History in the Twentieth Century by Chongji Jin, 2023
  • Accidental Holy Land: The Communist Revolution in Northwest China by Joseph Esherick, 2022
  • The Making and Unmaking of the Chinese Radical Right, 1918-1951 by Nagatomi Hirayama, 2022
  • Sources in Chinese History: Diverse Perspectives from 1644 to the Present, Second Edition by David Atwill and Yurong Atwill, 2021
  • From Revolution To Politics: Chinese Communists On The Long March by Benjamin Yang, 2021
  • Chiang Kai-shek's Politics of Shame: Leadership, Legacy, and National Identity in China by Grace C. Huang, 2021
  • Japan at War and Peace: Shidehara Kijūrō and the Making of Modern Diplomacy by Ryuji Hattori, 2021
  • Zhou Enlai: The Enigma Behind Chairman Mao by Michael Dillon, 2020
  • Manchuria: A Concise History by Mark Gamsa, 2020

  Two of the best-read surveys of Chinese history published in the last few decades also both used pinyin for Zhang's name:

  • China: A History by John Keay, 2009
  • The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence, 1990

  These works include rigorous academic works (From Revolution To Politics), popular non-fiction (Victorious in Defeat), works by pro-PRC authors (Chongji Jin) and works by authors highly critical of the PRC (Alexander Pantsov, Joseph Esherick). They approach the subject matter from all sorts of perspectives: global (The Second World War), Japanese (Japan at War and Peace), Chinese (Sources in Chinese History), Manchurian (Manchuria), biographical (Zhou Enlai: A Life). Regardless of their politics, background, or interests, modern readers are much more likely to encounter "Zhang Xueliang" than "Chang Hsueh-liang". SilverStar54 (talk) 19:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

  I change my position to Neutral given the diversity of sources seems sufficient to discount political bias. Just to clarify, I wasn't saying that all sources throughout history should be weighed equally. I was just saying that some older publications might still be relevant today so simply listing the newest publications might not be enough proof of commonness. I'm not a historian so I actually don't know which is presently the more common name. C9mVio9JRy (talk) 01:13, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Very clear WP:COMMONNAME in English-language sources throughout the twentieth century and still common today. He lived most of his life in Taiwan, where WG still predominates, and then emigrated to the USA. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:16, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  in Taiwan, where WG still predominates is a drastic oversimplification, at least according to our article on the subject. Toadspike [Talk] 06:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

  Most people in Taiwan romanize their names using a variation of Wade–Giles. According to the article you have just cited. So no, not really. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Support. @SilverStar54's analysis is most persuasive. I have tended to see it as "Zhang Xueliang" myself and although I am not totally confident in my memory, I believe that the Parks M. Coble source I added to the article in 2023 used "Zhang Xueliang". JArthur1984 (talk) 14:26, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Coble uses "Zhang Xueliang" in the index of China's War Reporters. See page here, 266. And he continues this in The Collapse of Nationalist China (the 2023 book) As seen on Google Books. WhisperToMe (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support per ngrams, WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:NCZH. Evidently the Wade-Giles spelling was more common in older sources, but the pinyin spelling is clearly more common in modern sources. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:17, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Question: How are we defining the parameters of common name? He died in 2001, almost 23 years ago. At the time, most obituaries used the Wade-Giles form while two used Pinyin. IMO "Older sources" doesn't mean the same, IMO, when we are dealing with a 23 year old ago death versus say somebody who died in the 1940s, but some clarification may be good. Another factor is political, that the man knew about the Pinyin/Wade-Giles divide (CCP/KMT) and clearly rejected the CCP. This differs from say a person who died before the CCP/KMT fissure.

Additionally, by 2001 newspapers had in fact transitioned to Pinyin for Mainland Chinese people. The subject had remained loyal to the KMT, and therefore would no longer be counted as a Mainland Chinese figure (because of his continued loyalty to the KMT, which no longer controlled Mainland China).

If he was somebody loyal to the CCP and stayed on the Mainland, all of his obituaries would have used Pinyin and there would be no question that Pinyin should be used for him. But knowing the political details of this case, I am not sure. Even while knowing many sources since 2001 (which, to be fair, is over 20 years ago) use Pinyin, the political element IMO really complicates things.

WhisperToMe (talk) 01:18, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think your hypothetical about Mainland figures is accurate. Already mentioned twice in this discussion, Zhou Enlai's name was commonly romanized as "Chou" by Western sources, even though he was a prominent Mainland figure who died nearly twenty years after Pinyin became official there. Toadspike [Talk] 07:00, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

My point has to do with the chronology of the shift from Wade-Giles to Pinyin. Zhou Enlai died in 1976, before the mass adoption of Pinyin in Western sources; even though Pinyin became official in China in the 1950s, the West did not adopt Pinyin until several decades later. The shift from Wade-Giles to Pinyin for Mainland-based persons, in Western-based English language sources, began in the 1980s.

• Terry, Edith. How Asia Got Rich: Japan, China and the Asian Miracle. M.E. Sharpe, 2002. 632. Retrieved from Google Books on August 7, 2011. ISBN 0-7656-0356-X, ISBN 978-0-7656-0356-2: "Since the early 1980s, the West[...]"

By 2001 the shift to Pinyin was largely complete in the West, so it matters that most obituaries used Wade-Giles for this subject.

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, you're right that pinyin was widespread by 2001, but newspapers were some of the last English sources to make the switch. Of the eight obituaries that @HenryLi cited in the last RFC, six used WG for more than just Chang Hsueh-liang's name: Guardian, WaPo, Honolulu Advertiser, Telegraph, Napa Valley Register, LA Times. These obituaries used Wade-Giles for all historical Chinese figures, even "Mao Tse-tung" and "Chou En-lai". The only people whose names they rendered in pinyin were politicians who had become famous after the popularization of pinyin, such as Jiang Zemin. Since Zhang had risen to fame in the west in the 1920s and 1930s, using WG for his name was just standard editorial practice.

Papers that had adopted the use of pinyin for historical figures, such as the NYT and BBC, used pinyin for Zhang's name as well.

The only source that made a clear exception for Chang Hsueh-liang's name was The Economist. Their obituary uses pinyin for most Chinese names, but not Chang Hsueh-liang. This is a point of evidence in favor of using Chang Hsueh-liang, although I should point out a more recent article from The Economist used pinyin for Zhang's name. SilverStar54 (talk) 19:22, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Going through these. Yes, The Guardian does use W-G for Zhou Enlai and various other figures (with no use of Pinyin, as it even uses "Sian Incident"). The others have some usage of Pinyin: The Telegraph uses Pinyin for "Xi'an Incident" but W-G for Chang and his family (I can see why they did that), and also the non-pinyin postal form Mukden for Shenyang. WaPo does use Pinyin for Mao ("That decision helped reestablish Mao Zedong's[...]"). LA Times and Napa Valley Register use the same Associated Press release, which uses W-G for Mao, but Pinyin for Xinhua and Jiang Zemin. Interestingly Honolulu Advertiser uses W-G for Mao, but used Pinyin for Jiang Zemin, and also uses Beijing. The takeaway is that it took more time for "historical" Chinese figures like Mao compared to "new" Chinese figures that arose after the 1980s like Jiang Zemin, perhaps because of older people still accustomed to writing "Mao Tse-tung". WhisperToMe (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Yep, that was my takeaway, too. I think we're on the same page here. SilverStar54 (talk) 20:51, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support, per ngram. ときさき くるみ ^{not because they are easy, but because they are hard} 17:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.