User:wctaiwan/Taiwan

Recently, I have been making more edits to articles on Taiwan and related political issues. As such, I think it is helpful to give an overview of what I think on the issue, in order to make it easier for others to judge whether my edits are neutral.

My basic principle is, when I am making an edit, Wikipedia and its policies (in particular WP:NPOV) are the priority. I do have my own bias, but they should not reflect on my article space edits beyond a tendency to correct some changes but not others.

Things I consider to be facts:

• Taiwan is de facto under the control of the Republic of China, which is a continuation of the state founded in 1911.
• The Republic of China is an extant state. Whether it has legitimate sovereignty over Taiwan or China or whatever is a point of contention, but it is intrinsically a state (in the way that Vegemite is food, despite many, including myself, finding that assertion debatable ;-) ).

My own opinions:

• I support that the ROC is a sovereign state whose territory consists of Taiwan and some other islands. Its own laws are no longer accurate in that regard.
• I oppose the notion that the ROC is part of China, whether "China" refers to the PRC or to some larger state which includes both the PRC and the ROC. Basically, the ROC is China in history and name only.

Not so much a political POV, but a pet peeve:

• I dislike using constructions like "Taiwan (ROC)", "the ROC (Taiwan)", "ROC / Taiwan" (on one end of the spectrum) and "the ROC government on Taiwan" (on the other) if avoiding them is at all possible. I'm all for achieving clarity and technical correctness, but we should do so without making it the overriding goal or sacrificing the flow of the writing.

I am grateful for any good-faith effort to make sure I am adhering to NPOV. If anyone has any issue with my edits, please let me know.