Talk:President of the People's Republic of China

message: "The powers of the head of state reverted to the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress"
Since this was an honorary role, did the 'powers of the head of state' actually leave Ye Jianying as NPC Chairman during those two weeks?217.44.182.27 09:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes --Sumple (Talk) 06:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Chairmen of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress

message: The articl ie self-contradictory: on the one hand it says the position was created in 1982, and on the other hand it refers to officeholders before 1982, and explains that these were translated as "chairman/woman". 
If there were officeholders before 1982 but with a different translation, wouldn't it be the same office? --Sumple (Talk) 06:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Created by 1982 Constitution"?

message: I find it interesting someone inserted that Mao didn't want the presidency back because then it would seem he just wanted to rob Liu of his position. Where did you find this. I'd like to read up on it. Colipon+(T) 07:51, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mao vs. Liu 

message: Is anyone able to explain where, why and how the title was translated as "President" rather than another term? Is this official for the CCP's use, or in other literature? (deleted a fellow's resume that had been posted here. It may mean no one is watching this page.)--Asdfg12345 00:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes the, term "President of the People's Republic of China" is official use by the Government to represent "Head of state" of PRC only since 1982 due to conformity with Western terminology, check out the official website: PRC President Official Website they even call Mao Zedong President. As for CCP(CPC) there is another position for the party only it is know as "General Secretary of the Communist Party of China" to represent "Head of Party" of CCP(CPC) only. — [[User: ASDFGH|■~∀SÐFﾑｻ~■ =] ]] Babashi? antenna? 22:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  what's with the translation

message: any information on the transportation of the president and his staff? 218.186.17.240 (talk) 09:53, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  china's airforce one.... 

message: This article has many problems and needs a careful revision.  Originally it started off as an article about a specific position in the People's Republic of China: this position is called 中华人民共和国主席 Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi; a word for word translation is "chairman of the People's Republic of China".  This position was established in the 1954 PRC Constitution.  It was eliminated in the 1975 Constitution.  It remained absent in the third constitution, adopted in 1978, but reappeared in the 1982 constitution, where it has remained throughout the periodic constitutional revisions since then.  There are several problems with this article's description of the position, which to avoid confusion I will simply call Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi.
The first point that I would like to make here is that prior to 1954, this office did not exist; there was no Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi.  It is an error for this article to assert that Mao Zedong was the Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi in this period; he was not.  No one was.
A second problem is that from 1975 to 1982 (prior to the promulgation of the new constitution), there was also no Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi. Both this article and the List of Presidents of the People's Republic of China add in other positions during this period, such as Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.  It is not clear why.  Apparently there is some idea of trying to figure out who was the theoretical head of state during these periods; this is a very problematic element to introduce in this article, which is supposed to be about a specific position. If there is a desire to explain non legal concepts such as "head of state" or "paramount leader" as they apply to the PRC, that should go somewhere else, not here.
A third problem, very serious in my opinion, is the claim that Dong Biwu and Song Qingling went from Zhonghua renmin gongheguo fuzhuxi "vice chairmen of the People's Republic of China" to acting "Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi" from 1968 to 1975.  This is completely undocumented.  There must be a source for this claim; it is not acceptable for an editor to present his or her own legal theories about the status of these people during this period as if these theories were established fact.  Song and Dong are not identified as "acting chairmen" in any documents I can find, including the PRC government's current official publications and websites, or past publications such as the People's Daily.  Biographies and other scholarly research completely fail to mention this.  There must be published, reliable sources which state that this was the case before Dong and Song can be described in this way.  The article must also explain what they actually did in this period in connection with this office; as far as I can tell, this can be easily summarized as ZERO.  The article in fact originally stated that from 1968 to 1975 the position of Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi was "vacant" from 1968 to 1975. This was clearly the case and is stated explicitly in many reliable sources.  Why was the article changed to paste these two figures in here?  Again, there must be a solid documentary basis for this.
A fourth problem, perhaps minor but quite troublesome, is the English translation of the Chinese term Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi.  The article claims that the "official" English translation was changed in 1982.  This is certainly not true, and this is not what the source quoted says.  A real source for this is necessary.  It seems to me that there is actually no need for there to be an "official" translation.  Whatever is most common on the Western language writings on this subject, is what we use.  "President" doesn't seem like such a bad choice; the use of the term "president" for this position occurs occasionally in English language writing on China from the 1950s on.  Again, I don't think that this is a particularly important point.  What is important is that all discussion makes clear that this term is an English translation of a specific Chinese name for a specific governmental position that has its origin in specific documents.  Naturally, consistency is very important, and that is why this is such a troublesome problem; the translations of this term throughout Wikipedia are very diverse and will certainly confuse anyone who can't run to look up original sources.  An example of this problem is in the article List of Presidents of the People's Republic of China, where Mao is said to be the First Chairman of the People's Republic of China, contradicting the title of the article. Apparently the idea is that from 1954 to 1975, we should translate Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi as "Chairman of the PRC" and for the period 1982 on we should translate it as "President of the PRC".  While there is a point to this, in that the descriptions of the powers of the Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi differ in the 1954 and 1982 constitutions, this distinction is not made in any consistent way throughout Wikipedia. This very article you are reading fails to maintain this distinction!
 
The most serious problem for this article is that it completely fails to explain the legal function of the position of Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi as stipulated in the various constitutions, its actual implementation, and the changes it underwent.  This failure makes the article almost useless, except to confuse those who don't know anything about this position.  I strongly suggest that the article clearly focus on the nature of this particular position, and that a cleanup removes all the confusing references to other issues, perhaps putting them in an article titled "head of state in the People's Republic of China."  Reliable sources are essential to document who held the position of Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhuxi and what this position enabled those people to do.  I'm willing to start doing this, but since this will involve a thorough revision of the article, a note in the talk section seems appropriate first. Rgr09 (talk) 11:38, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with the article 

message: These sections simply repeated that the Communist Party always appoints its General Secretary President; no need to say this three times in the article.  The section on the president's relation to the military is difficult to follow, speculative, and unsourced.  If I can find info on this in Shambaugh or other sources, I will try to rewrite, otherwise it should go as well. Rgr09 (talk) 13:09, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relation to state, party, military 

message: The article originally included a section on the relation of the president to the military.  This was a very confused section, but apparently the original point was to observe that there was a potential for conflict if the CPC general secretary did not hold the office of chairman of the Central Military Commission, as happened when Hu Jintao first became General Secretary.  This may be so, but this is a CPC internal conflict, not a constitutional issue.  In the current Constitution, the President has no military power or authority at all.  What authority the last few Presidents have had over the military was due to their positions in the CPC; this is due to the fact that the PLA is primarily the CPC army, not the PRC army.  Rgr09 (talk) 12:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on the president and the military 

message: The discussion of the history of the office of state chairman (now "president") noted that the 1975 constitution abolished this position.  This was later edited to add the phrase "while passing the duties of the chairmanship to the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress."  The 1975 constitution does not do this. The Chairman of the Standing Committee is mentioned only once in the 1975 Constitution, in article 18; this article does not specify his powers or duties at all.  The 1978 Constitution stipulates several duties of the Chairman of the Standing Committee, but in no way associates these with the role of head of state.  Rgr09 (talk) 05:35, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duties of head of state in 1975-8 constitutions 

message: Therefore the title "President" in this case does not mean the same as in the United States or other Presidential systems, but rather as an approximation in terms of its power.
Could somebody explain in clear English what on earth this means? Isn't the issue more that the term "Zhuxi" is not used for foreign presidents, or for Presidents of the Republic of China ("Zhongtong" seems to be the term for presidents of the ROC)? What we actually say seems like utter gibberish to me. john k (talk) 11:05, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a source for that latter statement? I agree that what the article says right now is gibberish amounting to nothing more than the obvious "Presidents have different powers in different countries". Str1977 (talk) 07:42, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  What on earth does this mean 

message: This page makes many references to the "head of state of the People's Republic of Thailand." This does not seem at all correct with the pages title and the subsequent list of presidents. I believe this page needs to be changed and heavily edited or split.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by POderfla (talk • contribs) 12:57, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Has this page been confused with the head of state of Thailand? 

message: Apologies if this has been discussed before. I'd just like to share these articles which makes a very good point that referring to Xi Jinping as a president is both technically inaccurate and a subtle means of legitimizing an oppressive authoritarian dictator.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3831190
https://qz.com/1112638/xi-jinping-title-xi-jinping-is-not-the-president-of-china/
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/xi-jinping-president-chairman-title.html
I'd really like for Wikipedia to reflect his title as "Chairman" at the very least for the sake of technical accuracy. Though I understand this is at odds with the preference for common usage titles. Sadly in the case, the common usage is objectively incorrect.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.136.134.11 (talk) 16:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to echo this concern. The same term (主席) is used to refer to the head of state for the old Soviet Union. It is translated into English as Premier. This is especially apparent because there was a short-lived position called the President of the Soviet Union, which was translated as President (总统) in Chinese. There is no President of the People's Republic of China, and both the US and China legally distinguish between Chairman/Premier (主席) and President (总统). This article should reflect what is factually accurate and reference colloquial usage in the lede. Suzutai (talk) 22:38, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chairman vs President 

message: Under the "Timeline" section, I find it a bit strange that there are two distinct sub-sections between "Chairmen/presidents" and "Other heads of state". The former only lists Heads of State under the 1st and 4th constitutions, and not the Heads of State under the Central People's Government (CPG) nor 2nd and 3rd constitutions. Why is there this (in my opinion arbitrary) distinction that the titles of "Chairman of the PRC" and "President of the PRC" should be distinguished from the titles "Chairman of the CPG" and "Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC)", when they were all effectively Heads of State under their respective constitutions/eras?
My guess is that the President of the PRC and Chairman of the NPCSC are separate roles today, so the article wants to bring out that distinction. In that case, would it be more precise to re-title the sub-section as "Chairmen/presidents of the PRC"? Littleghostboo[ talk ] 14:05, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Chairmen/presidents" sub-section title 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion 

message: :President of the People's Republic of China →  – Per WP:COMMONNAME, WIKIPEDIA:PRIMARYTOPIC and WIKIPEDIA:CONCISE TheodoresTomfooleries (talk) 23:06, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Strongly support. PRC is commonly known as 'China', thus this proposal makes sense. OrientalTraveller (talk) 20:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

text: Relisting comment: For more opportunity for editors to see this discussion, since there was previously no consensus at #Requested move 20 April 2018. SilverLocust 💬 23:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:   Requested move 25 May 2024