Talk:Chinese Civil War

End Date?

This conflict has always been a messy one as the insurgency activity and remnant fighting lasted quite a while. KMT insurgents on the mainland lasted until 1954, there were guerillas in Xinjang until 58, first Taiwan strait crisis which saw several islands captured was in 1955, the forces in the Burmese Border kept fighting China until 1961, and some remnants continued to operate illegally as drug cartels in Thailand well after. Not to mention the third strait crisis or the lack of a technical treaty ending it.

However, I think 1951 is probably a better ending date than 1949. Everything after that is either Insurgency or minor conventional fighting in the first two strait crisis that’s seperate by a few years (though I note sources at the time seemingly often considered the conflict ongoing until after 1955 when the deadlock was firm).

I advocate for 1951, specifically May, because it covers pretty much all the heavy conventional contiguous fighting. In December 49 the KMT still held huge chunks of the South West of China and had a conventional presence in East Turkestan. Not to mention Tibet was still resisting. By Mid 1950 the KMT lost most of the mainland, then in the back half of the year they lost their conventional control over Xinjiang leaving it to Insurgency as well as Hainan after a hard fought landing. Then in October we saw the start of the Tibet campaign and the distraction that was Korea sapping forces meant for Taiwan.

The last serious conventional threat of the KMT on the mainland was wiped out by February 1951 following the loss of Baoshan in January and the wipeout of defensive forces, leaving the remainder to either go insurgent or flee to Burma. And in May Tibet officially surrendered to China. That would be it for conventional fighting until the strait crisis years later. Ignoring 1950 is foolish given how much conventional warfare occurred then 2604:3D09:1F7F:8B00:2DA9:89CF:5364:B3E4 (talk) 16:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I recognize the appeal in this rationale, but for our purposes we need to go by what the balance of sources reflect (or even better, discuss the different dating and logic for doing so based on sources in the body). Your comment is thoughtful, but the driver of the discussion should be -- and what are the best sources for the different constructs of an 'end date?' JArthur1984 (talk) 17:24, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM

I will note a lot of that is in hindsight(People in December 1949 very much did not consider it over, neither did Chinese military planners, both Chiang and Mao intended to end things militarily prior to the first strait crisis showing Chiang wasn't capable of retaking the mainland and Mao was weakened by the Korean War, US intervention after that effectively locking the conflict as that was the last time territory changed hands between them excluding the insurgents in Turkestan and Burma), December 1949 being when this conflict ended is a very post-Nixon visit mentality rather than what people at the time thought or what's really objectively the most correct(1951 was kind of a compromise, based on what I know of the time the First Taiwan Strait Crisis in late 54 early 55 was really the point this transitioned from active to frozen conflict in both a leadership mentality and in terms of land on the ground), but whatever can't fight the majority. I hate the way a ton of stuff is either named or sorted, it's internally inconsistent with other conflicts or overly stuffy or dumb, but that's how it is. 2604:3D09:1F7F:8B00:C6B:3399:2571:A231 (talk) 03:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC) Like for example, I think the best way to categorize Ukraine(in line with how Nagorno Karabakh or Libya were handled) is 3 articles. "Donbas War' for the active conflict that lasted exactly a year, from February 20th 2014 when fighting first started in Crimea to February 20th 2015 when the battle of Debaltseve ended and Minsk II took effect. Then an article for the low intensity conflict that lasted for 7 years, mostly occasional shelling deaths or skirmishs, a few major flareups like Avdiivka in 2017 or Kerch Strait in 2018. Then the full blown Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022 starts. But nope, because they renamed the military intervention page back in 2019 to that now the war is the entire 2014-today period even though that's terribly misleading and not how Libya or Azerbaijan were handled and trying to suggest otherwise makes me Pro-Russian even though I'm trying to approach this academically 2604:3D09:1F7F:8B00:C6B:3399:2571:A231 (talk) 03:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC) (Manchuria, that was the other example I couldn't remember. That's honestly probably the most solid case. The limited invasion and following low intensity conflict are their own things seperate from the full scale war in 37) 2604:3D09:1F7F:8B00:C6B:3399:2571:A231 (talk) 03:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

IP, you were asked a direct question, and instead of acknowledging it you blew right past it to continue your extemporaneous musing. This talk page is not a discussion forum, and it was made clear what the criteria for changes to the article would be. If you are interested in improving the article, please stay on topic, and preferably make responses comparatively brief, and with consideration of this and the above previous discussions in mind. Thanks. Remsense ‥ 论 04:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Missing literal translation

Under the "Resumed Fighting (1946-1949)" chapter, four different names for the war in Chinese are listed in a sidebar, but only three of them have their literal translation into English. Does anyone speak Chinese fluently enough to add an accurate translation? 134.129.200.53 (talk) 17:55, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

 Done. Yue🌙 23:20, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Chinese civil war technically never ended

Technically speaking, both the PRC and ROC are de jure still at war(similar to korean conflict). Wasn't this mentioned in the infobox before? Why was it removed Thehistorianisaac (talk) 07:32, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I wasn't the editor who removed it so I don't know the actual reason, but no scholar would seriously assert that the Chinese civil war is ongoing on a technicality. Similarly, of course the Korean conflict is ongoing and there is still a state of war between the two Koreas, but the Korean War ended. Contemporary scholars do not speak about the current conflict in terms of the wars from the 1940s and 1950s, as if the situations have not changed drastically within the past several decades.

"Technical" start and end dates are misleading and unhelpful. Imagine if the World War II article said the war actually ended in 1956, when Japan and the Soviet Union formally ended their state of war. Yue🌙 19:16, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean WW2 we can all agree on in 1945, but this is a different situation, and i think there should be a mention of the first, second and third taiwan strait crisis Thehistorianisaac (talk) 23:45, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

WWII and confusion for non-experts

The interrelationship of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II (1939–1945) is extremely unclear in this material, with WWII barely rating a passing mention. That needs repair.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:25, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish I think you're right. The whole section on the conflict during the Second Sino-Japanese War is too short. WP:BEBOLD! SilverStar54 (talk) 20:06, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Not within my areas of expertise, and I have too many things on my plate here already. Consider the above feedback as a reader rather than as an editor.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:31, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Aftermath

@Modun, I'm not opposed to a mention, but I think a full paragraph is too much for both conflicts, given how much ground needs to be covered. I know I just said the article was far too long, but checking again I can't believe it's under 8900. Remsense ‥ 论 05:59, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

OK, maybe I should rephrase the deleted paragraph to two lines? The key point here is China's supply of materials, rearmament, and training to North Vietnam, made possible by its victory in the mainland civil war. Ultimately, the sources cited confirm this. Modun (talk) 06:25, 14 March 2025 (UTC)