Talk:Outer Manchuria

source

Can someone please explain where this comes from? Without a source indicated, I have to suspect copyvio + machine translation. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:29, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:Japanese strategic planning for mainland Asia (1905-1940) for all these pages in this style. Charles Matthews 16:41, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I give up trying to correct or edit this article... on one hand it seems to contain a lot of detailed and interesting information, but on the other hand, the grammar is simply atrocious, much text is completely incomprehensible, and a few oddities (e.g., claims that Baekje and Silla, located in southern Korea, had somehow exerted influence over Outer Manchuria; or mentions of the Manchu "provinces" of Hulun and East Tartary, which never actually existed) make me doubt the credibility of this entire article. I'm tempted to delete most of it and start over. What does everyone think? -- ran (talk) 20:37, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

irrendendist claims

Remove irrendendist claims. There isn't an active irrendenist movement over these territories.

Roadrunner 05:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

sources

This needs to be sourced

Meanwhile, some Chinese both at home and abroad have criticized the treaty as an official acknowledgement of the legitimacy of Russian rule over Outer Manchuria, which was ceded by the Qing Dynasty to Imperial Russia under a series of Unequal Treaties, which included the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 and the Convention of Peking in 1860, in order to exchange exclusive usage of Russia's rich oil resources. As a result of these criticisms, news and information regarding the border treaty were censored in Mainland China by the PRC government.

Roadrunner 05:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The best English source that I can find is from the Epoch Times that I just added, but I could not find the exchange exclusive usage of Russia's rich oil resources. The Chinese irrendendist claims are unofficial.--Jusjih 13:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Epoch Time is a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.126.75.181 (talk) 05:26, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Manchukuo Temporary Government

Should this supposed micronation really be mentioned in the article? Even if it exists, a "state" controlling no territory, recognised by nobody and with a national income consisting of Paypal donations is not exactly notable... Moyabrit (talk) 12:15, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Neologism?

There are very few google scholar hits for this term, and those that predate the creation of this article seem to be rather ambigious about what "Outer Manchuria" actually is. E.g. "Li Longyun was born in 1948 in Beijing. In 1968, like many urban youth of his gener- ation, he was sent down to a military farm in the Great Northern Wilderness of outer Manchuria to accept reeducation from farmers and soldiers during the Cultural Revolution." [1] sounds pretty much as if the "Outer Manchuria" Li Longyun was sent to is not part of Russia. Yaan (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't really think this term is exactly a neologism, but originally a term specifically used to refer to the region ceded by the Qing Dynasty to Russia in 1858-1860. I'm not sure why Google scholar returns so few results, but Google books did return significantly more results. Nevertheless, I have noted that the example you gave above seems to have somehow misused the term to refer to northern Manchuria within China (I found that he was actually sent to the Heilongjiang province, in a region called Beidahuang, translated as the "Great Northern Wilderness"). --207.112.78.41 (talk) 23:33, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Google Books indeed does turn up a few hits - but the vast majority of them was written after the creation of this article! Those that were written before are also rather ambigous about the location of "Outer Manchuria", e.g. this one states that Hailar is in Outer Manchuria.

As for "originally a term specifically used to refer to the region ceded by the Qing Dynasty to Russia in 1858-1860", obviously that is what whoever made up this term wants you to believe - that Outer Manchuria is somehow analogous to Outer Mongolia, just further east. The problem with this is that the term "Outer Mongolia" has been in documented use even in the West for decades if not centuries, and that Mongolia's outside-ness has little to with any Russians or with its location vis-a-vis Beijing: the implied analogy is false. Yaan (talk) 01:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the point regarding Google Books that most books within the hits seems rather new. Nevertheless, I don't really think that the above link states that Hailar is in Outer Manchuria. Rather, it says "gold mines in the Khailar region and at Toghao in Outer Manchuria", i.e. "Toghao" is in Outer Manchuria, not "Khailar" (or Hailar) is in Outer Manchuria, though I'm not exactly sure where Toghao is. Anyway, I think this term is probably more commonly seen in another (e.g. Chinese) language than English. And if this is the case, the article may mention the existence and usage of such term and associated concept etc, but not to treat it as already a "standard" (or well-established) English term as "Outer Mongolia" had been. In any case, no matter how frequently the term itself is actually used, having a name as a collective term referring to this region is very useful however. --Rurlstyle (talk) 02:32, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I am sure that if this term had long been common in Chinese, we'd see at least a Chinese name for the area on the wp page. A quick pre-2005 google books search for the most immediate suspects ("外满洲", "外关东", "外东北") seems to turn up nothing useful, although I have to admit that my Chinese is almost non-existent.

As for the utility of the term, to me it looks about as useful as "Northern Mexico" for the American Southwest or "Maritime Bolivia" for the Atacama desert. It might be appealing to people of certain ideological backgrounds, but for the general reader even a title as unsexy as "Areas ceded by X to Y under the treaty of Z" should be more useful.

Yaan (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually I'm not quite sure about exactly how common the term is used in Chinese or another language. But given the long existence of the article in other language WPs (created at different time and probably by different users) as well as the number of hits I got for "外东北" (and "外满洲") in Google, I got the feeling that it may be more common than in English. As for the other point, the last sentence of the "Name" section of this article currently says "It is conceded that the term is useful, however, in reference to the broad area formerly known as Priamurye". I'm not sure exactly who added it as a conclusion, but now I see it probably need to be revised (and I just made some changes in the said statement). --Rurlstyle (talk) 23:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The underlying problem is that the term creates a misleading impression. Inner and Outer Mongolia were fairly clearly defined regions within the Qing empire and they had distinct relationships with the Qing court in Beijing. Perhaps even more important, both were inhabited by Mongols. Historical Manchuria ('Inner Manchuria' in the parlance of this article) was the homeland of the Manchus. But it was never 'Inner' in the way that Inner Mongolia was, because it was at the very centre -- the homeland of the Manchu people with a parallel capital in Shenyang/Mukden. By contrast, the people of the northern regions, especially those north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri, were not Manchu at all. Most of them were Tungus-speakers, but the Tungus-speaking area extends very much further into what is now eastern Siberia. In other words, the Inner/Outer analogy with Mongolia doesn't work. To my mind, the term is also a bit tainted by the implicit backing it gives to Chinese irredentist claims to the area north of the Amur. This claim is highly contentious and the issue should be treated with strict neutrality. The other question is whether, despite these issues, the term is a useful one. Juha Janhunen, arguably the foremost expert on the languages of the region, has used it unambiguously in 1996 to refer to the area north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri. But it's hard to see anywhere in Wikipedia where the term is anything more than a (potentially tendentious) synonym for the Amur region and the Russian Far East. Atla5Atla5 (talk) 12:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the Manchuria case should not be considered as parallel or analogous to the Inner/Outer Mongolia, and the dividing of Inner/Outer Manchuria based on that of Mongolia indeed could create a misleading impression as mentioned above, especially the term "Inner Manchuria" seems somehow to be a forced (and much duplicate) one. This is not to immediately conclude the term "Outer Manchuria" on the other hand is a neologism, given the uses of the term in (reasonably unbiased) scholarly works (in the 20th century or so) etc. But even if it is not, we need to make sure this article (or related ones) not to treat it as a "standard" (or completely uncontroversial) term as may be considered by some (BTW, there are also other obviously controversial terms like East Turkestan in WP; consider how they are being described or handled on those pages). --Rurlstyle (talk) 18:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm coming to the same "neologism" conclusion in 2023. I called this a neologism on Wiktionary [2] because of the cites here: [3] some of which are discussed above!
I would contest @Atla5Atla5:'s statement from 18 December 2011 (I'm writing on 31 May 2023, about 11 & 1/2 years later after that editor's comment) that "Juha Janhunen, arguably the foremost expert on the languages of the region, has used it unambiguously in 1996 to refer to the area north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri."

Janhunen's Outer Manchuria is like the Russian light red part, plus the Inner Mongolian light red part, plus big parts of the dark red area around the edges. Her Inner Manchuria is the remaining dark red area.-- Note, this map gets reverted all the time- I'm talking about the 27 May 2023 version where Sakhalin is not included

Janhunen's work Manchuria: An Ethnic History, seems at a glance to be an extraordinarily erudite and remarkable work on Manchuria. To give you an idea of unusual nature of this work, in Janhunen's view, beside the "Continental Manchuria", Japan, Korea, the Shandong Peninsula, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands are part of what she terms "Insular" and "Peninsular" Manchuria (see map on page 2 and several others). Then: on page 6, Juha Janhunen wrote: "The passage towards the south is somewhat less restricted, allowing, for certain purposes, the two subregions of Southern and Central Manchuria to be viewed as a single complex which may be termed Inner Manchuria,⁸ as opposed to the periphery or Outer Manchuria." When Janhunen speaks of Southern and Central Manchuria, she is referring to those concepts as she understands them on her page 2 map. Later, on page 227, she uses "Outer and Insular Manchuria" as if Insular Manchuria is not included within Outer Manchuria, implying that her "Outer Manchuria" is purely within Continental Manchuria. That is: Inner Manchuria is Southern and Central Manchuria, and Outer Manchuria is the rest of Continental Manchuria, minus Insular & Peninsular Manchuria (to think otherwise would make JAPAN itself part of Outer Manchuria, LMAO).
So, what's left in her conceptition of Continental Manchuria, beside Southern and Central? She has three other Manchurias: Western Manchuria, Northern Manchuria and Eastern Manchuria. According to the map on page 2 of her work Manchuria: An Ethnic History, Western Manchuria includes Hailar and Hulun explicitly, basically the northwestern part of northeast China that abuts Mongolia. Note that it does not reach Lake Baikal. Then, Northern Manchuria includes areas that are certainly in Russia, BUT it also includes areas on the southern side of the Amur River, like Mohe and areas along the river. Then, Eastern Manchuria includes Russian Maritime Province and all those areas, but it also includes A LOT of easten Heilongjiang Province,--- for instance, all of the area surrounding Lake Khanka is in Eastern Manchuria. Heixiazi is basically at the center point of Janhunen's Eastern Manchuria. SO: the point is this: If Janhunen's conception of Outer Manchuria includes Hailar, Mohe, big parts of Heilongjiang, and all of Lake Khanka plus Maritime Province, the coast, and all that, then, yes, Atla5Atla5 is kinda right that Janhunen "unambiguously" used 'Outer Manchuria' to refer "to the area north of the Amur and east of the Ussuri." BUT not exclusively! Her conception of Outer Manchuria does NOT align with the modern neologism of "the territories ceded in 1858/1860" because Janhunen's "Outer Manchuria" DOES NOT include Sakhalin and DOES include Hailar, Hulun, Mohe, all of Lake Khanka, and big parts of Heilongjiang Province.
Now: whether Janhunen's work inspired the 2004 creator of this Wikipedia entry to create this entry, I cannot say. But no, no, no: This is NOT Janhunen's concept of Outer Manchuria. She's writing an elite scholarly work where she's including Korea, Shandong, Japan, and etc in Manchuria, and where her concept of Outer Manchuria includes big parts of not just Russia, but also China, maybe a little Mongolia, and NOT Sakhalin. So: her concept is NOT this entry's concept. Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:22, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

POV issues

This IP edit, while purporting to make the article more neutral, appears quite suspicious: at best it simply exchanges one (the pro-Chinese) for another (the pro-Russian) POV, at worst it introduces a Russian POV. It also removes some parts without explanation, nor any apparent reason. Revert? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:15, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Revert if you want. You may want to actually edit some sections rather than just revert the whole thing. Rincewind42 (talk) 07:33, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the topic to fix the article myself. That's why I'm mentioning my suspicion here so that more competent users can undo the truly inappropriate changes. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:07, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Amurland

The redirect Amurland points here, and a fair number of articles link to that redirect. Is it accurate to say that Amurland is a (probably archaic) name for this area? If so, this article would ideally say that. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:09, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Outer Manchuria

I believe, based on original research from collecting sources at Wiktionary's Citations:Outer Manchuria entry, that 'Outer Manchuria' (as a reference to the territories ceded by China to Russia in 1858/1860) did not exist before this English Wikipedia article was created in 2004, and grew into an instance of citogenesis, with Americans like Kissinger and Bolton and others in the foreign policy establishment using the term. I'm not sure what the correct thing to do at this point is. Note: I'm not denying that the area was considered part of Manchuria. That's fine. But I'm only denying that the term "Outer Manchuria" ever meant "the areas ceded by China to Russia in 1858 & 1860" until the year 2004. (@Cullen328:). I have attempted to add a kind of stop-gap fix to the entry with the wording "so-called" and two cites from Kissinger and Bolton. Geographyinitiative (talk) 07:24, 27 May 2023 (UTC) (Modified)

Merger Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was not to merge. I myself no longer want to do this; the subject seems to have become more real with the addition of sources. Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:54, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

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• Merge changed to Oppose – I propose merging Outer Manchuria into Treaty of Beijing) (see also Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Outer_Manchuria.) I think the content in Outer Manchuria can easily be explained in the context of Treaty of Beijing, and the terminology 'Outer Manchuria' is not a common academic term. I propose this merge because there are only five references on this page (three of which I myself added to show the problems with this term), most of the content is uncited, and I think the whole topic could be dealt with in an academic and professional way on the Convention of Peking/Treaty of Beijing page. I also believe that the exact term 'Outer Manchuria' did not exist before 2004 (regardless of whether the area was part of 'Manchuria' in some sense- I'm saying the exact sense of the word 'Outer Manchuria' referring to the areas annexed by Russia in 1858 and 1860 didn't exist.) I believe that 'Outer Manchuria' referring to this region is a case of citogenesis. (See my above comment: Talk:Outer_Manchuria#Outer_Manchuria and a 2011 discussion Talk:Outer_Manchuria#Neologism?). Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose -'Treaty of Beijing' is an example of the Wikipedia standard of having an article for each major treaty with terms and details. 'Amur Annexation' gives the background of the treaty. 'Outer Manchuria' is not a standard term,but is an interesting way of looking at the problem. The interested reader will probably read several linked articles to see the problem from different points of view. Benjamin Trovato (talk)

@Benjamin Trovato: Hey, thanks for looking at this! I would say your statement "'Amur Annexation' gives the background of the treaty." is EXACTLY my point- that is EXACTLY my argument for merging. And your statement "'Outer Manchuria' is not a standard term,but is an interesting way of looking at the problem." is exactly my point yet again- why not discuss a non-standard term on that treaty's page rather than in an nearly 2 decades old yet totally uncited Wikipedia article that's generating citogenesis content? I'm thinking that a redirect from 'Outer Manchuria' to 'Treaty of Beijing'/'Convention of Peking' will be a perfect way to deal with Outer Manchuria. All points of view will be discussed there. But right now, we have a page for a neologism that's using the voice of Wikipedia to spread uncited content. Yikes x 1,000,000. Please let me know if any of this makes you reconsider your vote! Geographyinitiative (talk) 08:48, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

• • We are both partly right. Again, Wikipedia custom is to have an article for each conflict with a link to the treaty that temporarily settled it (Amur Annexation and Treaty of Peking). I see no reason to change the custom. Merger would clutter the treaty article. 2. Convention of Beijing is more about the Second Opium War than Manchuria/Siberia. 3. I have no objection to neologisms when we need to discuss something with no official name. 4. A printed book must put everything in. In Wikipedia we can put everything in by linking related articles.Benjamin Trovato (talk) 07:33, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose - As per @Benjamin Trovato:. A Google Books search shows that this is not a neologism created in 2004 by Wikipedia as claimed by the proposer. For example, Manchuria: An Ethnic History by Juha Janhunen published in 1996, uses the term Outer and Inner Manchuria. Using Jstor, I have found an article dating back from 1927, called Bolshevist Influences in China by Quincy Wright using the term, Outer Manchuria. This does seem to be a standard term used to refer to the Russian-controlled portions of Manchuria. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 20:13, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, these are two different things. Gryffindor (talk) 18:44, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

@Gryffindor: Hey, I just want to say that what I see as the modern neologism is entirely dependent on the Treaty, which is why I think the topic would be better served if this were made a part of the Treaty page. Of course the region is different from the treaty. But the modern concept of Outer Manchuria could not exist without that treaty. Thanks for your input! Geographyinitiative (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

• Leaning merge I am swayed by the arguments presented by Geographyinitiative thus far regarding whether the term as defined in the article is a neologism. I'm uncertain if a merge is really the appropriate solution here, as there's the question of its use in RS since the purported coining, as well as its use in contexts other than the one currently defined in the article. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:01, 11 June 2023 (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.

How is Sakhalin Island not part of Outer Manchuria baffles me

See [4]. 8 placenames are required to display both Russian and (historial) Chinese names by modern Chinese Map standard. For all of them see Template:Chinese historical placenames in Outer Manchuria. Sakhalin is one of them. ibicdlcod (talk) 14:07, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

@Ibicdlcod: Check out this map, which tries to exhaustively describe Qing/Manchu holdings in 1820. Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:37, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: Sakhalin is indeed coloured as Qing territory in Tan Qixiang's The Historical Atlas of China (in the map showing the situation of 1820). It is also drawn as such in this 1821 French map. Double sharp (talk) 23:56, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

So-called

@Gryffindor: Thank you for your edit. I made a rewording- see if you like it. In this edit: [5] you remove "so-called" from the beginning of the article. You note that "No article starts with "so-called", explain nuances in article itself at a later point." But the very issue is that this is not a legitimate academic term and is a Wikipedia citogenesis. The term itself is prejudiced toward one party and this sense of this term did not exist before this article was created on Wikipedia. So it's something that needs to be addressed FAST so that the reader is on guard that this is a concept of dubious academic merit. Let me know what you think of my justification, and let me know if you have alternative suggestions for making it clear to the reader that they are reading about a dubious geographical conceptualization. To not have a preface or clarification of this sort immediately reads those bolded words "Outer Manchuria" in the voice of Wikipedia in a way that is disingenuous, because it acts as if the term is a bona fide legitimate geographical term, like "West Texas". Outer Manchuria does not appear in atlases, it does not appear on maps, it does not appear in academic papers. It is not anywhere, except here, at the citogenesis source. I have removed a lot of filler text that was uncited and was related to other articles. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:45, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Renaming Outer Manchuria to Russian Manchuria (Russia)

This issue is easy to demagogue. However, I sincerely feel that this is the intellectually and ethically wise choice for Wikipedia to make. Using a holistic approach and employing cautious circumspection and a general appreciation for clear thinking, wisdom and fairmindedness: THIS is the established term for 150 years. Despite all the fun discussions I've had with all kinds of different Wikipedia and Wiktionary editors, no one but me myself has lifted a finger to edit the Outer Manchuria (now Russian Manchuria (Russia)) page itself in the sense of adding new references or citations, and this is what I feel is the right decision. The article and the topic itself have been languishing for 19 years because it's got the wrong title! To those who want to change it back: If you cared about this article before, why did it not have any legitimate citations until I added them? Bolton's putting "outer" in scare quotes in 2023 people. This rename should satisfy some of the people in the merge discussion who want a page and dont like the title of entry but do think there should be such an entry. After careful consideration and using about fifty to a hundred references and by using a holistic approach consistent with accepted Wikipedia practice, including npov, and with due consideration and respect for the potential geopolitical ramifications and the wishes and thoughts of the editors who have shown interest in this issue to date, I think this is the academically sound and ethically correct decision. I'm the only editor I know of who has the sufficient requisite knowledge to make this decision. Most other editors are only looking at this issue from a tangential perspective. In my case, I have done extensive citations for Mandarin-derived English language words relating to Russian Manchuria, including Haishenwai, the name for Vladivostok. The article cannot flourish with the faked name as the entry title. My biases: I personally feel that this region or part of this region should probably have been returned to Manchuria (China/PRC and/or Taiwan/ROC) by the Russian Empire or USSR, but that now given the time elapsed, the territory is probably genuinely Russian on some level, if there could be a "statute of limitations" on such questions, and further that considering the treaties done by China PRC under Jiang Zemin, this really is Russia under international law. Also, I oppose the CCP's rhetoric on Taiwan and the South China Sea claims and am inclined to view other similar claims in a skeptical light. There can be two names for one place. And just because one is popularized in recent years does not mean that the new name is the actual name. The new name definitely deserves a spot on the entry, but does not supplant the name used for a hundred and fifty years. But when the Wikipedia entry title is a neologism made up on Wikipedia and spread by citogenesis, something strange is happening. And this may not be the correct decision in the future! Maybe it needs to be adjusted later! But for me, today, given what I've seen, given the people I've spoken with, I feel that this is what a true, objective encyclopedia would look like. Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:47, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: FWIW, I agree with this decision of yours. Put the actual historical name as primary, but list and bold "Outer Manchuria" as an alternative name that is sometimes used these days.

Re the Chinese name, IIRC 外東北 ("Outer Northeast") is more common today than 外满洲 (the zh.wp article is at the former). Pre-2004, I'm not sure there is any standard Chinese name for the area.

As for irredentism – this area isn't even all that has been sighed for in the northeast. Some Chinese articles on the internet (one, two) would consider everything east of the Lena River as lands lost by the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk. Though the first one's map of the Qing at the bottom is really the map of the Yuan from Tan Qixiang's atlas, with western boundary even on the Ob' and Irtysh. Though if you ask me, the "time elapsed" point is even more relevant if one thinks of going back that far. Double sharp (talk) 22:30, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 15 August 2023

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. Consensus below appears to support the move. (closed by non-admin page mover) estar8806 (talk) ★ 02:48, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

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Russian Manchuria (Russia) → Outer Manchuria – Revert unilateral move by User:Geographyinitiative, discuss it first. Sources provided all mention "Outer Manchuria" as terminology. Gryffindor (talk) 14:05, 15 August 2023 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:29, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

• I'm a bit undecided on this article's title issues, but looking at the above sections on this talk page, I don't think it's accurate to call it a unilateral move, and there seemed to be valid concerns that Outer Manchuria in this context is a neologism from Wikipedia circa 2006, with extensive arguments from Geographyinitiative to that end. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:31, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
  • Though, if it has come to be used commonly enough, it is still a good name, regardless of how it came to be coined. -- 67.70.25.80 (talk) 04:06, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

    My understanding of the prior discussions is that there is a distinct referent of "Outer Manchuria" prior to 2006, which complicates the extent to which the neologism is truly a common name today. In the absence of RS that directly comment on the history of the name, we should be cautious not to prop up fledgling citogenesis. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:36, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support WP:NATURALDAB -- 67.70.25.80 (talk) 03:58, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
• Comment the name of the article in zhwiki is roughly "Outer Manchuria", on ruwiki it is titled roughly "Amur region".Walt Yoder (talk) 15:31, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose I am convinced this is not citogenesis; the term is clearly in use in Chinese in a way that cannot possibly be attributed to enwiki. But it is certainly strange to use a Chinese term to refer to a Russian region. Russian Manchuria (Russia) is awkward, but it is in use; I can't find enough use of any variant of "Amurland" in English to suggest an alternate title. Walt Yoder (talk) 18:01, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
• The current title seems absurd and I'm inclined to support a move for that reason alone. Russian Manchuria is currently a dab page, but the only other article there, Russian Dalian, does not use the phrase at all. Srnec (talk) 00:11, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, it seems this article is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I would also support moving it to Russian Manchuria. Vpab15 (talk) 21:56, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. The term "Outer Manchuria" is virtually unknown in Russia. We have had a discussion in Russian Wikipedia and concluded that it is a Western neologism spread via English Wikipedia (and possibly originating here). The Russian term Priamurye is much more established and seems to me preferrable. Ghirla^-трёп- 12:28, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Would it make sense to move this article to Priamurye, which is currently a redirect to Amur Oblast? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 13:25, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  The term is certainly not a Wikipedian invention. It may originate with Juha Janhunen. See Manchuria: An Ethnic History. The way the term is used on Wikipedia, however, may be OR/SYNTH. Srnec (talk) 20:06, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Comment: Whilst potentially virtually unknown in Russia, the phrase has become common in English articles and papers, with this article being about the en Wikipedia article. 88.255.11.66 (talk) 12:24, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Per WP:COMMONNAME. The references seem to use "Outer Manchuria". Whether it is a neologism or not is not particularly relevant. Plenty of other articles have an anachronistic title, see Byzantine Empire#Nomenclature for example. Vpab15 (talk) 15:10, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per number of academic sources that reference the region as "Russian Manchuria". I'm seeing sources published by Stanford and CUP that prefer "Russian Manchuria", while "Outer Manchuria" seems like a common albeit only recently popular name for the region in English. ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:59, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Support:WP:COMMONNAME & WP:NATURALDAB 88.255.11.66 (talk) 08:05, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Russia has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:20, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Soviet Union has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject East Asia has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Support per WP:COMMONNAME. On the other hand, I’d also like to voice my displeasure with how User:Geographyinitiative unilaterally moved the page and declared themself the only editor qualified to make this decision while taking a jab at people who disagree with them. NM 21:19, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Support

Whilst some have argued the phrase as being a cytogenesis, articles such as those by Henry Kissinger, or 1960s policy papers long before Wikipedia. Furthermore, in recent reporting and media the phrase is far more common than “Russian Manchuria”, being used by CEPA, the Asia Times, as well as more common/casual settings such as TripAdvisor, along with other news articles, which would indicate common name. I would also like to point out that on google N-gram, Russian and Outer Manchuria have traded places since 2000. In addition, JSTOR searches show a more common use of Outer Manchuria in recent papers over Russian Manchuria, with “Outer” used thrice in 2023 and four times in 2022, whereas “Russian” was used once in 2023, no times in 2022, and twice in 2021, indicating Wikipedia:COMMONNAME with one of those being a citation of the much older article ““The Liberal Alternative in Russian Manchuria””, which itself refers also to Russian dominance over another part of China, as outlined below.

A further issue that can be noted with the use of “Russian Manchuria” is also the fact that it can be incorrectly conflated or confused with Russia’s dominance of Northern Inner Manchuria and/or the Kwantung Leased Territory during the Qing era of China, as seen here, and in this paper cited at least 72 times, creating issues with WP:PRECISION and WP:SMALLDETAILS.

In addition, Outer Manchuria provides a natural disambiguation to “Inner Manchuria”, which is a recognised phrase (more commonly known as “the northwest in China itself), to refer to the region, making Outer Manchuria a Wikipedia:NATURALDAB.

In the case of a renaming to Priamurye, I would argue against that as the regional boundaries for that phrase do not always match what is considered Outer Manchuria, which was specifically the land lost in the Treaty of Nerchinsk or later. 93.96.143.9 (talk) 13:25, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Support
I agree. It's pretty obvious that Outer Manchuria is a commonly used term as opposed to Russian Manchuria which might also cause confusions. 126.51.163.234 (talk) 14:00, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Support The entire basis of the original move was somewhat flawed. The original mover, as they've stated above, conducted the move on a personal "fairness" principle of what the geographic name "ought" to be rather than on the terms of Wikipedia policy, such as WP:COMMONNAME. On editorial grounds, as I see it per the metrics and sources stated above, the argument does seem to be there on such a basis. Sleath56 (talk) 19:36, 7 September 2023 (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.

Tartar-general ?

This sentence requires clarification, "In 1854, the Tartar-general of Heilungkiang memorialized that the only way to stop Russian expansion into the region was to bring Han Chinese settlers to the unpopulated areas." Who was this and what exactly is a "Tartar-general"? Is this some British Victorian attempt to translate an actual Chinese imperial title?

Also, I often see the word "memorialized" (evidently an attempt to translate a Chinese verb) used instead of the more idiomatic "reported" in many British sources on Imperial China, even some as reputable as Arthur Waley. Wouldn't it be better to modernize the verb to "reported", since, AFAIK, "memorialized" is not standard as a description of preparing an official government document or report in 21st century English? I haven't changed it because I kind of like the quaintness of "memorialized," but what would the consensus be? Pascalulu88 (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

My guess for the first question is that this likely refers to a military general of Tatar origin. I've requested the cited source from my local library to see if I can verify the claim.

As far as the second goes, reported does seem preferable, as "memorialized" could be confused for "commemorated" or some other verb. I'm not sure about how the word was chosen in the case of this article, seeing as the given citation is to an English-language source. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! As I've said, I have seen the word "memorialized" used in this sense in other 19th and 20th century British texts on China. I'm pretty sure that in "The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes" Arthur Waley uses such phrases as "Commissioner Lin prepared a memorial," to say that Lin Zexu reported on some incident to the Emperor. Pascalulu88 (talk) 15:00, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Frustratingly, more or less the exact text in our article is repeated in the source: the Tartar-general of Heilungkiang memorialized in vain that the only way to prevent Russian absorption... Looking at online dictionaries, it seems that "memorialize" is now archaic but did essentially mean "wrote a memo", so it's not a translation issue. Unfortunately, the more significant issue of "what is a Tartar-general" remains unresolved. The text in question otherwise refers to Tatars as Tatars, not Tartars, so it's not clear if this is simply a typo or an intent do denote something else. I'm afraid that confirming what happened here is going to take a non-trivial amount of research using other sources describing the same time period. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I've tentatively resolved the issue by replacing the claim in the article with more relevant information, as the "Tartar-general"'s opinions in 1854 (n.b. year not confirmed clearly by the source) aren't really relevant to the scope of this article, although I did preserve mention of them in a citation quote, as it substantiates the claim of inaction "despite warnings". _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:07, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your work on getting an answer! Pascalulu88 (talk) 21:13, 13 June 2024 (UTC)