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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

On 6 June 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from Chang Hsueh-liang to Zhang Xueliang. The result of the discussion was moved.

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)

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

• @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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
    • @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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]

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

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
• Oppose per point raised by Talrolande above. Idealigic (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
• 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)[reply]
  • Indeed the grave shows this WhisperToMe (talk) 20:58, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]