Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese intelligence activity in other countries

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. —Cleared as filed. 01:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese intelligence activity in other countries

An article which can only contain speculations. The subject of Chinese foreign intelligence is covered in Ministry of State Security – Ezeu 00:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Because the article itself says, "These claims are provided by defecting Chinese officials and they may not be reliable." Ruby 00:58, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • If that is the standard then the bulk of articles like Human rights in North Korea would have to go as well. A body of reports from defectors is notable, especially when there is evidence to back them up, such as pending criminal cases against accused spies.--ThreeAnswers 01:17, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• • An analogy: some people get their information about Catholicism from ex-Catholics, and you end up with what is possibly bad information from people with an axe to grind. If the only source of information about Catholicism was from ex-Catholics (as it would also be in this article and the case you mentioned), then it would be better for Wikipedia not to accept the information rather than accept tainted information. Ruby 04:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• Weak delete keep. Could be better written. Royboycrashfan 01:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep -article as it currently stands contains nothing worth reading but that doesn't mean it 'can only' contain speculation. There's plenty of evidence for CIA activity outside the US, for example. It wouldn't be hard for an inclined editor to turn some mainstream news coverage of Chinese spying into a proper article. -- Aim Here 01:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as article contains nothing but speculation and is totally non-encyclopedic. Just because a topic has potential to have an encyclopedic article written about it, that in itself is crystal balling. In the meantime, this fails all the wiki tests and has to go. ++Deiz 02:13, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, Strong keep, as expandable, and per ThreeAnswers' rewrite. Adrian Lamo ·· 07:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, there's growth potential here. --AlexWCovington (talk) 06:32, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. I've re-written the article and provided a number of sources, and internal links to Katrina Leung and the falsely accused Wen Ho Lee. I just can't see Wikipedia not having an article about this topic, considering the alleged scope of activity.--ThreeAnswers 07:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Comment It is hard to see how a page such as this can rise above the level of rumour, speculation or misinformation. Since no verification from interested parties is possible, how can it be useful for purposes of research?  (aeropagitica)  08:56, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• I´m with Aeropagita, serious NPOV and speculation issues here. Info on Leung and Lee is useful but already exists on their bio pages. Apart from that it´s just a list of weblinks which WP:NOT. It is better than it was but not quite there yet... ++Deiz 10:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• The policy is that Wikipedia is not a mere collection of weblinks. They're all directly relevant to the content of the article and published by reputable sources. I'm not sure what the NPOV issue is considering that China's objections are noted as well as the accusation of "China threat" racism.--ThreeAnswers 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Espionage (by any nation) receives extensive real-world press coverage and is written about extensively. That the nations doing it won't admit to it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen and isn't cataloged. See press coverage of current US-Venezuela accusations of spying for current coverage. Georgewilliamherbert 19:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Georgewilliamherbert 19:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: media hysterism itself is quite notable encyclopedic topic, poorly assembled articles "documenting" individual cases from newspapers isn't. Such topics requires time to be researched correctly, until then they are mere speculations and do not belong here. Pavel Vozenilek 22:46, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep, notable subject; article clearly states what is not definate fact and cites sources. Where (talk) 00:31, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep is well referenced thanks to ThreeAnswers's rewrite -- Astrokey44|talk 04:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• In Communist China, articles keep YOU! --Agamemnon2 11:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Preaky 17:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.