Korektita.

Metsis:I can see at least two arguments here.

Firstly what a country is called, is one of the rights of sovereign countries. If a country wants to be called "Kingdom of Naysayers", they are fully entitled to so. A rule of diplomacy is, that other countries follow the naming as closely as possible, so that country would ,for instance, be called Königreich der Neinsager by Germany. So if Respubliko Ĉinio is an adequate translation of 中華民國, so be it.

Secondly the E-o prepositions should be understood quite literally. I Finnish the genitive case is used very liberally as a glue between nouns, even the English usage of the preposition "of" is more liberal than of the E-o preposition de. Plena Ilustrita Vortaro lists the 13 cases (not 12 as I erroneously wrote earlier), where you can use de. As far as I can decipher none of them would cover Respubliko de Ĉinio. Even the 12th case IMHO requires, that the former noun is a more or less natural feature of the latter one, la prezo de pano. So a state, China is this case, would have a feature called republic. Can a certain political system be a natural feature of a state? IMHO, no.

I don't think that la dependecon de la dua subst. rilate al la unua, sen preciza senco necessarily refers to a "natural feature", especially in examples such as konkludo de la parolado and sub la masko de homamo.

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
I don't think that la dependecon de la dua subst. rilate al la unua, sen preciza senco necessarily refers to a "natural feature", especially in examples such as konkludo de la parolado and sub la masko de homamo.

I tried to cover this with "more or less natural feature of the latter one". For instance one can expect a speech to have a beginning and an end or a bread a price. At least to me these associations are more or less natural. However I don't automatically respond in an association test to word "China" with a response "republic" (Disclaimer: this applies to most countries, not just the one mentioned).

It's well within the parameters, that I have misunderstood the whole rule (have I watched too many episodes of Star Trek? )

Metsis:

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
I don't think that la dependecon de la dua subst. rilate al la unua, sen preciza senco necessarily refers to a "natural feature", especially in examples such as konkludo de la parolado and sub la masko de homamo.

I tried to cover this with "more or less natural feature of the latter one". For instance one can expect a speech to have a beginning and an end or a bread a price. At least to me these associations are more or less natural. However I don't automatically respond in an association test to word "China" with a response "republic" (Disclaimer: this applies to most countries, not just the one mentioned).

It's well within the parameters, that I have misunderstood the whole rule (have I watched too many episodes of Star Trek? )

Doesn't sen preciza senco mean any relationship between two words when no other preposition would quite work? Maybe je would be better in this situation.

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
Doesn't sen preciza senco mean any relationship between two words when no other preposition would quite work? Maybe je would be better in this situation.

Unfortunately the often quoted 16 rules give a false impression of the applicability of je, because it isn't actually nowadays used so freely. Perhaps it was originally meant to be a joker-like preposition, applicable whenever any other wouldn't fit. As a side-note my limited understanding of Ido is, that it has retained there that possibility, thus the Ido preposition ye can be used rather freely.

However the contemporary E-o usage of je limits it to a couple of cases. If you take a look at PIV, you notice, that some of these cases are rather hard to explain and different languages probably use different kind of expressions to express the same idea, e.g. libera je manko (free from shortage), kredi je Dio (believe in God).

Other use of je is to avoid mixing with the agent (the infamous de) when using nouns formed from verbs: kalkulo je io (calculation of something), soifado je io (thirst after something), nekreado je Dio (disbelief in God) etc,

E-o often uses the Romance language way of using la to denote the speaker's own bodyparts, la nazo : my nose. Je is used denote someone else's bodyparts: konduki iun je la nazo : to draw someone from nose (or does one say so in English?), to outwit someone.

Undoubtedly the most clearcut usage of je is with time.
Mi alvenos la trian : I will arrive at the third day of the month.
Mi alvenos je la tria : I will arrive at three o'clock.

Metsis:
Unfortunately the often quoted 16 rules give a false impression of the applicability of je, because it isn't actually nowadays used so freely. Perhaps it was originally meant to be a joker-like preposition, applicable whenever any other wouldn't fit. As a side-note my limited understanding of Ido is, that it has retained there that possibility, thus the Ido preposition ye can be used rather freely.

However the contemporary E-o usage of je limits it to a couple of cases. If you take a look at PIV, you notice, that some of these cases are rather hard to explain and different languages probably use different kind of expressions to express the same idea, e.g. libera je manko (free from shortage), kredi je Dio (believe in God).

Other use of je is to avoid mixing with the agent (the infamous de) when using nouns formed from verbs: kalkulo je io (calculation of something), soifado je io (thirst after something), nekreado je Dio (disbelief in God) etc,

E-o often uses the Romance language way of using la to denote the speaker's own bodyparts, la nazo : my nose. Je is used denote someone else's bodyparts: konduki iun je la nazo : to draw someone from nose (or does one say so in English?), to outwit someone.

Undoubtedly the most clearcut usage of je is with time.
Mi alvenos la trian : I will arrive at the third day of the month.
Mi alvenos je la tria : I will arrive at three o'clock.

So if there is a preposition that would work to describe the Respubliko Ĉinio, what would it be? Pri?

MiMalamasLaAnglan:
So if there is a preposition that would work to describe the Respubliko Ĉinio, what would it be? Pri?

I don't know. If pressed, I could be persuaded to accept de, because it's sufficiently fuzzy, but still my first choice would be sans, i.e. Respubliko Ĉinio without any preposition.

Metsis:
I don't know. If pressed, I could be persuaded to accept de, because it's sufficiently fuzzy, but still my first choice would be sans, i.e. Respubliko Ĉinio without any preposition.

I find it a little awkward to not have a preposition. Maybe Ĉinirespubliko is the best option...