Chinese people vs the Chinese people

[Kenny同志]

Hello folks, I’ve always been a little puzzled by the use of 'the' in certain contexts, for example:

Quote

The Chinese people, like any other nation, deserve freedom of speech.
Chinese people, like any other nation, deserve freedom of speech.

Are both sentences correct? What’s the difference between them?

Quote

A rumour has been going round among the locals.
A rumour has been going round among locals.

Are both sentences correct? What’s the difference between them?

 

Thanks for your help. 

[Demonic_Duck]

See the two definitions of "people" here:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/people#Noun

 

"The Chinese people" means all Chinese people, taken as a single entity. The grammar of this one is kind of weird, in that it's sort-of conceptually singular, but often treated as a plural:

 

The Chinese people, like any other nation, [deserve/deserves] freedom of speech.

 

To my mind, both "deserve" and "deserves" look acceptable. Furthermore, you can also have "peoples", as in "the peoples of many nations".

 

In the second sentence, without "the", "people" is simply the plural of "person". To be honest, this sentence looks a bit weird to me, because "Chinese people" aren't a nation (whereas "the Chinese people" is). IMO, a better wording here would be:

 

Chinese people, like people of any other nationality, deserve freedom of speech.

 

The situation with "locals" vs "the locals" is much less complicated, though — it's just standard usage of "the". If the audience is already expected to be familiar with the idea that there are locals, the writer will more likely use "the" (as if saying, "those locals of which you're already aware"). But in practice, language is messy, and a lot of the time people would simply use the two interchangeably or treat it as a stylistic choice.

[Kenny同志]

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation, Duck. It's extremely helpful. ?

[889]

Usually they are not interchangeable.

 

"The Chinese people rose up against the Japanese." They rose up as one.

 

"Chinese people rose up against the Japanese." Well, some did.

 

"Chinese people like to drink tea." OK.

 

"The Chinese people like to drink tea." Whoops.

 

As to "locals" you'd normally omit "the" when not referring to them as a whole.

 

"Believe me, we've got locals here who'll steal you blind."

[Kenny同志]

Well explained. Thanks 889. ?