Social Governance Concepts in Traditional Chinese Culture

Within China’s outstanding traditional culture lies a wealth of thought on social governance. In an effort to organize these ideas in systematic fashion, this text contains the dialogue that took place in the autumn of 2019 during a course for public administration graduate students entitled “Innovation in Social Governance.” The dialogue was between Professor Wang Ming of Tsinghua University and sinologist Meng Fanjia, who is a 74th-generation descendant of the great philosopher Mencius and an advocate of contemporary shi culture (a shi is one who aspires to become a person of noble character as defined by traditional Chinese culture). The dialogue, full of novel concepts, summarizes the definition of the word “traditional”. Their discussion was both broadly inclusive and profoundly insightful in the aspects of rite, being a man of noble character, virtue, being a scholar, goodness, filial piety, law, kinship, and morality.