Abstract

The present-day arena of Chinese political culture features glocalizational considerations with regard to the exploration of renzheng as humane governance that is somewhat corresponding to shanzhi as good governance. Both forms of governance seem to share such similar principles as accountability, efficiency, equity, honesty and transparency, among others. However, humane governance places more emphasis on humanity, fairness, competence, correctness and morality with its ultimate goal to build up a harmonious society per se. It is claimed to consist in at least two most important dimensions in the social setting of China at the current stage. One is fazhi as rule of law drawn from the Western democracy, and the other is xianming as wise leadership originated from the Chinese Confucianism. This pair of compasses can be employed to draw proper circles so long as they are synthesized into an organic whole by virtue of shiyong lixing as pragmatic reason. Such kind of reason is primarily characteristic of the Chinese mode of thought in one sense, and largely manifesting the ethos of Chinese culture in the other sense. In practice it is often conceived as general as “a creative principle in a dynamic process” of historical accumulation, cultural formation and psychological sedimentation as well. It was first formulated in early Confucianism but stays open to further modification along the passage of time. With respect to the preoccupation with humane governance in the given description, the pragmatic reason comprises at least four essential aspects ranging from usefulness (you yong xing), ethicalness (lun li xing), affective-cum-reasonable synthesis (qing li bu fen) to historical awareness (li shi yi shi). All this helps in varied ways rediscover the traditional sources and transform the conception of humane governance into a relevant strategy in order to upgrade the level of governmental efficiency and social management.