Minzhu and Xuanju in Chinese Traditional Political Culture
Minzhu and xuanju are inherent terms in Chinese traditional political culture,with their spe-cific political and historical connotations,and they are not completely consistent with the West-ern concepts of democracy and election that we usually understand today.The basic meaning of minzhu in ancient China refers to those who are in the position of a ruler and can make deci-sions on behalf of the people.The so-called xuanju refers to the selection of the virtuous and the talented for politics by means of recommendation,inspection and examination.However,the reason why our predecessors used these two Chinese words to translate the concepts of de-mocracy and election in Western modem politics is that they are not unrelated at all.The west-ern modem political theory of democracy and election can reflect the defects of Chinese tradi-tional political culture.Similarly,from the concept of minzhu and xuanju in Chinese traditional politics,we can also see some malpractices in the Western contemporary democracy and elec-tion culture.The fusion of Chinese and Western concepts of minzhu/democracy and xuanju/e-lection may give some insight into our understanding of the development of contemporary social and political civilization.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
