The Statecraft Of Han Fei And Its Enlightenment For The Governance Of Modern Government

The Decision on Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms was adopted at the close of the Third Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee. On the committee, the CPC Central Committee put forward that the general purpose of deepening its all-round reform is to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, to advance modernization in the State governance system and governance capability. Government as a hierarchy of the national governance system, is on the way to law-based government, limited government and clean government. At the same time, some trouble has appeared. For example, the lax law enforcement, the irrational expansion and abuse of administrative power, the government corruption and so on. These problems have become bottlenecks that modern government governance must break through. In recent years, along with the craze for Chinese traditional culture, we begin to re-examine the ancient Chinese thinkers’ ideas of running a country. Han Fei was the great master of legalist, he combined law school, power school, measure school and critically inherited Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism. On this basis, he formed his own rigorous and systemic concept of governing. All these could contribute to solve the problems in current governance.In my paper, the text is divided into three parts. In the first part, I will review Han Fei’s life from the perspective of politics and culture firstly, and trace back to his theory origin which based on <History Records> about Lao Zi and Han Fei. Then I will outline the framework of Han Fei’s statecraft and expound the core of his thought—law, power, measure and the relationship among them. From there, I will summarize the basic characteristics of Han Fei’s theory.The second part will analyze the rationalities, limitations and historical value of Han Fei’s statecraft. The rationalities mainly embody the law-based governing strategy, the reform outlook changed with the times and his official selection method. However, the limitations lie in the lack of the constraints on monarchical power and the political trickeries which are advocated excessively. From a macro point of view, Han Fei’s statecraft played an instructive role on the establishment of our feudal society’s basic political system. His idea of “the rule of law” especially has profound influence on the later.The last part will combine with the reform background of vigorously promoting our national government system and ability. In this part, I will discuss the enlightenment of Han Fei’s thought for modern government governance. This section will not only combine the essence of law, power, measure with the current status of the law-based government, limited government and clean government, but also take thought about how to resolve the negative influence of his statecraft.