Axial Breakthrough and the Initial Formation of the Governance Tradition of China —— From the Civilizational Point of View

The tradition of governance of ancient China was formed by the Axial Breakthrough,which produced the unique institutional framework,value system,spiritual temperament and the overall pattern.It created a paradigm of governance civilization,and has long influenced the ancient Chinese governance pattern.This paradigm had been established in the Western Zhou Dynasty.Zhou constructed a “large-scale unification” for the first time in Chinese history with the Patriarchal-Feudalism,and thus shaped the fundamental national imagination of Family-State,which means the same structure of the clan and country.The ideal of the Mandate of Heaven,which is based on the morality and rationality of Heaven,generated the ruling principle of respecting morality and protecting the people,and also gave birth of the people-oriented humanitarian moral politics.The Rule of Rites integrated politics,society and the ethics into a whole,by a set of all-encompassing secular,rational and humanistic rituals,making the state as a “Moral Mechanical” and forming a kind of humanistic moral ideal politics.The institutions of Zhou brought the early governance of China out of darkness,ignorance and harshness,got rid of the witchcraft and violence,and constructed a governance of humanity-ethical-humanism,which constituted the noumenon of Chinese Civilization.The comprehension of the traditional governance civilization needs to be objective and rational,as well as to make a modern renovation and creative transformation,in order to create a more valuable new governance civilization through the integration of tradition and modernity.