Introduction

Legitimacy is widely considered to be necessary for any regime, including historical Chinese dynasties. Long before the term zhengtong appeared, ancient Chinese politicians and philosophers had pondered issues related to political legitimacy. Because of its great significance, present-day scholars have widely explored two main kinds of issues concerning legitimacy in Chinese history: Traditional Chinese views on legitimacy and legitimacy disputes in China’s history. The legitimacy dispute concerning Chinese dynasties has attracted scholars’ attention. Some scholars have focused on the diverse legitimation practices employed by the Northern Wei and Southern Dynasties. Liu Pujiang reveals the fact that discussions about the Northern Wei legitimacy dispute greatly affected Tang historians’ views on legitimacy. Liu Pujiang specifically describes how the Ming scholars viewed the Yuan’s legitimacy. For a general view of the theory of legitimacy, one should start with Habermas, who identifies two groups of scholars: “empiricists” and “normativists.” This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts in this book.