ABSTRACT
Mencius’ political theory has been both more canonized and criticized in Chinese history than any other, even beyond the theoretical arena of balanced debates.1 Mencius was so intense and rational a person, and exerted such a momentous historical impact, that one cannot afford to bypass him. This chapter appreciates in three sections the distinctively Mencian ideal of government of empathic, familial populism,1 2 which kicked up deservedly heated debates on diverse levels-historical, political, canonical, critical-throughout the ages.
