Some light on ancient political philosophy

If Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) earned himself a name as the originator of the idea of political pragmatism because of his book The Prince, his Chinese counterpart Shang Yang (390-338 BC), prime minister of the Qin State in Warring States Period (475-221 BC), gained his fame as a Legalist (fajia, a school of thought) for his book Shangjun Shu, or the Book of the Lord of Shang.

That Machiavellian has become an expression to mean cunning, amoral or opportunistic in a general sense suggests that Western scholars have put this Italian statesman and philosopher in the right perspective. The impact of Shang Yang's political theory was even greater that it could be interpreted as the theoretical foundation of China's autocratic monarchist system in nearly 2,000 years.

The study of Shangjun Shu is as important for gaining deeper insight into the country's ancient political system as the research of Machiavelli and his political theory for the understanding of ancient Italian and European political systems. For China, a country with a much shorter history of rule of law, it is of practical significance to make a clear distinction between the modern rule of law and the rule by law advocated by Shang Yang more than 2,000 years ago.