On September 3, 2022, the "The Global Forum on Confucianism (2022)：International Academic Conference on Confucianism, Legalism, and National Governance" jointly organized by the Advanced Institute for Confucius Studies of Shandong University, the Collaborative Innovation Center of Confucian Civilization, the Shandong University Branch of Nishan World Center for Confucius Studies, and the Editorial Board of Journal of Chinese Humanities was successfully held in Jinan. Nearly 50 experts and scholars from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Renmin University of China, Shandong University and other domestic and foreign universities participated in the conference by delivering academic speeches online, and attracted more than 200 scholars, teachers and students to participate online. The forum is divided into four panel discussions, aiming to discuss the ideological connotation of Confucianism and Legalism from multiple dimensions, such as politics, economy, culture, and the role of Confucianism and Legalism in national governance and practice in China and even the world. The opening ceremony of the conference was presided over by Wang Xuedian, member of the 13th CPPCC Standing Committee and executive director of the Advanced Institute for Confucius Studies and editor in chief of the Journal of Chinese Humanities.

The four panel discussions were hosted by Professor Wang Xuedian, Professor Zeng Zhenyu, Professor Li Pingsheng and Professor Huang Yushun respectively. On the issue of "the combination of Confucianism and law and state governance", Professor Cai Jiahe discussed the integration and inheritance of Confucian moral education and legalist spirit of respecting law from two aspects, namely, the theory of good nature, the system of rule of virtue and the department of rule of law, and pointed out that it is possible to form "the unity of Confucianism and law: the combination of rule of virtue and rule of law" from the perspective of Confucian moral education, absorb the spirit of rule of law from legalists and western scholars, and explore the cause of foreign kings. Professor Tian Chenshan, from the perspective of comparative cultural semantic environment of "one more two elements" and "one more undifferentiated", expounded the cultural relationship between ancient Chinese Confucianism and legalists, pointing out that it is a crude misinterpretation or misreading to confuse the "one more undifferentiated" ancient legalists' "law based" thought with the "one more two elements" western individual liberalism "rule of law" concept, If not corrected, it will lead to absurd logic confusion and social behavior confusion. From the perspective of the cultural semantic environment of "no distinction between one and more", it is expounded that the Chinese traditional Confucian and legal concept of national governance and the Marxist concept of national governance have the same underlying logic in the sense of philosophy, culture and social practice.

On the topic of how to promote "the creative transformation and innovative development of Confucianism", various scholars deeply expounded the connotation of Confucianism, trying to interpret Confucianism from the perspective of the convergence of Confucianism and law. Taking Confucianism and common prosperity as the starting point, Professor Yao Yang believes that Confucian egalitarianism and meritocracy can become the theoretical resources of today's common prosperity. Specifically, Confucian egalitarianism contains the ideal of common prosperity, which is the pursuit of society at the macro level; The Confucian Sage Doctrine provides a guide to the micro organizational mechanism of society. Professor Ma Xiaohong, taking the Confucian view of nature as the starting point, pointed out that Confucianism not only explained the legitimacy of imperial rule with the will of heaven, but also elaborated the principles that should be followed by legislation and justice with the evolution law of heaven (celestial phenomena), and believed that the Confucian view of nature gave Chinese ancient law a dual mission of punishing evil and promoting good and an inclusive feature. Professor Liang Yancheng investigated the practical problems from Duke Zhou, Confucius, Mencius to Yangming, Sun Yat sen and modern China, and explored the issue of "the practical spirit of Confucianism and socialism. The ancient Chinese built a community of value and culture". Professor Chu Zhaohua, starting from Mencius' proposition that "all men can be Yao and Shun", pointed out that behind this proposition, Mencius and even the whole Confucian school's expectation and pursuit of the sage king.

With regard to the theme of "the creative transformation and innovative development of legalism", the scholars mainly focused on mining the new connotation of legalism, clarifying the problems in previous studies, and exploring the relevant thoughts of legalism from a new perspective according to the development of the times. Professor Bai Tongdong, taking Han Feizi and Confucianism as examples, pointed out the need to reconstruct Han Feizi's criticism of Confucianism. Professor Lin Anwu made a deep philosophical argument about "law, potential, and art" from Weber's interpretation and analysis of "ideal type", and pointed out that Han Fei's "law" was just a tool of punishment and reward, which was manipulated by "art", so it was not enough to constitute the objective structural principle of contract. Professor Zeng Weijie, based on the misunderstanding of legalism in previous studies, analyzed the source of the historical stigma of legalism, and emphasized that the name of torture magic was not a taboo and object to be criticized at first. Confucianism also needed magic, but it must be moralized.

Based on Confucianism and Legalism, the participants elaborated on some important issues in the history of Chinese thought. Professor Ren Jiantao explored the issue of "imperial construction" against the background of the relevant theoretical practice of Legalists. Professor Yu Zhiping, taking the Emperor Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty as examples, analyzed the differences in the ideological control of Confucianism and law in the Qin and Han Dynasties from the two aspects of "burning books to trap Confucianism" and "persuading officials to pay official salaries".

At the end of the meeting, Huang Yushun, a professor of the Advanced Institute for Confucius Studies of Shandong University, made an academic summary of the meeting. Huang Yushun summarized that the topics of the seminar were rich and broad, the thoughts of the participants were deep and unique, and the views were diverse and stirring. Conducting interdisciplinary and intercultural exchanges and dialogues in a global perspective will help promote the in-depth understanding of Confucianism and Legalism, thus providing valuable reference for contemporary national governance and the development of world civilization. This conference is also one of the academic warm-up activities of the 8th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations.