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An Inquiry into the Relationship Between Nature and Emotion from the Perspective of Li Ao's Theory of Recovering Original Nature
In Fuxing Shu, Li Ao expanded upon the doctrine of the orthodox Confucian lineage in an attempt to revitalize the Confucian learning of nature and destiny. The text focuses on the relationship between nature and emotion, aiming to propose a theory of moral cultivation centered on "eradicating emotions to restore original nature" (quqingfanxing 去情反性). In his discourse on "nature" (xing 性), Li Ao was deeply influenced by, yet not confined to, Mencius's doctrine of innate goodness. Incorporating ideas from Daoism and Wei-Jin Metaphysics, he characterized "nature" as inherently tranquil. Furthermore, by drawing on the concept of cheng (sincerity誠) from The Doctrine of the Mean, he sought to elevate "nature" to an ontological level. Li Ao's exposition on "emotion" is multi-layered. Generally, he views emotions as deviant and opposed to nature. However, to reconcile this contradiction, he introduced the concept of "virtuous emotions" to resolve issues concerning the nature-emotion relationship and the sage's engagement with the world. Li Ao's ultimate objective was to establish a Confucian theory of moral cultivation grounded in his doctrine of nature and emotion, thereby illuminating the path to sagehood. However, due to the absence of a robust Confucian ontology, his cultivation theory ultimately lapsed into a state of Buddhist-like emptiness and quiescence, detached from concrete reality. Despite his repeated reaffirmation of the Confucian ideals of self-cultivation, family regulation, state governance, and universal peace, he essentially relied on Buddhist methods to forge the Confucian "sage".
Research on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Workers in New Forms of Employment
New Forms of Employment Have Emerged with the rapid development of the Internet platform economy. Food delivery workers, ride-hailing drivers and other workers in the gig economy have gradually joined the ranks of employed people and are now subjects of labour protection. A considerable number of workers are still not covered by mandatory social insurance, lack adequate protection for workplace injuries and old-age support, and have not been included in labour relationships due to ambiguous criteria. Legally speaking, the main problems include institutional deficiencies in regulations for social insurance coverage, working hours and minimum wage standards, as well as an absence of comprehensive high-level laws. Enforcement policies do not meet the actual demands of implementation, regulatory supervision fails to reach the required level, and different criteria for recognizing labour relationships lead to inconsistent judicial decisions in similar cases. In response to the problems listed above, a categorized legal system with specialised protection will be developed; a new type of “special labour relationship” will be introduced, and a three-tier assessment system based on the degree of dependency will be established. Strengthen platform accountability and algorithm governance, clarify joint liability, build an open-source system for auditing algorithms, and apply a reversal of the burden of proof rule. Mobile social insurance accounts and independent insurance funds not linked to employment models should also be established, and all-encompassing improvements to occupational injury protection are necessary. Build a rational legal system to promote the development of the platform economy and safeguard the rights of labour.
Challenges in Applying the Fiduciary Duties of Actual Controllers and Paths to Improvement Under the New Company Law
The “Company Law of the People’s Republic of China” revised in 2023 clarified for the first time at the legislative level that controlling shares and actual controllers who are not company directors but actually perform company affairs are also subject to the directors’ duties of loyalty and diligence. This has made up for the previous lack of fiduciary duty regulations to a certain extent. However, this provision still continues the tradition of principled legislation. In judicial application, it faces practical difficulties such as different standards for subject identification, vague scope of obligated objects, lack of behavioral judgment standards, and poor accountability mechanisms. Starting from the framework of the new company law, combined with my country’s judicial practice and reference to regulatory experience from abroad, this article proposes a systematic improvement path from four dimensions: reconstruction of identification rules, clarity of obligation boundaries, refinement of judgment standards, and improvement of the accountability system, with a view to improving the operability of the actual controller’s fiduciary obligations in practice and strengthening the protection of the interests of multiple entities such as the company, small and medium-sized shareholders, and creditors.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anqi Wei, Chuanjun Yin
Research Status and Development Trends of Administrative Agreements—Visual Analysis Based on CiteSpace
Administrative agreement has dual attributes of administration and agreement. It is an important flexible governance tool for the construction of service-oriented government and the modernization of national governance. CiteSpace software was used to conduct a visual analysis of the core articles on administrative agreement-related research included in the National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from 1998 to 2026. The relevant research has gone through three stages: concept construction, institutional specification, and governance application. The overall process has gradually shifted from basic theoretical analysis to judicial application and multi-system construction. Domestic administrative agreement research has formed a stable academic pattern. The core research strength is concentrated in universities and judicial practice departments. Cooperation among scholars is relatively scattered, and cross-institutional and cross-regional collaborative research is still insufficient. The research has formed core topics around attribute definition, judicial review, rights protection, practical application and dispute resolution, and the focus continues to develop in the direction of practicality and refinement. Relying on existing research results to further improve the design of rules and practical paths can effectively promote the healthy development of the administrative agreement system and better respond to the practical needs of building a rule of law government.
Copyright (c) 2026 Chuanjun Yin, Anqi Wei
Design of Relocation and Reconstruction Project for a Water Purification Plant in an Eastern Chinese City
With economic development and growing water demand in an eastern Chinese city, the current production capacity of No.1 Water Plant can no longer meet requirements, and there is an urgent need to expand its production scale. The newly constructed water purification plant has a design capacity of 50,000 m³/d for the near term and 100,000 m³/d for the long term. The project is implemented in phases, with the first phase construction at 50,000 m³/d. The effluent quality meets the requirements of the Standards for Drinking Water Quality (GB5749-2006). The water pressure at the end of the urban distribution network shall not be less than 0.28 MPa, and 0.14 MPa at the end of township distribution networks. The water treatment process adopts biological pretreatment + enhanced conventional treatment + ozone + activated carbon advanced treatment process. The plant layout features reasonable zoning, clear functions, smooth water flow, and reserved land for future expansion. The project covers an area of 6.49 hectares with a total investment of approximately 178 million yuan. Since its commissioning in 2021, the plant has operated stably, with water volume and pressure meeting both design and actual requirements.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rui Zhou, Yinghan Chen, Sen Zhou, Yingxia Sun, Zhicheng Luo, Xin Xia, Meng Chen, Zitao Xue
Engineering Design of an Industrial Wastewater Treatment Plant in an Eastern Chinese city
Urbanization and industrial growth in an eastern Chinese city have significantly increased wastewater discharge, while the existing domestic treatment plant lacks both capacity and the capability to remove industrial-specific pollutants, necessitating a new industrial facility. Designed for 30,000 m³/d, the plant produces effluent meeting Class one A standard (GB 18918—2002) with core parameters also satisfying Class IV surface water limits. The treatment train comprises three stages: primary pretreatment (screening, grit removal, equalization/emergency tank), modified A²/O biological treatment, and tertiary advanced treatment (Fenton catalytic oxidation, highdensity sedimentation, deepbed filtration) followed by sodium hypochlorite disinfection. Sludge is dewatered by plateandframe press, and odorous gases are treated by biofilters. Covering 67.6 mu (4.51 ha) with a functional layout ensuring smooth flow and compact land use, the project represents an investment of about 310 million yuan. Commissioned in 2023, the plant has since operated stably, attaining its design capacity and consistently meeting all effluent standards.
Copyright (c) 2026 Yinghan Chen, Rui Zhou, Wei Ling
A Study on the Ancient Lu State and the Origin of Chinese Agrarian Civilization: A Textual Research Centered on the Pre-Qin Fang State of Lushui, Chaling, Hunan
China’s agrarian civilization features an integrated pluralistic framework formed by two parallel farming traditions: dryland cultivation along the Yellow River and rice farming along the Yangtze River. The ancient Lu State of Lushui in Chaling, Hunan, served as a core region where the clans of Emperor Yan Shennong established a mature farming system and accomplished cultural innovation after migrating southward. Historical records including Hunan Provincial Records, Records of Unusual Events, and Yuanhe Genealogy of Surnames explicitly document that the Yellow Emperor enfeoffed Yuwang (Cenlu), the last descendant of Emperor Yan, in the mountainous Lushui area of Chaling to establish the ancient regional state of Lu. Carbonized rice relics unearthed at the Duling’ao Site prove that the artificial domestication of wild rice had been realized here as early as 7,000 years ago. A Brief Study on Chaling, Hometown of Shennong by Ding, F. D., & Zhou, Z. Y., as well as On Emperor Yan Shennong by Duan, L. X., systematically sort out the migration routes of the seventeen generations of Shennong and conduct comprehensive textual research on historical facts regarding Yuwang’s fiefdom. Another work by Duan, L. X., Emperor Yan the Tea Ancestor: A Detailed Account of Tea in Chaling, fully demonstrates the origin of tea ancestor culture that “China’s thousand-year tea culture originated in Chaling”. Drawing on existing research findings by Ding, F. D., Duan, L. X. and other scholars, this paper comprehensively investigates the establishment, geographical environment, agrarian civilization system, historical relics and contemporary cultural value of the ancient Lu State through four categories of evidence: local chronicles, archaeological remains, and living folk heritage. It supplements the origin narrative of rice-farming civilization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and provides archaeological evidence of an ancient regional state in eastern Hunan for research on the pluralistic integrated origin of Chinese civilization.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jinxing Gu, Lixin Duan, Fudong Ding
Zone-Based Clustered Rural Development: Functional Value, Collaborative Mechanisms, and Practice Typologies
Zone-based clustered rural development represents an important practical exploration in advancing rural revitalization. Compared with single-village development, zone-based clustered rural development demonstrates functional extensions in resource coordination, benefit sharing, and public service provision. At the mechanism level, zone-based clustered rural development operates through three interconnected mechanisms: resource reorganization, benefit coordination, and scalar governance. At the typological level, this study distills the eight models in Zhejiang into three practice pathways—organizational intermediary construction, industrial network collaboration and spatial platform activation—each corresponding to distinct resource endowments and local conditions.
The Practical Path for Universities to Strengthen the Sense of Community Among the Chinese Nation under the Leadership of Party Building
Forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation is the main line of the Party’s ethnic work in the new era and a strategic priority for higher education institutions to fulfill the fundamental task of fostering virtue and cultivating talent. From the perspective of Party building leadership, this paper systematically explores the practical paths for advancing the construction of the Chinese national community in higher education institutions under the new era. The article points out that, as the frontlines for talent cultivation and ideological work, higher education institutions must strengthen the Party’s comprehensive leadership over their operations and deeply integrate the forging of a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation into the entire process of running and governing universities. The analysis is conducted across six dimensions of the Party’s construction: political, ideological, organizational, conduct, disciplinary, and institutional. Specifically, this involves strengthening political construction to ensure the right direction, deepening ideological construction to consolidate the foundation, improving organizational construction to provide guarantees, optimizing conduct construction to foster a positive atmosphere, enforcing strict disciplinary construction to set bottom lines, and perfecting institutional construction to establish long-term mechanisms. This paper aims to build an organic whole in which all elements are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, providing a systematic approach for higher education institutions to explore practical paths for forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, thereby offering solid talent support and political guarantees for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.