Editor's note: On September 27th, Prof. Daniel Bell, Dean of Political Science and Public Administration, Shandong University delivered a keynote speech on the 2020 China (Qufu) International Confucius Cultural Festival and 6th Nishan Forum. The opinions are concluded here for readers.

Daniel Bell was born in Canada, but has always had great passions for Confucianism. As he arrived for the forum, he told an interesting story that happened in the morning.

“I ran into an old friend in Qufu this morning and he said, it’s a great pleasure to have friends coming from afar. The new campus of Shandong University is located in Aoshanwei, Jimo, in Qingdao, which belonged to Qi State in ancient China. Now it only takes three hours by high-speed rail from Qufu to Jimo.”

A friend suggested that Bell give the keynote speech in English, but he believes that some concepts in Confucianism are difficult to translate into English, so he spoke Chinese almost all the time, and made a conclusion in English at the end.

In his speech, Bell said that both China and the West have followed a tradition of meritocracy. Plato's book "The Republic" is an eloquent defense in meritocracy. Starting from Confucius, Chinese people have been discussing what kind of person is the ideal governor in their long history. As was said in "Book of Rites", the world is owned by the people, so we should elect the people with virtue and capability." It means those who are virtuous and capable should be elected to do things for the people.

Confucianism advocates the selection of people with virtue and capability, and a benevolent governance for people’s well-being. It embodies the ideal of Confucianism for selection of officials, who has the ability to deal with problems effectively and the ambition of pursuing the common good as well.