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Loyalty involves doing one’s utmost. A person in a certain position or office should wholeheartedly perform his duties and must not be influenced by personal interests. The object of loyalty can be the person who appoints you to your post or grants you a position； it can also be an organization, group or the state where you belong. For example, in ancient society it was thought the monarch should be loyal to the people while the subjects should be loyal to the monarch.
Be as loyal as one can be and serve one’s own country. The term “be loyal and serve the country” first appeared in The History of Zhou of the Northern Dynasties and The History of the Northern Dynasties compiled during the early Tang. This phrase is also associated to the famous general in the war of resistance against the northern Jin invasion, Yue Fei (1103-1142) of the Southern Song Dynasty. In The History of the Song Dynasty, compiled during the Yuan Dynasty, there is a mention that Yue Fei had the four characters jin zhong bao guo (尽忠报国) tattooed on his back. However, it is not specified as to who tattooed them. Towards the early Qing period, there were talks that it was Yue Fei’s mother who tattooed them, and it is followed by the story of Yue Fei’s commitment and obeisance to his mother’s command to be loyal to his outmost and render service to his own country unto death. It has the connotation of Confucian ideals of loyalty and filial piety integrated into one, and to this day, it is used by the Chinese as a typical expression for patriotism.
The basic meaning of the term is to put oneself in another person’s position and have empathy, and to reflect what one would do in the same kind of situation. Starting out from their own likes and dislikes, people can understand and show considerations for the wishes of others, and on the basis of such understanding, people should refrain from imposing their own likes and dislikes on others. This is what it means to be considerate. To those enforcing the law and to the victims of wrongdoing, the meaning of the term extended to mean forgiveness or pardon.
The basic meaning of the term is love for others. Its extended meaning refers to the state of harmony among people, and the unity of all things under heaven. Ren (仁) constitutes the foundation and basis for moral behavior. It is also a consciousness that corresponds to the norms of moral behavior. Roughly put, ren has the following three implications: 1) compassion or conscience; 2) virtue of respect built upon the relationship between fathers and sons and among brothers; and 3) the unity of all things under heaven. Confucianism holds ren as the highest moral principle. Ren is taken as love in the order of first showing filial piety to one’s parents and elder brothers, and then extending love and care to other members of the family, and eventually to everyone else under heaven.
This term means to infer others’ thoughts with one’s own. It is exactly what Confucianism advocates as tolerance toward others, which is an important principle or method of caring for the people and cherishing all things. In the first place, such thinking believes that people basically share a common spirit. On this basis, tolerance and benevolence need to be advanced. One should show consideration for others by putting oneself in their place, and understand others by walking in their shoes. We should never do unto others what we would not want others to do unto ourselves, and whatever we would wish for ourselves, we should also help others to achieve.
Do not impose on others what you do not want yourself. That is the “way of being considerate” advocated by Confucius（551-479 BC）. It calls for using one’s own mind to infer and understand other people’s minds. In today’s words, it means to put oneself into others’ shoes or to think from their positions. Its philosophical basis lies in the similarity of people’s basic natures. It is an important principle put forth by Confucians to govern inter-personal relationships, and is now extended to international relationship management to counter power politics. Its essential elements are benevolence, equality, and tolerance.
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