摘要

A recent paper in this journal (Drechsler, 2013) traced the origins of modern public management to the Wanyanshu, a memorandum Wang Anshi submitted in 1058 to a Song Dynasty emperor in China. We raise doubts about the author's assessment and claims about that still remarkable document about government human resource management, in part by citing Chinese historians' ambivalence. Believing in the value of Sino-Western comparative research in public management, we push back the origins of Chinese statecraft by 2,000 years by suggesting further research into older and greater Chinese contributions to global public management.