📖 Meaning
Refers to handling matters in a fair and reasonable manner, being just and equitable in dealing with people and situations. It emphasizes that decisions and actions should be impartial and conform to common sense and natural justice.
📜 Origin Story
This phrase appears in Mao Zedong's 1951 speech 'The Great Victory of the Three Great Movements,' where he stated that if the U.S. government was willing to resolve problems on a fair and reasonable basis, the Korean armistice negotiations could succeed. The term combines the concepts of fairness (公平) and reasonableness (合理), both long-standing values in Chinese thought. The writer Zhou Libo also used it in his novel 'The Hurricane' (1948) to describe the fair distribution of land and fruits of revolution. It is a modern political and social idiom rather than one from classical antiquity.
💡 Example Usage
这次比赛评判公平合理，选手们都很满意。
The judging of this competition was fair and reasonable, and all the contestants were satisfied.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 公平合理
- Pinyin: gōng píng hé lǐ
- Literal Translation: public, level, together, reasonable
- Category: Morality
- Characters: 4