Traditionally Chinese people place much value in virtue, with a long-held belief that one should never appropriate valuable items lost by others. However, a recent regulation by the government of south China's Guangdong Province has provoked heated debate on whether such virtuous behavior should be rewarded with money.

According to the regulation, when the owner claims a lost item, he or she is expected to voluntarily pay the finder 10 percent of the item's value. If no one claims the lost thing, the government will auction it and reward the people who found it with 10 percent of its value. The reasoning behind the regulation is to motivate the public to hand over valuables that are found.

Since the Chinese people are now encouraged to learn from Lei Feng, a symbol of altruism in China since the 1960s, this regulation has caused a great controversy in China. Supporters believe the reward is an expression of gratitude and will encourage people to be more virtuous. However, opponents argue that material rewards will only tarnish morality and the 10 percent reward is hard to determine when the lost items are documents, certificates or ID cards. 

FOR

Shu Shengxiang

Xinhua Daily Telegraph

When people find your valuable things, they don't appropriate them but return them back. As the owner, it is reasonable that you thank them with certain amount of cash. Like the common practice of giving tips in Western countries, it is not only a reward, but also an expression of gratitude to show respects to others' work.

However, in the Chinese culture, people are particularly critical about the virtue of giving back found items. People take it for granted that if the finder accepts the owner's rewards, he or she will not be a virtuous person. But I don't agree. People should realize that expressing gratitude by means of giving the finder some kind of reward is in fact respecting their virtue.

Knowing this, we can understand that the regulation issued by Guangdong Province aims to promote the virtue of returning lost items. In turn, this can promote and develop the culture of gratitude.

Wu Ruowei

College student in Beijing

Although great economic progress has been achieved over the past decades, some moral problems have emerged, such as the case where pedestrians walked past a young victim of a car accident on a street in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province, without offering help.

With people re-examining their morality after the incident, the new regulation by Guangdong Province is a positive response. It doesn't mean that the morality should be promoted by material rewards, but that certain rewards will positively guide people's value system and help promote traditional virtues.

As it takes time and energy for the finders to return lost property to the owner, it stands to reason that they should get some benefits. With the implementation of the regulation, more people would return lost property, as they will benefit from material rewards. In this way, more and more people will voluntarily do good deeds.