Thesis “Chinese philosophy had no epistemology” is wrong, and the Mohists are the proof

Every comparative table I see gives the Chinese row the same apologetic note: less interest in formal proof, more in precedent and the classics, no real epistemology, but that's not a deficiency. The intention is kind, but the claim underneath is wrong.

Exhibit one: Mozi's three standards for testing any doctrine. Look for its root, in the deeds of the ancient sage kings; for its source, in what the ordinary people have seen and heard with their own eyes and ears; and for its use, whether it benefits the people when put into practice. That is a theory of evidence: precedent, observation and practical consequence.

Exhibit two: the Later Mohist canons, which distinguish knowledge by hearing from others, knowledge by explanation or inference, and knowledge by personal experience. That is a classification of the sources of knowledge, close in spirit to the Indian lists of pramāṇa.

Exhibit three: Xunzi's chapter on removing obsessions, which asks how the mind can know the Way and answers that it must be empty, unified and still. And Zhuangzi's teasing question, how do I know that what I call knowing is not really not-knowing, is as sharp a sceptical challenge as anything in Greek.

So my thesis: the tradition did epistemology; it framed it around how to know well in practice rather than how to refute the sceptic, and later Confucians chose not to develop the Mohists' formal side. "Less interest" is fair. "No epistemology" is not.