Abstract: Governance has always been a crucial issue in rural planning research. However, the polysemy of the term "governance" can lead to ambiguity in academic concepts and create barriers to scholarly dialogue. Clarifying the different connotations of governance in both Chinese and English contexts is essential. Based on this, a review of the literature identifies three major governance issues in current Chinese rural planning research: rural planning as a technical tool for improving the rural living environment, as a social process involving multi-stakeholder collaboration, and as a component of the national spatial governance system.These three governance issues represent distinct connotations of governance in the Chinese context, and the shift in research foci reflects the direction of national policies. It is important to distinguish between the research topics and boundaries of different governance connotations while also paying attention to the interactivity of various governance relationships. This includes the governance of social relations behind the material spatial governance, the relationship between bottom-up and top-down social governance, and the relationship between comprehensive and effective territorial spatial governance.Future research should focus on strengthening theoretical interpretations of Chinese-specific governance connotations, advancing in-depth studies of rural planning theory and practice, and examining the social organizational relationships behind rural spatial elements, the practical applications of rural planning guided by social governance, and the operational mechanisms of local planning under the national overall governance framework.