The government directorship has been in place in the United States since 1833, when it began with the Second Bank of the United States. Government directors, which have dual legal status in public and private law and are of great significance to the realization of the government’s goals, are directors appointed by the government to perform official duties in government companies and government-supported enterprises under the authority of special legislation of Congress. The state-owned equity directors and external directors appointed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commissions at all levels of government in China on behalf of the government to the state-owned enterprises in the corporate system also undertake the official duties of supervising the operation of the state-owned assets of the enterprises, and are actually the government directors in China. However, the government directors in China only have the private law status of directors under the company law, which makes them evade their public law obligations under the protection of the company’s private legal person status. In this regard, we can learn from the beneficial experience of the United States and position government directors as public directors in accordance with China’s national conditions, so as to play their proper functions as government directors and provide institutional protection for the current reform of the mixed ownership system of state-owned enterprises.