China has in recent years witnessed a surge of interest in the work of the German legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Known as Hitler’s “Crown Jurist,” Schmitt joined the National Socialist Party in 1933, and, though he was only officially a Nazi Party member for three years, his anti-liberal jurisprudence had a lasting impact—at the time, by helping to justify Hitler’s extrajudicial killings of Jews and political opponents, and then long afterward. Whereas liberal scholars view the rule of law as the final authority on value conflicts, Schmitt believed that the sovereign should always have the final say. Commitments to the rule for law would only undercut a community’s decision-making power, and “deprive state and politics of their specific meaning.” Such a hamstrung state, according to Schmitt, could not protect its own citizens from external enemies.

近年來，中國對德國法律理論家卡爾·史密特（Carl Schmitt）的工作興趣激增。施密特被譽為希特勒的“王權法學家”，於1933年加入了國家社會黨。儘管他只是納粹黨的正式成員三年，但他的反自由法學對當時的法治產生了深遠的影響。希特勒對猶太人和政治對手的法外處決，然後不久。自由主義者認為法治是價值衝突的最終權威，而施密特則認為，主權國家應始終擁有最終決定權。對法治的承諾只會削弱社區的決策權，並“剝奪國家和政治的特定含義”。如此嚴峻的狀態，根據施密特（Schmitt）的說法，無法保護自己的公民免受外部敵人的侵害。

中國人對施密特的迷戀在2000年代初開始，當時哲學家劉曉峰將德國思想家的主要著作翻譯成中文。他的想法被稱為“史密特熱”，激發了中國大學的政治科學，哲學和法律部門的活力。北京大學法學教授陳端宏稱施密特為“最成功的理論家”，他將政治觀念帶入了他的學科。“他崇尚他的憲法學說，”陳寫道在加入納粹黨員之前，他在2012年說：“那是他個人的選擇。” 一位不願透露姓名的北大哲學系學生告訴我，施密特的工作屬於該大學的“公共語言，是學術機構的一部分”。

當談到北京對香港的政策時，施密特的影響力最為明顯。自從1997年從英國移交給中國以來，這座城市表面上一直受到“一國兩制”框架的統治，使其成為中國的一部分，但其自由，司法獨立和其他形式的自治將得以保留。 50年。隨着時間的流逝，隨着中共尋求更大的控制權，這些自由受到侵蝕，最近，國家安全法徹底破壞了這些自由。

自2014年以來，他就香港政策發表過廣泛文章，根據《紐約時報》的報道，他是北京的前顧問。他在2018年直接引用施密特為國家安全法的概念辯護。”他在一篇文章中指出，德國法學家卡爾·施密特（Carl Schmitt）區分了國家規範和憲法規範。陳援引施密特的話說：

           “ 當國家處於危險之中時，

               國家領導人有權中止憲法規範，

           特別是對公民權利的規定。” 

同樣是北京大學法學教授的蔣世恭也提出了類似的案子。江先生於2004年至2008年在北京香港駐香港聯絡處擔任研究員，他運用了施密特的想法他在2010年出版的《中國香港》一書中廣泛論述了主權與法治之間的矛盾，以支持共產黨。*

江澤民還因撰寫了《 2014年中國政府白皮書》而廣受讚譽，該白皮書使北京對香港具有“全面管轄權”。在對施密特的致意中，該論文聲稱，“一個國家”的主權必須優先於“兩個系統”的公民自由。憑藉施密特的理論依據，他在香港無為而舉的舉動變得舉足輕重：不再是自由主義的侵害，安全法就成為存在的必要性。

閱讀：中國引領世界會發生什麼卡爾·施密特（Carl Schmitt），1930年。（烏爾斯坦/蓋蒂）

香港中文大學的法學教授瑞安·米切爾（Ryan Mitchell）在七月份的一篇論文中寫道，陳和江是“（1990年代後）中國迄今為止對施密特思想的最具體表達。” 它們是國家主義運動的先鋒，後者為中國領導人的威權主義衝動提供了理論依據。儘管尚不清楚他們在黨的高層中到底有多強大，但這些統計學家與他們的最高領導人抱有相同的看法。戰略與國際研究中心中國主席裘德·布蘭切特（Jude Blanchette）告訴我：“習近平的重大項目是重塑和振興國家能力。” “他是一個國家主義者。”

納粹思想家為什麼在中國獲得如此活躍的接待？在某種程度上，這是一個方便的問題。澳大利亞史密斯大學的政治學教授海格·帕塔潘（Haig Patapan）在寫給施密特在中國的招待會時說：“施密特服務於馬克思主義本來應該達到的某些目的，但不再能做到。” 施密特為親北京的學者提供了將黨的合法性錨定在更多原始力量上的機會，這些力量包括民族主義和外部敵人，而不是陳舊的階級鬥爭觀念。

China’s fascination with Schmitt took off in the early 2000s when the philosopher Liu Xiaofeng translated the German thinker’s major works into Chinese. Dubbed “Schmitt fever,” his ideas energized the political science, philosophy, and law departments of China’s universities. Chen Duanhong, a law professor at Peking University, called Schmitt “the most successful theorist” to have brought political concepts into his discipline. “His constitutional doctrine is what we revere,” Chen wrote in 2012, before adding, of his Nazi membership, “That’s his personal choice.” An alum of Peking University’s philosophy program, who asked not to be identified speaking on sensitive issues, told me that Schmitt’s work was among “the common language, a part of the academic establishment” at the university.

Schmitt’s influence is most evident when it comes to Beijing’s policy toward Hong Kong. Since its handover to China from Britain in 1997, the city has ostensibly been ruled under a “one country, two systems” framework, whereby it would be part of China, but its freedoms, independent judiciary, and other forms of autonomy would be preserved for 50 years. Over time, these freedoms have been eroded as the CCP has sought greater control, and more recently have been undermined completely with the national-security law.

Chen, who has written extensively on Hong Kong policy since 2014 and, according to The New York Times, is a former adviser to Beijing on the issue, cited Schmitt directly in defense of the concept of a national-security law back in 2018. “The German jurist Carl Schmitt,” he argued in an article, distinguishes between state norms and constitutional norms.

     “ When the state is in dire peril,” Chen wrote, 

       citing Schmitt, state leaders have the right to

       suspend constitutional norms, 

   “  especially provisions for civil rights.” 

Jiang Shigong, also a law professor at Peking University, has made a similar case. Jiang, who worked as a researcher in Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2008, employs Schmitt’s ideas extensively in his 2010 book, China’s Hong Kong, to resolve tensions between sovereignty and the rule of law in favor of the Communist Party.*

Jiang is also widely credited with authoring the 2014 Chinese-government white paper that gives Beijing “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong. In a nod to Schmitt, the paper claims that the preservation of sovereignty—of “one country”—must take precedence over civil liberties—of “two systems.” Using Schmitt’s rationale, he raises the stakes of inaction in Hong Kong insurmountably high: No longer a liberal transgression, the security law becomes an existential necessity.

Chen and Jiang are “the most concrete expression thus far of [China’s] post-1990s turn to Schmittian ideas,” Ryan Mitchell, a law professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, wrote in a paper in July. They are the vanguard of the statist movement, which supplies the rationale for the authoritarian impulses of China’s leaders. And though it is unclear precisely how powerful they are in the upper echelons of the party, these statists share the same outlook as their paramount leader. “Xi Jinping’s big project is on reinventing and revitalizing state capacity,” Jude Blanchette, China chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me. “He is a statist.”

Why has a Nazi thinker garnered such a lively reception in China? To some degree, it is a matter of convenience. “Schmitt serves certain purposes that Marxism should have done, but can no longer do,” Haig Patapan, a politics professor at Griffith University in Australia who has written on Schmitt’s reception in China, told me. Schmitt gives pro-Beijing scholars an opportunity to anchor the party’s legitimacy on more primal forces—nationalism and external enemies—rather than the timeworn notion of class struggle.