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.

近年来，中国对德国法律理论家卡尔·史密特（Carl Schmitt）的工作兴趣激增。施密特被誉为希特勒的“王权法学家”，于1933年加入了国家社会党。尽管他只是纳粹党的正式成员三年，但他的反自由法学对当时的法治产生了深远的影响。希特勒对犹太人和政治对手的法外处决，然后不久。自由主义者认为法治是价值冲突的最终权威，而施密特则认为，主权国家应始终拥有最终决定权。对法治的承诺只会削弱社区的决策权，并“剥夺国家和政治的特定含义”。如此严峻的状态，根据施密特（Schmitt）的说法，无法保护自己的公民免受外部敌人的侵害。

中国人对施密特的迷恋在2000年代初开始，当时哲学家刘晓峰将德国思想家的主要著作翻译成中文。他的想法被称为“史密特热”，激发了中国大学的政治科学，哲学和法律部门的活力。北京大学法学教授陈端宏称施密特为“最成功的理论家”，他将政治观念带入了他的学科。“他崇尚他的宪法学说，”陈写道在加入纳粹党员之前，他在2012年说：“那是他个人的选择。” 一位不愿透露姓名的北大哲学系学生告诉我，施密特的工作属于该大学的“公共语言，是学术机构的一部分”。

当谈到北京对香港的政策时，施密特的影响力最为明显。自从1997年从英国移交给中国以来，这座城市表面上一直受到“一国两制”框架的统治，使其成为中国的一部分，但其自由，司法独立和其他形式的自治将得以保留。 50年。随着时间的流逝，随着中共寻求更大的控制权，这些自由受到侵蚀，最近，国家安全法彻底破坏了这些自由。

自2014年以来，他就香港政策发表过广泛文章，根据《纽约时报》的报道，他是北京的前顾问。他在2018年直接引用施密特为国家安全法的概念辩护。”他在一篇文章中指出，德国法学家卡尔·施密特（Carl Schmitt）区分了国家规范和宪法规范。陈援引施密特的话说：

           “ 当国家处于危险之中时，

               国家领导人有权中止宪法规范，

           特别是对公民权利的规定。” 

同样是北京大学法学教授的蒋世恭也提出了类似的案子。江先生于2004年至2008年在北京香港驻香港联络处担任研究员，他运用了施密特的想法他在2010年出版的《中国香港》一书中广泛论述了主权与法治之间的矛盾，以支持共产党。*

江泽民还因撰写了《 2014年中国政府白皮书》而广受赞誉，该白皮书使北京对香港具有“全面管辖权”。在对施密特的致意中，该论文声称，“一个国家”的主权必须优先于“两个系统”的公民自由。凭借施密特的理论依据，他在香港无为而举的举动变得举足轻重：不再是自由主义的侵害，安全法就成为存在的必要性。

阅读：中国引领世界会发生什么卡尔·施密特（Carl Schmitt），1930年。（乌尔斯坦/盖蒂）

香港中文大学的法学教授瑞安·米切尔（Ryan Mitchell）在七月份的一篇论文中写道，陈和江是“（1990年代后）中国迄今为止对施密特思想的最具体表达。” 它们是国家主义运动的先锋，后者为中国领导人的威权主义冲动提供了理论依据。尽管尚不清楚他们在党的高层中到底有多强大，但这些统计学家与他们的最高领导人抱有相同的看法。战略与国际研究中心中国主席裘德·布兰切特（Jude Blanchette）告诉我：“习近平的重大项目是重塑和振兴国家能力。” “他是一个国家主义者。”

纳粹思想家为什么在中国获得如此活跃的接待？在某种程度上，这是一个方便的问题。澳大利亚史密斯大学的政治学教授海格·帕塔潘（Haig Patapan）在写给施密特在中国的招待会时说：“施密特服务于马克思主义本来应该达到的某些目的，但不再能做到。” 施密特为亲北京的学者提供了将党的合法性锚定在更多原始力量上的机会，这些力量包括民族主义和外部敌人，而不是陈旧的阶级斗争观念。

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.