---
title: "Geography and Legal Order: Mackinder and Schmitt on Conflict between Empires · 地理与法权——麦金德与施米特论帝国间的冲突"
author: "Jiang Shigong"
translator: "S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)"
title_ru: "География и право: Маккиндер и Шмитт о конфликте империй"
author_ru: "Цзян Шигун"
languages: [zh, en]
shelf: "LCI editions"
url: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/
cite: "Jiang Shigong, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Geography and Legal Order: Mackinder and Schmitt on Conflict between Empires · 地理与法权——麦金德与施米特论帝国间的冲突. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/"
---

# Geography and Legal Order: Mackinder and Schmitt on Conflict between Empires · 地理与法权——麦金德与施米特论帝国间的冲突

*Jiang Shigong, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)*

Russian: География и право: Маккиндер и Шмитт о конфликте империй, Цзян Шигун

Jiang Shigong’s talk of 2018 setting Mackinder beside Schmitt: land and sea, empire and the sovereign state, and China’s choice between the continental and the maritime world. In Chinese beside a new English translation.

> Chinese: 强世功，《地理与法权——麦金德与施米特论帝国间的冲突》, remarks at the “Politics: China and the World” forum, 2018 (aisixiang.com/data/110645.html).

> English: Laurentium Cultural Industries, complete translation (9 October 2026).

## Contents

1. [Opening](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/1.md)
2. [I](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/2.md)
3. [II](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/3.md)
4. [III](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/4.md)
5. [IV](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/5.md)
6. [V](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/6.md)
7. [VI](https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/7.md)

## 1. Opening

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/1/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/1/#p-N

[¶0] [This article was transcribed and edited from a recording of remarks by Jiang Shigong, professor at Peking University Law School and deputy director of Peking University’s Office of Academic Affairs, at the “Politics: China and the World Forum 2018” and the symposium on “Contemporary Currents of Thought in the World and China’s Tradition of Political Order.”]

> Chinese: 【本文根据北京大学法学院教授、北京大学教务部副部长强世功在“政治：中国与世界论坛2018”暨“当代世界思潮与中国政道传统”研讨会发言录音整理。】

[¶1] With the theme of the 2018 “Politics: China and the World” forum in mind, Guangsheng and I discussed the title of my presentation several times. I chose “Land and Sea: Mackinder and Schmitt,” which happens to complement Professor Xiaofeng’s presentation. In teaching jurisprudence to students over the past few years, I have consistently brought the writings of Mackinder, Carl Schmitt, and Alexandre Kojève together, focusing mainly on the question of nation-states and empires. Today I would like to take this opportunity to share some of my thoughts with you.

> Chinese: 围绕 “政治：中国与世界”2018论坛的主题，我和广生磋商了几次论文发言的题目，我选择“陆地与海洋：麦金德与施米特”这一题目，正好和小枫老师的论文演讲相呼应。最近这几年我给学生上法理学课程，一直把麦金德、施米特和科耶夫的文本放在一起来讲，主要讲民族国家与帝国问题。今天借这个机会，和大家分享一些我的想法。

[¶2] Our political theory today continues to revolve around the political theories of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers, and all these theories take the construction of the “sovereign state” as the basis of their political imagination. Unable to account theoretically for the immense empires of the East, they therefore invented the concept of despotism to characterize them. This is most clearly evident in Montesquieu’s writings.

> Chinese: 我们今天的政治理论始终围绕18世纪启蒙思想家的政治理论展开，而这些理论都是以“主权国家”的建构作为政治想象的。因此，对于东方超大型的帝国，他们无法在理论上加以解释，就发明了专制政体这样一个概念来概括。这在孟德斯鸠的著作最明显地体现出来。

[¶3] Yet Montesquieu was a social theorist and ultimately had to respect social facts. He noticed that the immense empires of the East were connected to their vast geographical extent. He therefore placed particular emphasis on the intrinsic connections between geography, nature, and politics. In this sense, the basis of the legitimacy of empire/despotism lies in geography.

> Chinese: 然而，孟德斯鸠是一个社会理论家，终究是要尊重社会事实，他注意到东方超大型帝国与广阔的地理有关。因此，他特别强调地理、自然与政治之间的内在关联。在这个意义上，帝国/专制政体的正当性基础在于地理。

[¶4] It is precisely by starting from a geographical perspective that we may set aside “idealist” theoretical constructions such as social contract theory and attend instead to the actual effects of more “materialist” forces on political life. If the “state” is a product of theoretical construction, “empire” is a real presence in actual political life.

> Chinese: 正是从地理的视角出发，我们可能会抛开社会契约论之类的“唯心主义”的理论建构，而关注更为“唯物主义”的力量对政治生活的现实作用。如果说“国家”是理论建构的产物，而“帝国”则是现实政治生活中真实的存在。

[¶5] In theory, today’s world consists of several hundred equal sovereign states. But do you really believe that Japan genuinely possesses absolute sovereignty? Everyone knows that it is a “vassal state” of the United States. This means that empire is the scale on which political life actually operates. Struggles between states take the form of “empires.” And the question that Mackinder, Schmitt, and Kojève discuss is precisely that of empire.

> Chinese: 今天的世界在理论上是由几百个平等的主权国家的构成的，但你们真正认为日本真的拥有绝对主权吗？谁都知道它是美国的“附庸国”。这就意味着真实的现实政治生活的尺度就是帝国。 国家间的斗争是以“帝国”的形式展现出来的。而麦金德、施米特和科耶夫讨论的就是帝国问题。

## 2. I

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/2/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/2/#p-N

[¶0] I

> Chinese: 一

[¶1] At the end of his famous address “The Geographical Pivot of History,” published in 1904, Mackinder made a bold prediction: if China and Japan organized themselves, overthrew the Russian Empire, and conquered its territory, they would combine the enormous advantages of the sea with the immense resources of the continent. Were this prospect to become a reality, it would bring about a “Yellow Peril” threatening the free world of the West. Less than two weeks after this address, the Russo-Japanese War broke out. I agree with Professor Xiaofeng that our present understanding of the importance of the Russo-Japanese War is inadequate. The Russo-Japanese War was not merely a war between East and West. More importantly, it revealed the fundamental problem confronting the globe in the nineteenth century: once the great powers had finished dividing up the world, they faced conflicts among themselves, such that these internal conflicts among the great powers would inevitably develop into a world war. The Russo-Japanese War can therefore be understood as a prelude to the First World War; some even call it “World War Zero.”

> Chinese: 在1904年发表的著名演讲《历史的地理枢纽》的结尾，麦金德做了一个大胆的预测：假如中国与日本组织起来，推翻俄罗斯帝国，并征服它的领土的话，那就会把海洋的巨大优势与巨大的大陆资源结合在一起。这个图景一旦实现，就会导致一场威胁西方自由世界的“黄祸”。这个演讲之后不到两周时间，日俄战争就爆发了。我同意小枫老师的看法，目前我们对日俄战争重要性的理解不够。日俄战争不仅是东西方的战争，更重要的是，展现了十九世界全球面临的根本问题：当列强瓜分完全球之后，就面临着内部的冲突，以至于列强的内部冲突必然演变为世界大战。因此，日俄战争可以被理解为第一次世界大战的前奏，也有人把它叫做“零次世界大战”。

[¶2] This war directly shaped the basic political configuration of the twentieth century. First, it hastened the end of Russia’s tsarist regime. Russia’s defeat in 1905 brought the outbreak of a bourgeois revolution, which, in Lenin’s words, was a “dress rehearsal for the October Revolution.” In other words, the Russo-Japanese War accelerated the geopolitical rise of the Soviet empire. Second, Japan’s defeat of the Qing government in the First Sino-Japanese War was a victory within the traditional Chinese civilizational sphere. Only by defeating Russia, a country of Western civilization, in the Russo-Japanese War did Japan truly become the representative of Eastern civilization. This sense of cultural confidence and pride accelerated the rise of Japan’s fascist empire and can be seen as the spiritual beginning of Japan’s construction of the so-called “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

> Chinese: 这场战争直接塑造了20世纪的基本政治格局。第一，它加速了俄国沙皇政权的结束，1905年俄国战败就爆发了资产阶级革命，用列宁的话来讲，这是“十月革命的总演习”。换句话说，日俄战争加速了苏联帝国在地缘政治中的崛起。第二，日本甲午战争打败清政府是传统中国文明圈内部的胜负，而唯有在日俄战争中战胜西方文明的俄国才真正成为东方文明的代表，这种文化自信心与自豪感加速了日本法西斯帝国的崛起，可以看作是日本建构所谓“大东亚共荣圈”的精神开端。

[¶3] There were many reasons for the defeat of Japan’s fascist empire. From a geopolitical perspective, one important reason was that Japan constantly vacillated between being a continental empire and a maritime empire. On the one hand, Japan wanted to become a continental empire, which meant confronting the Soviet Union. Yet Japan also wanted to become a maritime empire, which inevitably brought it into conflict with the United States. Ultimately, Japan was defeated under the combined pressure of the continental empire of the Soviet Union and the maritime empire of the United States.

> Chinese: 日本法西斯帝国的失败有很多原因，从地缘政治的角度看，一个重要原因就在于日本始终在大陆帝国与海洋帝国之间摇摆。一方面日本希望成为大陆帝国，这就意味着日本要与苏联对抗，但日本希望成为海洋帝国，这必然与美国冲突。最终，日本失败于大陆帝国苏联和海洋帝国的美国之间的双重挤压。

[¶4] After Japan’s defeat, however, China faced the same geopolitical dilemma that Japan had confronted: caught between the two great empires of the Soviet Union and the United States, was China to become a continental country or a maritime country? Behind the different ideologies of the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party lay different geopolitical strategies. The Kuomintang had originally arisen in the coastal regions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. The Chinese Communist Party initially arose in coastal cities, but Mao Zedong’s movement from the base areas in Jiangxi and Hunan to Yan’an by way of the Long March effectively represented a choice of the path toward becoming a continental country. Thus, although the Kuomintang possessed powerful military forces, the Communist Party’s occupation of the northwest, followed by its securing the northeast first, consistently gave it a geostrategic advantage.

> Chinese: 但是，日本战败之后，中国也面临着日本当年同样的两难地缘选择，在苏联和美国这两大帝国的夹缝中，中国究竟是成为大陆国家还是海洋国家？国共两党的不同意识形态背后乃是不同的地缘战略，国民党本来就是两广江浙这些沿海地带兴起的，而中国共产党一开始兴起于沿海城市，但毛泽东从江西湖南根据地以至于长征达到延安，实际上选择了一条成为大陆国家的路线。因此，虽然国民党拥有强大的军事实力，但共产党占领西北、后来抢先占领东北始终具有地缘战略上的优势。

[¶5] Although New China took the path of a continental country and allied itself with the Soviet Union, it always harbored the intention of moving toward the maritime world. The retention of Hong Kong as a colony is one example. When the Soviet empire tried to control China and turn it into a vassal state, China was forced to break with the Soviet Union and thus resolved to turn toward the maritime world. When Nixon visited China in 1972, China and the United States set aside ideological interference and established a geopolitical alliance. This fundamentally overturned the geopolitical advantage the Soviet Union had once enjoyed in its struggle for supremacy with the United States, thereby planting the seeds of its dissolution. China’s entry into the maritime world therefore began in 1972, rather than with reform and opening up. Without the global geostrategic foundation laid in 1972, China’s reform and opening up could not have integrated the country into the United States–led maritime world system.

> Chinese: 新中国虽然走向大陆国家与苏联结盟，但新中国始终怀有迈向海洋世界的心思。保留香港殖民地就是一个例子。当苏联帝国试图控制中国将中国变成为其附庸国时，中国被迫与苏联决裂，从而下决心转向海洋世界。1972年尼克松访华，中美双方排除意识形态的干扰建立了地缘联盟，从根本上颠覆了苏联在与美国争霸中曾经拥有的地缘政治优势，由此埋下了解体的根源。因此，中国加入海洋世界不是从改革开放开始，而是从1972年开始，没有1972年奠定的全球地缘战略基础，中国改革开放不可能融入到美国主导的海洋世界体系中。

[¶6] Similarly, China’s relationship with the United States is once again at a critical juncture today. Like the Soviet Union then, the United States is suppressing China’s development in pursuit of global hegemony. A Sino-American trade war is imminent, and this could very well push China once again toward close relations with continental Russia. In fact, in the face of American global hegemony after the Cold War, China and Russia have already been building the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” and Sino-Russian relations have been growing ever closer. If Sino-American relations move toward a complete rupture, the significance for the global geopolitical configuration would be no less than that of Nixon’s 1972 visit to China for the Soviet Union.

> Chinese: 而类似地，今天中国与美国的关系又处在关键时期，美国就像当年的苏联一样，为了全球霸权而压制中国发展，中美贸易战迫在眉睫，这完全有可能将中国重新推向与大陆的俄国建立密切关系。事实上，面对冷战后美国的全球霸权，中俄已经在建构“上海合作组织”，中俄关系也在越来越密切。若中美关系走向全面破裂，那在全球地缘政治格局中的意义不亚于1972年尼克松访华对于苏联的意义。

[¶7] If we examine New China’s trajectory from 1949 to the present within this global geostrategic configuration, we will find that all of China’s geopolitical efforts have been directed toward finding a point of balance between land and sea. This point of balance is also, in fact, the balance that sustains world peace. It is precisely in this sense that, as time goes on, we can increasingly appreciate the relevance of Mackinder’s theoretical insights to our own day.

> Chinese: 在这种全球地缘战略的格局下，我们看新中国从1949年走到今天的历程，你会发现，中国全部的地缘政治努力就是在大陆与海洋之间寻找一个平衡点，这个平衡点实际上也是维持世界的和平的平衡点。也正是在这个意义上，时间越到后来，我们越可以感受到麦金德的理论洞见对于今天意义。

## 3. II

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/3/#p-N

[¶0] II

> Chinese: 二

[¶1] How should we understand Mackinder’s insights? We generally understand them in terms of geopolitics. Yet, as Professor Xiaofeng just said, Mackinder’s British-style geopolitics and German-style geopolitics represent two entirely different ways of understanding the world. Mackinder’s most important understanding of geopolitics is found in the address he gave to the Royal Geographical Society when he was twenty-six.

> Chinese: 应该怎样理解麦金德的洞见？我们一般都将麦金德的洞见理解成地缘政治学。但就像刚才小枫老师说的，麦金德的英国式的地缘政治学，与德国式的地缘政治学是两种完全不同的理解世界方式。麦金德对地缘政治学最重要的理解，就是他26岁的时候在皇家地理学会所做的演讲。

[¶2] Geography as we speak of it today arose alongside modern natural science, the great geographical discoveries, and modern geographical surveying techniques such as mapping. Together, these constituted modern scientific geography. In the classical history of the West, by contrast, those portions of the Homeric epics and Herodotus’s Histories that dealt with geography were called human geography. After the rise of modern geography, one important undertaking was exploration around the globe. Britain’s Royal Geographical Society was also an explorers’ club, and Mackinder himself went exploring in Africa.

> Chinese: 我们今天说的地理学与现代自然科学、地理大发现、地图等现代地理测量技术兴起，这一切构成了现代的科学地理学。而在西方古典历史上，《荷马史诗》和希罗多德《历史》中讲的那一部分与地理相关的内容被称之为人文地理学。现代地理学兴起之后，一个重要工作就是从事全球探险活动。英国皇家地理学会也是一个探险俱乐部，麦金德也曾经去非洲探险。

[¶3] By the nineteenth century, however, which is to say Mackinder’s era, geographical exploration was essentially over. All the mountains and rivers we could find had already been found. The end of geographical exploration also meant the end of the European great powers’ partition of the world. The period of Mackinder’s research coincided with the Congo Conference on African affairs and the Eight-Power Allied Forces’ invasion of China. What, then, could geography still do after this? Behind this question lay another: how would the great powers subsequently confront a world whose partition was complete? The answer was undoubtedly world war. As geography served the great powers’ struggles, it naturally developed into political geography, or geopolitics.

> Chinese: 但是到了十九世纪，也就是麦金德这个时代，地理探险基本结束，我们能够找到的山川和河流，都已经找到了。而地理探险的结束也意味着欧洲列强瓜分世界的结束，在麦金德研究之际，就是关于非洲问题的刚果会议和八国联军侵华。那么，此后地理学还能做什么呢？这个问题的背后就是此后列强如何面对瓜分完毕的世界呢？答案无疑是世界大战，而地理学服务于列强的争夺，那自然就发展出了政治地理学或地缘政治学。

[¶4] Yet in this lecture, the twenty-six-year-old Mackinder explicitly proposed bringing scientific physical geography and human geography together. The basis for this union was the intrinsic connection between the laws of nature and the laws of human activity, and the unity of human knowledge that followed from it. He therefore firmly opposed the division of disciplines in American and British universities, arguing that it left the natural sciences and the humanities completely unable to understand one another, to the point that the geography statesmen needed and the geography university professors taught were two entirely different things.

> Chinese: 不过，26岁的麦金德这个演讲中明确提出科学的自然地理学和人文地理学结合起来。这个结合的基础是自然法则与人类活动法则的内在关联以及由此形成的人类知识的整体性。因此，他坚决反对美英大学中的分科化，认为分科化带来的是自然科学和人文科学完全不能互相理解，以至于政治家所要的地理与大学教授所讲授的地理完全是两回事。

[¶5] Mackinder thus arrived at a concept: “force.” He tells us that, when all is said and done, whether we study physical geography or human society, we are studying the same thing: forces. Geography studies the forces of geographical and natural elements, while history and political science study the forces generated by human activity. In proposing political geography, he sought to bring these two kinds of force together. And all of this had to take physical geography as its starting point.

> Chinese: 因此，麦金德就找到了一个概念，这个概念就是“力”。他告诉我们，说来说去，无论是自然地理、还是人类社会都是研究一个东西，就是力量。地理学研究的地理、自然要素的力量，而历史学和政治学研究的是人的活动所产生的力量。而他提出政治地理学，就是要将这两种力量结合起来。而这一切一定要以自然地理学为前提。

[¶6] In fact, what Mackinder meant by physical geography was very different from the understanding of physical geography in his time. The latter was essentially geology, studying such things as volcanoes, glaciers, and continental plates. Mackinder’s physical geography, by contrast, brought together everything that could provide human activity with the support of natural forces. It included not only elements of geology but also physiography and, indeed, meteorology. On this basis, Mackinder sought to examine how natural forces and human forces reinforced one another.

> Chinese: 其实，麦金德所说的自然地理学和他们那个时代对自然地理学的理解很不一样了，后者其实就是地质学，研究火山、冰川、大陆板块这些对象，而麦金德讲的自然地理学恰恰只要为人类活动提供自然力量支持的东西全部组织在一起，不仅有地质学的东西，也会有地文学的东西，更会有气象学的东西。在此基础上，麦金德要去考察自然力量和人类力量是怎样相互促进的。

[¶7] Before people recognize them, all natural forces are blind forces that cannot be understood. Only when you understand what a natural force is can you make effective use of it. He gave many examples. Why, for instance, did Alexander’s expedition fail to conquer India? To a great extent, it was because he chose the wrong route. Alexander did not understand the geography; he did not know where to enter India in order to conquer it.

> Chinese: 所有的自然力量在被人们认识到之前，都是盲目的、不能够被理解的力量，当你能够认识到自然力量是什么的时候，你才能善于利用它。他举了很多例子。比如亚历山大远征为什么没有能征服印度呢？很大程度上是因为他选择的路线错了，亚历山大不了解地理，不知道征服印度需要从什么地方进入。

[¶8] In discussing the relationship between natural and human forces, he consistently stressed two points. First, he emphasized the influence of natural forces on humanity as studied in geographical science, using the concept of “dominant forces”: the influence of land and sea on human history, for example. Second, what interested him most, in fact, was what human forces could achieve when organized, and how they transformed nature. In the earlier work, The Geographical Pivot of History, he emphasized technology. For example, it was precisely the invention of navigational technologies that shifted the world’s center of trade away from Venice, gradually moving it toward the Atlantic and Britain. Navigational technologies changed the global geographical configuration.

> Chinese: 在自然力量与人类力量的关系中，他始终强调两点。第一是强调地理科学中自然的力量对人类的影响，他用的概念是“支配性力量”。比如陆地和海洋对人类历史的影响。第二他最感兴趣的反而是人类的力量组织起来的东西，是人类的力量对自然的改变。在早期的《历史的地理枢纽》中，他强调的是技术，比如说恰恰是航海技术的发明使世界的贸易中心摆脱了威尼斯，慢慢到了大西洋和英国，是航海技术改变了全球地理格局。

[¶9] In Democratic Ideals and Reality, however, he emphasized the “social momentum” generated by forms of human organization. He regarded Britain and Germany as representing two such forms: one based on freedom, the other on discipline. Britain believed in a “commercial freedom” in which people were scattered like loose sand, each going their own way. Germany’s greatest strengths, by contrast, were strategy, planning, and organization: through organization, it developed human forces to their fullest extent, encompassing ideas, strategies, policies, and methods. For precisely this reason, he believed that the free world would face a threat: Germany’s organized forces would be capable of confronting the entire West. Although he repeatedly discussed the dominant influence of geography and nature on humanity, he also placed particular emphasis on the way human activity acted back upon them.

> Chinese: 而在《民主的理想与现实》中，他强调人类组织形式所形成的“社会动量”，他将英国和德国看作是两种组织形式，一种就是自由的组织方式，一种就是纪律的组织方式。英国信奉的是一盘散沙、各行其是的“商业自由”，而德国最强有力的就是战略、规划和组织，通过组织的方式把人的力量发挥到极致，包括观念、策略、政策和手段。正因为这样，他认为自由世界会面临一个威胁：德国有组织的力量将有能力和整个西方对抗。虽然他一直讲地缘的、自然的对人类支配性的影响，但他同时也特别强调人类活动的反作用。

[¶10] By taking this most basic element, “force,” as his point of departure, Mackinder displayed a thoroughly realist mode of thinking. Political, moral, and natural factors are not separate considerations here; all these factors can in fact be brought together and understood in terms of relations of force. Economic development and social organization alike enter into objective relations of force with land and sea. You may understand these interactions as wars, conflicts, or natural storms, but for him they are all the same: interactions between forces.

> Chinese: 正是从“力量”这种最基本的元素出发，麦金德展现出一种非常彻底的现实主义思考。没有什么政治、道德、自然的因素，所有这些因素其实都可以放在一起，用一个力量的关系来理解。经济的发展、社会的组织都会同陆地与海洋发生客观的、力量的相互关系，这种相互关系，你可以理解成战争、冲突、自然的风暴，但在他那里都是一样的，是力量的交互。

[¶11] This was what enabled him to discern the origins of the First World War. He believed that the underlying cause of the entire conflict between Germany and Britain and America since the First World War was a conflict of economic forces. Britain and America both promoted laissez-faire trade and global free trade; theirs were free-trade economies. Germany, by contrast, expanded its economy in an organized way, constituting what Mackinder called a “predatory economy.” The global expansion of these two kinds of economic force was bound to produce an enormous conflict.

> Chinese: 由此，他才能洞见到第一次世界大战的起源。他认为，第一次世界大战以来德国和英美的整个冲突，基本原因是经济力量的冲突。英美都是放任贸易、全球自由贸易的推动者，是一种自由贸易型的经济，而德国则是有组织地拓展自己的经济，用麦金德的概念来说，叫做“掠夺型经济”。这两种经济力量在全球的扩展必然会发生巨大的冲突。

[¶12] In this sense, the First World War had nothing to do with ideas or moral values. Unlike ideological propagandists, Mackinder would not regard Britain and America as morally superior and Germany as morally base. In his view, war had nothing to do with morality and everything to do with force. World war was a natural outcome: an outcome of geopolitics, of ideas about organization, and of conflict in the realm of economics and trade. If we look at the issue from this angle, is the trade war China and America face today not also a confrontation between two kinds of force?

> Chinese: 在这个意义上，第一次世界大战与思想观念、道德价值没有关系，麦金德并不会像意识形态的鼓吹者那样把英美看作是价值上的优胜者，把德国看作是价值上的卑劣者。在他看来，战争与道德无关，而是与力量有关。世界大战是自然而然的结果，这个结果既是地缘政治的，又是组织观念的，同时又是经济贸易领域的冲突。如果我们从这个角度看问题，那么中国与美国今天面临的贸易战，不就是两种力量的对抗吗？

## 4. III

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/4/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/4/#p-N

[¶0] III

> Chinese: 三

[¶1] We must remember that the title of this lecture was The Geographical Pivot of History, and that its emphasis lay on “history.” In other words, he was discussing historical questions as a geographer, examining geography’s influence on human history. In this sense, he actually broke free from the conception of universal history produced by prevailing Western-centrism. He did not consider Asian history subordinate to European history. On the contrary, he considered European history subordinate to Asian history: European history was a product of Asian history. Precisely because he broke free from the Eurocentric conception of universal history, he also became a founding figure of global history.

> Chinese: 我们必须记得这个演讲的标题是“历史的地理枢纽”，其重心在“历史”，换句话说，他是作为一个地理学家在谈论历史问题，讨论地理对人类历史的影响。在这个意义上，他实际上摆脱了流行的西方中心主义所形成的普遍历史的观念，他不认为亚洲历史从属于欧洲历史，相反他认为欧洲历史从属于亚洲历史，欧洲历史乃是亚洲历史的产物。正因为他摆脱了欧洲中心主义的普遍历史观念，他也成为全球历史的鼻祖。

[¶2] From the standpoint of political geography, Mackinder divided human history into three stages. The first was the pre-Columbian age, the Asian age of world history, when the barbarian peoples of the Eurasian heartland and the Arabian plateau used the mobility afforded by the steppes and deserts to compress Europeans into the very narrow geographical space of Western Europe. Without the great geographical discoveries, Western Europe might have faced destruction by the peoples of the East and by Islam. Mackinder believed that to understand Europe, we must recognize that Europe came into being precisely through Asia. It was the repeated invasions of Europe by Asian peoples from the East that brought Europe together and made Europeans realize that we are one European people.

> Chinese: 从政治地理学的角度，麦金德将人类历史划分为三个阶段。第一个阶段就是前哥伦布时代，那是世界历史的亚洲时代，即欧亚大陆心脏地带和阿拉伯高原的野蛮民族借助草原、沙漠的机动性把欧洲人压缩到非常狭小西欧地理空间中。如果没有地理大发现，西欧可能面临着被东方民族和伊斯兰教毁灭的境地。麦金德认为，如果要理解欧洲，就必须看到：欧洲恰恰是借助亚洲才建立起来，恰恰是东方亚洲民族对欧洲一次又一次的入侵，使欧洲团结起来，认识到我们是一个欧洲的民族。

[¶3] The second period was the Columbian age, when Western European Christendom acquired the wealth of Asia and the New World by way of the oceans. It was precisely through maritime trade and naval mobility that the peoples of Western Europe occupied almost the entire New World and the rimlands of Eurasia, bringing North America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and a large part of Asia under the rule of European civilization. Mackinder believed, however, that once the European powers had completed their division of the world, humanity entered a closed system and world history entered a new age.

> Chinese: 第二个时期是哥伦布时代，西欧基督教世界通过海洋获取了亚洲和新大陆的财富，正是利用海洋的贸易和海军的机动性，西欧民族占领了差不多整个新大陆以及欧亚大陆的边缘地带，将北美、非洲、东南亚和亚洲的很大一部分都整合到了欧洲文明的统治之下。而让麦金德认为，随着欧洲列强瓜分世界完毕，人类进入到一个封闭的系统中，世界历史进入新的时代。

[¶4] Now, this new age had a fundamental characteristic: the invention of railway technology gave Russia, situated in the continental heartland, a new mobility. The mobility of railways across the plains could rival that of ships at sea. This meant a change in the disadvantage the continental heartland had faced in relation to the maritime world during the Columbian age. At least geographically, Russia in the Eurasian heartland and Britain in the maritime world were evenly matched. He therefore believed that world history had entered a new age, an age in which great continental powers and great maritime powers would struggle for global dominion. We may call this the “Mackinderian age.”

> Chinese: 那么，新的时代有一个根本的特征，就是铁路技术的发明，使得处于大陆心脏地带的俄国拥有了新的机动性，这种平原上铁路的机动性与海洋上船舶的机动性刚好可以相媲美。这就意味着改变了大陆心脏地带在哥伦布时代相对于海洋世界的劣势。至少从地理的角度看，欧亚大陆心脏地带的俄国与海洋世界的英国处于势均力敌的状态。因此，他认为世界历史进入了新时代，即大陆强国与海洋强国争夺全球统治权的时代。我们可以把这个时代称之为“麦金德时代”。

[¶5] His prediction at the end of the lecture was therefore directed precisely at the question of global dominion. To put his statement in today’s terms: if Russia, China, and Japan formed an alliance, they would possess not only the abundant natural resources of the continental heartland but also the advantage of mobility enjoyed by the maritime world. This would undoubtedly pose a mortal threat to the Western world. Does this statement not still contain truth and insight today? China and Russia have now established a strategic partnership. If Japan joined, that would mean the complete resolution of the Taiwan question and the South China Sea question. Would India, Iran, and Turkey not then naturally join this alliance as well? What would the world order look like then?

> Chinese: 因此，他在演讲结尾的预言恰恰是针对全球统治权展开的。把他的这句话翻译成我们今天的话来说，那就是：如果俄国、中国和日本结成同盟，那么不仅拥有大陆心脏地带丰富的物产资源，而且拥有海洋世界的机动性优势，那对于西方世界无疑是致命的威胁。这句话放在今天，不也包含着真理和洞见吗？今天中俄已建立起战略伙伴关系，如果日本加入就意味着台湾问题、南海问题完全解决，那么印度、伊朗、土耳其不也自然加入到这个联盟中？世界格局究竟是什么样子呢？

## 5. IV

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/5/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/5/#p-N

[¶0] IV

> Chinese: 四

[¶1] When Mackinder delivered his 1904 lecture, the new age he presented was one in which the continental and maritime worlds would struggle for global dominion. He even began to envisage the possibility of a world state. This ambitious lecture greeted the coming world war with enthusiasm. We could say that it represented the thinking of “Mackinder in his prime.” After the First World War, however, his theory underwent an important change. This is evident in Democratic Ideals and Reality, published in 1919, which in fact expresses the thinking of the “older Mackinder.” This shift had two key aspects:

> Chinese: 麦金德发表1904年的演讲的时候，展现的新时代乃是大陆与海洋世界争夺全球统治权的时代，他甚至开始构想全球国家的可能性。这个演讲雄心勃勃，对即将到来的世界大战欢心鼓舞。可以说，这篇演讲代表了“壮年麦金德”的思想。然而，经过第一次世界大战后，他的理论发生了重要的变化。这就体现在1919年《民主的理想与现实》里，这其实体现了“老年麦金德”的思想。这个转变的关键在两个方面：

[¶2] On the one hand, he moved from emphasizing the binary opposition between land and sea to viewing the world from outer space. From this perspective, he proposed the concepts of the “World-Island” and the “Round World.” Although these concepts revolved around Eurasia, they viewed the world from outer space and thus regarded humanity as an indivisible whole.

> Chinese: 一方面从强调大陆与海洋之间二元对立，转向从从太空的角度看世界，由此提出了“世界岛”和“环形世界”的概念，这些概念虽然围绕欧亚大陆展开，但却是从太空的角度世界，从而将人类看作是一个不可分割的整体。

[¶3] On the other hand, he shifted from geostrategic thinking about how the maritime world could compete for global dominion to considering how it could maintain world peace under Western rule once that dominion had been secured. Behind this shift was a change in the leading political actor, from the British Empire to an Anglo-American alliance. Thus, while the United States was regarded as a “great Eastern power” in the 1904 lecture, it occupied a central and crucial position in the 1919 book.

> Chinese: 另一方面从海洋世界如何争夺全球统治权的地缘战略思考，转向了海洋世界获得全球统治权之后如何维持西方治下的世界和平，而这个转变的背后就是政治主角从大英帝国转向了美英联盟。所以，在1904年演讲中，美国被看作是“东方大国”，而在1919年的著作中美国占据了核心重要地位。

[¶4] Accordingly, in his 1919 book Democratic Ideals and Reality, what he called “democracy” increasingly encompassed an idea of balance: a balance among various natural forces, social forces, and ways of life. He championed the “League of Nations” because he did not want a single immensely powerful country to step forward and organize the world order. Instead, he desired equilibrium, believing that equilibrium could in fact preserve world peace.

> Chinese: 因此，在1919年的《民主》一书中，他所说的“民主”更多地包含了一种平衡的观念，是各种自然力量、社会力量和生活方式之间的平衡。他之所以推崇“国际联盟”，就是不希望世界上有一个非常强大的国家来出面组织秩序，反而是渴望均衡，认为均衡的结果反而能保持世界的和平。

[¶5] To this end, he also criticized so-called industrial capitalism and its consequences, placing particular emphasis instead on certain new developments emerging within socialism and agrarian socialism. The transformation from “Mackinder in his prime” to the “older Mackinder” stemmed to a great extent from his realist thinking. Mackinder had already recognized that for any country to seek to become a world state ruling the entire globe meant possessing absolute technological and geographical superiority. The inevitable result would be geopolitical conflict throughout the world.

> Chinese: 为此，他也对所谓的工业资本主义及其结果进行了批判，反而特别强调社会主义、农业社会主义里涌现出来的一些新东西。从“壮年麦金德”到“老年麦金德”的转化很大程度上是源于他的现实主义思考。麦金德已经看到只要是任何一个国家想成为一个统治全球的世界国家，就意味着在技术上和地缘上优越绝对的优势，其结果必然导致地缘政治上的整个世界冲突。

## 6. V

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/6/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/6/#p-N

[¶0] V

> Chinese: 五

[¶1] Mackinder’s thought profoundly influenced the subsequent development of German geopolitics. Yet, very interestingly, the German thinker Carl Schmitt makes no mention whatsoever of German geopolitical thought in either Land and Sea or The Nomos of the Earth. The short book Land and Sea is devoted entirely to the story of global confrontation between land and sea that Mackinder set out, and in the preface to The Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt explicitly expresses his gratitude to Mackinder. Yet if we read these two books alongside Mackinder, we find that Schmitt is, in fact, offering a critique of him.

> Chinese: 麦金德的思想深刻地影响了后来德国的地缘政治学。但是，非常有意思的是，德国的施米特在他的《陆地与海洋》和《大地的法》中只字不提德国的地缘政治学思想。《陆地与海洋》这本小册子完全讲针对的是麦金德提出的全球陆地和海洋对抗的故事，而在《大地的法》的序言里，他明确提出向麦金德致谢。然而，对照麦金德读施米特的这两本书，却看到施米特恰恰是在对麦金德构成了批判。

[¶2] Schmitt makes this very clear at the beginning of The Nomos of the Earth. He sees the difference between himself and Mackinder as being that he is a jurist, whereas Mackinder is a geographer. What does ‘jurist’ mean here? It means that when we understand land and sea, we do not regard them simply as two natural elements possessing objective force. Behind these natural elements there is also a normative meaning, a moral value.

> Chinese: 施米特在《大地的法》这本书开头讲得很清楚。施米特认为自己跟麦金德区别在于，他是法学家而麦金德是地理学家。“法学家”的含义是什么？是说当我们理解陆地和海洋的时候，不是把它们看成两种具有客观力量的自然要素，在这个自然要素背后还有一个规范的含义，有一个道德价值。

[¶3] This raises a question. In Mackinder’s eyes, land and sea are two natural forces to be considered on an equal footing, and they have given rise to a global confrontation between the two forces of continental states and maritime states. But from the outset, Schmitt says that human beings are creatures of the earth: only existence on land has normative significance; existence at sea has none.

> Chinese: 这就带来一个问题：麦金德的眼中，陆地和海洋是两种等量齐观的自然力量，而且形成了陆地国家和海洋国家两种力量的全球对峙，但是施米特从一开始就说，人作为大地的动物，只有陆地上的生存才有规范意义，海洋上没有什么规范意义。

[¶4] To put it in our own terms, why do we translate ‘the earth’ into Chinese as an ‘earth-globe’ rather than a ‘water-globe’? In fact, to translate it as an ‘earth-globe’ is to understand ‘earth’ as ‘land’ rather than ‘sea.’ The implication is that all the meaning of human existence comes from the land. The earth generates norms and meaning, whereas the sea signifies the loss of norms and the loss of meaning. This is the nihilism that Schmitt identifies in The Nomos of the Earth: a nihilism of scientific rationality devoid of normative meaning.

> Chinese: 用我们的话说，为什么the earth翻译成“地球”，而不是“水球”呢？实际上翻译成“地球”是把earth理解成land，而不是sea，隐含的意思是：人的生存全部意义来源于土地，大地生产规范和意义，而海洋意味着规范的丧失和意义的丧失，这就是施米特在《大地的法》所指出的虚无主义，就是一种没有规范意义上的科学理性的虚无主义。

[¶5] Even so, Schmitt and Mackinder have much in common. Just as Mackinder never speaks only about Britain, Schmitt does not confine his discussion of land, sea, and the nomos of the earth to Germany.

> Chinese: 尽管如此，施米特和麦金德有非常相似的地方。就像麦金德从来不是只讲英国，施米特也不会只着眼于德国来讲陆地、海洋和大地的法。

[¶6] From the outset, Mackinder speaks of a distinction between friend and enemy grounded in European civilization: Europe’s enemies are East Asia and Russia. Schmitt largely shares this view.

> Chinese: 麦金德一上来就讲的是基于欧洲文明的敌友划分，欧洲的敌人是东亚、是俄国，施米特也基本分享了类似的观点。

[¶7] Mackinder divides world history into three stages, and Schmitt largely agrees with this division. The difference is that Schmitt understands it from a juridical standpoint. The first stage is the early Christian era, when Europeans shared a conception of the public international law of Christendom. In this first stage, the law of European Christianity was directed precisely against the external, non-Christian world of the East.

> Chinese: 麦金德将世界历史分为三个阶段，施米特也基本同意这个划分。不同的是，施米特从法权的角度来理解。第一个阶段是早期基督教时代，当时的欧洲人共享一个基督教世界的国际公法的观念，而第一个阶段欧洲基督教的法恰恰是针对外部的异教徒东方世界。

[¶8] The second stage also comes close to Mackinder’s second stage, but Schmitt emphasizes the Westphalian era, or the era of states, constructed with states as its subjects. In this era, the territorial state became the political form. Even so, while Europe’s existence was sustained by the Westphalian system, beyond Europe there remained a barbarian world. In the language of international law, only within the Westphalian system was there a ‘partnership’ of European civilization. Equal treaties could be concluded among partners; ‘unequal treaties’ could be concluded with external, non-Christian, semi-civilized states; and with barbarian states, there was no need to conclude treaties at all: one could resort directly to war. In other words, European civilization was founded precisely on such a hierarchical system. In Schmitt’s eyes, this was European civilization at its best.

> Chinese: 第二个阶段也接近麦金德划分的第二个阶段，不过施米特强调的是以国家作为主体建构的威斯特伐利亚时代或国家时代。在这个时代，领土国家成为了政治的构型，尽管如此，威斯特伐利亚体系支撑的欧洲的存在，在欧洲外部还是一个野蛮世界，用国际法的话说，在威斯特伐利亚体系内部，才有欧洲文明的“伙伴关系”，伙伴之间可以签定平等条约，和外部的、非基督教的、半文明的国家之间则可以签定“不平等条约”，对于野蛮国家就无需签定条约、直接诉诸战争。换句话说，欧洲文明恰恰是建立在这样一个等级体系之上，这是施米特眼里欧洲文明最好的一个状态。

[¶9] His delineation of the third stage, however, is fairly close to Mackinder’s: he treats the Paris Peace Conference and the League of Nations as marking this third stage. Yet while Mackinder admires the League of Nations, Schmitt makes it the very object of his criticism, seeing it as signifying the death of Europe.

> Chinese: 然而，第三个阶段划分与麦金德的比较接近，就是将巴黎和会和国际联盟看作是第三个阶段，当麦金德推崇“国际联盟”的时候，施米特恰恰将这个作为批判的对象，即意味着欧洲的死亡。

[¶10] This is because, after the First World War, and especially after the establishment of the League of Nations, European civilization’s system of specific norms and spiritual values was increasingly treated in technical and legal terms, turning it into an abstract legal framework that incorporated heterogeneous civilizations from outside Europe. It brought in not only Russia and the United States but also Japan from the East. This meant that the League of Nations, and subsequently even the United Nations, could no longer uphold the standards of European civilization at all. In Schmitt’s view, therefore, it was precisely the emergence of this entirely new system, the League of Nations, that destroyed the international legal order dominated by European civilization.

> Chinese: 因为一战以后、尤其是国联以后，欧洲文明具有特定规范和精神价值的体系被不断地加以技术化和法律化，从而变成了一个抽象的法律框架，以至于将欧洲之外的异质文明纳入进来，不仅把俄国带进来、把美国带进来、而且把东方的日本带进来。这就意味着国联乃至后来的联合国，完全不能再维持欧洲文明的标准。因此，在施米特看来，恰恰是国联这个全新体系的出现，摧毁了欧洲文明主导的国际法体系。

[¶11] Yet the League of Nations and the United Nations, which in Schmitt’s eyes destroyed European civilization’s system of international law, were precisely Mackinder’s ideal. Only from this can we understand Schmitt’s criticism of Mackinder: his emphasis on physical geography and human power in technical terms, together with his emphasis on the League of Nations’ abstract, equilibrium-based democracy, exemplified nihilism. Another representative of nihilism was Kelsen, the exponent of the pure theory of law whom Schmitt continually criticized.

> Chinese: 然而，在施米特眼中摧毁了欧洲文明国际法体系的国联和联合国，恰恰是麦金德的理想。由此，我们才能理解施米特对麦金德的批判，即麦金德这种对自然地理和人力的技术化强调，以及对抽象的均衡的国际联盟民主的强调，恰恰是虚无主义的代表，而另一个虚无主义的代表就是他不断批判的纯粹法学的代表人凯尔森。

[¶12] In The Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt particularly emphasizes that Britain’s turn toward the maritime world meant choosing ‘rootlessness’: an existence capable of detaching itself from the earth, norms, and meaning. The British put forward the concept of ‘utopia,’ but in Latin this concept means ‘that which does not exist.’ In other words, the British gradually imagined an entirely new order that could be detached from geographical space and designed through technology.

> Chinese: 而在《大地的法》中，施米特特别强调英国转向海洋世界，就意味着选择“无根性”，一种可以脱离大地、规范和意义的存在。英国人提出了“乌托邦”这个概念，但这个概念在拉丁文里就是“没有的东西”。换句话说，英国人慢慢设想了一个可以脱离地理空间、可以技术设计的一个全新秩序。

[¶13] Thus, when the advent of aircraft and outer space led Mackinder to adopt a view from space, Schmitt criticized this perspective and resolutely chose the earth, with its normative, historical, and civilizational significance. In this sense, if Mackinder stands at one pole, thinking about the geographical and technological elements underlying empire, Schmitt stands at the other, thinking about the normative, spiritual, and civilizational elements underlying empire. Alexandre Kojève’s subsequent conception of a new Latin empire brought precisely these two sets of factors together.

> Chinese: 因此，当麦金德对飞机和太空的出现而选择太空的视角的时候，施米特对太空的视角进行了批判，毅然选择的具有规范、历史和文明意义的大地。在这个意义上，如果说麦金德在一个端点上思考帝国背后的地理和技术要素，那么施米特在另一个端点上思考帝国背后的规范、精神和文明要素。而科耶夫后来对新拉丁帝国的建构恰恰是将这两个因素综合起来加以思考。

## 7. VI

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/7/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jiang-shigong-geography-legal-order/7/#p-N

[¶0] VI

> Chinese: 六

[¶1] While writing The Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt also wrote a very interesting short book, Land and Sea. The central concern of Land and Sea is precisely a critique of geopolitics. The opening chapters all discuss how Britain’s rise is to be understood in geopolitical terms. Why did Britain rise? The answer given by many geopoliticians at the time was that Britain was a maritime country: geography had determined it.

> Chinese: 在写《大地的法》的时候，施米特还写了一个很有意思的小册子《陆地与海洋》。而《陆地与海洋》的重心，恰恰就在于批判地缘政治学。这本书前面的几章都在讲，按照地缘政治学，如何理解英国的崛起。为什么英国会崛起？当时很多地缘政治学家的答案是，因为英国是一个海洋国家，这是由地理决定的。

[¶2] Yet the important concepts Schmitt introduces in this book are precisely ‘spatial consciousness’ and ‘spatial revolution.’ Schmitt actually borrowed the concept of ‘spatial revolution’ from Mackinder. But whereas Mackinder emphasizes geographical space, Schmitt emphasizes political juridical space. What matters is not the change in geographical space itself, but how Europeans understood that change in their thought and ideas. For this reason, Schmitt emphasizes the underlying religious factors. In terms of values, the conflict between land and sea corresponds to the two great traditions of Catholicism and Protestantism.

> Chinese: 然而，施米特这本书里提出的一个重要概念恰恰是“空间意识”和“空间革命”。“空间革命”这个概念实际上是施米特从麦金德那里借来的，不过麦金德强调地理空间，而施米特则强调政治的法权空间。重要的不在于地理空间的变化，而在于欧洲人在思想观念上如何理解这个变化。为此，施米特强调背后的宗教因素。陆地和海洋的冲突在价值观念上对应着天主教和新教这两大传统。

[¶3] This also points toward Schmitt’s implicit answer to another question: why could the Industrial Revolution take place in Britain? Because, in choosing the sea, Britain chose a world that dispensed with land and meaning, a world in which everything could be created through technology.

> Chinese: 这也指向了施米特隐含的另一个问题的回答：为什么工业革命可以发生在英国？因为英国选择了海洋的时候，就选择了不要土地、不要意义，可以依靠技术来创造一切的世界。

[¶4] We can thus see that in his writings Schmitt offers a systematic critique of Britain, the great power of the maritime world. Mackinder places great emphasis on the effect of technology upon nature and is even, in a certain sense, a proponent of technicism. Schmitt, by contrast, subjects precisely this point to searching reflection. He continually emphasizes that technological and scientific inventions plunge human existence as a whole into nihilism. Schmitt consistently defends the norms, civilization, and meaning of existence that Europe provides as a land-based world, opposing a nihilistic order of existence detached from the earth and founded entirely on maritime freedom and technology.

> Chinese: 由此可见，施米特在著作中对英国这个海洋世界大国进行了系统的批判。麦金德非常强调技术对自然的作用，甚至某种意义上是一个技术主义者，而施米特恰恰是非常反省这一点，他一直强调，技术和科技的发明导致人类整个生存陷入到虚无主义中。而施米特始终捍卫欧洲作为陆地所提供的规范、文明和生存意义，反对一个脱离大地、完全建立在海洋自由和技术之上的虚无主义的生存秩序。

[¶5] If we place the debate between Mackinder and Schmitt in today’s context, we find that the focus of the China–United States trade war is precisely technology, with China’s industrial development plans as its target. We might say that, in sparing no effort to compete for mastery over science and technology, China and the United States are not very different. Both are racing to enter a world dominated by robots, a nihilistic world.

> Chinese: 如果我们把麦金德和施米特的争论放在今天的语境里。我们就会发现，中美贸易战的焦点恰恰在于技术，针对中国的工业发展计划。可以说，在不遗余力争夺科学技术的支配权这一点上，中国和美国没有太大的区别，二者都争相进入到机器人支配的世界，一个虚无主义的世界。

[¶6] The United States has inherited Britain’s maritime tradition and can be said to be the source of the entire world’s decline. If China, as a rising great power, truly wishes to surpass the United States and rebuild a community of shared destiny for humanity, it must do more than surpass the United States technologically. More importantly, in its understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature, it must move beyond Western technicist thinking and once again ground humanity and technology in the earth, history, norms, and civilization. In this sense, we need to take the legacies of Mackinder and Schmitt seriously.

> Chinese: 美国继承了英国的海洋传统，可以说是整个世界沉沦的根源。而中国作为一个崛起的大国，如果真正想要超越美国，重建人类命运共同体，不仅仅是技术上超越美国，而且更重要的是在理解人与自然关系上超越西方技术主义的思考，重新将人与技术放在对大地、历史、规范和文明的基础上。在这个意义上，我们需要认真对待麦金德和施米特的遗产。

[¶7] Thank you. I’ll stop here.

> Chinese: 谢谢，我就讲到这儿。