---
title: "European Civilization’s “Free Space” and Modern China · 欧洲文明的“自由空间”与现代中国"
author: "Liu Xiaofeng"
translator: "S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)"
title_ru: "«Свободное пространство» европейской цивилизации и современный Китай"
author_ru: "Лю Сяофэн"
languages: [zh, en]
shelf: "LCI editions"
section: 10 of 11
url: https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/10/
cite: "Liu Xiaofeng, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), European Civilization’s “Free Space” and Modern China · 欧洲文明的“自由空间”与现代中国, section 10. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/10/"
---

# European Civilization’s “Free Space” and Modern China · 欧洲文明的“自由空间”与现代中国

*Liu Xiaofeng, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)*

Russian: «Свободное пространство» европейской цивилизации и современный Китай, Лю Сяофэн

Liu Xiaofeng’s long essay of 2018 on Carl Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth: how Europe’s “free space” of conquest made modern international law, and what that order has meant for China, from the Treaty of Tordesillas to the Thirty-Eighth Parallel. With his 41 notes. In Chinese beside a new English translation.

> Chinese: 刘小枫，《欧洲文明的“自由空间”与现代中国——读施米特〈大地的法〉札记》, as republished on Sohu, 12 December 2018 (original journal pagination not reconstructed).

> English: Laurentium Cultural Industries, complete translation with the author’s 41 notes (9 October 2026).

## 10. Epilogue: From the Raya Lines to the Thirty-Eighth Parallel

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/10/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/10/#p-N

[¶0] Epilogue: From the Raya Lines to the Thirty-Eighth Parallel

> Chinese: 余论：从“拉亚线”到“三八线”

[¶1] The fourth and final reference to China in The Nomos of the Earth concerns the historical moment when America's rise brought forth a globalized “nomos of the earth.” Schmitt says that, from its founding, the United States consistently pursued a policy of separation from Europe. This “separatism” carried a sense of moral superiority: a farewell to “the entire political system of European monarchy” and the remaking of a wholly new Europe, or “West”:

> Chinese: 《大地的法》第四次也是最后一次提到中国，与美国崛起并带出全球化“大地法”的历史时刻相关。施米特说，美国自建国以来一直持守与欧洲分离的国策，这种“分离主义”带有道德上的优越感，即告别“欧洲君主制的整个政治体制”，重塑一个全新的欧洲或“西方”：

[¶2] The new West claims to be the true West, the true Occident, the true Europe. The new West, America (die Amerika), will replace the old West and Europe, redirect world history, and become the center of the world. The [new] West will be wholly the West (Occident) in a moral, civilizational, and political sense; it will neither be annihilated nor destroyed, nor even dethroned, but merely replaced. International law bids farewell to the era centered on old Europe. The center of civilization continues to move westward, toward America. (p. 272)

> Chinese: 新西方要求成为真正的西方、真正的西洋、真正的欧洲。新的西方，即美利坚（die Amerika）将取代老的西方和欧洲，重新确定世界历史的方向，成为世界的中心。[新的]西方将完全成为道德的、文明的和政治意义上的西方（Occident），既不会被消灭或破坏，甚至不会被废黜，而只是被替代。国际法告别了那个以老欧洲为重心的时代。文明的中心继续向西、向美利坚移动。（页272）

[¶3] Just as “thousands upon thousands of disappointed or disillusioned Europeans left old, reactionary Europe for America, to begin a new life on that sacred and unsullied soil,” the United States used the Spanish-American War of 1898 as its opportunity to turn and stride into its own “era of open imperialism.”[34] The difference was that American imperialist expansion moved eastward, “deep into the Pacific region.” The Open Door declaration of 1899 proclaimed America's right to an equal share of benefits throughout the vast regions of Asia.

> Chinese: 正当“成千上万失意或幻灭的欧洲人离开老旧而且反动的欧洲前往美利坚，在那片圣洁无暇的土地上开始新的生活”时，美国借 1898年的美西战争之机，转身大步迈向自己“开放的帝国主义时代”。 [34]不同的是，美国的帝国主义扩张方向是东方，即“深入太平洋地区”。 1899年的“门户开放”宣言宣称，美国对亚洲的广阔区域拥有利益均沾的权利。

[¶4] From the perspective of global geography, this was a step [by America] from west to east. From the standpoint of world history, the relationship between the American continent and the newly emerging East Asian space now resembled the situation a century earlier, when America's rise in world history had squeezed old Europe out of the Eastern Hemisphere. In the geography of ideas, such a striking change would become a highly sensational theme. Under its influence, 1930 announced the rise of a new world, and from then on America became connected with China. (p. 274)

> Chinese: 从全球地理的视角来看，这是一个[美国]从西方迈向东方的步骤。从世界史的角度来看，现在美利坚大陆与新出现的东亚空间的关系，就像一百年前老欧洲由于美利坚在世界史上的崛起而被挤出东半球区域一样。在思想地理学的意义上讲，这样一种显著变化会成为一个极其轰动性的主题。在其影响之下，1930年宣告了一个新世界的崛起，从此美利坚与中国联系在一起。（页274）

[¶5] Schmitt did not explain further how the United States became connected with China.[35] Following the line of thought in The Nomos of the Earth, the connection between the United States and China should be traceable to the sixteenth century, although the United States did not yet exist at all.

> Chinese: 施米特没有进一步细说，美国如何与中国联系在一起。 [35]按《大地的法》中的思路，美国与中国的联系应该可以上溯到 16世纪，尽管那时还根本没有美国。

[¶6] Under the Treaty of Zaragoza of the early sixteenth century, Portugal obtained control of all islands and waters west of the “raya line,” including all of Asia and the neighboring islands already discovered. Spain acquired dominion over virtually the entire Pacific and the space to its east. Since the treaty did not mention the Philippines, Charles V exploited the loophole and announced their colonization in 1542. He assumed that the Portuguese king would not react strongly, since there was no spice business to be done in the Philippine islands. His calculation was mistaken. Only more than twenty years later, in 1565, did the powerful Philip II establish a Spanish-controlled trading post at Manila by relying on his naval strength.

> Chinese: 按 16世纪初的《萨拉戈萨条约》，葡萄牙获得“拉亚线”以西的所有岛屿和海域的控制权，包括整个亚洲及其已经发现的属邻岛屿，西班牙则获得几乎整个太平洋及以东空间的支配权。由于条约没有提到菲律宾，查理五世钻空子，在 1542年宣布向菲律宾殖民。他以为葡萄牙国王不会做出强烈反应，因为菲律宾群岛上没香料生意可做，结果打错算盘。 20多年后（1565），强势的菲力二世才凭靠海军实力在马尼拉建立西班牙的直辖贸易站。

[¶7] At the end of the nineteenth century, taking advantage of victory in the Spanish-American War, the United States seized control of the Philippines from Spain by force. If Philip II's reliance on naval strength had altered the “raya line” for the first time, America's seizure of the Philippines from Spain by force altered it for the second. In the spring of 1942, after launching the Pacific War, Japan advanced into the Philippines, and the fifty thousand American troops under MacArthur were forced to withdraw to Australia. Japanese forces immediately followed, attacking Port Moresby in New Guinea with the intention of establishing a forward base there for an assault on the Australian mainland, which the British naval commander James Cook (1728–1779) had proclaimed “British territory” in the mid-eighteenth century. Should not Japan's war against the United States in the western Pacific be understood as an attempt to alter the “raya line”?

> Chinese: 19世纪末，趁美西战争胜利之机，美国用武力从西班牙手中夺取了菲律宾的支配权。如果说菲力二世凭靠海军实力第一次更改了“拉亚线”，那么，美国用武力从西班牙手中夺取菲律宾就是第二次更改“拉亚线”。 1942年春，日本发动太平洋战争后进兵菲律宾，麦克阿瑟麾下的五万美军被迫撤离到澳大利亚。日军随即跟进，进攻新几内亚的莫尔斯比港，企图在那里建立前进基地，进攻英国海军中校库克（James Cook， 1728 - 1779）在 18世纪中期已宣布为“英国领土”的澳大利亚本土。日本与美国的西太平洋战争，难道不应该理解为日本力图更改“拉亚线”？

[¶8] We may imagine that, had The Nomos of the Earth been completed three years later, the war on the Korean Peninsula from late 1950 to 1953 would certainly have become a major topic for Schmitt. After all, this war concerned the redrawing of the “raya line.” The Soviet Russian and American empires became adversaries in the repartition of global spheres of influence, and globalization entered a new balance-of-power configuration: the condition of “Cold War.” In the view of an American historian,

> Chinese: 可以设想，如果《大地的法》成书晚三年，那么， 1950年底至 1953年的朝鲜半岛战争一定会成为施米特笔下的一大话题。毕竟，这场战争涉及重新划分“拉亚线”：苏俄帝国与美利坚帝国成为重新划分全球势力范围的对手，全球化进程进入新的均势格局——“冷战”状态。在美国的史学家看来，

[¶9] The Korean War became a watershed in American history. It was from this point that the United States truly became a superpower, began to display a willingness to intervene in affairs across the globe, and gradually developed the corresponding means.[36]

> Chinese: 朝鲜战争成为了美国历史的一道分水岭。正是从这时开始，美国才真正地成为一个超级大国，开始表现出干涉全球事务的意愿，并逐渐发展出相应的手段。[36]

[¶10] The outbreak of the Korean War had much to do with a sudden shift in America's “linear thinking.” In January 1950, Acheson declared in a speech at the National Press Club that Korea and Taiwan lay outside America's defensive perimeter. If South Korea were attacked, the United Nations could be left to act. Whether or not this declaration reflected the true intentions of America's leadership, Stalin permitted Kim Il Sung to undertake military action to reunify his country precisely on the basis of it.

> Chinese: 朝鲜战争的爆发与美国的“划界思维”的突然转变有很大关系。 1950年元月，艾奇逊在全国记者俱乐部的演讲中宣称，朝鲜和台湾都在美国防御圈之外，如果南朝鲜受到攻击，可以让联合国去采取行动。无论这一宣称是否是美国首脑圈的真实想法，斯大林正是基于这一宣称允许金日成采取统一祖国的军事行动。

[¶11] After North Korea launched its attack, Johnson, Dulles, and even MacArthur and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were “initially reluctant to commit ground forces,” because “American commitments elsewhere were more urgent.” The White House had reason to fear that, if the United States and the Soviet Union confronted one another in Europe, Korea would “become a strategic liability for the United States.” Yet the McCarthy affair made its timely entrance at this moment, and a new political correctness began to determine the “linear thinking” of democratic “two-party co-governance.”[37]

> Chinese: 北朝鲜发动进攻之后，约翰逊、杜勒斯甚至麦克阿瑟和参联会“起初都不情愿投入地面部队作战”，因为“美国在其他地区的承诺更为紧迫”。白宫有理由担心，一旦美国与苏联在欧洲摊牌，朝鲜会“成为美国的一个战略负担”。然而，麦卡锡事件在这个时候适时地出场，新的政治正确开始决定民主的“两党共治”的“划界思维”。 [37]

[¶12] From the perspective of China's modern history, the Korean Peninsula war can be regarded as New China's reply to the late-nineteenth-century Open Door declaration: the Americans were not to be allowed across the thirty-eighth parallel. An article published in 1951 by Lei Haizong, one of China's first generation of world historians, may be taken as historical testimony.[38] When America and China became connected once again after the “reform and opening” of the 1980s, the meaning of “opening” had changed completely. An owner opening the door himself and inviting outsiders in to operate joint ventures is an entirely different matter from outsiders breaking down the door or climbing over the wall to enclose land or exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction.

> Chinese: 从中国的现代历史来看，朝鲜半岛战争堪称新中国对 19世纪末的“门户开放”宣言的回答：不准许美国人跨过三八线。中国的第一代世界史学家雷海宗在 1951年发表的文章，算得上历史的证言。 [38] 1980年代的“改革开放”以来，美利坚与中国再次联系在一起时，“开放”的含义完全变了：主人自己开门，请外人进来搞合资经营，与外人破门或越墙而入圈地或搞治外法权，是两码子事。

[¶13] Schmitt notes that, when America began its imperialist expansion into Asia at the end of the nineteenth century, it also abolished its domestic “freedom of appropriation.” America was no longer “open land” into which people could freely immigrate (p. 275). This should remind us that, in 1905, the United States passed legislation prohibiting Chinese immigration. Together with media exposure of the mistreatment of Chinese workers in America, this prompted large-scale movements to “boycott American goods” in China's major cities, with overseas Chinese joining in. In the end, however, the movement came to nothing. In early 1951, after Communist Chinese forces engaged American troops for the second time on the Korean Peninsula, the government of New China immediately mobilized a nationwide anti-American movement. Disregarding European international law, it froze or even confiscated American assets in China. We can say that this both violated and conformed to the rules of European public law.

> Chinese: 施米特提到，美国在 19世纪末开始对亚洲施行帝国主义扩张时，也取消了本国“内部的占取自由”，美利坚不再是“开放的土地”，可以让人自由移民（页 275）。这让我们应该想起， 1905年，美国通过禁止中国移民的法例，加上华工在美受虐待的事件在传媒曝光，中国各大城市曾爆发大规模“杯葛美货”运动，海外华人也纷纷起而响应，但结果是不了了之。 1951年初，中共军队与美军在朝鲜半岛上第二次交火后，新中国政府随即动员了全国性的反美运动，而且不理会欧洲国际法，冻结甚至剥夺美国的在华资产。我们可以说，这既违背也符合欧洲公法的规矩。

[¶14] At the end of 1949, after Communist Chinese forces captured Guangzhou, they stopped on the north bank of the Shenzhen River. What the British Empire feared did not occur. Even in the case of the “unequal treaties,” the government of New China did not rely on military force to “abrogate” them. We cannot say that New China disregarded the Western tradition of international law: whether treaties are “abrogated” depends on whether the two countries enter a state of war.

> Chinese: 1949年底，中共军队夺取广州之后，停在了深圳河北岸，大英帝国担心的事情并没有发生。即便对“不平等条约”，新中国政府并没有凭靠武力“废约”，我们不能说新中国不遵守西方的国际法传统：是否“废约”取决于两国是否进入战争状态。

[¶15] At the beginning of the Sino-British negotiations over “Hong Kong's return” in 1983, Mrs. Thatcher, known as the “Iron Lady,” attempted to maintain a position in the European international-law tradition: that “the three treaties remained valid” and that “administrative authority could be exchanged for sovereignty.” This was wide of the mark. Deng Xiaoping rejected it with a resounding sentence in Sichuan dialect: “Sovereignty is not negotiable.” Still unwilling to concede, Mrs. Thatcher subsequently asked her defense secretary whether military force could preserve Britain's hold over Hong Kong Island, which had been ceded under the treaties. Faced with the Iron Lady's excessive ignorance of military affairs, the defense secretary could only smile bitterly and shrug.

> Chinese: 中英关于“香港回归”的谈判初期（1983），有“铁娘子”之称的撒切尔夫人企图坚持“三个条约有效论”和“以治权换主权”的欧洲国际法式的立场，就离谱了。邓小平以一句掷地有声的四川话回绝道：“主权问题没得商量。”撒切尔夫人仍不甘心，她随后问自己的国防大臣，是否有可能凭靠军事力量保住按条约规定已割让的港岛。对“铁娘子”在军事方面的太过无知，国防大臣只能苦笑和耸肩。

[¶16] The foremost juridical lesson that the European system of international law taught China was this: China must first be a sovereign state worthy of the name, and national sovereignty can be obtained only through a country's own military strength. This is the basic prerequisite for China's entry into the European international-law system. Lei Haizong earned his doctorate in America through research on Turgot. After returning to China, he remained mindful that martial virtue was one of the heirlooms of the Chinese cultural spirit. Presumably this was the foremost insight he had gained from studying world history.[39]

> Chinese: 欧洲国际法体系教给中国的首要法理是：中国必须首先是名符其实的主权国家，而国家主权只能凭靠本国的军事力量来获得——这是中国进入欧洲国际法体系的基本前提。雷海宗以研究杜尔哥在美国获得博士学位，回国后他心里惦记着，中国文化精神的传家宝之一是武德，想必是他研究世界史的首要心得。 [39]

[¶17] In today’s international setting, to put it in Schmitt’s terms, as China grows the United States has every reason to worry that, in the relationship between the American continent and the newly emerging East Asian space, America will be squeezed out of Asia by China’s rise in world history, just as old Europe was squeezed out of the Eastern Hemisphere by America’s rise in world history: it is now America’s turn to see its demarcated “free space” challenged. At a minimum, because of the Korean War, the postmodern “raya lines” drawn by America and the Soviet Union made China and America adversaries in the global redrawing of boundaries.

> Chinese: 从今天的国际语境来看，用施米特的话来说，随着中国的成长，美国完全有理由担心，美国大陆与新出现的东亚空间的关系，就像老欧洲由于美国在世界史上的崛起而被挤出东半球区域一样，美国会由于中国在世界史上的崛起而被挤出亚洲：现在轮到美国划定的“自由空间”受到挑战。至少，由于朝鲜战争，美苏划定的后现代的“拉亚线”让中国与美国成了全球化重新划线的对手。

[¶18] China's rise in world history is connected with the eastward transmission of Marxism. This means that Marxism brought a new “nomos of the earth.” We should also recognize that the emergence of this new nomos is connected with Hegel's resistance to the capitalist nomos of Hobbes and Locke. At the end of chapter four, section five, Schmitt mentions again that, “in the chapter discussing the first global lines,” he “pointed out the connection between Hobbes's pre-state condition of nature and the zones of savage freedom.” In his philosophy of history, Hegel, in disputing Hobbes, had already offered an extraordinary diagnosis of America's “[state] structure in this new world”: America had not yet constituted itself as a state. It remained in “a condition in which the freedom of interests takes priority,” that is, “still at the stage of civil society.” The domestic political factors behind America's intervention in the Korean civil war in 1950 demonstrate that Schmitt's observation was not unfounded.

> Chinese: 中国在世界史上的崛起与马克思主义的东传有关。这意味着，马克思主义带来了一种新的“大地法”。我们还应该意识到，这个新大地法的提出与黑格尔抵制霍布斯–洛克的资本主义式大地法有关。施米特在第四章第五节结尾时再次提到，他“在讲述第一个全球界线的那一章，指出了霍布斯关于前国家的自然状态和野蛮自由区域的关联性”，而黑格尔在其历史哲学中反驳霍布斯时，已经对美利坚“这个新世界的[国家]结构做出了不同凡响的诊断”：美国还没有构建成一个国家，尚处于“利益自由优先的状态”，即“还停留在市民社会的阶段”。美国在 1950年介入朝鲜内战时的国内政治因素证明，施米特此言不虚。

[¶19] Schmitt then mentions the further judgment that the young Marx had made about America: in this “republic, as in the monarchies of the nineteenth century, private property determines the actual constitution and the state” (pp. 275–76). Schmitt was not a Marxist. He emphasized so strongly that the new Hegelian-Marxist nomos of the earth sought to overcome the Anglo-Saxon and Americanist nomos solely because he respected historical facts.

> Chinese: 随后施米特提到，青年马克思曾对美国做出过进一步评价：这个“共和国像 19世纪的君主国一样，私有财产决定了真正的宪法和国家”（页 275 - 276）。施米特并非马克思主义者，他如此强调黑格尔–马克思主义的新大地法志在克服盎格鲁－撒克逊和美利坚主义的大地法，仅仅因为他尊重历史的事实。

[¶20] In Hegel's view, Kantian cosmopolitanism disregarded Aristotle's emphasis on cultivation, moral education, the formation of good habits, and the socialization accomplished through the ethical life (Sittlichheit) of different cultures and histories. In short, Kant was indifferent to the moral significance and value of historical and social institutions.[40]

> Chinese: 在黑格尔看来，康德式的世界主义忽视了亚里士多德对于教化、道德教养、善良习惯的养成和以各种文化与历史的道德风尚（Sittlichheit）所实现的社会化的强调。一言以蔽之，康德对于历史性的和社会性的制度的道德意义及其道德价值漠不关心。[40]

[¶21] For us, the unavoidable question of political historiography is this: China's rise through this “ism” will inevitably introduce a new nomos of the earth into world history. This also means that the traditional virtues of Chinese civilization will necessarily enter into the struggle against the Anglo-Saxon and Americanist nomos of the earth. In fact, as early as the beginning of 1946, Mao Zedong had already “broken intellectually through the constraints of the postwar great-power system, established an independent strategy toward the United States, and ceased to give a central place to considerations of attitudes toward the Soviet Union and its interests.”[41]

> Chinese: 对我们来说，无法回避的政治史学问题是：中国凭靠这种“主义”崛起，必然会给世界历史引入新的大地法。而这也意味着，中国文明的传统德性必将参与到与盎格鲁－撒克逊和美利坚主义的大地法的斗争之中。事实上，早在 1946年初，毛泽东已经“在思想上突破战后大国体系的羁绊，确立了独立自主的对美战略，并且不再把对苏联态度及其利益的考虑放在重要位置上”。 [41]

[¶22] What, then, is this new nomos of the earth? Schmitt supplied the answer in his Theory of the Partisan of 1963.

> Chinese: 这种新大地法究竟是怎样的呢？施米特在 1963年的《游击队理论》中给出了回答。