---
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: 7 of 11
url: https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/7/
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 7. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/7/"
---

# 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).

## 7. 5. The Globalized Order and the Crisis of a New Nomos of the Earth

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/7/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/liu-xiaofeng-free-space/7/#p-N

[¶0] 5. The Globalized Order and the Crisis of a New Nomos of the Earth

> Chinese: 五、全球化秩序与新大地法危机

[¶1] The global order since the late nineteenth century has been the globalization of the European international legal order. The Thirty Years’ War of the twentieth century showed that two major non-European elements had entered into the distribution of power within the European family: the United States in North America and China in East Asia. This meant that relations internal to Europe had expanded into relations internal to the globe. Russia is a great power straddling Europe and Asia. Not only is its geographical position ambiguous, but it entered the game of the European international legal order as early as the eighteenth century, and thus cannot be counted as a non-European national element.

> Chinese: 19世纪末以来的全球秩序是欧洲国际法秩序的全球化， 20世纪的 30年战争表明，欧洲大家庭之间的强权分配加入了两大非欧洲的元素：北美洲的美国和东亚的中国。这意味着，欧洲内部关系扩大为全球内部关系。俄国属于横跨欧亚的大国，不仅地缘位置有两歧性，而且早在 18世纪就加入了欧洲的国际法秩序游戏，因此不能算作非欧洲的国家元素。

[¶2] From today’s perspective, the evolution of the globalized order since the late nineteenth century must be divided into two stages. The Thirty Years’ War and its outcome—the outbreak of the Cold War—constitute the first stage; the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the rise of China since the 1990s constitute the second.

> Chinese: 从今天的视角来看， 19世纪末以来的全球化秩序的演化得分两个阶段， 30年战争及其结局（冷战爆发）为第一阶段， 1990年代以来，苏联瓦解和中国的崛起为第二阶段。

[¶3] Schmitt’s attention in The Nomos of the Earth falls primarily on the first stage in the formation of the global order. It is worth noting that Chapter Four devotes nearly a third of the book—roughly one hundred pages—to examining the significance of America’s rise for political jurisprudence. Twelve years after the publication of The Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt published Theory of the Partisan, focusing on how China was drawn into the twentieth-century global order. Although Schmitt did not foresee China’s rise, he had already perceived with extraordinary acuity that the Chinese Revolution would bring forth a new, postmodern nomos of the earth, breaking apart the global order constructed by the modern nomos of the earth of the European epoch.

> Chinese: 施米特在《大地的法》中的关注，重点落在全球秩序形成的第一阶段。我们值得注意到，第四章用了占全书近三分之一的篇幅（约一百页）来考察美国崛起的政治法学含义。《大地的法》发表 12年后，施米特发表了《游击队理论》，重点考察中国如何被拖入 20世纪的全球秩序。尽管施米特没有预见到中国的崛起，但他已经极为敏锐地看到，中国革命将带出后现代的新大地法，打破欧洲纪元的现代大地法所营构的全球秩序。

[¶4] This helps us understand why, in Schmitt’s view, relations between the United States and Russia continued the European tradition of demarcation by “amity lines.” Whereas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the logical outcome of the great powers’ common criteria for demarcation was to establish “spatial domains of unrestrained conquest,” the issue now was domination of those domains. The fundamental problem remained unchanged: “There was still no single tribunal to arbitrate disputes and conflicts.”

> Chinese: 由此可以理解，在施米特看来，美国与俄国的关系仍然延续的是欧洲式的“友好线”划分传统。虽然在16至17世纪，列强之间统一划分标准的逻辑结果是确立“肆意征服的空间领域”，如今则是支配这些空间领域，根本性的问题依然如故：“仍然缺乏一个统一的调停争端和矛盾的仲裁庭”。

[¶5] Here Schmitt returns to the concept of “geographical discovery” with which this essay began. The real meaning of “geographical discovery” is nothing other than “effective occupation” (effektive Okkupation), that is, acts of appropriation directed by the state. This is the premise of Mackinder’s essay “The Geographical Pivot of History.” Schmitt states that he has already shown us that this premise, which Mackinder adopts without a second thought, is precisely a departure from the Roman law inherited by Europe’s classical tradition. Over more than three hundred years, this departure “finally became a distinctive legal title to the acquisition of land” (Erwerbstitel) in the late nineteenth century, and produced two pernicious consequences:

> Chinese: 施米特在这里回到了本文起头的“地理发现”概念：所谓“地理发现”的真实含义无异于“有效占有”（effektive Okkupation），即国家支配的占取行动，这是麦金德的《历史的地理枢纽》一文的前提。施米特表示，他已经让我们看到，麦金德不假思索地采取的这个前提，恰恰是对欧洲古典传统所承继的罗马法的背离。这一背离经历了三百多年历史，在 19世纪末“终于成为一种独特的获取土地的法权资格”（Erwerbstitel），并引出了两个恶果：

[¶6] First, before the great powers’ acquisition of land in the face of competition gained general recognition, a protracted struggle might be necessary; second, the legal assessment of a war would be made according to its outcome. In other words, war was recognized as a lawful means of changing title to land. Yet the background to the drawing of global lines was rationalization, humanization, and legalization; in other words, its actual purpose was to prevent war. (p. 71)

> Chinese: 首先，在列强冲破竞争取得土地广受承认之前，必要的时候会经历长时间的争夺战；其二，对战争的法律评价会根据战争的结果做出。换言之，战争被承认为改变土地占有权的合法手段。全球界线划定的背景却是理性化、人性化和法律化，换言之，实际是为了阻止战争。（页71）

[¶7] These two points lead to the key proposition of Schmitt’s theory of postmodern war: the transition from legally regulated war to discriminatory war. This means that continental land wars constrained by European international law, or wars confined to natural military conflicts between states, became ideological wars. Originally, both sides fought to contend for living space; now, however, the victorious side would invoke the “humanitarian” grounds of opposing war to declare the defeated side war criminals, and then punish them on moral grounds. It is as though the European great powers had originally all belonged to a band of robbers, fighting fiercely over the earth’s surface, while three hundred years of European international law had gradually established a set of robbers’ gentlemen’s agreements and “humanitarian” rules for their mutual brawls. Now the defeated are robbers, while the victors have become international gendarmes enforcing the law in the name of “reason” and “humanity.”

> Chinese: 这两个要点引出了施米特的后现代战争理论的关键要点：从法制化战争转向歧视性战争。这意味着，受欧洲国际法约束的大陆土地战争或局限于国家之间的自然的军事冲突的战争，变成了意识形态化的战争。本来，战争双方都是为了争夺生存空间而战，但胜利方现在会以反战争的“人道”理由裁定战败方为战争罪犯，进而在道义上施以惩罚。这就好比说，欧洲各大国本来都是一伙强盗，为争夺地表空间大打出手，而三百年来的欧洲国际法逐渐形成了一套强盗性质的君子协定和相互打斗的“人道”规矩。现在呢，战败方是强盗，战胜方成了以“理性”和“人道”名义执法的国际宪兵。

[¶8] We plainly cannot suppose that Schmitt was protesting the injustice of Germany’s becoming the object of judgment by an “international tribunal” after the Second World War. After all, Schmitt had proposed the concept of “discriminatory war” as early as 1939, and the basic views of The Nomos of the Earth had already appeared in essays from the Weimar Republic period. “The League of Nations and Europe” (1928) and “The International Legal Forms of Modern Imperialism” (1932) both bear this out. [14]

> Chinese: 我们显然不能以为，施米特是在为二战后的德国成为“国际法庭”的审判对象鸣冤叫屈。毕竟，早在 1939年，施米特就提出了“歧视性战争”观念，而《大地的法》中的基本观点已见于魏玛民国时期的文章：《国际联盟与欧洲》（1928）和《现代帝国主义的国际法形式》（1932）都是证明。 [14]

[¶9] Chapter Four of The Nomos of the Earth shows us that Schmitt’s thinking arose from the outcome of the Paris Peace Conference, an outcome directly connected to the outbreak of the Second World War. Nevertheless, Schmitt wrote The Nomos of the Earth after the Second World War, whose outcome was no longer the convening of a “peace conference,” even a discriminatory one, but the trial of “criminals who waged aggressive war.” The Nazi Party’s extermination of the Jews compelled all Germans collectively to bear the charge of being “war criminals,” even though Germans had made nearly forty attempts to assassinate Hitler, twenty-two of them carried out by the military—acts Schmitt called “tyrannicide.” [15]

> Chinese: 《大地的法》第四章让我们看到，施米特的思考来自巴黎和会的结果，而二战的爆发与这个结果有直接关系。尽管如此，《大地的法》是施米特在二战之后写成的，而二战的结果已经不再是召开哪怕歧视性的“和会”，而是审判“发动侵略战争的罪犯”。纳粹党对犹太人的灭绝让全体德国人不得不集体背负“战争罪犯”的罪名，尽管德国人针对希特勒的刺杀行动多达近 40次，军方实施的就有 22次——施米特称为“诛杀僭主”的行动。 [15]

[¶10] The Allies’ trial of Germany after the Second World War was procedurally lawful, but Schmitt poses a tacit challenge: can European international law really lead the internal conflicts of the European family out of a barbaric state of nature? Was “mass slaughter” unprecedented within the “amity lines” the Europeans themselves had drawn? In this respect, the difference between Hobbes and Grotius is of decisive significance.

> Chinese: 二战后盟国对德国的审判在程序上合法，施米特则暗中挑战：欧洲国际法真的能让欧洲大家庭的内部冲突走出野蛮的自然状态？在欧洲人自己划定的“友好线”之内，“大屠杀”难道是头一回？就此而言，霍布斯与格劳秀斯的差异具有决定性的意义。

[¶11] As noted above, the first section of Chapter Two of The Nomos of the Earth is entitled “The First Global Lines: From Raya Lines through Amity Lines to the Line of the Western Hemisphere.” Schmitt’s discussion of Hobbes in this section quietly foreshadows the historical turning point discussed in Chapter Four under “The Emergence of the Western Hemisphere Line.” Since, in proposing his theory of the “state of nature,” “Hobbes clearly based his thinking not only on a remorseful reflection on Europe’s civil wars, but also on the fact of the New World’s emergence,” the political principle underlying America’s rise is, in the final analysis, the law of the jungle.

> Chinese: 前文提到，《大地的法》第二章第一节的标题是“最初的地球分界线：从拉亚线经友好界线到西半球分界线”，施米特在这一节中讨论到霍布斯，为第四章讨论“西半球线浮现出来”时的历史转折埋下了隐而不显的伏笔。既然“霍布斯显然不是仅仅基于忏悔欧洲内战的观感，而是也基于新世界的诞生这一事实”才提出了他的“自然状态”说，那么，美国崛起所持有的政治原则说到底是丛林原则。

[¶12] Only once the spatial order of states on European soil had been demarcated did the third and final international line—the Western Hemisphere line—emerge. The land order for the New World inherited from Europe and Eurocentric international law was destined to come into conflict with the situation demarcated by this line. (p. 71)

> Chinese: 只有等到欧洲土地的国家空间秩序划定停当，第三条也就是最后一条国际界线——西半球线才浮现出来。欧洲和欧洲中心的国际法传承下来的对新世界的土地秩序，注定要与此线划定的局势形成对立。（页71）

[¶13] This means that America’s rise, in altering the configuration established by Europe’s “amity lines,” amounted to globalizing the barbaric law of the jungle. From this Schmitt unfolds his own account of world history, in which the transformations of the nomos of the earth can be divided into three major stages: the premodern nomos of the earth, when the classical civilizations were unacquainted with one another → the modern European nomos of the earth (the establishment of Eurocentrism) → the postmodern globalized nomos of the earth (the pernicious consequences of European international law).

> Chinese: 这意味着，美国崛起改变欧洲的“友好线”所划定的格局，无异于让野蛮的丛林法则全球化。施米特由此铺展出一条他眼中的世界历史脉络，即大地的法在世界历史中的嬗变可分为三大阶段：前现代各古典文明互不相识的大地法→现代欧洲的大地法（欧洲中心主义的确立）→后现代的全球化大地法（欧洲国际法引出的恶果）。

[¶14] Premodern Europe’s universal law was based on an “ancient land order.” The modern European power states’ division of the world overturned this premodern European “ancient land order,” establishing a system of international law that regulated the modern European order. America’s rise, in turn, both inherited and altered the rules of demarcation of modern European international law.

> Chinese: 前现代的欧洲天下法基于“古老的土地秩序”，现代欧洲强权国家的世界划分颠覆了欧洲前现代的“古老的土地秩序”，建立起规范现代欧洲秩序的国际法体系，美国的崛起则既承继又改变了现代欧洲国际法的划界规则。

[¶15] Schmitt focuses on the historical development from the second, modern stage to the third, postmodern stage. In his view, this change began in the eighteenth century. This means that the spread of Hobbes’s theory of the “state of nature” had a decisive influence on the world-historical transformation marked by “the emergence of the Western Hemisphere line”: since the state of nature is a state of war, “it is necessary to examine and discuss the construction of the spatial order between states in European international law and the framework of war they espoused.”

> Chinese: 施米特重点关注第二阶段（即现代阶段）至第三阶段（即后现代阶段）的历史演进，在他看来，这一变化始于 18世纪。这意味着，霍布斯的“自然状态”论的传播对“西半球线浮现出来”时的世界历史转变具有决定性影响：既然自然状态是战争状态，那么就“有必要梳理和探讨欧洲国际法上国家间的空间秩序建构以及它们所推崇的战争架构”。

[¶16] In any event, the modern, that is, European stage of world history should be defined as an age of “civilized” barbarism. It is because this stage overlapped with the formation of technological-commercial civilization, and especially because it became entangled with doctrines of “humanitarianism” from the eighteenth century onward, that people to this day not only find it difficult to distinguish good from evil, but also argue incessantly.

> Chinese: 无论如何，世界历史的现代阶段即欧洲阶段，应该界定为“文明化”的野蛮阶段。由于这一阶段与技术–商业文明的形成叠合在一起，尤其是与 18世纪以来的“人道主义”论搅合在一起，才让人们迄今不仅善恶难辨，而且争议不断。