Why should one be interested in the theological dimension within the project of modern politics? On the Chinese acceptance of Carl Schmitt's political theology

For the past ten years or so, Carl Schmitt's political theology has become quite influential for many Chinese scholars of both the left and the right. Schmitt's political theology was first introduced into the Chinese academy by scholars of the right in 2000, before being similarly taken up by neo-leftists. ¹ In the face of this strange phenomenon, liberal scholars, including Xu Jilin (2011), have pointed out the emergence of a current of statism in China. How should we understand this special intellectual phenomenon? What are the underlying reasons for it, and how might it help us to better understand the present Chinese thinking about modern politics?

Carl Schmitt's political theology and the Chinese interest in modern politics

In order to answer these questions, it must firstly be recognized that this phenomenon is only one part of a bigger reality. This reality centers on Chinese efforts to figure out a new possibility for modern politics. Since the 1980s, with the reformation and opening up of China, Chinese society has experienced a great deal of change. These changes have firstly meant the de-politicization of society, or a revolution of civil society. This is not only because of China's introduction of a market economy and its gradual entry into the global market, but also because people have at the same time been freed from different political conditions and been increasingly recognized as free individuals. In this sense, then, it could be argued that it has been the Chinese government that has adopted the initiatives to build a civil society in China. With the development of civil society, there then comes the problem of how to deal with the relationship between civil society and the state—the core question of modern politics. In tackling this question, Chinese scholars over the past thirty years have become more and more interested in political philosophy. Behind this interest lies an acute awareness that modern politics still remains the task ahead.

Despite this awareness, Chinese scholars are at the same time very clear that they are not starting from the very beginning again. On the contrary, since the 1990s, more and more Chinese scholars have remarked on the crisis within and inherent to the project of modern politics. In the 1980s, when the process to de-politicize Chinese society was just beginning, many Chinese scholars believed that the western liberal model of modern politics should also serve as the model for China. In other words, they believed that there should be a clear separation between civil society and the state and that the aim of the state should be nothing other than to protect the rights of free individuals within civil society. However, with the development of the market economy in Chinese society, it has become increasingly clear that this model can never solve the social problems brought about by the commoditization of relations between people. From the 1990s onwards, some Chinese scholars (especially neo-leftists) have noticed that this liberalist model has necessarily brought about serious problems of social inequality in China. They argue that unless greater efforts are taken to deal with these problems of social inequality, there will necessarily be a collapse of society as a whole. ² Although these Chinese neo-leftists do not claim themselves to be Marxists, they are, in fact, reviving the Marxist criticism of modern liberal politics. In his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Marx pointed out clearly that the separation between civil society and the state will inevitably bring about the failure of modern politics. That is, the state will necessary be embraced by civil society as its presupposition and its instrument. In the present Chinese context, although this separation is not yet complete, it has nonetheless made conditions even worse. On the one hand, the government is still very strong in the sense that it owns a lot of resources. However, on the other hand, as revealed by the serious issue of corruption, the government has already become captive to the principle of civil society: individual interest. However, because of the historical experience of the Cultural Revolution, it is a given in China that society can never go back to the traditional Marxist solution. If the liberalist model will bring about the reduction of politics (the state) into the economy (civil society), then the traditional Marxist solution was the inverse. It entailed reducing the economy (the social) into politics (the political). How, then, might we resolve this dilemma? It is with a clear awareness of this dilemma that Chinese scholars are trying to figure out a new possibility for modern politics, and it was precisely within this particular context that Carl Schmitt's political theology was introduced into China.

The Chinese interpretation of Carl Schmitt's political theology: The effort to save modern politics

When Carl Schmitt's political theology was introduced into China, it found resonance with both political sides. Scholars from the right respect it because they believe that it contains the secret of how to build the political community. Meanwhile, the neo-leftists similarly show sympathy toward it because they feel that the problem that Schmitt was fighting against was the same as their own—namely, the impotence of modern politics and the tendency for it to be used simply as an instrument by the powerful groups of society. In short, Chinese scholars from both left and right believe that Schmitt's political theology represents one of the most significant efforts to save modern politics, and that his political theology probably points the way to a new alternative to escape from the above-mentioned dilemma.

According to Chinese scholars' interpretations, ³ Schmitt's contribution centers on three key aspects. Firstly, he offers a new understanding of “the political,” in which he emphasizes that politics is the inescapable existential condition of human beings. This concept is, in turn, necessarily closely connected to his special definition of the sovereignty of the state. Secondly, Schmitt provides a sharp diagnosis of the crisis of modern politics, interpreting it both in the actual tendency of the technologization of politics and the theory of legal positivism. In his analysis of this crisis, he attributes its causes to Hobbes' allowance for the distinction between inner faith and outer confession, thus signaling his recognition of a theological dimension lying at the heart of the modern project of politics; the success of the modern political state depends on the theological concept of the sovereign. Thirdly, in his analysis of the crisis of modern politics, Schmitt puts forward an answer. Within his answer—the so-called constitutional dictatorship—there is a hidden theological dimension, and it is just this hidden theological dimension that could potentially help the Chinese to build a political community in the contemporary context.

The necessity of politics and the importance of sovereignty

In China, the image of Carl Schmitt is always accompanied by the following quotation (Schmitt, 1976: 26): “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.” To Chinese scholars, Schmitt's concept of “the political” as expressed in this quotation is important in two main senses: on the one hand, as a reflection on the plurality of nation-states, it is a continuation of the line extending from German Romanticism to Hegel and then on to Weber. Thus Schmitt's thinking about modern politics starts from an important foundation, which has been ignored by both liberalists and Marxists: the power struggles among the different nation-states. With the opening of China to the global system, the current condition of China has become one of ultimate concern to both neo-leftists and conservatives. In this sense, it could be said that Schmitt's thinking about modern politics has touched on one of the most sensitive nerves for Chinese scholars from the very beginning.

On the other hand, this concept of “the political” has also highlighted the particular importance of sovereignty to the modern project of politics. According to Schmitt, the fact of wars existent among the different nation-states is actually “the natural state” for us. Thus he identifies war (the state of emergency) as “the natural state.” In this way, war, as “the natural state,” is actually the presupposition for the state. In wartime, what is crucial to the state is the power to make decisions. So, sovereignty amounts to nothing more than this power to make decisions. To Chinese scholars, this focus on sovereignty is directly relevant to the Chinese context in two ways. On the one hand, with this understanding of modern politics as the reference point, it can clearly be seen that current Chinese politics lacks one key feature: the people's identification with the sovereign. In other words, the political community has not yet been truly established in China. The process of reform to Chinese society has seen the government adopt initiatives to develop civil society. As a result of this, people have become discrete and free individuals separated from one another and the state. However, efforts have not been undertaken in the other direction. That is, there has not been an attempt made to provide opportunities for these discrete free individuals to come together and to recognize the state as the sovereign. In this way, many Chinese scholars argue that what is lacking in Chinese politics today is identification by the people with the political community. ⁴

This focus on sovereignty aligns with Chinese scholars' sense of dissatisfaction with the impotence of Chinese government. As is evident in the theories of Chinese neo-leftists in the 1990s, the Chinese government was believed to be incapable of making the right decisions in either the domestic or international spheres. At the international level, the Chinese government is seen to be powerless in the fight against its dependent position defined by those states at the center of the global system. At the domestic level, the Chinese government is considered to be unable to tame the unlimited development of capital in China, which has brought about serious problems concerning social justice and ecology.

Because of these connections, Schmitt's theory of constitutional dictatorship has been taken very seriously by these Chinese scholars and is seen as a very constructive suggestion on how to establish the sovereignty of the state in China. According to Schmitt, the sovereignty of the state entails the power to decide when “the state of emergency” is to be invoked. To make this kind of decision, the state, which bears sovereignty, needs to be unified. That is to say, the decision is actually the decision of the representative of the people. In this sense, the democratic dictatorship of the people is actualized as the dictatorship of the president. Here, what is important is that the unification of the people is arrived at through their identification with the representative.

Diagnosis of the failure of Leviathan

To Chinese scholars, what is particularly compelling about Schmitt's theory of sovereignty is that he himself is quite aware of the difficulties inherent to this project. This is clearly shown in his analysis of the doomed failure of Leviathan in his book, The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol (1996). In this work, Schmitt not only points out Leviathan's inevitable failure as the representative, but also the reason for it: the lack of the theological concept of the sovereign, which is indispensable for the success of the modern political state.

According to Schmitt, Hobbes' Leviathan is composed of three parts: the mythical monster (or the mortal God), the personally embodied sovereign-representative, and the technically neutral machine. However, over the course of history, the mechanical component has defeated the other two: “The leviathan becomes none other than a huge machine, a gigantic mechanism in the service of ensuring the physical protection of the governed” (Schmitt, 1996: 35). As the tool, “it even cannot perform this particular task” (McCormick, 1997: 272). Thus, Leviathan as the political symbol has ultimately failed. The whole book is concerned with this doomed failure of Leviathan: “The book is the historical account of how the mechanical component of the Hobbesian trinity wins over the other two and the political victory of such a victory” (McCormick, 1997: 272).

Schmitt believes that the Leviathan is firstly a mythical monster, for it is the product of people's fear: “The starting point of Hobbes' construction of the state is fear of the state of nature; the goal and terminus is the security of the civil, the stately condition … The terror of the state of nature drives anguished individuals to come together, their fear rises to an extreme: a spark of reason (ratio) flashes, and suddenly there stands in front of them a new god” (Schmitt, 1996: 31). Here, Schmitt points out clearly that rational fear is the source of the power of Leviathan. To be more specific, he argues further: “With the declaration of the covenant, reciprocal fear becomes common, institutional fear, which characterizes the civil state” (Schmitt, 1996: 31). That is, with the mutual covenant, the reciprocal fear among the people now becomes the fear of the Leviathan.

However, at the same time, because of the particular historical background to his text (that is, the wars of religion), Hobbes tries to neutralize the divine aspect of Leviathan. With this as the precondition, in the following historical development, Leviathan has become the neutral machine. In this sense, Schmitt argues that the state is “the first product of the age of technology” (Schmitt, 1996: 34). According to him, Hobbes’ idea itself has been an important element for this following development: “Hobbes’ concept of the state became an essential factor in the four-hundred-year-long process of mechanization, a process that with the aid of technical developments brought about a general ‘neutralization’ and especially the transformation of the state into a technological neutral instrument” (Schmitt, 1996: 41–42).

But why, when Leviathan is taken as a neutral machine, will it necessarily bring about the collapse of the other two sides? Schmitt argues that it is because within this image of the neutral machine, Hobbes has allowed for the distinction between the “inner faith” and the “outer confession.” Once this distinction has been allowed, there will appear the tension between the dangerous subjectivity and the sovereign's authority; and this will then necessarily lead to the dissolution of the sovereign's authority: “What is of significance is the seed planted by Hobbes regarding his reservation about private belief and his distinction between inner belief and outer confession. As it unfolded, it became an irresistible and all governing conviction” (Schmitt, 1996: 59).

So, the important reason behind this is that the authority of the sovereign cannot be co-existent with the distinction between the private and the public. What exactly is this mechanism of representing and authorizing? Why can it not allow for the distinction between the private faith and the public confession? In Leviathan, Hobbes describes the mechanism thus:

The only way to erect such a Common Power, as may be able to defend them from the invasions of Forraigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their owne industrie, and by the fruites of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly is to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon one Assembly of men … which is as much as to say to appoint one Man or Assembly of men, to beare their Persons and every one to owne, and acknowledge himself to be Author of whatsoever he that so beareth their Person, shall Act, or cause to be Acted, in those things which concern the Common Peace and Safetie; and therein to submit their Wills, everyone to his Will, and their Judgements, to his Judgement. (Hobbes, 1991: 112)

From this, we can see that the sovereign is a representative of the multitude, an artificial person, established through mutual covenant—and as an artificial person, the sovereign is now the actor. “So that a Person is the same that an Actor is, both on the stage and in common conversation and to personate is to act, or represent himself or an other and he that acteth another is said to bear his person or act in his name” (Hobbes, 1991: 16). This is the process of authorization. As a result of this process, the sovereign is the free actor and the multitude bound. “So that by Authority is always understood a right of doing any act, and done by Authority, done by Commission, or License from him whose right it is. From hence it followeth, that when the actor maketh a covenant by authority, he bindeth thereby the author, no less than if he had made it himself; and no less subjecteth him to all the consequences of the same” (Hobbes 1991: 16: 5−6). As the result of this, the represented and the representative are one and the same. From the “one and the same”—sovereign and multitude—emerges the unity of the modern sovereign state. So, within this mechanism of representing and authorizing, there is no possibility for the distinction between the inner and the outer. What is needed is the full identification with the sovereign.

From these arguments, we can see that the multitude is not only the author of the sovereignty, but also continues to be the constituent power of the sovereignty. This means that they not only create the actor through their mutual covenant, but also always keep connection with it. Schmitt holds that when Hobbes allows the Leviathan to be a value-neutral, technological machine, this connection has been broken. As a result, the unity of people in the sovereign has been replaced by the abstract modern bureaucracy. Connected with understanding Leviathan as a machine, Hobbes also allows for the distinction between inner faith and outer confession. In this way, the Leviathan has been made hollow and dead from within. According to Schmitt, for the whole project of modern politics, the key is to sustain the unity of the multitude in one and the same person. As has been mentioned above, this is also what is lacking in China, but how could this be sustained? Schmitt argues that it requires a symbol of sovereignty that will give the sovereign sufficient power to terrify the subjects into conformity. In other words, fear and myth are still the source for this connection, and this necessarily leads us to his political theology.

Theology as the key to saving modern politics

From the above analysis, it is apparent that for Schmitt, the theological dimension is indispensable for the success of the modern state. To make this clear, some Chinese scholars (such as Liu Xiaofeng in his paper entitled “Schmitt on the legitimacy of politics: From The Concept of the Political to Political Theology” [2002a]) have placed particular emphasis on the importance of his political theology.

To illustrate the exact function of theology in the project of modern politics, these Chinese scholars firstly emphasize that Schmitt's political theology as a theory about modern politics has two faces. On the one hand, it is of the standpoint of liberalism, because of its existential understanding of politics. In this sense, it is almost the same as Hobbes' theory of the natural state. This means that Schmitt has totally accepted secularization as the precondition for modern politics. On the other hand, it is also the most serious effort to oppose liberalism, because it insists on the necessity of rule (or domination) in the modern world.

In Schmitt's view, liberalism also has its own theological presupposition—that is, Deism. According to this view God's incarnation is believed to happen to everybody and thus human nature is infinitely perfected. Extending from this, human's self-governance is seen as totally possible. Schmitt holds that because of this, liberalism has taken the abolition of politics itself as its final aim. In reality, this actually means that politics becomes a neutralized technology. In other words, this can only bring about the total failure of modern politics. To meet this challenge of liberalism, Schmitt argues that the most important step for the saving of modern politics is the preservation of the traditional ethical value of rule (or domination) among people. This requires that an insistence be placed on the traditional viewpoint about human nature. In the Western world, with its Christian cultural roots, this entails an insistence on the belief in the weakness (original sin) of human nature. In this way, Schmitt's image becomes inherently separated: on the one hand, the problem he tries to address is typically a modern problem; on the other hand, the solution he tries to provide is traditional. It is precisely this separated image that has proved attractive to Chinese scholars.

As for the exact functions of the theological dimension within modern politics, Chinese scholars (with Liu Xiaofeng as the typical example) have particularly emphasized two aspects: as a justification for rule (or domination) among people; and as a means of sustaining the unity of the people and its necessary connection with their representative.

On the first aspect, Chinese scholars argue that, for Schmitt, there is a necessary continuity between traditional Catholic politics and modern democratic politics. According to Schmitt, traditional Catholic politics is the politics of secrecy. The Catholic Church represents Jesus Christ (and thus the justice of the Last Judgment) in history. At the same time, however, the Catholic Church's institutional structure of pope, bishop, priests, and laymen is already a kind of elite-democracy. So, here people's sovereignty and God's justice is unified. The belief in God's justice has provided the hidden support for the rule of people by the people. Schmitt then argues further that there is actually no qualitative difference between traditional Catholic politics and modern democratic politics except that the former employs secretive politics, while the latter uses overt ones. This means that in modern democratic politics, theological belief is also needed in order to legitimate the rule of people by the people.

As for the second aspect, Chinese scholars emphasize that, for Schmitt, national myth is the hidden resource for sustaining both the unity of “the people” and the ongoing connection between them and their representative. As mentioned above, Schmitt notes that when the link between “the people” and the sovereign as their representative is broken, the authority of the sovereign will collapse. In modern times, when the authority of the sovereign cannot come from the transcendental God, it can only come from “the people” themselves, but when confronted with the separation into modern individuals, how could “the people” become the resource of this authority? To Chinese scholars, Schmitt has provided a special answer: national myth. National myth has the potential firstly to transform “the people” into a homogeneous national community. Then, through the process of direct democracy, the authority of the homogeneous people is transmitted into the authority of their representative. Just as in traditional Catholic politics, with unity between God and the human sovereign as his agent, here in modern democratic politics, there is unity between “the people” and the sovereign as their representative. In traditional Catholic politics, it is the unified faith in God that provides the guarantee for that connection, and in modern democratic politics, it is the unified belief in national myth that provides the guarantee for the link.

What, then, is the relevance of this theological dimension to the problems of Chinese politics? Given that traditional Chinese culture is not of a Christian nature, how could this theological dimension be integrated into the Chinese context? Here, there are mainly three steps involved. Firstly, Chinese scholars (especially Liu Xiaofeng, who has been simultaneously influenced by both Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt) emphasize that Catholic theology actually represents a traditional understanding of human nature, which could find its correspondent in the traditional Confucianism in China. In other words, just as the Catholic theological understanding of human nature could provide the hidden support for the legitimacy of the rule of people by people in modern society, the traditional Confucian understanding of human nature also involves the necessity of rule (or domination) among people. Thus, what is important is not whether traditional Confucianism is also theological, but whether it shares a belief in the necessity of domination among people. According to his interpretations of traditional Confucianism, the answer is definitely positive. This interpretation is also shared by many of the Chinese cultural conservatives such as Jiang Qing (the author of A Confucian Constitutional Order, Princeton University Press, 2012).

Second, with the rise of nationalist currents since the 1990s, it is very easy for scholars to argue that the Chinese people are also shaped by their own national myth. Since the final decade of the twentieth century, a nationalist current has arisen in Chinese society, stimulated by two main factors. The first is the great economic development that has built up the Chinese people's confidence in China again. The second is the awareness of the inherent crisis with the Western model of capitalist development. Within this nationalist current, one of the important challenges is to pinpoint the exact cultural difference between the Chinese people and all others. Within this context, it is not difficult for Chinese scholars to talk about national myth.

Finally, both the Chinese Schmittian scholars (with Liu Xiaofeng as the typical representative) and Chinese neo-leftists argue that there has been a direct and constant connection between “the people” and the sovereign. Liu Xiaofeng (2013) argues that in the history of the Chinese revolution, this connection between the people and Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (the sovereign) has already been necessarily established. The real problem we have been experiencing is that this connection has been weakened because of the Cultural Revolution and the criticism of Mao's responsibility for the Cultural Revolution over the past 30 years. How, then, might we re-strengthen this connection? He pointed out recently in a lecture entitled “the Most Difficult Question for the Chinese Constitutional Governance is How to Evaluate Mao Zedong” —http://www.21ccom.net/articles/sxwh/shsc/article_2013051783576.html—that we should rebuild the image of Mao Zedong as the father of the country.

Corresponding to this, the Chinese Neo-Leftists (with Wang Shaoguang as the typical representative) argued that a “responsive democracy” could have the same function as a direct democracy to sustain the constant connection between the people and the sovereign (again the Chinese Communist Party). This represents a radical change in their attitude toward the government. In the 1990s, they had been very critical of the Chinese government. They argued that since the government had been separated from civil society, it had been totally impotent in taming the unlimited development of capital in Chinese society, and instead had simply become the presupposition and instrument for the development of capital in civil society. To change this condition, they argued that what was needed was a system of direct democracy. Only with this could the people become the real sovereign, but in the last several years, especially since 2008, these scholars have started to argue for the importance of responsive democracy. According to them, what is really important is the responsive democracy that is already in place. In effect, there is no need for a new representative of the people through the practice of direct democracy anymore. Instead, such a representative has already been chosen by the history of Chinese Revolution: the Chinese Communist Party. What is more, the party is not only established by history as the representative of the people, but is also in direct connection with the people through the practice of “the responsive democracy.” This means that the party is constantly connected to the people by actively listening to the people. In this way, the authority of the sovereign (the party) could be sustained. What is really important is to help these two sides (the people and the party) self-consciously to maintain this relationship.

So, with this kind of correspondence relationship between the Chinese Schmittian scholars and the Chinese Neo-Leftists, the final step to actualize the theological dimension within the present Chinese politics seems to be actualized.

Schmitt, Marx, and the Chinese hope for an alternative model of modern politics

Schmitt's political theology as the past moment in China

Chinese scholars' acceptance of Carl Schmitt's political theology is only one moment within the Chinese experiment with modern politics. It seems that this moment has already passed. As in Germany, Schmitt's theory in China has similarly been used by ambitious political officials as an instrument to seize political power (in the past several years, many of the scholars who have been influenced by Schmitt's thinking, especially the Chinese neo-leftists, have allied with Bo Xilai). Their strong arguments for the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party as the representative of “the people” has functioned as an argument about Bo Xilai as the true representative of the Communist Party, which has not yet been corrupted. In this way, it has been degraded into a pure instrument for his struggle for the power within the party. This seems to prove that the whole project of modern politics can never be saved by reviving the theological dimension within it. If this is true, then what is the meaning of the Chinese acceptance of Schmitt's political theology? Is it simply a mistake made by Chinese scholars? Comparing Schmitt's criticism of the crisis with modern politics with Marx's insights about the necessary failure of modern politics illuminates the fact that behind Chinese scholars’ acceptance of Schmitt's political theology is a hope for an alternative model of modern politics.

Marx and the insight concerning the necessary failure of modern politics

One of the reasons for Chinese scholars' interest in Schmitt's theory is his criticism of the crisis inherent to modern politics. However, why, when Marx has also provided a critique of modern politics, has his thought not enjoyed greater currency in recent Chinese discourses about politics? Why have Chinese scholars preferred Schmitt to Marx for their analysis of the crisis of modern politics?

In his famous article, On the Jewish Question, Marx formulated a strong argument about the necessary failure of modern politics. He opens his criticism of the limitation of the political emancipation by drawing an analogy between abstract religion and the (secular) modern state. Within this relationship, Marx particularly emphasizes three aspects of it: separation, connection, and domination. By separation, Marx means both the separation between civil society and the state, and the separation within one person's life of the individual and the communal (or the species). By connection, Marx emphasizes that civil society is not only separated from the state. To the members of the state, this is at the same time taken as the necessary presupposition. This means that the state is at the same time taken by its members as the essence of civil society. Here, Marx has particularly emphasized the importance of this political consciousness to the modern state. It is just this political consciousness that sustains the relationship between civil society and the state. Marx also points out that this political consciousness is actually of a religious nature, because the actual life is not the communal life in the state but the individual's life in civil society. By domination, Marx means that the state is actually dominated by civil society, because it is, in fact, only the instrument for the rights of discrete individuals in society.

Thus, Marx clearly articulates the inherent tensions within modern politics. By analyzing the Christian nature of the modern state, he emphasizes that the state is always taken by its members as the essence in its relationship with civil society. Further, by disclosing the reason for modern people's belief in natural rights, he emphasizes that civil society is at the same time taken by modern people as the goal of the state. When both of these two sides are real, there can still be a balance between civil society and the state, but since this balance is fraught with great tensions, it is very fragile.

From these foundations, Marx then developed the famous identification of practical Judaism with bourgeois society in his analysis of the secular basis of Judaism. Based on both of these arguments, he then argues further about the paradoxical relationship between Christianity and practical Judaism. While practical Judaism could be fully developed only within the Christian world, the development of this practical Judaism will then necessarily bring about the dissolution of Christianity. This means that it is the modern state that has provided the conditions necessary for the full development of bourgeois society; and the full development of the latter will necessarily bring about the dissolution of the former.

In this way, Marx signals the necessary failure of modern politics. By highlighting the Christian nature of the modern state, he articulates the tensions within the project of modern politics. Then, within the fragile balance between civil society and the state, he draws particular attention to the importance of political consciousness to it. Since this political consciousness is actually of a religious nature, he also acknowledges the important function that religion might play in modern politics. At the same time, he concludes that this fragile balance between civil society and the state will necessarily be broken by the full development of civil society, since what is really happening in the sphere of society is the domination of a new universal power. The political consciousness that is indispensable for the project of modern politics will necessarily be eaten up by the worship of this new power: money. When that happens, the state will be totally degraded into a moment within civil society.

The Chinese hope for an alternative

As the above descriptions clearly reveal, both Marx and Schmitt pointed to the separation between civil society and the state (in Schmitt's words, it is the distinction of the inner faith and the outer confession). Both of them argued that this separation will necessarily bring about the failure of modern politics, but the answers they give are diametrically opposed to one another. Marx argues that since the state will necessarily be reduced to just one moment within the development of civil society, the only way ahead is the emancipation of society itself. In contrast, Schmitt argues that to prevent the state being devoured by civil society, new resources need to be found to sustain the authority of the sovereign. According to him, these new resources are traditional theology and national myth.

In other words, Marx argues that in the modern world we are only discrete individuals in civil society, and that because of this there remains no hope for us to save modern politics. Thus, we are faced with the either/or choice of: either to stay with civil society; or to fight for total emancipation from civil society. The former entails human beings being totally enslaved by the power of capital, while the latter means total human emancipation. In the final analysis, it is a choice between “all” or “nothing.” Compared to this, Schmitt still attempts to save politics, though not necessarily politics of a modern form. He argues that we are not only discrete individuals in civil society, but also members within national groups, and that because of this there are still chances for us to save politics.

This is arguably the very reason why these Chinese scholars have chosen Schmitt over Marx. In contemporary China, it is exactly the Marxist either/or logic about modern politics that is very difficult to accept. The ongoing project of reformation, which was started in 1978, means that China has abandoned the belief in the imminent actualization of the idea of total human emancipation. If total human emancipation is not yet a realistic possibility for us, then what will be the other choices for China? Marx has also shown what will happen with modern politics when people are entirely reduced to discrete individuals in civil society by the development of market relationships. However, with the particular history of modernization, the Chinese people are not yet merely discrete individuals within civil society. Hence, maybe a chance still remains to find a way out of the either/or logic of capitalism. In this sense, the Chinese people still cherish the hope for an alternative form of modern politics.

It is just within this context that the Schmittian solution had been believed by these Chinese scholars as the answer to it. Carl Schmitt's political theology has also absorbed their attention because it has at the same time touched the other two difficulties about modern politics that are particularly Chinese. One is how to integrate the Chinese tradition (especially the traditional Confucianism) into modern politics and other is how to integrate the Chinese history of the dictatorship of the proletariat into modern politics. Before the introduction of Carl Schmitt into the Chinese academy, the traditional Marxist idea of the proletariat's dictatorship has been almost totally discarded by both scholars and the wider population. The different ideas of democracy have totally taken its place. However, with this Schmittian understanding of the connection between “the people” and the sovereign, its legitimacy as one form of modern politics seems to be vindicated again.

From this comparison between Marx and Schmitt, we can see clearly why these Chinese scholars have chosen the Schmittian solution. While both of them have pointed out the crisis inherent in modern politics, Schmitt has also touched on the other two difficulties that are particularly prescient for contemporary Chinese politics. While the Marxist idea of total human emancipation has been believed as an abstract idea, the Schmittian idea of the constant connection between “the people” and the sovereign seems to be quite realistic, but this is also where the danger lies. Although Schmitt's idea has touched on the multiple level of difficulties that China is now facing in relation to the project of modern politics, this does not mean that he has at the same time found the answer to it. Through Chinese scholars' interpretation of Schmitt's political theology, we can see that what they have got from him is actually an anti-modern answer to the problem of modern politics. If this kind of answer is believed to be the right answer itself, it will necessarily block the Chinese efforts toward the new possibility of modern politics. Seen from this perspective, I would argue that we should see these Chinese scholars' interest in the political theology of Carl Schmitt as only an indirect expression of this hope, rather than its actualization. The question remains: what would be the next step in China's new experiment with modern politics? Can the either/or logic of capitalism really be broken?