Jiang Shigong | |
|---|---|
强世功 | |
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| Born | (1967-11-11)11 November 1967 (age 58) Yulin, Shaanxi, China |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Renmin University of China (LLB) Peking University (LLM,JD) |
| Thesis | Punishment and the Rule of Law(惩罚与法治) |
| Influences | |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Constitutional law |
| School or tradition | |
| Institutions | Minzu University of China Peking University Law School Hong Kong Liaison Office (2004–2008) |
| Jiang Shigong | |||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 強世功 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 强世功 | ||||||||||||
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Jiang Shigong (Chinese:强世功; born 11 November 1967) is a Chinese legal and political theorist, who is currently the president of theMinzu University of China.[6] He was previously a professor atPeking University Law School, and a researcher onHong Kong affairs. He is a "conservative socialist" exponent ofXi Jinping Thought and is opposed toliberalism in China.
Jiang previously worked at theHong Kong Liaison Office from 2004 to 2008, and has advised the Chinese government on Hong Kong on subsequent occasions. Among his major ideas are his theory of the "absolute" orunwritten constitution of China embodied in the leadership of theChinese Communist Party (CCP) and his argument for the supremacy of the state as an "ethical entity" and the embodiment of the people's drive towards self-transformation. One of the main Chinese translators ofCarl Schmitt, Jiang is a notable promoter of Schmitt's political theory in China.
Born on 11 November 1967 inYulin, Shaanxi,[7] Jiang attended high school inHengshan District, graduating in 1986. He describes his decision to pursue studies in law as purely accidental, motivated at the time by his lack of knowledge about alternative fields such as economics.[8] Jiang matriculated atRenmin University of China, graduating in 1990, and went on to receive a master's degree atPeking University in 1996 and a doctorate there in 1999.[9] His thesis was titledPunishment and the Rule of Law (惩罚与法治), and was subsequently published as a book in edited form in 2009.[8]
Jiang described the efforts he spent learning to read systematically as a student in a 2018 interview: as an undergraduate he would go to the library to readImmanuel Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason every morning, only managing two or three pages a day; subsequently he read Chinese translations ofSigmund Freud andErich Fromm "until he was tired of reading".[8]
From 2004 to 2008 Jiang worked at theHong Kong Liaison Office.[10] He has published on Hong Kong's role in the Chinese political system,[11] and he is believed to have authored or contributed to the 2014 white paperThe Practice of the 'One Country, Two Systems' Policy in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.[12][13] In 2019, he is Director of the Centre for Studies in Politics and Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Macau and Hong Kong Studies at Peking University and an expert adviser to the Beijing Municipal People's Congress.[9] He was appointed as the vice president of theMinzu University of China, affiliated with theNational Ethnic Affairs Commission, in October 2023. He was also appointed as a member of the university's CCP Committee's Standing Committee.[14]
Jiang has been described as a member of theChinese New Left,[15] a "conservative socialist",[16] and an implicitLegalist.[17] He played a significant role in the introduction of the thought offar-rightlegal theoristCarl Schmitt in China,[18] and is a "preeminent representative" of Schmittian theory in the country who uses the theories to justify state power.[19] Commenting on thecolour revolutions of the 2000s, Jiang stated, "The crucial questions in politics are not questions of right and wrong, but of obedience and disobedience. If you do not submit to political authority, then 'If I say you're wrong, you're wrong, even if you're right.'"[4] Echoing Schmitt'stheory of the friend–enemy distinction, he added, "Between friends and enemies, there is no question offreedom, only violence and subjugation. This is thereality of politics, a reality thatliberals often do not dare to face."[4]
Rejecting what he sees as the liberal subordination of thestate tocivil society and the idea that the state is "something to take precautions against", Jiang argues that the state is instead an "ethical entity" that represents the attempt of the people to "transcend and transform" themselves, in the manner of theÜbermensch in the thought ofFriedrich Nietzsche.[20] Jiang has attacked the thought ofJohn Rawls on the basis that reasoning from theveil of ignorance cannot contribute to political legitimacy: the legitimacy of the state is premised on the civilisational values it embodies and cannot be understood rationally.[21] Drawing onMax Weber, he depicts politics as the product of the "unceasing, deadly struggles of different gods"—different civilisations—with no rational conclusion; the politics of one civilisation cannot be adjudicated by the values of another.[5]
In his 2006Beyond the Horizon of Law (超越法学的视界), Jiang argues that the liberal theory ofconstitutionalism has been displaced by the political insights ofMichel Foucault. For Foucault, the"microphysics" of power permeates the whole of society; power isinseparable from knowledge and deployed rather than possessed. Jiang uses Foucault's theory of power to argue for the role of the state in establishing discipline throughout society as a whole—a role embodied in China's case by the comprehensive political education initiatives of theChinese Communist Party (CCP). In this context Jiang viewsGilles Deleuze's elaboration of the Foucaultian concept ofdispositifs, the mechanisms that crystallise relationships of power-knowledge into institutions, as particularly important to conceptualising the webs of power embodied in the Chinese party-state complex.[1]
Jiang is an opponent ofWesternisation.[5] In a commencement speech at Peking University in 2013, he criticised Chinese law graduates leaving the country for the West, calling them "hired guns of Western capital" and warning against the construction of a "fake democracy that relies on Western capital and powers".[22] According to Jiang in a 2019 article, Western civilisation has created aworld empire (世界帝国) encompassing every major power in the world, including China, and based on liberal principles. This empire is currently in terminal decline due to economic inequality, decaying government structures, and the spread ofnihilism triggered by cultural liberalism. Jiang concludes that it is China's responsibility, alongside other nations, to construct a blueprint for the second world empire:[23] the reconstruction of Chinese civilisation and a new world empire are mutually reinforcing.[24] In an essay published in 2020, Jiang attributed the demise of the West to "the ever-increasing inequality created by the liberal economy; state failure, political decline, and ineffective governance caused by political liberalism; and decadence and nihilism created by cultural liberalism."[25]
Jiang holds that theChinese Communist Party (CCP), as the institutional leader of the people[26] and the "fundamental law that acts as the absolute constitution",[16] should be constitutionally defined as thesovereign of China.[26] Drawing onMao Zedong'sTen Major Relationships,[2] he distinguishes two constitutions in China:[27] theconstitution of the state, and anunwritten constitution embodied by the CCP and based on a vertical hierarchy ofdemocratic centralist subordination; local governments may be consulted on executive decisions, but remain ultimately subject to the supremacy of the Party.[2]
In 2018, Jiang published a commentary onParty general secretaryXi Jinping's report to the19th National Congress of the CCP.[28] In the essay, he states that certain political forces since theDeng Xiaoping era attempted to introduce "subversive reforms of the political system", which would have diminished and eventually eliminated the leadership of the Communist Party and created a "Western democracy" in China. On the other hand, the appearance of exploitative capitalist forces in China created nostalgia for the "stagnation" of the era beforereform and opening-up. "At [this] moment of historical crisis", Jiang argues, "Xi Jinping has turned the tide", legitimising Xi's position as "core of the Party center, the core of the entire Party".[29] Jiang states that Xi is acharismatic leader who exceeds institutional constraints and constitutes the ideological and spiritual centre of the Chinese state.[17] A major task ofXi Jinping Thought on his account is to reconfigurecommunism as an intuitive ideal, moving away from what he sees as the utopian andJudeo-Christian-Islamic political theology ofKarl Marx while retaining Marx's focus onhistorical materialism.[29]
Jiang is a prominent adviser to the Chinese government on Hong Kong affairs,[30] and some of his statements have elicited controversy in Hong Kong. In 2014, during the debate over thePractice of the 'One Country, Two Systems' Policy white paper, Jiang responded to criticisms of the report by theHong Kong Bar Association, calling the organisation "unprofessional" and "politicised". He stated that Hong Kong lawyers had a duty to be patriotic and loyal to the Chinese state, just as lawyers in the British system are loyal to the monarch.[31] TheApple Daily labelled Jiang a "dark force" (黑手; 'black hand') promoting mainland intervention in Hong Kong affairs.[12]
Subsequently, in 2016, Jiang suggested at a forum that the post ofChief Executive be split in two, with one executive responsible to people from Hong Kong and the other under the direct control of the Beijing government.[32] During theLegislative Council oath-taking controversy later that year, he invoked thedoctrine of necessity to justify the preemption of a local judicial review by theStanding Committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing.[30] In 2017, he describedHong Kong's cultural elite as hostile tosocialism with Chinese characteristics, and too Westernised to be capable of understandinggeneral secretaryXi Jinping's report to the19th CCP Congress.[33] He also supported theHong Kong national security law passed in 2020.[14]
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