At the Far Ends of the Silk Road: From China to the Balkans (original) (raw)
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There is considerable debate over how and in what form Central Asian (CA) states should conduct relations among each other and with other post-Soviet states. The notion of the “Silk Road” has become one of the symbols of extended economic and political cooperation. Notably, however, Japan (Silk Road Diplomacy, 1996–1999), China (One Belt, One Road [OBOR] or the Belt and Road initiative [BRI]) and South Korea (Silk Road Strategy, 2011) have used the rhetoric of reviving the Silk Road to imply closer engagement with the CA region but with different connotations. This paper focuses on the formation of this discourse of engagement with the CA region through the notion of the Silk Road in China, South Korea and Japan and raises the following questions: What are the approaches that facilitate the most effective ways of engaging CA states under this “Silk Road” rhetoric? What are the principles that have detrimental effects on the successes and failures of the engagement of China, Japan and South Korea? The primary objective of this paper is to address these questions and to stimulate debate among both academics and policy makers on the formats of engagement and cooperation in Eurasia.
Geopolitical Dimension of the Old and the Modern Silk Road
The Journal of International Civilization Studies , 2023
The old Silk Road, that connected the West and East, was a center of cultural and trade interaction in the Asian continent from China to the Mediterranean Sea, but in 2013 it was referred by the Chinese president Xi Jinping as "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR), which announced that China would fund a New Silk Road Economic Belt across Eurasia to connect China with Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Different from the old Silk Road, current Silk Road includes the flow of financial services, information, technology as well as the Chinese initiative to strengthen connectivity in Central Asia and beyond. Comparing the modern Silk Road with the old Silk Road, in this paper we focus on China's regional and international expansion, and the relevance of new Silk Road as one of the current largest programmes of economic diplomacy. Thereby, by using the qualitative descriptive methodology and interdisciplinary approach, this paper demonstrates that the new Silk Road comprises a new global order; therefore, it must be seen as the link between the past, present, and future. That is why its concept must be analyzed with reference to the old Silk Road, but also in wider geopolitical context.
Silk Road: A Journal of Eurasian Development – Prospectus and Purpose
2020
This editorial explains the beginnings of the journal Silk Road commencing around the time of the 2019 Tashkent agreement and the journal’s future scope and ambitions. As nations within Central Asia look towards greater cooperation the editors articulate the journal’s focus on public policy issues and how Silk Road intends to offer a long-held need for scholarly perspectives and analysis from within the region itself. It explains how the journal’s name links to the past of the region, to evoke its ‘inclusive’ connotations as a space of exchange, travel and ‘ambiguity’ but also is ‘intended to evoke a dynamic forward look towards the future’. Embodying a broad and interdisciplinary focus in its scope, it is hoped that the journal’s name also paves the way to its long term mission of encouraging ‘creativity among researchers working’ on policy in the region and to ‘prompt them both to analyse current public policy and to imagine its future’.
201911-Peace in Central Asia - Prognosis and Solutions for UNESCO’s Silk Road Project
The Role of UNESCO in the Search for Peace, 2019
From an archaeological and historical standpoint, the Silk Road is neither a road nor a sudden manifestation in contemporary politics. The history of the Silk Road is one of a people who have borne harsh conditions for nearly 5,000 years. A countless number of people in the western region are spread out hidden across the long history of East Asia. They are the real life of the Silk Road, not the temporary sojourners on it. The Silk Road is not the cultural heritage of any one country, but of many. Instead of using it as a symbolic acknowledgment for specific countries, we should see it as a nexus of exchange in world civilization. This paper has looked at how the Silk Road, which was once valued as a hub for civilizational exchange, has ironically become a center of international conflict.
The Chinese Silk Road in South & Southeast Asia: Enter "Counter Geopolitics
2016
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2018
Through analysis of the evolution of the Japanese, Chinese and South Korean narratives of the Silk Road, this paper argues that the content and the nature of these Silk Road strategies changed with time and the international environment. Thus, this paper claims that, the notion of the Silk Road has changed from a static concept of a historical trade route into a product of social construction of a number of powerful states – strategies that are constantly shaped, imagined and re-interpreted. In this sense, the Silk Road is not a foreign policy doctrine but rather a discursive strategy of engagement that largely exists in the realm of narration. This narration is also a matter of social construction that is subject to change depending on the international environment of the country (China, Japan, Korea, etc.) that produces such narratives, context of a receiving region, the alternative narratives that compete for wider international acceptance and the country's vision of “self” and the “other” in the international context.
China's New Silk Road Takes Shape in Central and Eastern Europe
China Brief
In conclusion, the New Silk Road narrative now provides both a strategic orientation for China’s foreign policy, as well as a conceptual umbrella under which multiple and so-far disparate Chinese multilateral and bilateral diplomatic initiatives are unified and promoted around the globe.