Inventing the ‘Maritime Silk Road’

Abstract

Although inspired by the nineteenth-century term ‘Silk Road(s)’, the phrase ‘Maritime Silk Road’ has its own origins, connotations, and applications. This article examines the emergence of the latter term as a China-centric concept and its various entanglements since the early 1980s, involving the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) political bodies, academia, the ‘open door’ policy, the pursuit of World Heritage listings, and the current ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. These entanglements, the article contends, have resulted in the emergence of what could be called a ‘Maritime Silk Road’ ecosystem in the PRC. The analysis of this ecosystem presented in the article reveals not only the processes through which a narrative on China’s engagement with the maritime world has been constructed over time, but also its association with issues of national pride, heritage- and tradition-making, foreign-policy objectives, and claims to territorial sovereignty. As such, the ‘Maritime Silk Road’ must be understood as a concept that is intimately entwined with the recent history of the PRC and distinct from its nineteenth-century antecedent, which was used as a label for overland connectivity.

Heritagising the South China Sea: appropriation and dispossession of maritime heritage through museums and exhibitions in Southern China

“…The exhibitions that were open to the public mainly targeted Chinese tourists. They focused on natural ecology and human history of the SCS told through the lens of a ‘China-centric Maritime Silk Road’ (Sen 2023 , 9). The display of ancient Chinese texts, maps, objects and photos was accompanied by short explanations of how a potential museum visitor should understand their message.…”

“…With reference to the question posed by the editors in this special issue about what it means to temporalise the ocean and how such temporalisation of seascapes could be materialised, I developed my argument by illustrating how material legacies are used by different groups of actors to write mutually exclusive histories of the sea, especially when China’s and Southeast Asia’s maritime pasts overlap (see Sen 2023 ; Winter 2019 ). It was critical heritage and museum studies (Clifford 1988 ; Smith 2006 ; Karp et al, 2006 ) that first brought attention to the need to recognise local communities and their claims to heritage.…”

The “Sea Factor” in Regional Cooperation: The Impact of the Russo-Ukrainian War

“…Investments in transport infrastructure over most of the world have exercised "soft power" that gradually ensured the presence of the Chinese in the administration of large logistics centers and their introduction into sectors of the economy that are strategic for many countries. Moreover, the BRI's integration of the ideas of the Maritime Silk Road and Overland Silk Road reveals several facets of the post-Cultural Revolution People's Republic of China (PRC), including intellectual discourse and negotiation, the proliferation of national pride, heritage-and tradition-making, and the integration of foreign-policy objectives, as well as domestic and international frictions and tensions-all of which are deeply ingrained in the term 'Silk Road' and its history (Sen, 2023). Thus, the significance of implementing BRI has always gone far beyond the functioning of supply chains.…”