Geocultural Power : China's Quest to Revive the Silk Roads for the Twenty-First Century

Launched in 2013, China's Belt and Road Initiative is forging connections in infrastructure, trade, energy, finance, tourism, and culture across Eurasia and Africa. This extraordinarily ambitious strategy places China at the center of a geography of overland and maritime connectivity stretching across more than sixty countries and incorporating almost two-thirds of the world’s population.But what does it mean to revive the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century? __Geocultural Power__ explores this question by considering how China is couching its strategy for building trade, foreign relations, and energy and political security in an evocative topography of history. Until now Belt and Road has been discussed as a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. This book introduces geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs. Tim Winter highlights how many countries—including Iran, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others—are revisiting their histories to find points of diplomatic and cultural connection. Through the revived Silk Roads, China becomes the new author of Eurasian history and the architect of the bridge between East and West. In a diplomatic dance of forgetting, episodes of violence, invasion, and bloodshed are left behind for a language of history and heritage that crosses borders in ways that further the trade ambitions of an increasingly networked China-driven economy. Presentación del editor: "Launched in 2013, China's Belt and Road Initiative is forging connections in infrastructure, trade, energy, finance, tourism, and culture across Eurasia and Africa. This extraordinarily ambitious strategy places China at the center of a geography of overland and maritime connectivity stretching across more than sixty countries and incorporating almost two-thirds of the world's population. But what does it mean to revive the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century? Geocultural Power explores this question by considering how China is couching its strategy for building trade, foreign relations, and energy and political security in an evocative topography of history. Until now Belt and Road has been discussed as a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. This book introduces geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs. Tim Winter highlights how many countries-including Iran, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and others-are revisiting their histories to find points of diplomatic and cultural connection. Through the revived Silk Roads, China becomes the new author of Eurasian history and the architect of the bridge between East and West. In a diplomatic dance of forgetting, episodes of violence, invasion, and bloodshed are left behind for a language of history and heritage that crosses borders in ways that further the trade ambitions of an increasingly networked China-driven economy." China's Belt and Road Initiative aims to connect continents and integrate Eurasia through collaborations spanning trade and infrastructure, culture and finance. Launched in 2013, it incorporates more than seventy countries and two-thirds of the world's population. But what does it mean to "revive" the Silk Roads for the twenty-first century? Until now Belt and Road has been discussed as a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. This book introduces geocultural power to the analysis of international affairs. Tim Winter highlights how Belt and Road bundles geopolitical ambition and infrastructure with carefully curated histories to produce a grand narrative of transcontinental connectivity: past, present and future. As Iran, Greece, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malaysia and others mobilize the Silk Roads to find diplomatic and cultural connection, China becomes the new author of Eurasian history and the architect of the bridge between East and West. In a diplomatic dance of forgetting, episodes of violence and bloodshed are left behind for a language of shared heritage that crosses borders in ways that further an increasingly networked China-driven economy. Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 Preface 12 "Work Together for a Bright Future of China-Iran Relations," Xi Jinping, January 2016 16 1. From Camels and Sails to Highways and Refineries 20 Belt and Road 24 The Dream of an Integrated Eurasia 33 Heritage Diplomacy 37 2. The Silk Road: An Abridged Biography 52 Constructing the Antiquities of Eurasia in the Politics of Empire 55 Inscribing National Pasts 71 Traveling Eurasia 78 East- West Encounters in the Shadow of the Cold War 83 Conclusion 93 3. A Politics of Routes 96 The Restitution of Greek Culture 96 Connecting Futures; Metaphors of the Past 100 Shifting the Geographies of Internationalism 108 4. Corridor Diplomacy 116 Corridors of Silk 119 Heritage Corridors by the Sea 134 5. Objects of Itinerancy 149 Shipments of Porcelain 152 Exhibiting Itinerancy 165 Trafficking Antiquities 168 6. Historical Openings 173 Explorations in History 175 Assembling Belt and Road Knowledge 188 7. Geocultural Power 195 The Routes of Geocultural Power 195 The Smooth Touch of Silk 205 The Broad Arc of History 207 Appendix 212 Notes 214 Bibliography 260 Index 292