Section 1
From the Silk Road to the Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative is historically based. For more than 2,000 years, the Silk Road has determined the cultural advancement of nearby countries. People of different races, faiths and cultural back-grounds, including emperors, warriors, merchants, scholars, monks, and slaves, traveled on the road, creating and spreading goods, wealth, wis-dom, religion, and art. On the Road, humans saw commercial exchange, political and military battles, as well as ideological and cultural communi-cation.

Extending from the east to the west, the Silk Road, like a time-space tunnel, has provided access to continuous cultural exchanges between Asia and Europe for over 2,000 years. Via the Road, Chinese culture, tea, silk, and porcelain in particular, prevailed all over the world; along it, empires emerged in Rome and Persia; Buddhism, Christianity and Islam developed and disseminated rapidly across the world, especially in Jerusa-lem, a city with a history of 3,000 years; the Mongolian army of Genghis Khan marched westward and triggered the meeting of the East and West in wars; the British Empire built up wealth and boasted the “empire on which the sun never sets”; several powers re-mapped the world’s territo-ry and divided resources like wheat and oil during World War II. From Zhang Qian’s expedition to the Western regions to the Belt and Road Initiative, the Silk Road has shaped the past, and will impact the future of humankind.

In its history of more than 2,000 years, the Belt and Road has played a pivotal role in China’s internal and external order, so much so that historians called it the “Lifeline of China”. In some sense, China’s decline was associated with the loss of control over it. Today, China pro-motes the Belt and Road Initiative as an echo with its historical road and a transcendence beyond the historical limitation.

Ⅰ. The Rise and Fall of the Silk Road

In history, migration resulted in frequent exchanges of goods, skills, and thoughts. And many roads for communication and trade intertwined in Eurasia, which transformed into what we call the Silk Road today.

The Silk Road signaled an ancient land trade route that started from China and connected trade in Asia, Africa and Europe. Initially, it exported China’s silk, porcelain, lacquer ware, and ironware to the West, and imported pepper, flax, spices, grapes, and pomegranates to China. In fact, it bridged the economic, political, and cultural exchanges between the East and West, in addition to commercial use.

The Silk Road testified to the grand scene of envoys greeting each other and businessmen traveling ceaselessly, and the maritime prosperity that countless ships harbored over the sea. Narrowly speaking, the Silk Road mainly referred to the Land Silk Road, and broadly speaking, it in-cluded the Land and Maritime Silk Roads.

As a trade route for central China and Europe, the Land Silk Road took shape between the 2ndcentury BC and the 1stcentury. It remained in use until the 16thcentury and linked Asian and European civilizations.

In order to counter the invasion and plunder of nomadic tribes, the Western Han Dynasty launched large-scale attacks on Xiongnu, repulsed them and captured the Hexi Corridor. Gradually, the trade between China and the world developed. Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dy-nasty (202 BC-8 AD) sent Zhang Qian on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions, and the basic route of the Land Silk Road formed. It started from Chang’an or Luoyang, capitals of the Han and Tang dy-nasties, via China’s Liangzhou, Jiuquan, Guazhou, Dunhuang, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, to the Mediterranean Sea, and finally reached Rome. In addition to the Western world, the Silk Road played an important part in China’s exchanges with the Republic of Korea and Japan in East Asia, so much so that some presumed that its easternmost destination was Nara, Japan. Crossing the Eurasian continent, it covered a total length of 10,000 km and boasted the longest mileage, the widest territory, the longest time, and the most diverse culture in the history of the ancient East-West traffic.

The Maritime Silk Road was a sea route for commercial and cultural exchanges between ancient China and foreign countries. It formed in the Qin and Han dynasties, developed in the Three Kingdoms and the Sui Dynasty, prospered in the Tang and Song dynasties, and transformed in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In a traditional sense, it mainly referred to China’s trade routes that started from the southeast ports, including Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Ningbo, and went to the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. In the late 20thcentury, it expanded to trade routes from China to Korean Peninsula in the Northeast Asia, the Japanese archipelago and the Ryukyu Islands, as the international academic circle commonly accepted.

As a vital channel for China’s ancient foreign trade, the Maritime Silk Road arose as early as in the Qin and Han dynasties, and thrived during the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties. Specifically, it started from the coastal ports of Guangdong and Fujian, via the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, exporting China’s silk, ceramics and tea to Europe and other Asian and African countries, and imported ivory, spices, precious stones, gold and silver to China.

With the opening of the Maritime Silk Road, China’s foreign trade flourished and the ancient East-West cultural exchange increased. In the Yuan Dynasty, Marco Polo, an Italian, came to China through the Land Silk Road and returned to Italy through the maritime one. In terms of trade goods, the Maritime Silk Road was also called “Porcelain Road”,“Tea Road”, “Spice Road”, “Silver Road”, or “Gemstone Road” (which showed the variety of goods); in terms of routes, it covered the Southern Sea Route, the Western Sea Route, and the Eastern Sea Route.

Ferdinand von Richthofen, a German geographer, first proposed the concept of the Silk Road. In 1870, after having investigated China’s Henan,Shaanxi and other places,Richthofen declared in his article Re-ports on China’s Henan and Shaanxi that in ancient China,there existed a trade route for silk as major trade goods from China’s Luoyang to Samar-qand (in Uzbekistan today), which he named the “Silk Road”.

As time went on, the name Silk Road was adopted globally as a gen-eral term for the major trade routes between ancient China and the West. Meanwhile, the range of the Silk Road enlarged continuously, including the Northwest Silk Road, the official passage to the Western Regions that was opened by Zhang Qian in the Western Han Dynasty; the Prairie Silk Road that extended northward to the Mongolian Plateau and then westward to the north foot of the Tianshan Mountains and Central Asia;the Southwest Silk Road, a rugged mountain road from China’s Chang’an via Chengdu to India; the Maritime Silk Road that started from China’s coastal cities like Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Hangzhou and Yangzhou, to the Southern Sea and the Arabian Sea, even to the eastern coast of Africa. The land and sea routes varied with time. It generally consisted of several sections, each of which followed three lines - the north, the central and the south lines. These lines seemed intricate but arrived at the same destinations, as it was said, “All Roads Lead to Rome”.

The Land Silk Road originated in the Western Han Dynasty. Under the co-efforts of Zhang Qian and Ban Chao, two commercial routes were opened. Both started from Chang’an (now Xi’an) and followed the Hexi Corridor to the Yumen Pass. The south one followed the north foot of the Kunlun Mountains, via Loulan (now Ruoqiang, Xinjiang), Yutian (now Hetian, Xinjiang), Shache (now Shache, Xinjiang), crossed the Pamirs westward, entered Greater Yuezhi (now in Afghanistan) and Parthia (Persia, now Iran), and reached Seleukia (now in Iraq) and Daqin (Rome) in the west. The north one followed the south foot of the Tian-shan Mountains and crossed westward Cheshi (now Turpan, Xinjiang) and Kucina (now Kuqa Ganna Basin, Xinjiang), via Parthia (Persia) in the southwest, and reached Daqin (Rome) in the west.

The Prairie Silk Road was a major trade channel that linked the Eur-asia in the Mongolian steppe and formed an important part of the Silk Road. As an artery of nomadic cultural exchange, it traveled northward from the Central Plains, via the mountains along the Great Wall, like the ancient Yinshan Mountain (now Daqing Mountain) and Yanshan Moun-tain, crossed northwestward the Mongolian Plateau, the South Russian Grassland, and the northern Central and Western Asia, and reached the European areas north of the Mediterranean. It was the core area where nomadic and farming cultures mixed.

After the Wei and Jin dynasties, Chinese rulers were no longer con-tent with the Land Silk Road. As a result, the Maritime Silk Road came into existence. It started from Guangzhou, via the eastern seas of Hainan Island and the Xisha Islands to the South China Sea, crossed the Straits of Malacca, and reached the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Foreign trade involved many countries and regions, and China’s silk was the main exported product. In the Tang Dynasty, with the devel-opment of shipbuilding and navigation technology, China opened and expanded the routes to Southeast Asia, the Straits of Malacca, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the African continent. Eventually, the Maritime Silk Road replaced the Land Silk Road and became the main channel for China’s foreign communication.

Evidently, silk was a staple and unique commodity in the trade. Yet, the silk business was not exclusive, and textiles from other countries and regions were also being traded on the Silk Road. As it was, the economic exchanges contained Chinese silk and textile of other countries, with the former playing a leading role.

The trade on the Maritime Silk Road further developed in the Tang and Song dynasties till the Ming and Qing dynasties. In general, Chinese goods exported fell into four categories, silk, porcelain, tea and copper iron (including copper coins). The main products China imported were spices, gemstone, ivory, rhinoceros horns, glassware, gold and silver-ware (including silver), rare fowls and exotic animals. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zheng He’s voyages to the Western Seas marked the summit of China’s official foreign trade. After that, rulers in the Ming and Qing dynasties banned sea trade, which led to the decline of China’s maritime industry. In the Age of Exploration, Western colonists intruded the East Asian trade, and China’s overseas trade routes were encroached by Por-tugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, and France. Subsequently, China’s Maritime Silk Road, which made great contributions to the East-West exchanges, withered.

Ⅱ. The Historical Alternation of the Land and Maritime Silk Roads

In specific, the An-Shi Rebellion marked a turn of the ancient Silk Road in the mid-Tang Dynasty, namely, the decline of the Land Silk Road and the rise of the Maritime Silk Road. Prior to the rebellion, the Land Silk Road had been prosperous since its opening in the Han Dynas-ty. In the powerful Tang Dynasty, Chang’an and Baghdad were the most important cosmopolitan cities in the east and west of the Silk Road. The land channel from Arab Empire and Persia, via Central Asia and the Western Regions into the Central Plains, turned out to be the most vig-orous international trade corridor. After the rebellion, as the northwest land route became suspended for a long time and the economic center shifted to southern China, the maritime route played an increasingly im-portant role and remained prosperous in the Song, Yuan and early-Ming dynasties. After the formation of Mongolian Empire, the land passage from China to Central Asia, West Asia and Europe once revived, but sank with the collapse of the empire. After the reign of Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, China took a defensive stance in the northwest and withdrew to the Jiayu Pass for self-protection. The Land Silk Road com-pletely waned.

Likewise, since the mid-Tang Dynasty, the blockade of the Land Silk Road also reflected the fact that the Tang Dynasty slowly lost its dominant power in the political order of the Western Regions and Cen-tral Asia. With the eastward expansion of the political power of the Arab Empire, Khorasan and Tuhuoluostan had successively surrendered. In the 10thyear of Emperor Tianbao (751), the Tang Dynasty and Arab Empire encountered in the Battle of Talas in Central Asia. Albeit Tang’s defeat did not completely eliminate its deterrence in Central Asia, its lim-ited strength in Central Asia was exposed. After the outbreak of the An-Shi Rebellion in 755, Tubo snuck into the lands of Hexi and Longyou, and established Tibetan rule in the south of the Tianshan Mountains, which cut off land traffic between the Tang Dynasty and Central Asia. In the late Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties, the exchange between the Central Plains and the Western Regions was not farther than Yutian, let alone the diplomatic relationship in the west of the Pamirs. Since then, China’s northwestern regions were disturbed by incessant wars and con-flicts among Liao, Jin, Western Xia, Uyghur and Tubo, and the land route from the Central Plains to Central Asia and West Asia was obstructed. In spite of the fact that the northwest minority regimes maintained civil and commercial relationships with the Abbasid Caliphate (the Black-robed Tazi), the Land Silk Road that linked the Central Plains and Central Asia and West Asia inescapably fell into decline due to political changes.

Under such circumstances, the Maritime Silk Road began to rise after the mid-Tang Dynasty and enjoyed unparalleled development in the Song and Yuan dynasties and the early Ming Dynasty, as Mr. Chen Yan, a prestigious scholar in the studies of the Maritime Silk Road, stated:“The decline of the Land Silk Road and the rise of the Maritime Silk Road were inseparably interconnected.” Due to the long-term instability in the northwestern border, the Northern Song Dynasty depended more on the sea route in its exchanges with Western countries though the land route was accessible. In the first year of Emperor Tiansheng’s reign (1023), an imperial edict ordered Arab Empire to take the sea route and come to the capital via Guangzhou.” In the Southern Song Dynasty, the road to the Western Regions was entirely blocked: “In the trading sys-tem, only ships were allowed.” Similarly, Gu Yanwu clarified: “After the Departure to the South, the state suffered an economic deficiency and its trade became completely reliant on ships.” In other words, the foreign relationships of the Southern Song Dynasty (accurately speaking, foreign trade) entirely depended on the maritime route. In the Yuan Dynasty, the northwestern land route and the southeastern sea route were both used. The former was much less vital and advanced as in the Tang Dynasty;however, the latter was exalted in the communication between China and West Asia. Meanwhile, the income of Shibosi (a governmental organiza-tion in charge of foreign trade) was a major source of national finance in the Song and Yuan dynasties. To attract foreign merchants and develop foreign trade, the Maritime Silk Road received more attention. Some scholars noted the Abbasid Caliphate (the Black-robed Tazi, established in 750) once took all means to develop maritime transport, with Bagh-dad, its capital city in the west of the Land Silk Road, turned into a cen-ter of maritime transport. This also conformed to the historical trend of the rise and fall of the land and sea routes in China since the mid-Tang Dynasty.

Ⅲ. The Proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative

In September and October, 2013, during his visits to Central Asia and Southeast Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a significant initiative to jointly build the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road (shortly named the Belt and Road), which received further attention from the international community.

In fact, China is not the only country that has proposed to revive the Silk Road. In recent years, many countries have raised plans to revive the Silk Road. In 2010, the European Union presented the “New Silk Road Plan” to establish Eurasian Free Trade Zone from Vladivostok to Lisbon. In 2011, the United States proposed the “New Silk Road Strate-gy” to solve the security problem in Central Asia after the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, these plans cannot parallel the Belt and Road Initiative in influence.

In the past five years, China has signed cooperation documents with more than 100 countries and international organizations regarding the Belt and Road. The Initiative and its core ideal have been included as an important international mechanism by the United Nations, the G20, APEC, and the SCO. From initiative to action, it is now the world’s larg-est international cooperation platform and the most popular internation-al public product.

From the opening of the ancient Silk Road to the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, history has changed tremendously. However,people never stopped their effort to promote cultural exchanges and re-move cultural misunderstandings. As we see, the Belt and Road does not aim to re-produce or re-build the ancient Silk Road, but to undertake a new pioneering mission.

Looking back on the farming era, people waged war to compete for population and land, two essential productive factors; in the industrial era, for the market, the raw material market and product sales market, such as colonies. For instance, in a series of unequal treaties the Qing government was forced to sign, colonists intended to open up trad-ing ports rather than plunder people and land. In fact, in World War I and World War II, the hidden and deep root cause was to compete for market. After World War II, Bretton Woods Monetary System (set up in Bretton Woods Conference), WTO and its precursor GATT clearly made market rules to divide the global market and truly maintained rela-tive peace in the world. This achieved a competitive pattern based on the obedience and use of law rather than war. One example was the Marshall Plan that boosted the rapid development of the European economy. From then on, the opening of market enabled countries and regions involved in globalization to realize rapid economic development, such as Japan, the Four Asian Tigers, and the BRICS. After the launch of the reform and opening-up initiative, China became an open market, entered WTO, and developed into the largest trading country. These exemplify how to develop manufacturing industry and achieve economic growth by utilizing market rules.

On the one hand, “Made in China” reflects the expansion of China’s manufacturing industry into the global market; on the other, it foreshadows various trade frictions that prevail in the world. When the market becomes saturated, China’s manufacturing industry cannot devel-op without limit. With the slowdown in China’s economic growth, the decrease of profit in the manufacturing industry, and the rise of trade friction, some call to reform the existing international monetary system and trading system.

Besides, China is facing a crucial turning point. With its trading ac-tivity all over the world, China must break the increasingly severe external constraints geopolitically and strategically. Therefore, China underlines the westward development through the Belt and Road, which not only promotes the development of western China, but also guides the deeper exploration of strategic marine resources shared by Europe and Asia.

Taking the Belt and Road Initiative as an opportunity, we conduct cross-border interconnection, improve the level of trade and investment cooperation, and promote international cooperation in productive capac-ity and equipment manufacturing. In essence, we re-balance the world economy by increasing effective supply and creating new demand. In par-ticular, in the long-term downturn of world economy, China can export its huge capacity in production and construction formed in the pro-cycli-cal period to help other countries along the Belt and Road in urgent need of industrialization, modernization and infrastructure improvement, and contribute to stabilizing the present world economy.