Silk Road Research Articles

Green Silk Road and Belt Economic Initiative and Local Sustainable Development: Through the Lens of China’s Clean Energy Investment in Central Asia

Green Silk Road and Belt Economic Initiative and Local Sustainable Development: Through the Lens of China’s Clean Energy Investment in Central Asia

The Eurasian Space in Chinese Official and Academic Discourses

The «Belе and Road Initiative» (BRI), proposed by China, marked a new phase in its external openness and growing desire to influence regional and global processes. However, BRI should not be viewed solely as a Chinese blueprint for restructuring Eurasia. The broad interpretative and geographical scope set by Chinese authorities allows flexibility in adapting the initiative to specific regions and countries, which is strategic for modifying or withdrawing commitments as needed. This paper examines why BRI has not become the foundation for a Chinese concept of Eurasia despite its significant impact on regional geopolitics.Our analysis begins with a critical examination of President Xi Jinping's speech at Nazarbayev University in 2013, identifying the nuanced usage of «Eurasia» that primarily refers to the post-Soviet space rather than the entire Eurasian continent. We delve into the subsequent official documents, noting the delay and ambiguity in defining the geographical and conceptual boundaries of BRI. The 2015 document, "Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road," illustrates the initiative's extensive and vague geographical scope, indicating that China did not initially aim for a broad Eurasian strategy.By employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we uncover how China's official rhetoric strategically frames BRI. The analysis reveals that Chinese discourse emphasizes bilateral rather than multilateral engagements within Eurasia, reflecting a «point-to-point» rather than a networked approach. This strategic ambiguity allows China to navigate its relationships with key regional players, notably Russia and the Central Asian states, without committing to a comprehensive Eurasian integration framework.The findings highlight the cautious and adaptive nature of China's engagement with Eurasia. The shift from a regional to a global scope in BRI discourse underscores China's pragmatic approach in balancing its regional ambitions with global aspirations.

Paying Tribute: Returning to the Story of the “Qur‘ān of ‘Uthmān

Objectives: The Qur’an occupies a central position in a religious and philosophical system that has had a significant and emblematic impact on human history, influencing Arabic studies worldwide. Such is particularly true for Russian Arabic studies, where the '‘Uthmanic Qur’an', with copies in Saint Petersburg and Uzbekistan, has played a crucial role. This study aims to honour our teachers and the Arab community of Qashqadarya, who continue to preserve their language and culture. Methodology: Synthetic, Comparative. Findings: The history of these manuscripts spans over twelve centuries, providing rich material linked to the fate of human lineages, nations, cities, peoples, and Islamic civilisation since its emergence in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century until the triumph of Islam. This Islam endured against the communist regime in the Islamic republics of the Soviet Union. The Russian School of Arabic Studies survived the 1917 Revolution due to its concentration on research areas that were of particular importance at the time. These included the study of Arabic sources on the history of the USSR territories and the living Arabic dialects used in the Central Asian republics. Such led to the publication of significant works on the language, ethnography, and history of the Arabs of Qashqadarya, whose ancestors brought the '‘Uthmanic Qur’an' from the Arabian Peninsula via the Silk Road to their land in Uzbekistan. Originality: Today, advanced research techniques must be used to study and analyse the '‘Uthmanic Qur’an' manuscript and reconstruct the origin, culture, and dialects of the Arab population in Qashqadarya, Uzbekistan. These include DNA analysis and modern linguistic methods based on big data and artificial intelligence technology.

Ancestral Origins and Admixture History of Kazakhs.

Kazakh people, like many other populations that settled in Central Asia, demonstrate an array of mixed anthropological features of East Eurasian (EEA) and West Eurasian (WEA) populations, indicating a possible scenario of biological admixture between already differentiated EEA and WEA populations. However, their complex biological origin, genomic makeup, and genetic interaction with surrounding populations are not well understood. To decipher their genetic structure and population history, we conducted, to our knowledge, the first whole-genome sequencing study of Kazakhs residing in Xinjiang (KZK). We demonstrated that KZK derived their ancestries from 4 ancestral source populations: East Asian (∼39.7%), West Asian (∼28.6%), Siberian (∼23.6%), and South Asian (∼8.1%). The recognizable interactions of EEA and WEA ancestries in Kazakhs were dated back to the 15th century BCE. Kazakhs were genetically distinctive from the Uyghurs in terms of their overall genomic makeup, although the 2 populations were closely related in genetics, and both showed a substantial admixture of western and eastern peoples. Notably, we identified a considerable sex-biased admixture, with an excess of western males and eastern females contributing to the KZK gene pool. We further identified a set of genes that showed remarkable differentiation in KZK from the surrounding populations, including those associated with skin color (SLC24A5, OCA2), essential hypertension (HLA-DQB1), hypertension (MTHFR, SLC35F3), and neuron development (CNTNAP2). These results advance our understanding of the complex history of contacts between Western and Eastern Eurasians, especially those living or along the old Silk Road.

Azerbaijan—The Land of Unquenchable Fire

_ For millennia, Zoroastrian fire worshippers traveled on pilgrimage to pray at temples built where methane seeping from deep underground caused flames to burst from the earth on the Absheron Peninsula near Baku, the capital of today’s Azerbaijan. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo observed such mysterious fires and puddles of oil that bubbled or even gushed as fountains to the surface as he trekked along the Silk Road through the Caucasus Mountains in the 13th century. In a travelogue written in 1298, The Travels of Marco Polo, he is said to have described: “Near the Georgian border there is a spring from which gushes a stream of oil in such abundance that a hundred ships may load here at once. This oil is not good to eat, but it is good for burning and as a salve for men and camels affected with itch or scab.” He was referring to the Khanates of Azerbaijan, a part of the Persian Empire in Marco Polo’s time but absorbed in 1806 into the Russian Empire whose czars took an interest in financing early oil production—hand dug and exported on camel back. Its high paraffin content was valued for producing kerosene lamp oil and lubricants including cannon grease. World’s First Mechanically Drilled Oil Well As the Industrial Revolution swept from West to East in the mid-19th century, many of the innovations and business systems around which the modern oil and gas industry were soon to coalesce were tested in the ancient “Land of Fire.” Czar Nicholas I (1825–1855) financed the world’s first mechanically drilled oil well in 1846 using a cable-tool percussion drilling method. A 21-m-deep (69 ft) exploration well was the result. This happened a decade before Edwin Drake added steam-engine power to a mechanical drill to put Titusville, Pennsylvania, on the map in 1859, as described in the Branobel History archives. By 1871, with Nicholas’ son, the reformer Alexander II now on the Russian throne, boreholes had replaced buckets across the Bibi-Heybat and Balakhani oil fields. The arrival from Sweden in the 1870s of Alfred Nobel’s brothers, Ludvig and Robert, brought a step change to Azerbaijan in terms of industrial innovation, construction, and logistics such that by 1900 Azerbaijan was producing 50% of the world’s oil, historical sources agree. Alexander II had abolished the state monopoly on oil production in 1869, opening the door to foreign industrialists and their capital. Robert Nobel obliged and opened the joint stock Branobel Co. in 1878 with a partner from a weapons plant in the Russian town of Izhevsk. He put down share capital of 3 million rubles ($30,000 in today’s money) to register Tovarishestvo Neftyanogo Proizvodstva Bratyev Nobel—in English, The Brothers Nobel Paraffin Production Company (aka Branobel). The transformation of Baku’s oil fields into a capitalist production sector had begun in 1872 with the auction of 15 blocks in the Balakhani oil field and two blocks in Bibi-Heybat, according to a history prepared by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Energy in 2020. This drove a 340% growth in oil production between 1876 and 1882, from 24,000 to 816,000 tons, respectively, between those years. By 1894 Azerbaijan’s production equaled that of the US (5.55 million tons per year) though Baku’s fields were 20 times less productive, according to Branobel archivists.

Reconstructing the trade history: provenance study of Han bronze mirrors in and out of Han China

A rapidly increasing number of bronze mirrors dated to the Chinese Han dynasty (202 BC – AD 220), known for their unique decorative patterns and highly developed alloying techniques, have been widely discovered in both China and beyond, providing fresh materials and scientific data to revisit their geological provenance, production and circulation network along the ancient Silk Road. In this paper, 47 bronze mirrors unearthed in the southeastern provinces of China, including Zhejiang, Anhui and Fujian provinces, have been characterized by typo-chronology, lead isotopic analysis, compositional analysis and metallography. A much wider comparative study is also carried out through a combination of data from China, Japan, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, leading to a more updated lead isotopic database of the Han mirrors spreading out of China in various directions. Compared with the traditional ‘optimal’ model based on the Han mirrors recovered in Japan, the current study contributes several key changes in the bronze mirror production of the Han dynasty. The systematic analysis of the alloy composition, trace elements and typological studies shows that the bronze mirror industry shifted towards a more standardized production in the middle to late Western Han Dynasty. In contrast to the substantial change of non-mirror bronze productions, the similar distribution of lead isotope data in early and middle to late Western Han mirrors suggests that the ‘official monopoly of salt and iron’ policy was less effective for the management of lead involved in mirror production. Bronze mirrors dated to middle to late Western Han discovered outside Han-China, such as Japan, Thailand, Afghanistan, Xiongnu and the ancient Dian Kingdom, appear to be subjected to a more specific type of lead as a result of the state-centralized policy of the Western Han court.

:The Tropical Silk Road: The Future of China in South America

:<i>The Tropical Silk Road: The Future of China in South America</i>

Arctic Transport and Communication Initiative in the 21st century (using the Polar Silk Road Initiative as an example)

The Arctic transport and communication initiative of the 21st century, with the Chinese idea of the «Polar Silk Road» as an example, is considered as a concept of peaceful coexistence within the framework of achieving the «Common Future» of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The Arctic concept is presented using the world-political approach of N. K. Kharlampieva, which highlights the conceptual components of international relations development at the level of strategic planning of economic, transport and communication processes at the regional and global levels. This approach made it possible to build a strategic structure: a) to study the development of transport communication in the Arctic as a methodology; b) to describe the basis for the development of the Arctic transport and communication infrastructure. In the context of a tense foreign policy situation, it is particularly important to focus on the development of transport communication between China and Russia, where the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals plays a special role in the development of the Arctic transport and communication infrastructure in the 21st century at the bilateral level.

SILK ROAD, ISLAM, AND CONFUCIANISM

The history of the Silk Road, or Silk Routes as some historians prefer to call it, is one of the most impactful periods in human history spanning nearly sixteen centuries, from the second century BCE until the fifteenth century CE. It was the opening of trade to the outside world by the Han dynasty in China in 130 BCE that opened the official curtain of the Silk Road history. This Silk Road history may be regarded as the history of the encounters of the greatest human civilisations before modern times. It is a period of history that witnessed the birth of two great religions and civilisations of the world, namely Christianity and Islam. In the context of our present discussion, it is not the history of the individual religions and civilisations sharing the approximately 6,437 kilometre or 4,000 milelong Silk Road that mainly interests us. Rather, it is the inter-civilisational encounters that went into the shaping of the Silk Road history in question.

The Hidden Maritime Silk road -A Research on Maritime Exchange between Song and Liao Dynasty-

The Hidden Maritime Silk road -A Research on Maritime Exchange between Song and Liao Dynasty-

China's Geostrategic Interests in the Indian Ocean Region: Implications for Regional Security and Sino- Indian Relations

Over the last decade, China has increased its footprint and economic power in the Indian Ocean by expanding its influence there. Critical concerns in the Indian Ocean pose a danger to regional security, according to this research. Realist theoryassesses China's economic and military achievements. There is a real possibility that unchecked Chinese development into the Indian Ocean would turn the entire ocean into a "Chinese lake," opening up trade along the Maritime Silk Road. A coalition of impacted and compatible governments is necessary to safeguard maritime interests against China's aggressiveness. The mixed approach employed literature and survey data for qualitative and quantitative research. Basic random sampling was used to sample 150 Lahore residents. Those who are active in policymaking and marine governance are the target audience for these findings, which are meant to educate them on the geopolitical shifts and what they represent for the future of the sector.

Governance of Cross-border Regions &amp; SEZs: The case of Gwadar under CPEC

Purpose: Examining the transformative impact of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this research investigates how CPEC fosters cross-border cooperation and regional development. The research focuses on transnational institution building and the creation of multi-scalar geographies involving diverse public and private agencies, reshaping regional, sub-regional, and local territories. Design/Methodology/Approach: Employing a case study approach, the research focuses on Gwadar, the pivotal node of CPEC where the economic belt meets the maritime silk road. It integrates a literature review, analysis of official documents, and empirical data, supplemented by insights from independent researchers and international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF. Findings: The designation of Gwadar as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) with a globally competitive deep-sea port has introduced significant economic opportunities. However, multi-scalar interactions have led to tensions between central and local authorities, reflecting conflicts between the Centre-led macroeconomic agenda and its socio-economic sustainability at the local level. Implications/Originality/Value: The research emphasizes the need to rescale political, economic, and social structures to establish sustainable institutions in cross-border regions. It provides policy recommendations for Gwadar's development, drawing lessons from global best practices such as Dubai, Shenzhen, and King Abdullah Economic City.

РЕЛИГИОЗНЫЕ ВЕРОВАНИЯ В СОГДЕ В ЭПОХУ РАННЕГО СРЕДНЕВЕКОВЬЯ

This article examines the religious landscape of Sogdiana in the early Middle Ages, when this region of Central Asia served as a crossroads of cultures and religions along the Silk Road. By examining archaeological finds, written sources and historical data, the authors of the article analyze how Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam coexisted and interacted in Sogd, contributing to the formation of the unique religious identity of the region.

УСТЮРТДАГИ КАРВОН ЙЎЛЛАРИ ҲАҚИДА

The article talks about the branches of the Great Silk Road that passed through Ustyurt, developed in the Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages. It is known that two lines of caravan routes have passed through Ustyurt since the Middle Ages. One of the roads went through Central Ustyurt to the Volga and the Urals, while the other road went to Mangishlaq. The first road, called the Nogai road, connected Khorezm and Bulgar. Maghishlaq highway connected Khorezm and Khazar. The author focuses on the development of caravan routes in Ustyurt during the period of the Golden Horde and during the reign of Amir Temur and his successors. After Amir Temur's military campaigns against the Golden Horde, traffic along these caravan routes ceased for some time, but subsequently the great commander Amir Temur rebuilt these trade routes. The article also provides information about the first sources and the first research works about caravan routes in Ustyurt.

Pakistan’s Infrastructural &amp; Domestic Challenges to Connectivity with Central Asia

This paper analyzes the challenges and responses to regional connectivity between Pakistan and Central Asia. The historical and geographical proximity of Pakistan and Central Asia highlights the importance of reviving the old Silk Route. Pakistan is often called the gateway to the Central Asian states due to its geostrategic location; its significance has further increased with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which holds a pivotal role in the region. However, regional connectivity faces numerous challenges. These include political, geographical, economic and infrastructural problems. Geopolitical factors, such as the involvement of external powers and competition for energy supplies, further complicate the situation. The paper in this regard discusses Pakistan’s specific infrastructural and domestic challenges and the roles of regional and global states including neighboring Afghanistan, Iran, India, the major global players such as USA, Russia, China, and the European Union, and Turkiyey,in shaping the connectivity landscape.

Влияние проекта «Великий шелковый путь» на внешнюю политику Турции

. In the modern world, control of transit and communication routes means significant geopolitical influence, in this regard, these routes include various transport and communication networks such as sea lanes, air corridors, land trade routes and internet cables. Control of these routes is of great importance both economically and strategically, therefore, each state prioritizes the control of these routes in its foreign policy. In this regard, Turkey is not an exception. The Ottoman state, the predecessor of the modern Republic of Turkey, considered it important to control the transit channels throughout history. Analyzing the geopolitical effects of the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul also allows us to understand the importance of controlling communication routes in the modern era. Currently, the new Great Silk Road project occupies an important place in Turkish foreign policy, as it will allow the country to strengthen its place in the system of international relations. In the article, research is conducted on the issues mentioned above and the results are discussed.

Heading in the direction of bifurcated networks: Hong Kong's evolution amidst the global submarine cable system

The full understanding of the importance of submarine cables as part of the global network infrastructure in the digital economy era, along with decades of knowledge accumulation in this field, has not prevented Hong Kong from facing increasing difficulties in gaining more access to submarine cable systems since 2017. Given that geopolitical differences between China and the U.S. are dividing the international network infrastructure, the business interests of Hong Kong enterprises and the urban development prospects of the Hong Kong government have been forced to defer to Beijing’s security concerns. Meanwhile, in recent years China has been acquiring data power by modelling the “data collection – data sharing – data space governance” path that the United States and its allies set previously. During this process, the power shaped by China’s unique technological, social and institutional characteristics offers an alternative to American dominance, although it exacerbates the global divergence of internet infrastructure. Many projects along the Belt and Road Initiative and the Digital Silk Road are the examples of China’s data power projection, and will bring opportunities for Hong Kong’s own submarine cables sector and for the city’s role as a super connector in the coming years.

Risk Analysis of Pirate Attacks on Southeast Asian Ships Based on Bayesian Networks

As a bridge for international trade, maritime transportation security is crucial to the global economy. Southeast Asian waters have become a high-incidence area of global piracy attacks due to geographic location and complex security situations, posing a great threat to the development of the Maritime Silk Road. In this study, the factors affecting the risk of pirate attacks are analyzed in depth by using the Global Ship Piracy Attacks Report from the IMO Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS) database (i.e., 2013–2022) in conjunction with a Bayesian Network (BN) model, and the Expectation Maximization algorithm is used to train the model parameters. The results show that piracy behaviors and the ship’s risk are the key factors affecting the risk of pirate attacks, and suggestions are made to reduce the risk of pirate attacks. This study develops a theoretical basis for preventing and controlling the risk of pirate attacks on ships, which helps maintain the safety of ship operations.

Evaluating Consolidation Centers of an Integrated Transportation Network under the Belt and Road Initiative

Following the Belt and Road, the Air Silk Road has also been proposed. The coordinated development of multiple transportation modes, including air, land, and water, will create a strong transportation force in node cities. However, the current insufficient supply of cargo in various regions and the lack of integration among different transportation modes result in low transportation efficiency, which in turn affects the further advancement of the Belt and Road. To investigate these issues and attempt to find a solution, we selected 44 candidate cities from the prefecture-level cities in China as nodes based on relevant government policies, and constructed an integrated transportation network. For each node city, we first calculated the values of six classical indicators and then used the CRITIC to assign weights to each indicator. Subsequently, we employed the TOPSIS method combined with Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) to compute the comprehensive score for each node city. Based on the spatial layout and government policies under the BRI, eight cities, including Wuhan, Chongqing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Lianyungang, Hefei, and Dalian, were finally recommended as the consolidation centers of the integrated transportation network. It is hoped that the results of this analysis can provide some insights for the government to outline and build the consolidation centers of the integrated transportation network composed of railway, air, highway, and water routes, which in turn can offer insights for elevating the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to a new level.

Opportunities and Challenges of China’s Economic Ties with Kazakhstan: Looking Back to Look Forward

This paper examines contemporary Chinese-Kazakhstani political economic ties from the perspective of trade. In particular, it traces the evolution of this relationship before and after the critical juncture of 2013, when the Silk Road Economic Belt was announced in Astana, ushering the era of the Belt and Road Initiative. This paper advances three arguments. First and foremost, Kazakhstan has avoided developing a dependency on the Chinese economy. Its trade autonomy has been maintained before and after the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in 2013, as Kazakhstan benefited from the development of markets alternative to China. Secondly, trade between Kazakhstan and China was mostly focused on natural resources during the immediate pre-BRI years, but it has gradually shifted to a more balanced mix, encompassing intermediate goods, raw materials, and consumer goods. Thirdly, such diversification is the product of an increasingly sophisticated, complex value chain interconnecting Kazakhstan and the rest of the world, including but not limited to China. The growing complexity of these production networks, while certainly beneficial to Chinese firms, has also contributed to Kazakhstan’s multi-vector geopolitical strategy. In this environment, Kazakhstan demonstrates the capability to weather the ongoing deceleration of China’s economy, as the Central Asian country pursues the diversification of its own economy and external economic ties.