Routes of Diplomacy
In the aftermath of World War II, the language of East and West took on a whole new complexion as the architecture of international affairs was remodeled in accordance with Cold War alignments. This meant a series of barriers, formal and informal, were erected and the idea of an historic Eurasian land bridge held little international currency in an era when East and West were defined by the ideological schisms of communism and capitalism and a redrawing of the map through decolonization.
“It is of great significance that Japan is hosting the Silk Road Exposition in Nara concurrently with the Seoul Olympics, to take place in September by virtue of cooperation between East and West. The Silk Road, historically linking East and West in cultural exchange, served an essential pathway of cultural empathy…I am sure that this Exhibition will further the mutual understanding between East and West.
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In post-war Japan, however, the Silk Road emerged as a valuable concept for rebuilding relations with Asian neighbours and with Europe. Working within a framework of cooperation established by UNESCO, Japanese scholars in the late 1950s reexamined the work of their predecessors to show how Japanese civilization - its language, art and Buddhist traditions - both benefited from and contributed to other cultures and societies through centuries of exchange and peaceful dialogue. As such ideas were picked up by bureaucrats, museums, media companies and Buddhist NGOs, the Silk Road emerged as a platform for peace diplomacy and international cooperation. In the 1970s, a collaboration between state broadcasters NHK and CCTV for a television documentary series on the Silk Road was conceived to revive Sino-Japanese relations. Broadcast around the world to great acclaim in the early 1980s, the series was first proposed during Prime Minister Tanaka’s trip to Peking in 1972, which took place several months after Nixon’s landmark meeting with Mao.
“Pakistan is happy to contribute to this Exposition by sending a special exhibition of Gandhara sculptures depicting the culture of the people who lived here and followed Buddhism during the early centuries of the Christian era. Gandhara art is itself a manifestation of the cultural traditions of Greco-Roman art … I hope that the exhibition will provide a stimulus for the propagation of world peace through these master pieces of art and culture.
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Japanese interest in the Silk Road continued to grow through the 1980s, and in 1988 the city of Nara collaborated with NHK to host The Grand Exhibition of Silk Road Civilizations. Within Japan, Nara is commonly referred to as the final stop on the Silk Road, and organizers shipped in over 200 tons of sand from the Taklamakan desert for the $83 million exhibition.
Events at the end of the Cold War cemented the Silk Road’s association with diplomacy and peace, in large part through the activities of UNESCO. The organization led a ten year multilateral program, unprecedented in scale and scope, titled Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue. Launched in 1988 with financial support from Oman, Japan, Korea and France, Roads of Dialogue significantly raised the global profile of the Silk Roads, with dozens of conferences, exhibitions, media stories, and publications generating awareness about a geographically and thematically expansive history of Eurasian connectivity. Three routes - oasis, steppe and sea - oriented a project designed to build trust and dialogue between East and West, and between neighboring countries across Asia and the Middle East. With the First Gulf War creating rifts across the latter, the Sultan of Oman loaned the Fulk al-Salamah (Ship of Peace) troop carrier for an expedition along the newly named Maritime Silk Road. On board, scholars informed a team of international journalists about histories of Indian Ocean trade and peaceful exchange, including the great voyages of Zheng He. In East Asia, the Fulk al-Salamah stopped in South Korea to commemorate the legacies of the “Unified Silla Kingdom” a history that carried distinct symbolic value for a Korean peninsula divided by heavily guarded fences at a moment when the geopolitical cards of the region were being reshuffled.
“The idea of the Silk Road is still available for new interpretations. And in the present political environment the idea is particularly evocative. One reason Smithsonian staff has been particularly excited to work on a Silk Road project at this time is the political transformations that have taken place in the region over the previous two decades. The opening of China and the collapse of the Soviet Union have enabled researchers, businessmen, and travelers alike to visit a vast area little known to Westerners in the past hundred years. A new Silk Road is being traveled. The modest victories of democracy and capitalism at the end of the second millennium allowed strangers once again to meet along the ancient roads of silk and once again exchange ideas and products. People spoke of new economic and political realities, and it seemed that new cultural realities were likely developing out of this transformation as well.”
Over the 2000s, and in the wake of 9/11, the diplomatic currency of the Silk Road - both as a geocultural and geostrategic concept for foreign policy - continued to grow, with Central Asia once again becoming the “cockpit” of international affairs. China, Japan, South Korea and United States have all conjured up foreign policy strategies for the region around variations of a ‘new’ or “iron” Silk Road.
Belt and Road continues this trajectory, and explicitly frames foreign policy ambition around Silk Road exchange, dialogue, trade and enrichment, and their post World War II associations with peace, harmony, and diplomacy.
