Maritime Silk Road

This book explores the opportunities and challenges that both Europe and Asia face under the framework of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative. The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSR Initiative), put forward by the Chinese government together with the Silk Road Economic Belt, reflects China’s ambition and vision to shape the global economic and political order. The first step and priority under the MSR Initiative, according to documents issued by China, is to build three ‘Blue Economic Passages’ linking China with the rest of the world at sea, two of which will connect China with Europe. This initiative, however, still faces enormous challenges of geopolitical suspicion and security risks. This book seeks to assess these risks and their causes for the cooperation between the Eurasian countries under the framework of MSR and puts forward suggestions to deal with these risks in the interdisciplinary perspectives of international relations and international law. Featuring a global team of contributors, this book will be of much interest to students of Asian politics, maritime security, international law and international relations.

In the recent years, trade, cultural exchange and transfer of knowledge in the Indian Ocean have come increasingly into the scope of various scholarly disciplines. The previous perception that the exploitation of this sea did only start with the European colonial expansion at the end of the 15th century had to be abandoned: The Europeans absorbed the long existing structures rather than creating new ones. This concept of the Indian Ocean as a coherent space of transfer is also adopted in this volume. Some of the articles were presented at a conference held in Vienna, while the others were supplied independently. The contributions are arranged around the two "poles", represented by the western and the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, especially Iran and China, but also other cultures and the manifold relations with the land-based Silk Road are discussed. The time frame ranges from the 14th to the 17th century.

This book analyzes the progress of the MSRI, highlights the political and economic factors affecting its realization, and offers insights into the political and economic implications of China’s endeavor. It focuses specifically on countries within Africa and the Middle East to provide a basis for a substantive examination of these issues in a manner sensitive to the milieu in individual countries and relevant regions. It represents the final volume in a well-received series on China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI), which, so far, includes books covering China’s MSRI and South Asia (Palgrave, 2018) and China’s MSRI and Southeast Asia (Palgrave, 2019). This book will interest scholars of China, international relations, and the relevant regions, journalists, and policymakers.

The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is a key component of China's Belt and Road Initiative and, as such, can play a crucial role in the development of maritime infrastructure throughout Asia and the Pacific in the coming years. This report, developed with the kind support of Sunny International, looks into the overall impacts of the Maritime Silk Road on tourism and assesses the tourism potential of Maritime Silk Road thematic routes across Asia and beyond. The report shows that cruise tourism, targeted investments in decayed maritime infrastructure and the reutilization of ancient port cities can reinvigorate available heritage, support local communities and help diversify a country's tourism sector.

Imagined Geographies is a pioneering work in the study of history and geography of the pre-1800 world. In this book, Gunn argues that different regions astride the maritime silk roads were not only interconnected but can also be construed as “imagined geographies.” Taking a grand civilizational perspective, five such geographic imaginaries are examined across respective chapters, namely Indian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and European including an imagined Great South Land. Drawing upon an array of marine and other archaeological examples, the author offers compelling evidence of the intertwining of political, cultural, and economic regions across the sea silk roads from ancient times until the seventeenth century. Through a thorough analysis of these five geographic imaginaries, the author sets aside purely national history and looks at the maritime realm from a broader spatial perspective. He challenges the Eurocentric concept of center and periphery and establishes a revisionist view on a decentered world regional history. This book will definitely interest history lovers from all around the world who wants to know more about how their forebears viewed their respective region and how their region fits into world history with local uniqueness. “Gunn takes large themes and makes them understandable. He is not afraid to make the grand statement, and to look at the sweep of history all in one arc. I admire that greatly; this is not history for the faint of heart. But it is history well-done, and history that can show the forest from the trees.” —Eric Tagliacozzo, John Stambaugh Professor of History, Cornell University “This is one of the most ambitious and insightful books that I have read on pre-Modern maritime Asia. The author offers fascinating perspectives on how this vast region was imagined, charted, and experienced over many centuries. That requires mastery of an immense range of scholarship and primary sources. His aim is to knit this watery world together into a conceptual whole. This mission is accomplished with style and discipline.” —Andrew R. Wilson, John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies, U.S. Naval War College

This innovative book examines the maritime component of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), focusing on three key trade routes and addressing the question of how China protects its overseas assets. Gerald Chan explores China’s rising maritime power, using geo-developmentalism as a theoretical framework to analyse the country’s development of port facilities and infrastructure along important trade routes. Through developing these sea routes, he argues that a new global order is in the making.

This book brings together a diverse range of responses to China's Marine Silk Road Initiative, which proposes to redraw the map of Asia, particularly South Asia. China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) is a massive scheme to connect wide swaths of East, Southeast, South, and West Asia through a dense web of interconnected hard and soft infrastructure involving ports, roads, logistics facilities, special industrial zones, and free trade and investment agreements. This book will be invaluable for students of Chinese foreign security and foreign economic policy, those interested in South Asia including Indian foreign security and economic policy as well as Indian relations with China, those attentive to international economic developments in East and South Asia, and those interested in the political and economic situation in specific MSRI participant countries such as Pakistan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka as well as their political and economic relations with China.