New Silk Road: Pro Culturae

Abstract

The article introduces a cultural research of the mega-project “One Belt — One Road”. It shows that the People’s Republic of China positions its global initiative to resurrect the Great Silk Road as an infrastructure project. Its realization is accompanied exclusively by political and economic discourse. According to the author, it is a great omission since the success or failure of the grandiose plans of the Celestial Empire depends not as much on the administrative and financial resources involved as on the sincere interest and involvement of people, on the interaction in terms of a much wider cultural background. The study of Russian information materials devoted to this project shows that the humanitarian component of the New Silk Road still remains at the level of declarations and formal thematic procedures. The project lacks publicity. The great history of the Silk Road is not updated. The cultural perspective of its revival is out of the discussion. No one dreams of enriching the cultural synthesis. Any anticipation of discoveries and prospects is not heard of. The project as a whole lies on the periphery of media attention and evaluation. But what would happen if globalization continues its development not from the Protestant ethics standpoint but the Confucian or Buddhist one? It might offer a good alternative that would change everything. This can change many things if accompanied by goodwill but we do not see discussions pertaining to the cultural transformations the project may lead to. One can observe rather the opposite. In the eighth year of the implementation of the initiative “One Belt — One Road”, a project hitting the scope of transformations and huge investments, the enthusiasm of its participants (politicians, administrators, and businessmen) is often tinged with doubts caused by discrepancies in understanding events and agreements. Ontological reasons for such a state of affairs constitute the cultural constellation (dependence upon a point of view and the divergence of the ontical “assembly” of the same phenomena). Through viewing specific examples, the author concludes that the misunderstanding of ideological landmarks, the incomprehensibility of values, the diversity of motivation and aspirations of participants make the confidential and interested cooperation problematic. Without actualization of discourse, without involving people in co-creation, without a broad and deep inclusion of the informally organized humanitarian sphere, where the problems of “human, too human” are solved, the project is unlikely to meet expectations in terms of its historical mission.