The Silk Road: Traveled, Imagined, Transformed

Abstract

Western artists, philosophers and politicians have inevitably viewed China and its actions through a distorting lens – often seeking to confirm assumptions rather than to gain new understanding. This paper examines Western and specifically American responses to three manifestations of the Silk Road: the historical Silk Road that enabled the transport of goods, people and ideas from China through Central Asia as far as Europe; the “Silk Road of the Western Imagination;” and the modern transformation of the Silk Road into China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It explores reasons for the American idealized fascination for the first two and hostility toward the BRI. The tendency to interpret history and China from a “heroic” perspective serves as an obstacle to fostering a modern era of cultural exchange and cooperation that both Americans and Chinese believe the Silk Road symbolizes.