Strategic Narratives of the Past: An Analysis of China’s New Silk Road Communication

ABSTRACT

Political actors communicate strategic narratives to shape the meaning of place-images in the past, present and future. Whether narratives about the past are persuasive depends on the translation of historical ideas embedded in these narratives across time and space. Moreover, the imagination and re-imagination of historical place-images in foreign policy communication are contentious, because they stand for specific power relations and identity narratives. Therefore, actor’s selective uses of history require disambiguation to increase positive perception. This abstract argument is theorised in an investigation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, specifically the communication of a New Silk Road. China’s promotion of the Silk Road legacy is frequently contested with Great Game interpretations. Through the novels of Marco Polo and Rudyard Kipling, which present historical imaginations of the Silk Road and the Great Game, this study shows the contentiousness of historical place-images across time and space.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the editors of Global Society and the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback and refinements of the ideas in this paper. The author would also like to thank Dr Natasha Kuhrt for inviting her to present an early draft of this research paper at King’s College London in October 2018.

Notes on contributor

Carolijn van Noort is a Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy at the University of the West of Scotland. Her interdisciplinary research interests centre on questions of communication, soft power, identity and infrastructure, particularly in relation to rising powers.

ORCID

Carolijn van Noort http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8459-8860

Notes

1 National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, “Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, Belt and Road Portal, 30 March 2015, available: <https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/qwyw/qwfb/1084.htm> (accessed 16 May 2018).

2 B. Dave and Y. Kobayashi, “China’s Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative in Central Asia: Economic and Security Implications”, Asia Europe Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018), p. 268.

3 E. Said, Orientalism: Western Concepts of the Orient (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978); A. Dirlik, “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism”, History and Theory, Vol. 35, No. 4 (1996), pp. 96–118; G. Yan and C.A. Santos, “‘China, Forever’ Tourism Discourse and Self-Orientalism”, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2009), pp. 295–315.

4 Yan and Santos, op. cit., p. 297; Based on Dirlik, op. cit.; X. Zhang, “The Globalized Logic of Orientalism”, Contemporary Chinese Thought, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2006), pp. 48–54; A. Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998).

5 Ni, Peimin, “The Underlying Philosophy and Impact of the New ‘Silk Road World Order’”, The Federalist Debate, Vol. 29, No. 1 (2016), pp. 23–24.

6 T. Winter, “One Belt, One Road, One Heritage: Cultural Diplomacy and the Silk Road”, The Diplomat, 29 March 2016, p. 3.

7 F. Möller and D. Shim. “Visions of Peace in International Relations”, International Studies Perspectives (2018), pp. 1–19, doi:10.1093/isp/eky014.

8 R. Bleiker, “The Aesthetic Turn in International Political Theory”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2001), pp. 509–533; A. Miskimmon, B. O’Loughlin, and L. Roselle, Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order (New York: Routledge, 2013); D. Armitage, Foundations of Modern International Thought (Massachusetts: Harvard University, 2012).

9 Bleiker, op. cit., p. 512.

10 Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle, Strategic Narratives, op. cit., p. 2.

11 Bleiker, op. cit., p. 510.

12 Armitage, op. cit.

13 Ibid., p. 7.

14 Ibid., p. 30.

15 A. Miskimmon, B. O’Loughlin, and J. Zeng, ed. One Belt, One Road, One Story? Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (forthcoming).

16 G. Holden, “World Literature and World Politics: In Search of a Research Agenda”, Global Society, Vol. 17, No. 3 (2003), pp. 229–252; G. Holden, “World Politics, World Literature, World Cinema”, Global Society, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2010), pp. 381–400; C. Moore and L.J. Shepherd, “Aesthetics and International Relations: Towards a Global Politics”, Global Society, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2010), pp. 299–309; R. Taras, “Why We Need the Novel: Understanding World Politics Through Literature”, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2013), pp. 185–195.

17 Bleiker, op. cit., p. 528.

18 C.Y. Woon, “China’s Contingencies: Critical Geopolitics, Chinese Exceptionalism and the Uses of History”, Geopolitics, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2018), pp. 67–95.

19 Bleiker, op. cit.

20 M. Polo, The Travels. Editorial material and translation by N. Cliff (London: Penguin Random House UK, 2016). Original c. 1300. Polo’s Travels is not in the traditional sense a novel, by using a narrative form. It is rather an account of his travels, elaborated with rich descriptions. It is therefore not perfectly categorized as either a novel or as a travel guide. This distinction does not matter for the purpose of this research, because it still provides a rich description of the historic Silk Road place-image.

21 R. Kipling, Kim. Editorial material by Z.T. Sullivan (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002). Original in 1901.

22 P.C. Adams, Geographies of Media and Communication: A Critical Introduction (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009); M. Barnett and R. Duvall, “Power in International Politics”, International Organization, Vol. 59, No. 1 (2005), pp. 39–75. Dirlik, op. cit.

23 Adams, op. cit., p. 139.

24 C. Weber, “Popular Visual Language as Global Communication: The Remediation of United Airlines Flight 93”, Review of International Studies, Vol. 34, No. S1 (2008), pp. 137–153.

25 Barnett and Duvall, op. cit., p. 42.

26 Ibid., p. 46 and 48.

27 Ibid., pp. 39–75.

28 Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle, Strategic Narratives, op. cit.

29 Ibid., p. 7.

30 Ibid., p. 5.

31 Dirlik, op. cit.

32 Yan and Santos, op. cit., p. 298.

33 J. Agnew, “Looking Back to Look Forward: Chinese Geopolitical Narratives and China’s Past”, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol. 53, No. 3 (2012), p. 305. This is also different from the view of China as “‘the Socialist Beauty (Self) and the Capitalist Beast (the Other)’” in M. Sihui, “Translating the Other”, The Translator, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2009), p. 264.

34 F. Richthofen, China: Ergebnisse eigener Reisen und Darauf Gegründeter Studien (Berlin: D. Reimer, 1877).

35 M. Thorsten, “Silk Road Nostalgia and Imagined Global Community”, Comparative American Studies an International Journal, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2005), p. 301.

36 National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, op. cit.

37 China’s communication of the Silk Road spirit seeks to emphasise the metaphorical interpretation of the Silk Road. Polo’s Travels mentions spirits too, though with a “literal” meaning. Indeed, Polo discusses the spirit’s “voices” that travelers hear when traversing the desert of Taklamakan, which leads them to “stray from [their] path” (p. 57). This version of a Silk Road spirit is clearly not suggested by China. However, it does convey the uncertainty arising from the strategic communication of an intangible spirit.

38 People’s Republic of China, “The Belt and Road: The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, Belt and Road Portal, available: <https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/ztindex.htm> (accessed 18 December 2018).

39 C. van Noort, “Visual Analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative: Securing Narratives of Regional Geopolitical Order, China’s Identity and Infrastructure Development”, in A. Miskimmon, B. O’Loughlin, and J. Zeng (eds.), One Belt, One Road, One Story? Towards an EU-China Strategic Narrative (Palgrave: forthcoming).

40 People’s Republic of China, op. cit.

41 CCTV, Belt and Road: Create a New Prosperity for the World, 22 November 2017, available: <https://eng.yidaiyilu.gov.cn/qwyw/slsg/35964.htm> (accessed 20 March 2019).

42 Y. Qing, “What You Should Know about Silk Road International Film Festival”, CGTN, 6 October 2018, available: <https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674d31636a4e7a457a6333566d54/share_p.html> (accessed 19 December 2018).

43 Qing, op. cit.

44 Thorsten, op. cit.

45 Building upon the work of Said, Orientalism, op. cit.

46 A. Nobis, “The Chinese New Silk Road Uopia and Its Archaeology”, Globalizations, Vol. 15, No. 5 (2018), p. 728.

47 Nobis, op. cit., p. 729.

48 In Chinese, the BRI is known as yi dai yi lu – see B. Dave and Y. Kobayashi, “China’s Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative in Central Asia: Economic and Security Implications”, Asia Europe Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3 (2018), p. 268.

49 Nobis, op. cit., pp. 722–731.

50 L.H.M. Ling and A.C. Perrigoue. “OBOR and the Silk Road Ethos: An Ancient Template for Contemporary World Politics,” Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2018), p. 209.

51 Thorsten, op. cit., pp. 302–303; building upon the work of B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).

52 Tansen Sen, “Silk Road Diplomacy – Twists, Turns and Distorted History”, 23 September 2014. Yale Global Online.

53 Ibid.

54 M. Yapp, “The Legend of the Great Game”, Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. 111 (16 May 2000), pp. 179–198; J.W. Kaye, Lives of Indian Officers (London: A. Strahan & Co, 1876).

55 P. Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (London: John Murray, 1990); N. Swanström, “China and Central Asia: A New Great Game or Traditional Vassal Relations?” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 14, No. 45 (2005), pp. 569–584.

56 M. Edwards, “The New Great Game and the New Great Gamers: Disciples of Kipling and Mackinder” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2003), p. 83.

57 C. Thubron, Shadow of the Silk Road (London: Vintage Books, 2007), p. 139.

58 Swanström, op. cit.

59 J. Clements, A History of the Silk Road (London: Haus Publishing, 2017); Thorsten, op. cit.

60 E. Sergeev, The Great Game, 18561907: Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2013).

61 J. Nye, “Xi Jinping’s Marco Polo Strategy”, Project Syndicate, 19 September, 2017, available: <https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-belt-and-road-grand-strategy-by-joseph-s--nye-2017-06?barrier=accesspaylog> (accessed 19 September 2018); Building upon the work of H.J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History”, Geographical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (1904), pp. 421–437.

62 See, for example: R.D. Kaplan, Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century (New York: Random House, 2018).

63 S. Toops, “Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Area Development and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2016), p. 354.

64 J.D. Sidaway and C.Y. Woon, “Chinese Narratives on ‘One Belt, One Road’ in Geopolitical and Imperial Contexts”, The Professional Geographer, Vol. 69, No. 4 (2017), pp. 591–603.

65 Kipling, op. cit.

66 P. Hopkirk, Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling’s Great Game (London: John Murray, 1996), p. 7.

67 R. Bhoothalingam, “The Silk Road as a Global Brand,” China Report, Vol. 52, No. 1 (2016), pp. 45–52.

68 S.K. Church, “The Eurasian Silk Road: Its Historical Roots and the Chinese Imagination,” Cambridge Journal of Eurasian Studies (2018), p. 2.

69 S. Toops, “Reflections on China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Area Development and Policy, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2016), p. 354.

70 Edwards, “The New Great Game and the New Great Gamers: Disciples of Kipling and Mackinder,” Central Asian Survey, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2003), pp. 83–102. K. Hannam, “‘Shangri-La’ and the New ‘Great Game’: Exploring Tourism Geopolitics Between China and India,” Tourism Planning & Development, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2013), pp. 178–186.

71 F. Wood, Did Marco Polo Go to China? (London: Secker & Warburg, 1995).

72 See for more details A. Morrison, “Introduction: Killing the Cotton Canard and getting rid of the Great Game: Rewriting the Russian Conquest of Central Asia, 1814–1895”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2014), pp. 131–142.

73 Wood, op. cit.

74 Morrison, op. cit., p. 132.

75 Ibid.

76 Polo, op. cit., pp. 116–117.

77 L. Bergreen, Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu (London: Quercus, 2009), p. 132.

78 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 44.

79 I use double quotations here, taking into consideration that the first-written, original book of the Travels is yet to be discovered.

80 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 142.

81 Polo, op. cit., p. 102.

82 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 147.

83 Ibid., p. 27.

84 Ibid., pp. 27–28.

85 Polo, op. cit., p. 32.

86 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 303.

87 Polo, op. cit., p. 193.

88 Ibid. Chapter nine, for example, see p. 306.

89 E. Said, “Kim as Imperialist Novel”, in Kim, Criticisms. Editorial material by Z.T. Sullivan (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), pp. 337–350. Original in 1987.

90 Said, “Kim as Imperialist Novel”, op. cit., pp. 348–349.

91 Kipling, op. cit., p. 245.

92 Ibid., p. 65; Marco Polo presumably also travelled to Lahore, see Polo, op. cit., p. 36.

93 Said, “Kim as Imperialist Novel”, op. cit., pp. 349–350.

94 Holden, “World Literature and World Politics”, op. cit.

95 Z.T. Sullivan, “Preface”, in Kim by R. Kipling, Editorial material by Z.T. Sullivan (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), pp. ix–x.

96 Polo, op. cit., p. 154.

97 Barnett and Duvall, op. cit., p. 53.

98 Polo, op. cit., p. 70.

99 N. Cliff, “Introduction”, in Marco Polo The Travels, editorial material and translation by N. Cliff (London: Penguin Random House UK, 2016), p. xv.

100 Cliff, op. cit., p. xxxix.

101 Kipling, op. cit., p. 186.

102 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 267.

103 Ibid., p. 344.

104 Polo, op. cit., p. 12.

105 Ibid., p. 12.

106 Ibid., p. 4.

107 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 328; considered as a reminder of the “medieval European mind” in Cliff, op. cit., p. xxxviii.

108 Bergreen, op. cit.

109 Ibid., p. 117.

110 Wood, op. cit.

111 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 297.

112 Hopkirk, Quest for Kim, op. cit., p. 17.

113 Kipling, op. cit., p. 5.

114 Ibid., p. 70.

115 Ibid., p. 125.

116 Clements, op. cit.

117 Thubron, op. cit., p. 3.

118 L. Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 622.

119 Bergreen, op. cit., p. 315.

120 Polo, op. cit., pp. 124–126.

121 Ibid., p. 139; with the exception of gambling.

122 Adams, op. cit., p. 143.

123 Ibid., p. 140.

124 Ibid., p. 146.

125 K. Dodds, “Licensed to Stereotype: Geopolitics, James Bond and the Spectre of Balkanism”, Geopolitics, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2003), pp. 125–156.

126 Building upon Dittmer and Dodds’ proposal for more audience research in the field of popular geopolitics, see “Popular Geopolitics Past and Future: Fandom, Identities and Audiences.”