The BRI Has Not Leveraged the Cultural Meaning of the Silk Road in Central Asia
Countries with a stronger cultural memory have not bought into the idea of China’s initiative recreating the ancient Silk Road.
By Sharanya Rajiv, Senior Analyst and Manager of Operations
Central Asia plays a key role in the Silk Road Economic Belt, the continental half of China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Right from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2013 speech unveiling the BRI in Kazakhstan to the 2016 Health Silk Road reveal in Uzbekistan in 2016, the imagery of the historical Silk Road has been central to China’s outreach in Central Asia. While the history of the region is tied with its location at the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road, its modern relevance can be seen as China’s Health Silk Road expands in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tim Winter, a professor of critical heritage studies at the University of Western Australia, recently conceptualized the BRI as a geocultural project that has mobilized the discourse of reviving the Silk Road as a platform for cooperation and connectivity to advance its strategic goals. He is most likely correct. The launch of the BRI in Astana has seen a wave of cultural sector projects and international collaborations that demonstrate the significance Chinese foreign policy puts on soft power, particularly cultural diplomacy and influence.
Now that seven years have passed since the stated goals of this project were announced, observers should be able to determine whether or not China has been able to leverage the positive cultural power of the Silk Road concept in Central Asia.
This article examines sentiment trends toward the Silk Road in regional media (excluding Turkmenistan due to limited data) in the six-year periods before and after the announcement of the BRI. It seeks to assess whether cultural and historical imagery related to the Silk Road has contributed to the success of the BRI in the region.
The launch of the BRI in Astana has seen a wave of cultural sector projects and international collaborations that demonstrate the significance Chinese foreign policy puts on soft power, particularly cultural diplomacy and influence.
Stark Regional Variations Exist in the Popularity of the Silk Road
While regional media has always displayed consistently positive sentiment toward the Silk Road, there are sharp differences in the number of mentions. This is true temporally as well as geographically.
In the six years before the launch of the BRI from 2008 to 2013, the term was most popular in Uzbekistan, followed by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Sentiment scores followed the same pattern with Uzbekistan displaying exuberant sentiment, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan displaying very positive sentiment, and Tajikistan displaying positive sentiment.
Predictably, the launch of China’s ambitious initiative to revive the Silk Road resulted in a substantial increase in the popularity of the term with mentions across regional media doubling. However, this increase in popularity was distributed unevenly across the region. During the six years after the launch of the BRI from 2014 to 2019, the term was most popular in Kazakhstan, where the number of mentions increased by a mammoth 379%. While Uzbekistan and Tajikistan followed at second and third place respectively, rather surprisingly, the increase in mentions was a measly 28% in Uzbekistan and a substantial 111% in Tajikistan. The term was least popular in Kyrgyzstan, where mentions only increased by 32%.
Stronger Cultural Memory Leads to Weaker Traction for the BRI
A closer look at the issues that were discussed in conjunction with the Silk Road in regional media before the launch of the BRI points toward a possible explanation of these drastic variations. Over half the articles in regional media that mentioned the term focused on the ancient Silk Road, which the countries associate with a golden period of prosperity in their history. However, not all countries in the region paid equal attention to this. The two countries that focused far more on the cultural and historical aspects of the Silk Road in the six years leading up to the BRI launch, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, saw the least increase in popularity of the term thereafter. In contrast, articles in Kazakh media that referenced the Silk Road emphasized issues related to the economy or regional connectivity just as much as cultural issues. Similarly, Tajik media emphasized regional connectivity, followed by foreign and security policy. Since references to the Silk Road after 2013 frequently referred to the BRI, this suggests that countries with a stronger cultural memory, marked by a collective recollection of their shared past that is frequently reinforced, have not bought into the idea of China’s initiative reviving the ancient Silk Road.
Since references to the Silk Road after 2013 frequently referred to the BRI, this suggests that countries with a stronger cultural memory have not bought into the idea of China’s initiative reviving the ancient Silk Road.
Economics Doesn’t Explain These Trends
To be sure, one could perhaps make the argument that increases in popularity could be proportional to the inflow of Chinese investments during the same period from 2014 to 2019. After all, among the countries in the region, Kazakhstan has attracted the greatest amount of Chinese investment, 13.98 billion USD during this period, and seen the highest increase in popularity of the Silk Road. However, this argument weakens considerably as we consider other countries. Since both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have attracted far more Chinese investments during this period than Tajikistan, the volume of investments does not explain why the popularity of the term increased the most in Tajikistan.
Implications
This research and analysis indicates that China has not been able to successfully leverage the cultural and historical meaning attached to the Silk Road in Central Asia. Even though China’s message to Central Asia has consistently focused on their sense of common belonging and how the BRI will revive the ancient Silk Road, countries with stronger cultural memory and greater public discussion of their ancient history have not bought into this narrative. As China’s involvement and influence in the region grows, this suggests that it will need to pay greater attention to why its cultural influence in the region remains limited.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharanya Rajiv is a senior analyst and manager of operations at Hillhouse Analytics. Her research focuses on geopolitical competition and energy politics in Eurasia. Previously, she was a senior program coordinator at the New Delhi center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she conducted research on India’s strategic interests in Eurasia. Sharanya is fluent in Hindi and Tamil and speaks intermediate Russian.
ABOUT HILLHOUSE
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