Chinese Narratives on “One Belt, One Road” (一带一路) in Geopolitical and Imperial Contexts

Abstract

This article reviews Chinese-language writings on the ideas of a Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road that have proliferated in the last few years, now under the aegis of and visualized as One Belt, One Road (一带一路). We examine how these narratives articulate with geopolitical and strategic ones in China before exploring the history of the idea of Silk Road(s). An excavation of their origins in nineteenth-century German imperial geography leads us to reflect on the past and present relations between states, empires, and geopolitics and to begin to chart the range of responses to One Belt, One Road.