For

NTU Para Limes and School of Art, Design & Media Conference EXPLORING MARITIME HERITAGE DYNAMICS

18 Nov 2015

How the idea of a Maritime Silk Road can help frame our understanding of the rise and fall of maritime hubs/ports/port cities in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea

DIE SEIDENSTRASSE

Ferdinand F von Richtofen

(1833-1905)

DEFINING

THE SILK ROAD

SVEN

HEDIN

(1865-1952)

Paul Pelliot (1878-1945)

The 6th Peking to Paris

Motor Challenge 2016

June 12th to July 17th 2016

"What needs to be proved today is

that as long as a man has a car, he

can do anything and go anywhere.

Is there anyone who will undertake

to travel this summer from Peking to

Paris by automobile?“

Le Matin, 31 Jan 1907

The Romance of the SILK ROAD

THE IDEA OF A MARITIME SILK ROAD

Less “Romantic” But more Significant than the Overland Silk Road?

Recognizing a

MARITIME SILK ROAD

Reconstructing the History of

Trading Across the Indian

Ocean,

Meeting Roman demand for

Silk

& ITS HISTORICAL LEGACY

CONSTRUCTING A MARITIME SILK ROAD

Consequences of Roman Demand

for Silks: Linking Han China with

Rome.

Incentives for Indian Trade &

Colonization across the Bay of Bengal.

Explaining the Inspiration for

Borobudur & Bayon

Constructing a “GREATER INDIA” on the

Maritime Silk Road

Celebrating bali yatra,

Indian voyaging to “Bali”

THE LURE OF THE

CHINESE MARKET

1. HAN Beginning: Taste

for Exotica/ Demand

for Aromata.

2. TANG Market

3. SONG Capitalism

4. MING Consumption

5. QING Dependence

on Maritime Trade

Evidence from Recent Archaeological Excavations

Re-reading Old Texts

Interrogating Old Assumptions and Reconstructions

I PREHISTORIC BEGINNINGS

1. Prehistoric Tribal Communities in what is Thailand today were extending their trading links to India and Indian communities extending their trade links to West Asia

2. Austronesian (Southeast Asian) seafaring linking emerging Chiefdoms (c.2nd

century BCE – 3rd century CE). Coastal polities and ports in the Mekong Delta, Isthmus and Straits of Melaka reaching out across the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.

II: MARITIME SILK ROAD

DEFINED BY THE MARITIME

LINKS OF A PAN-ASIAN

BUDDHIST WORLD (4TH

century CE – 10th century CE)

Srivijaya an Emporium and

Centre of Buddhist Learning

III. AN INDO-ISLAMIC TRADING WORLD, 7TH-17TH

CENTURY UNDERPINNING THE MARITIME SILK ROAD

IV: CHINA AS A MARITIME POWER, 1127-1368 CE

Maritime Expansion during the Southern Song and

Yuan

V: Voyages of the Eunuch

Admiral: Consolidating

China’s Maritime

Connections and Pre-

eminence

VI: EUROPEAN MERCHANT EMPIRES / 18TH CENTURY

COLONIALISM / “AGE OF COMMERCE”

VII: ARCHAEOLOGY OF SHIPS AND THEIR CARGOES ON THE MARITIME SILK ROAD

Southeast Asian/Austronesian Lash-lugged ships (Barabudur ship; Cirebon Wreck))

Arab Dhows

Indian ships (?)

Absence of Chinese ships sailing the Maritime Road.

Cargoes of BELITUNG WRECK (c. 826 CE); INTAN WRECK (10th century); CIREBON WRECK –trade is massive, high volume trade, merchant capitalism; not low volume pedaling trade.

Chinese Shipbuilding Design & Technology,

from Han to Ming

SUMMARY:A CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS DEFINING A MARITIME SILK ROAD

Austronesian Connections (before 500 BCE to 2nd century BCE)

Networks of Emerging Chiefdoms & Emporia (c. 2md century BCE – 3rd

century CE)

Maritime Links of a Pan-Asian Buddhist World (4th century CE – 10th century CE)

Trading Circuits of an Indo-Islamic Trading World (7th-17th century CE)

Asian Sea Trade Boom (10th-13th century)

14th century Crisis/Collapse

Age of Commerce (1450-1680)

China as a Maritime Power 1127-1433

European Merchant Empires / Colonialism / Age of Commerce

Xi Jinping’s proposals for a “SILK ROAD ECONOMIC BELT” & “21ST

CENTURY MARITIME SILK ROAD,” restructuring Eurasian geo-

economics and geo-politics?

Drawing on historical metaphors for Political Goals?

“ONE BELT, ONE ROAD”

Project Mausam, India's

answer to China's maritime

might: Explained Posted by:

Pravin Singh Published:

Tuesday, September 16,

2014, 18:11 [IST]

Read more at:

http://www.oneindia.com/fe

ature/project-mausam-india-

s-answer-china-s-maritime-

might-expla-1523058.html

CONCLUSIONS:CONNECTIONSEMERGING NARRATIVES OF A MARITIME SILK ROAD

UNESCO Vision of Roads of Dialogue and Cultural Interactions arising from Encounters between East and West.

China’s Vision to revive China’s ancient maritime links with the South China Sea and Indian Ocean which China established (and dominated) since the time of the Han dynasty

India’s Vision of a PROJECT MAUSAM to re-connect and re-establish ancient cultural/trade links among countries on the Indian Ocean littoral (and India’s role in establishing and maintaining those links)

Southeast Asia’s Understanding of itself as the Crossroads of the Maritime Silk Road, linking the trade of the South China Sea with that of the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Melaka as the funnel regulating the flow of Trade between China/India/West Asia.

THE FUTURES OF THE MARITIME SILK ROAD

The Maritime Silk Road as a road connecting people, things, technologies, ideas, religions for 2.5 millennium, and the future

The Maritime Silk Road as space to be Dominated

An Imperative to control the Maritime Silk Road = the 1025 Cola Raids, Ming Voyages, the Estado da ĺndia, the Royal Navy, the US 7th

Fleet/Pacific Command, PLA Navy defending China’s 9-Dotted Line in the SCS

The IO & SCS as Resource, a Global Common

Competing for Access to Maritime Resources?