11th Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity_Session Organized by JPI(3)
“Globalization Before Neoliberalism:
The Silk Roads and Global Asia in the Ancient World”
(5/27(fri), 17:20-18:40)
The “Silk Road” is big news today. Both the U.S. and Chinese governments have initiated Silk Road policies. These policies, however, focus only on the “hardware” required: e.g., infrastructure- and capacity-building to streamline trade and commerce. Neighborly relations are implied but not specified. Accordingly, many worry about an emerging clash between US and Chinese hegemony in the region. These concerns, though understandable, distort the true legacy of the ancient Silk Roads (there wasn’t just one) and what they can teach us about contemporary world politics.
We treat the Silk Roads as a metaphor. By seeing the Roads as a symbol of global mixing – e.g., politics and culture, learning and exchange, competition and oasis – we open up many more dimensions to what actually happened on the Roads and what these could mean for us today. The ancient world has much to tell us, for example, about pre-colonial political economies, the “Asian” way of mediating difference in intercultural contexts, and the “ecumenical culture” of inter-continental trading relations. A revived Silk Road imagination also helps to articulate a new kind of globally-engaged and non-hegemonic pan-Asianism, one more suited for 21st-century needs and aspirations. We must, in short, reassess the Silk Roads.
- Moderator: L.H.M. LING(Professor, International Affairs, Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, The New School, U.S.A)
- Presenter & Discussant: LIM Tai Wei(Senior Lecturer, SIM University, Singapore), KUMADA Naoko(Research Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore), Payal BANERJEE(Professor, Smith College, Northampton, USA), Alan CHONG(Professor, Centre for Multilateralism Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore), DOH Jong Yoon(Research Fellow, Jeju Peace Institute)
11th Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity Site: Jeju Forum
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