Reconnection of Eurasia
Tomáš Šmíd, PhD.


Ancient Silk Road and Tea Horse Road
•Silk Road land route passed through the Gansu (or Hexi) Corridor, extended westwards to Xinjiang,
and then split into several routes;
•Tea Horse Road started from Yunnan and Sichuan and crosses Tibet;
•Around 300 BC, civilizations active in the Silk Road trade included Ancient Greece, Persia,
Yuezhi, and the Qin State that controlled the eastern part of the Gansu Corridor - this corridor is
a huge very long valley that extends from Luoyang to Xinjiang;
•important and famous in Silk Road History was Sogdian Empire;

•SILK ROAD



Sogdian territories



Silk Road and Han Dynasty
•Silk Road trade commenced in a great fashion through the work mission of General of Han Dynasty
Zhang Qian (200–114 BC);
•Zhang was an envoy to build relationships with the Central Asian states and to find their former
allies, the Yuezhi people, who had left Xinjiang and the Gansu Corridor;
•Yuezhi founded famous Kushan Empire in Central Asia;
•

Gansu Corridor






Silk Road and Tang Dynasty
•In the early Tang Dynasty (618–917) era, the Silk Road route in Xinjiang was controlled by Turkic
tribes. They allied with small states in Xinjiang against the Tang;
•The Tang Dynasty later conquered the Turkic tribes, reopened the route, and promoted trade. Trade
with the West boomed;
•The Tang Empire ended in 907, and there followed some decades of warfare until the Song
Empire arose. The Song Empire was powerful, but they didn't have control of the Gansu Corridor;
•

Silk Road and Mongols
•Then, in 1127, the Song court was forced south of the Yangtze River, and the remaining Southern
Song Empire was even further from the Silk Road route. Then in 1200s, the Mongols attacked them;
•However, as the Mongol Empire expanded in Central Asia and Europe before the fall of the Southern
Song Empire, they promoted and protected the trade on the western Silk Road routes;
•Trade on the Silk Road revived and reached its zenith during the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), when
the Mongols promoted trade in their huge empire that stretched across Eurasia. Genghis
Khan conquered all the small states, unified China, and built a large empire under his rule;
•

Classical Silk Road



End of Ancient Silk Road
•By the 1500s, European trading ships were regular plying Ming Empire coastal waters, and as travel
by sea became easier and more popular, trade along the Silk Road declined. At the same time, it
became more difficult to travel overland. Ship transportation was faster and more economical;
•The conquest of the Byzantium Empire and the Ottoman control of western Asia kept Europe and the
empires of the Ming and Qing separated from the West, and overland travel became dangerous. While
trade of silk for furs with the Russians north of the original Silk Road continued, by the end of
the fourteenth century, trade and travel along the route had decreased significantly;
•After this, some of the Central Asian Silk Road routes, especially those in high-mountain areas in
Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and India continued to be used until the beginning of the
20th century
•

Tea Horse Road
•the empires of the Ming and Qing dynasties continued trade in silk, but especially of tea, with
Tibet and southern Asia via the very old Tea Horse Road (Chama in Chinese) trade routes. This trade
route is also called the "Southern Silk Road.";
•Yunnan and Sichuan were big exporters of tea for more than a thousand years to the Tibetan Empire.
In return, the Tibetans exported horses and various products;
•However, during modern times, maritime trade and the availability of Indian and Ceylon tea made
the Tea Horse trade route obsolete;
•

New Silk Road
•Silk Road Economic Belt;
•21st Century Maritime Silk Road;
•More generally Belt and Road Initiative;

Silk Road Economic Belt
•Silk Road Economic Belt has several directions. On the one side, it aims to promote better
connections between China, Central Asia, Russia and the northern part of Europe. It also strives to
connect China through Central Asia with the Persian Gulf, West Asia, the Mediterranean and Central
and Eastern Europe. Thirdly, it aims at improving linksbetween China and South East Asia, South
Asia and the Indian Ocean;

21st century Maritime Silk Road and String of Pearls
•21st century Maritime Silk Road tends to bring together (eastern) coast of China and Europe via
the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, as well as the (southern) China’s coast with the Pacific
across the South China Sea;
•Part of this strategy is String of Pearls;
•

String of Pearls



TRACECA - Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia
•13 member-states of the “Basic Multilateral Agreement on International Transport for Development
of the Europe-the Caucasus-Asia Corridor” (MLA TRACECA): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan;
•

Cotton Route
•New Delhi is now looking to counter Beijing influence in the Indian Ocean region by reviving the
Cotton Route to boost relations and exploit trade potential with nations across the Indian Ocean
region;
•Apart from Cotton Route, India will also launch Project Mausam to expand ancient maritime route
linkages and cultural links with neighbouring nations
•

Eurasian Economic Union



Shanghai Cooperation Organisation