NEW SILK ROAD: The recent completion of the Chinese section of the new Silk Road, from Lianyungang in east China’s Jiangsu Province to Helgus in Xinjiang, will push the construction of a Eurasian transportation corridor that runs 11,000 km from China’s east coast to Rotterdam via 18 Chinese provincial areas and more than 20 countries and regions
　　
　　China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, bordering eight countries and providing a corridor to the Central Asian region, was once famous for the Silk Road. But now this region is often reported by Western media as having the problems of “political separatism, economic exclusion and religious fundamentalism.” Professor David Gosset with the Shanghai-based China Europe International Business School analyzed Xinjiang’s development, which he framed as “Xinjiang’s experience.” According to him, Xinjiang has served as a platform for communication among different cultures and Xinjiang’s experience “might help stabilize the macro region.” His main ideas follow:
　　The “Xinjiang problem” is not making a volatile Central Asia more fragile; on the contrary, what can be called “Xinjiang’s experience” might help stabilize the macro region.
　　Indeed, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is in fact in a process of gradually regaining centrality at the very heart of the post-Soviet Union Eurasia. Officially established in 1955, Xinjiang, one of the five autonomous regions of the People’s Republic of China, is for Beijing of the highest strategic importance. Moreover, what can be called “Xinjiang’s experience” is, far beyond China’s borders, highly meaningful.
　　There are globally positive interactions between Xinjiang’s rapid techno-economic modernization and the revival of the Silk Road. Mainstream Western media, largely reinforcing each other but also in tune with pundits’ general approach, often report on what they frame as the “Xinjiang problem”-relatively isolated events linked with a combination of political separatism, economic exclusion and religious fundamentalism. If it is a priori assumed that there is a “Xinjiang problem,” the analysis is biased.
　　“Xinjiang’s experience” demonstrates that initial internal difficulties can be managed, and are managed. This does not mean that there have been no difficulties in Xinjiang, but it is important to insist on the fact that they are manageable by a leadership with an inclusive, open and balanced vision.
　　In the foreseeable future, China’s Xinjiang could play the role of stabilizer and stand as an integrating factor in Central Asia. In that sense, Xinjiang illustrates the broader idea that, far from being a threat, China’s prosperity is highly beneficial for Asia, Eurasia and the world.
　　Xinjiang, bigger than Mongolia, is twice the size of Pakistan or around the size of Iran. The region borders eight independent countries (Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India--in total, China has 14 land neighboring states) and its international border makes up one fourth of China’s total land boundary of 22,117 km.
　　Xinjiang’s recent history is marked by economic achievements. With a per-capita gross regional product of 11,199 yuan in 2004, Xinjiang ranks 13th among China’s administrative entities, including 31 municipalities, autonomous regions and provinces. The richest is Shanghai Municipality with 55,307 yuan per person and the poorest is Guizhou Province with 4,215 yuan, according to the China Statistical Yearbook 2005.
　　
　　A new frontier
　　
　　To a certain extent, Xinjiang is to many Chinese what the wild West was to Ameri-cans: a new frontier to conquer and develop.
　　The region, as is well known, can rely on important natural resources. Thirty percent of China’s land-based oil resources are located in the autonomous region, second to Heilongjiang Province in the northeast of the country. Its deposits of natural gas represent 35 percent of China’s total-first among the 31 administrative entities. Xinjiang is also the corridor through which energy supplies from Kazakhstan are transmitted to serve the needs of fast-growing coastal China.
　　The policy of the development of the western region initiated by the Central Government in 1999 in order to balance development between the coast and the hinterland comes to reinforce Xinjiang’s economic momentum. Xinjiang authorities will perfect the region’s infrastructure and education system and make sure to attract investment both from other parts of China and abroad.
　　A rich agricultural sector-Xinjiang’s grapefruits from Turpan or melons from Hami are famous all across China-and activities linked to tourism can be an important source of jobs for the local population and for more populous Chinese provinces. Each year, temporary workers come from such inland provinces as Gansu, Sichuan, Henan and Anhui for Xinjiang’s cotton harvest.
　　It must be noted that the trade between Xinjiang and the five countries of post-Soviet Union Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) represents 40 percent of the total trade between China and these countries; the trade between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan represents more than 70 percent of the total trade between China and this country.
　　
　　Important role
　　
　　Established in Shanghai in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the international framework within which China’s Xinjiang could fully play its role of stabilizer and integrator. Composed of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members and India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers, the SCO’s influence on Eurasian affairs is growing.
　　It would be in the interest of the West not to be totally excluded from a process of the highest importance for a region that has an impact on the global order. A structure originally centered around border and security issues, the SCO is now a more mature and comprehensive organization. At this stage, some concrete initiatives could help to better integrate Central Asia’s economy.
　　Visible initiatives on education--a regular exchange of students and the creation of higher education institutions strongly oriented toward a better integration of the macro region--and on tourism would deepen trust without a huge investment. Such projects could be conducted from Xinjiang--the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing while the Regional Antiterrorist Structure is in Tashkent--which is already having a positive influence on Central Asia.
　　In June 2005, an international symposium on Kashi integration with South and Central Asia was held at the foot of the Pamir, in the “Pearl of the Silk Road (Kashi).” Indeed, this ancient crossroad has the potential to become a modern platform to attract, process and distribute material and intellectual resources, and the SCO can help to coordinate the efforts toward such a goal.
　　After the September 11 attacks on American territory in 2001, the United States decided to enter Central Asia massively. China and the United States were immediate allies in the fight against terrorism. However, the United States will have to cope with the idea that China is the ideal player to stabilize the region. In any case, far away and often disconnected with highly complex realities on the ground, Washington cannot pretend to guarantee peace and prosperity in Central Asia alone.
　　SCO Secretary General Zhang Deguang indicated the direction: “It is necessary to throw away the mentality of Cold War times and stop considering Central Asia as an arena for any kind of struggle. It is necessary to consider the region as an arena for mutually advantageous cooperation.”
　　Any reflection on Xinjiang needs to go beyond a list of quantitative or strategic parameters. Above all, Xinjiang is a space where cultures intersect. While the region is gaining gradually in hard power, a long and complex history makes its soft power, its attraction, enormous.
　　“Xinjiang’s experience” is not only about techno-economic transformation. In a world threatened by clashes between civilizations, contradictions between religions and hatred, Xinjiang is a laboratory where cultures interact, coexist and ultimately can potentially enrich each other. Of the 55 official minorities of China, 12 can be found in Xinjiang. Among them, the Uygur, Kazak, Hui, Kirgiz, Mongol and Tajik minorities make up more than half of the total population. Only Yunnan Province, with 25 minorities, is ethnically more diverse.
　　With the region’s economic development, cultures can better express themselves and preserve their characteristics. Techno-economic modernization does not necessarily bring cultural alienation. On the contrary, cultural continuity depends on the ability to adjust to the times.
　　At the heart of the Silk Road, Xinjiang has been for 3,000 years a platform for exchanges between cultures: Fundamentally, this is what defines Xinjiang. Along the Sogdian trading network, the exchanges of goods were also opportunities to exchange ideas. Buddhism (from India), Nestorianism (Nestorius was a patriarch of Constantinople) and Islam (from Arabia) penetrated the Chinese world, crossing first the deserts and mountains of Xinjiang. The circulation of ideas was both surprisingly quick and deep.
　　The history of the Silk Road has ideally prepared modern Xinjiang to face contemporary globalization and its challenges are linked to cross-cultural issues. For the people of the western region, multilingualism, multiculturalism and hybridity are not imported and abstract notions but very much a part of their identity.
　　The Silk Road-the term was first coined by the German geographer, geologist and traveler Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833-1905) in reference to the silk being traded from the Chinese Han Dynasty ((206 B.C.-A.D. 220) to the Roman Empire-is not only an expression that refers to sites, monuments or ruins of the past; it is well alive and indicates a direction for the future.
　　In the 20th century, the Soviet system forced Eurasian economic and intellectual cooperation to stop. Soviet imperialism reinforced the idea that Europe and Asia are two absolutely separate entities. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Europe and Asia are once again in the position to cross-fertilize along the Silk Road: Europeans, Chinese, South Asians, Turks and Arabs are rediscovering the Eurasian continuity. There is no better place than Xinjiang, north or south of the fascinating Taklimakan Desert, to make use and sense of these continuities. Having the Silk Road as a backbone, “Xinjiang’s experience” has the potential to develop into a model that will prove Samuel P. Huntington’s clash of civilizations wrong.
　　In their highest expressions, cultures do not clash; they indicate our position--always relative--in the universe and they are efforts to preserve human dignity. The outside forms can vary greatly from one historico-philosophical context to another. However, translations are always possible, although in some cases extremely difficult. Difference is not an absolute discontinuity that would condemn us to misunderstandings or even radical strangeness.
　　Discourses that construct unfathomable “otherness” or are at ease with the uniformity of a flat and monotonous global community seem to be opposites but they are both missing the perspective on differences as the source of harmony, a serene tension a serious translator can experience. Xuan Zang (602-664), who translated Buddhist texts into Chinese, and Ahmad Al-Biruni (973-1048), who translated from Sanskrit into Arabic, went on long intellectual and spiritual journeys between Europe and Asia. The Silk Road or the “Translation Road,” as we could call it, presents innumerable connections between cultures and their infinite conciliation.
　　
　　David Gosset is Director of the Academia Sinica Europaea at the China Europe International Business School. The academia aims to be an intellectual interface between China and Europe. You can contact him at gdavid@ceibs.edu.

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