Diplomacy of the Silk Road. Part 1 - Past and Present of the Great Silk Road
Diplomacy of the Silk Road. Part 1 - Past and Present of the Great Silk Road
The Great Silk Road, which in ancient times joined East with West, and to some extent North with South, by means of trade and economic, cultural-humanitarian and also political and diplomatic ties, has a history stretching back several thousand years. At various phases of its existence the content and significance, directions and scale of contacts varied, but one thing remained unchanged: throughout that long period, the Great Silk Road played the role of a connecting bridge between countries and civilizations. It served as a channel for trade, which became the catalyst for the development of crafts. Travelers and explorers studied the countries and peoples of the lands along the entire length of the Road, thus making an enormous contribution to the development of knowledge. The world became acquainted with the ideas and work of the greatest philosophers, scholars and statesmen. Intensive mutual enrichment of cultures took place, and there was an active exchange of knowledge and of spiritual and philosophical concepts and views. Thanks to the Road, outstanding epics and legends became the property of all mankind.Via the Great Silk Road, syncretic and monotheistic religious ideas were disseminated. Zoroastrism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity all found their adherents along the Great Silk Road.The Great Silk Road was also of immeasurable significance in the establishment and maintenance of diplomatic relations among the centers of political life, the major States of Europe and Asia. Many historical sources bear witness to the active nature and high level of official contacts and the exchange of diplomatic missions, particularly between Byzantium and China, powers which played a significant role in the International life of that era. The intensive and multidirectional process of Inter-civilizational communication on various levels went on for centuries. Despite a number of changes of direction, by the will of historical fate the main arteries of the Great Silk Road passed through the territory of Kyrgyzstan. On the eve of the new third millennium, the idea of a revival of the Great Silk Road has met with broad international support and an extremely warm response, largely as a result of the existence of two interdependent trends that characterize the development of the modern world.The first of these involves the steady intensification of the processes of interdependence and globalization, the phenomenally rapid development and introduction of the latest technologies, communication systems and computer networks and the acceleration on an unprecedented scale of information and capital flows that "erode" national boundaries. The second trend reflects the high level of integration at the regional and subregional levels. The current steady and dynamic development of political, trade and economic relations would be unthinkable without the strengthening of fraternal, trusting and mutually advantageous relations of partnership between all States of the Silk Road region. The geography of the Great Silk Road has no bounds or limitations. Its expansion by those countries which intend to develop cooperation with the countries in the Great Silk Road region is naturally and objectively determined by the entire course of historical development. The arms race, local conflicts, extremism and terrorism, the unlawful manufacture, distribution and consumption of narcotic substances, natural disasters and those brought about by technology or by man, and crying social needs are problems that lead to recognition of the natural and objective need for a revival of the Great Silk Road on a qualitatively new basis. While in the past the Great Silk Road played the role of a connecting bridge, now, in a situation of globalization, the destiny of the Road extends far beyond the framework of this dimension alone. The cosmic and the planetary appear as a single whole, implying an organic combination of present-day progress with the development of human civilization itself.The renaissance of the Great Silk Road under the new historical circumstances refutes the ideas that were current in the past, which at times artificially contrasted the ways in which the East and the West perceived and viewed the world as totally incompatible with one another. Fortunately, ideas of planet-wide significance and scale are now predominant in the minds and hearts of the peoples, inhabiting the region of the Road.The ideas of humanism, tolerance and the revival of spirituality are gaining ground in their tenacious struggle against age-old prejudices and intolerance of different ways of thinking. Kyrgyzstan, lying at the very center of the Eurasian continent, at the junction of several civilizations, having taken in and absorbed a multiplicity of cultures and ways of looking at the world, possesses under present circumstances the necessary prerequisites for becoming a bridge of friendship and cooperation between all the countries within the Great Silk Road.