China’s Medieval Maritime Silk Road and Lessons for Today’s Transnational Infrastructure Projects

Abstract

China’s current state-led One Belt and One Road Project is built upon historical legacies of the medial Silk Road through Central Asia and the maritime silk road through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. China’s important role in the medieval maritime silk road was established during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), through a series of expeditions led by Zheng He, Ming’s Chinese-Muslim naval admiral, who commanded then the world’s greatest armada. Zheng He made the first of at least seven voyages in 1405, nearly a century before Vasco da Gama’s arrival in West India and Christopher Columbus’s North American expedition. Unlike da Gama and Columbus, however, Zheng He did not rely on martial force to establish colonial rule—although his armada clearly demonstrated China’s maritime dominance during the Ming Dynasty. Beginning in 1405, over the course of three decades, the Ming imperial armada made at least seven long-distance voyages across the South China Sea and India Ocean, reaching over 30 countries including India, Java, the Malacca Strait, Kenya, Somalia, and traveling beyond to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the coast of Africa. While exact motivations behind these incredible expeditions are debated amongst Chinese and international historians, most agree that the purposes were to demonstrate the Ming Imperial Court ‘s authority, establish tributary relationships, and facilitate international trade. Along the way, the expeditions transported foreign royals and officials, ferried exotic spices and animals, dominated rebels, captured pirates, promoted commerce, and expedited cultural exchange among nations of various languages, ethnicities, and religions. This paper would like to present the most fascinating yet overlooked achievements of Ming China’s Maritime Silk Road expeditions were of cross-cultural exchange and international diplomacy. However, these legacies are mostly missing in the national discussions and international debates on the current OBOR project. Examination of the Maritime Silk Road, as the historical precedent, should generate lessons and re-orient purposes, of OBOR and other transnational infrastructure projects in order to achieve genuine and sustainable goals of economic development.