Events

The Islamic world sits athwart China’s expansion westwards. In Central Asia, West Asia/the Middle East and the Indian Ocean, this has been the central concourse of world trade. Here, Mongol horsemen, Muslim armies and British navies had their moment. In the past, Europeans subjugated it on their way to China. In the Middle East today, American globalization is ending in tears. Will the Chinese do it differently in the coming decades? China’s New Silk Route Initiative proposes infrastructure investments to build shared routes and develop partner states’ resources. Based on a notion of historical relations and future rewards, this is a plan for joint action in the present. It is a skeletal image to be fleshed out in multiple dimensions in the coming years: energy, finance, transportation, security, law, education, culture, religion.

Much of the route passes through Muslim lands and islands, and these are partners China seeks. Some of these regions have been consumed by the war on terror, sectarian divisions and strategic rivalries. The intensive politicization of Islam here means that political viability of the state has become inseparable from disputes over the nature of Islam as a religion. Yet other regions continue to thrive, developing new opportunities along old Muslim passages. Instead of Westphalian boxes of state-and-religion, the Islamic world can also be thought of spatially as networks of commercial, legal, familial and religious diasporas and relations; that can extend, contract, reconnect; passing through routes, hubs, hinterlands and termini. This presents a view of Muslim passages that can articulate with silk roads in a range of ways. These are modalities of interaction that are more flexible and resilient than the hard bodies of regimes, states, and blocs; that have to be overthrown, constitutionally reformed, suppressed; or alternately cajoled, praised and partnered with. Historically, the networks rather than the states have been the norm and primary vectors of interaction across the long distance routes we call the Silk Road. What is their status today and tomorrow, in a state-centric international order? Do they have roles to play as that order is being reshaped from the East? What happens when human beings meet infrastructure?

As China’s New Silk Road Initiative engages the Islamic world, how can a view of Islam as networks that are partial and mobile, in addition to states that are full-bodied and sedentary, inform that engagement?

This conference seeks contemporary and historical answers to this question through panels on transport infrastructure, port cities and security, nodal cities, energy hubs, finance, traders and brokers, and geostrategic rivalry.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free, and seats are available on a first come, first served basis. We would greatly appreciate if you register your interest in attending to Ms Sharon Ong via email: arios@nus.edu.sg.

CONTACT DETAILS

Conference Convenors

Prof Engseng HO
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and Duke University, USA

Dr Nisha MATHEWS
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Secretariat

Miss Sharon ONG
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
E | arios@nus.edu.sg