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This article explores the relevance of the concept of Silk Road for understanding the patterns of trade and exchange between China, Eurasia and the Middle East. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, in China's Zhejiang Province. Yiwu is a node in the global distribution of Chinese 'small commodities' and home to merchants and traders from across Asia and beyond. The article explores the role played by traders from Afghanistan in connecting the city of Yiwu to markets and trading posts in the world beyond. It seeks to bring attention to the diverse types of networks involved in such forms of trade, as well as their emergence and development over the past thirty years.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the development of China's technologies as the main strategic component of the reform policy and the formation on this basis of a new model of the country's development. The state and structure of China's digital economy and the main directions of its development in the new era are considered. Using the example of the world leader in the field of advanced information and communication technologies, the global transnational company (TNC) Huawei, the state, dynamics and prospects for promoting Chinese technologies in the world in the format of building the Digital Silk Road (DSR) are shown. On the example of individual countries and regions, the state and features of the formation of regional blocks of the Digital Silk Road are considered. It is emphasized that in the context of the pandemic, the growing tightening of US sanctions and the actual blockade of the US market, the digital economy of China has become the core and basis for the formation of the DSR. The regional block of Southeast Asia, which is close to China, is dynamically developing in this direction. The countries of the Middle East and Latin America have a significant potential for cooperation. Despite the sanctions, certain opportunities and prospects remain in Europe. Africa is becoming an important strategic asset for construction of the DSR. Separately, the state of cooperation between China and Russia in the field of information and communication technologies in the context of Western sanctions, as well as the possibility of forming on this basis the Russian-Chinese Common digital community (CDC) with the prospect of its development into a single Eurasian digital space (EADC) are analyzed. Finally, it is concluded that China will continue to actively build a global DSR based on the promotion of Chinese technologies to world markets in the course of implementing the goals and objectives of the 14th Five-Year Plan.

Intro -- Contents -- About the Editors -- Foreword -- Preface -- Scope, Purpose and Readership -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- List of Boxes -- Part I. Transformations, Transitions, Challenges -- Chapter 1 -- Transformative Adaptation Under Climate and Global Change Along the Silk Road: Challenges and Potentials -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Climate Change Effects on Vegetation -- 3. The Desertification Paradigm and Its Counterpart -- 3.1. The Desertification Paradigm -- 3.2. Indirect Anthropogenic Drivers of Change -- 4. Climate Change Adaptation -- 5. Transformative Adaptation - Is It the Answer? -- 5.1. Impacts versus Vulnerability Approach -- 5.2. What Does Adaptation Mean? -- 6. A Paradigm Shift from Resource Sufficiency to Functional Integrity -- Acknowledgments -- References -- Chapter 2 -- Rangeland and Grassland in the Region of Former Soviet Union: Future Implications for Silk Road Countries -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Vegetation of Central Asia -- 2.1. Four Main Groups of Ecosystems -- 2.1.1. The Adyr Zone (Lowlands and Foothills) -- 2.1.2. The Tau Zone (Mid-Mountain Zone) -- 2.1.3. The Yailau Zone (High Mountain Zone) -- 3. Utilization of the Three Zones -- 4. Impact of Climate Change on Vegetation along the Silk Road -- 4.1. Changes in Temperature and Precipitation -- 4.2. Ecological Effects of Recent Climate Change -- 4.3. Reversing the Ecological Effects of Climate Change -- 5. Long-Term Vegetation Dynamics and the Response of Vegetation to Hydro-Climatic Changes in Central Asia -- References -- Chapter 3 -- Conservation and Development of Medicinal Plants of Relevant Territory Along the Silk Road -- Abstract -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The strategic thinking and strategic position of Medicinal plants resources along the Silk Road -- 2.1. Medicinal Plants as Items of Trade

AbstractAlthough inspired by the nineteenth-century term 'Silk Road(s)', the phrase 'Maritime Silk Road' has its own origins, connotations, and applications. This article examines the emergence of the latter term as a China-centric concept and its various entanglements since the early 1980s, involving the People's Republic of China's (PRC) political bodies, academia, the 'open door' policy, the pursuit of World Heritage listings, and the current 'Belt and Road Initiative'. These entanglements, the article contends, have resulted in the emergence of what could be called a 'Maritime Silk Road' ecosystem in the PRC. The analysis of this ecosystem presented in the article reveals not only the processes through which a narrative on China's engagement with the maritime world has been constructed over time, but also its association with issues of national pride, heritage- and tradition-making, foreign-policy objectives, and claims to territorial sovereignty. As such, the 'Maritime Silk Road' must be understood as a concept that is intimately entwined with the recent history of the PRC and distinct from its nineteenth-century antecedent, which was used as a label for overland connectivity.

It is often mentioned that the "Silk Road" was a trade route between theEast and the West. Conceptually, it represents the history of communicationbetween China and the West: goods and merchants frequently travelledalong this route. The meaning of the Silk Road and its formation processand scope of influence has been documented in different records, and hadan impact on academic research in several countries: in the field of researchon the history of China, the study of the Silk Road is a subject that manyresearchers have tackled and discussed. Early historical chronicles have beenanalyzed and discussed as well as documents and unearthed artefacts foundalong the Silk Road; these studies involve political, cultural, and economicaspects. Research has not been limited to China, but has also interested thecountries which were along the Silk Road and those which were affected bythe Silk Road culture. The Silk Road acted as a cultural bridge between Eastand West: it did not only promote commerce but also cultural exchanges.For example, Buddhism, as one of the religions of the Kushan kingdom,reached China thanks to this route.