he international conference on “One Belt, One Road and Silk Roadology” was held in Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) during April 7 to 8.

About 60 government officials, think tank scholars and journalists from China, the United Studies, Germany, India, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkey, in the field of politics, history, religious studies, languages and culture, attended the seminar.

Docking ‘Belt and Road’ initiative

In his keynote speech, SISU President Cao Deming said that SISU took the lead in initiating an “Multilingual Plus” education strategy, regarded the languages used in the “Belt and Road” countries as “strategic language”, and would facilitate curriculum layouts to establish talents reserve for the country’s diplomatic decision-making.

Uzbek, Kazakh, Polish, Czech language programs were ready to be registered in the new majors list of SISU which was just released by the Ministry of Education. And a number of languages with large strategic reserve value such as Swahili, Pashto, Kurdish were also being actively prepared.

At present, the number of languages taught at SISU has reached 32, combined with teaching, research and international exchanges to develop steadily.

Silk Roadology @ SISU

On September 2015, SISU launched the Institute of Silk Road Strategy Studies (ISRSS) as a result of fully integrating the internal and external academic resources of area studies. The institute aims at promoting the disciplinary development of new Silk Roadology in China, covering four major field of area studies including Middle Eastern studies, Southeast Asian studies, Central Asian studies, European studies and Latin American studies.

In the 2016 annual report released by the Belt and Road" Think Tank Research Center of China's colleges and universities, SISU’s Institute of Silk Road Strategy Studies ranked 9th in comprehensive research strength, and 3rd in academic influence.

ISRSS’s flagship series of books on Silk Roadology was released on the conference, published by Social Sciences Academic Press. This series of books, with SISU Professor Ma Lirong as the Editor-in-Chief, embodied the sturdy theoretical basis and wide academic vision of young Chinese scholars.

They manifested the unique ‘Chinese school’ in Silk Roadology, which highlights contemporary problems as its research focus and probes into international and regional relations along the roads.

Towards global governance

The first issue of The Journal of New Silk Roadology attracted the attention of all the scholars present at the conference.

Edited by SISU’s ISRSS and published by Social Sciences Academic Press, it is the first Chinese academic journal that focuses on all-round research on the land and maritime silk roads and provides a platform for discipline construction of new Silk Roadology in China.

“To develop the discipline of new Silk Roadology is like to apply ‘traditional Chinese medical science’ in global governance.” said Professor Ma. China’s endeavor towards global governance has given an amendatory significance to the western world.

According to ISRSS, The Journal of New Silk Roadology is committed to deepen cultural, archeological and anthropological studies of the traditional silk road including Dunhuang studies, Turpan studies, and ancient maritime studies. It encourages more dynamic researches on contemporary international relations in the field of the silk Roadology to fully display Chinese soft power and insights of global governance.