ine people consisting of reseachers and students of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) shared the findings of field research on "One Belt, One Road" at the second International Symposium on Silk Roadology, which was held on Apr 14, 2018.

SISU’s research group, led by Professor Ma Lirong, showed the new finding at the conference that the departure place of the Maritime Silk Road was Taicang, located in the south of the Yangtze River Estuary. In January, they went to Suzhou in Jiangsu Province to investigate the history and development of Maritime Silk Road.

Pioneered by Chinese mariner​ Zheng He during early Ming dynasty​, the Maritime Silk Road promoted the trade that connected China to Southeast Asia, Indian subcontinent, Arabian Peninsula, and all the way to Egypt and Europe. Before the new finding, many people had believed Quanzhou located in Fujian Province beside the Taiwan Strait was the starting point of the voyage. 

“The reason why Zheng He started his exploration from Taicang is that silk was mainly made in the Yangtze River Delta back then,” says Min Jie, a group member, “Zheng He took plenty of silk and the favored goods to trade with other countries.”

The symposium was hosted by SISU's Institute of Silk Road Strategy Studies (ISRSS) and the Center for Studies on the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation​​. Established in September 2015,  ISRSS is one of the leading Chinese think tanks on Belt and Road studies. At the three-day conference, more than 70 scholars from China, United States, United Kingdom, Poland, Ukraine, Greece and India discussed about China's 'Belt and Road Initiative'.