Making the Past Serve the Present: The Silk Road and China’s Quest for Imperial Rejuvenation

A webinar with Eyck Freymann

As Xi Jinping’s assertion of Chinese power grows, so Chinese narratives of their place in the world are changing. Eyck Freymann shows how history, and the history of the Silk Road in particular, are being put to the service of Xi’s vision.

Eyck Freymann is currently at Balliol College, Oxford, His research examines why democratic countries engage with China’s One Belt One Road initiative, and how Chinese mega-projects influence their domestic politics. His book, One Belt, One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World was published in 2020. Eyck holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Henry Scholar; an AM in Asian Studies from Harvard University where he won the Joseph Fletcher prize for top thesis in Asian studies; and an AB in East Asian History with highest honors, also from Harvard.