Chen Xiangming

Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Global Urban Studies and Sociology, Trinity College, Connecticut

Chen Xiangming is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of Global Urban Studies and Sociology at Trinity College in Connecticut, US. Chen is a comparative scholar of cities and their dwellers in all their local attributes and conditions and their global dimensions and connections. In doing local research on the relationship between the Belt and Road Initiative and cities, he has travelled through such ancient Silk Road cities as Xi’an, Dunhuang, Kashgar, Horgos, Tashkent, Kokand, Samarkand, and Bukhara, from east to west.

A China Railway Express train travelling from the Qingdao China-SCO Countries Cooperation Hub to Uzbekistan, 12 May 2023. (CNS)

Back to the future: Trade routes from the Silk Road(s) to the BRI corridors

Chinese President Xi Jinping convening an in-person summit with Central Asian country leaders in Xi'an, Shaanxi province this week is a timely reminder that trade continues to bind regions of the world, as new Silk Roads form out of the merging and melding of ancient and new routes in China’s BRI. US academic Chen Xiangming examines the issue.