Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Informal exchanges and contending connectivity along the shadow silk roads
- 2 Fragmented sovereignty and unregulated flows: The Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor
- 3 In and out of the shadows: Pakistan-China trade across the Karakoram Mountains
- 4 Circulations in shadow corridors: Connectivity in the Northern Bay of Bengal
- 5 Past and present: Shadows of the China-Ladakh-Pakistan routes
- 6 Formal versus informal practices: Trade of medicinal and aromatic plants via Trans- Himalayan Silk Road
- 7 Formal versus informal Chinese presence: The underbelly of hope in the Western Balkans
- 8 State approaches to non-state interactions: Cross-border flows in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan
- 9 Integration in post-Soviet Central Asia: Shadow-economy practices and the cross-Eurasian flow of commodities
- 10 In the shadow of constructed borderlands: China’s One Belt One Road and European economic governance
- 11 High-end globalization and low-end globalization: African traders across Afro-Asia
- Index
- Publications / Global Asia
5 - Past and present: Shadows of the China-Ladakh-Pakistan routes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: Informal exchanges and contending connectivity along the shadow silk roads
- 2 Fragmented sovereignty and unregulated flows: The Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor
- 3 In and out of the shadows: Pakistan-China trade across the Karakoram Mountains
- 4 Circulations in shadow corridors: Connectivity in the Northern Bay of Bengal
- 5 Past and present: Shadows of the China-Ladakh-Pakistan routes
- 6 Formal versus informal practices: Trade of medicinal and aromatic plants via Trans- Himalayan Silk Road
- 7 Formal versus informal Chinese presence: The underbelly of hope in the Western Balkans
- 8 State approaches to non-state interactions: Cross-border flows in Xinjiang and Kazakhstan
- 9 Integration in post-Soviet Central Asia: Shadow-economy practices and the cross-Eurasian flow of commodities
- 10 In the shadow of constructed borderlands: China’s One Belt One Road and European economic governance
- 11 High-end globalization and low-end globalization: African traders across Afro-Asia
- Index
- Publications / Global Asia
Summary
Abstract
The mountainous desertscape of Ladakh borders China and Pakistan. The political borders appear to be invisible to the pashmina goatherders of Changthang, the apricot farmers of Baltiyul, and the yak herders of Demchok, who wander, absent-mindedly, through this arid land. Often thought of as shadow trade routes, these circuits are a constant in the lives of the people and their relationship with nature. This paper outlines the prevalent interactions and emotions of the people, commodities, and processes that underpin the shadow nature and future prospects of this region. Running through history and security, governance without government, social relationships between state and non-state actors, the study highlights the relevance, or not, of formalizing these routes in view of current economic development dynamics.
Keywords: informal trade practices, cross-border trade, traditional exchange, Ladakh, shadow routes
Introduction
The Silk Road is a vast tradescape. It embodies historical, geographical, religious, and socio-cultural spaces and has long held sway over fact and fiction, reality and imagination. Even today it fascinates, challenges, and attracts the bold and adventurous from the spheres of economics and geopolitics. The term ‘globalization’ was coined in the early 20th century to capture the economic scenario of the modern world, but the old Silk Road tells the globalization story of a bygone era. The use of the present tense is purposeful, as it has not entirely shifted into the past in the minds of many people across its direct and indirect landscapes, which form a long chain of ‘trade segments’. In short, the Silk Road still exists, just in a different form. Fragmented, specialized by commodity and geography, variously governed or semi-administered, and decentralized, arguably it extends beyond today’s understanding of global trade and international business.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shadow Exchanges along the New Silk Roads , pp. 125 - 144Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020