Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

A careful review of the global history of trade, commerce, and maritime activities reveals interesting facets of history across the twenty-first century. There are opportunities to transcend approaches based solely on local or national comparisons and move towards models that emphasize transnational connections or a comparative analysis on a transnational basis. The first instances of such an argument was brought forward by Kenneth Pomeranz in his celebrated book “ The Great Divergence, China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy” where he advanced the reason for China and northwestern Europe taking divergent economic paths. Central to his arguments are domestic coal and overseas colonies. This paper attempts to answer questions about challenges of the twenty-first century around the rise of Asian economic power, particularly China and India, considering Asian historical experiences such as inland trade through the “Silk Road” coined in 1877 by the German geologist Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, the most enduring commercial network in global history. The second section reviews the maritime activities of China and India in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf dating back to the early fifteenth century to the end of colonialism that eventually marked the emergence of India and China from emerging economies towards the end of cold war.