The great transformation that opened the way for China’s ambitious development efforts in every field came in 1949 and after… The political revolution that took place in 1949 was a revolution that laid the foundations of 2020 and beyond. It swiftly put a comprehensive cultural revolution into practice, yet between 1950 and 1978 it managed to keep its socialist teachings at the centre of life. It also began to advance its development drives, which gave priority to heavy industry, under the leadership of the central planning office.
Entering yet another new era with its admission to the World Trade Organization in 2001, China now found all the roads leading to foreign trade open as well. With no obstacles left, it was now inevitable that China would reach its goal of becoming the country that exports the most in the world. The most severe of the never-ending global crises had introduced itself in 2008 under its ‘Global Financial’ identity.
For the new generations, the solution to the sustainability problem of 2010 was the Chinese legacy that had been developed. This legacy is a full “Two-Century Project” that will flatten the world… A project as green as green can be, like silk, the symbol of the new generation’s road: Panax Sinica!
The Belt and Road Project is the story of a road aimed at developing trade partnerships and at forming alternative partnerships. The target for the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China is a “New World Order”. Whether they will conceive the theme of the 2049 celebrations on the stage of Pax Romana, we cannot know. It is the story of the road of the New Five Emperors, who share the same goals in a unity of destiny, on their way to the New Flat World…
In the glorious periods of the Roman Empire, Pax Romana (the Roman peace) was the name of a secure space, free of violence, that was grasped through “law”. Where Pax Romana ended, the lawless lands of terra incognitae (unknown lands) began. The basic characteristic of this second space was that it consisted of unstable lands where there was no personal freedom or security and where violence roamed as far as it could…
Pax Romana is a Latin term meaning ‘Roman Peace’. It was a period in which the Roman Empire lived in peace and in the expansion of Roman military power. The crisis began before the third century, and immediately after the end of the Final War of the Roman Republic the population had reached 70 million. And these were the times when the land mass of the Roman Empire reached its peak. Since Augustus was the founder of the empire, it is also known by the name Pax Augustus. This empire lived for 206 years, from 27 BC to AD 180. It was the time from the period when Augustus became emperor until Emperor Marcus Aurelius died.
The Roman people regarded Pax Romana as a miracle, because before it peace was not common in the Roman Empire. The author Arthur M. Eckstein notes that Pax Romana was a period different from the warfare frequently experienced in the Roman Republic between the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Eckstein, for those who know how to read him, has told of the possibility of this story being written again in the world of 2049. “The beginning of Pax Romana occurred in the Republican period, and its time span differed according to the geography of the region. Eckstein’s book states that Pax Romana in the Mediterranean ran from 31 BC to AD 250. In fact, however, the famous Pax Romana began much earlier in the wider region of the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean regions where Pax Romana began are the Italian Peninsula after 200 BC, the Po Valley after 190 BC, Sicily after 210 BC and, among others, the Iberian Peninsula.”
The Roman peace begins when Augustus defeats Cleopatra and Mark Antony. This takes place during the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC, and Augustus becomes Roman emperor. Because the precedents for a successful one-man rule were not good, Augustus sets up a junta. The junta was made up of the military arms, with Augustus standing as the front man. By uniting the allies in a coalition, he removes the possibility of civil war.
Despite the end of the civil war, the goal of Pax Romana did not come about at once, because the regions of the Alps and Hispania went on fighting. These had Augustus close a peace ceremony in Rome in 29 and in 25 BC. In 17 BC the concept of peace was proclaimed, and in 13 BC, when Agrippa and Augustus returned after uniting the two provinces, peace was officially declared. After the declaration of peace, Emperor Augustus ordered the building of the Ara Pacis.
Yet Augustus went through hard times in getting peace accepted in the Roman Empire. The Romans saw peace not as the end of war but as a state in which enemies had been beaten and had lost their capacity to resist. Emperor Augustus, however, managed to rule through propaganda. After the death of Augustus in AD 14, other emperors reigned. The last Roman emperors take the name of the “five good emperors”.
THE EMPIRE’S FIVE ON A ROAD LIKE SILK “One Trade, One Peace Road Project”
The Roman peace causes Roman trade in the Mediterranean region to increase. This commercial success leads the Romans to buy onyx, silk, spices and precious stones. The power of the sails of the new world, now opening out to a global movement, had set out for the East. This freedom adds strength to the strength of the Romans, who made great gains in trade. This situation also causes workers’ wages to rise, owing to the trade of the new world’s global movement in the Mediterranean.
Besides the famous Pax Romana, it also gives other regions the opportunity to come to know peace through a regime. Pax Ottomana, Pax Americana, Pax Europaea, Pax Britannica and Pax Mongolica also succeed in taking their place in the lines of history that deserve to be rewritten. The concept of peace is generally Pax Imperia, pointing to imperial peace. The French sociologist Raymond Aron says: “Imperial peace can be achieved through hegemony, but it is always won by way of civil peace.”
Since trade was confined to the Mediterranean until the end of the Middle Ages, the states that controlled the Mediterranean made the other states accept their power as well; the Roman Empire’s proclaiming the Mediterranean “Nostra Mare” (Our Sea) and its being known as the “Turkish Lake” of the Ottoman Empire are in a sense ways of expressing world dominion. With the end of the Middle Ages the centre of the world shifted from the Mediterranean to the oceans, and the Portuguese, the Spanish, even the Dutch and, last of all, the English, as the countries supreme on the seas, came to dominate world trade. This is exactly the time to remember the statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson in Trafalgar Square, together with the reasons for the meaning the English have attached to that statue!
Keywords: China Rome World Order
Translated from the Turkish original.