Yuhui Zhang

Yuhui Zhang

August 31, 2025

China and Central Asia, Silk Road, Cultural exchange, Friendship.

This article takes the historical connection of the Silk Road as its logical starting point to explore the evolution of friendship between China and Central Asia. As a bridge for the exchange of civilisations, the Silk Road laid the foundation for a thousand years of mutual trust between the two sides. The concepts of peace, cooperation, openness, and inclusiveness it embodies trace their historical origins to the ‘Shanghai Spirit.’ The contemporary ‘Shanghai Spirit’ centres on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and consultation, driving deeper collaboration between China and Central Asia in security and economic fields. Cultural exchange, as an important vehicle for friendship, strengthens emotional bonds through people-to-people connectivity, injecting intrinsic momentum into the development of relations. From the ‘Shanghai Spirit’ to the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, the friendship between China and Central Asia has evolved from pragmatic cooperation to a shared value consensus. This not only continues the tradition of civilisational dialogue along the Silk Road but also provides a new model for inter-state relations in regional and global governance.

© 2025, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license