On March 21, 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Italy. His Boeing 747-400 airplane was a large as a small country and when I saw the images of this immense airplane that Xi Jinping came off I immediately thought of the saying: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”. Xi Jinping didn’t bring gifts but commerce… so I feared him even more.
The Silk Road was the first important step to establish a regular line of communication between the East and West and, over more than 2000 years, it has influenced the course of history from a cultural, religious and technological point of view. In the modern world, where power is in the hands of just a few people who have no scruples about exploiting and sacrificing their own populations, what will this New Silk Road really bring? Will it bring slavery from and for consumerism or knowledge of it? Will more consumerism bring more wealth or will we get even poorer with the needs of the poor always coming in last? Can it really be wealth if we don’t know the true cost to humanity of yet another product being produced?
