Although the Silk Road was developed through the efforts of all the countries along the way, many historians believe that the two visits of Zhang Qian to the West actually started a new era in communication between China and the rest of the world. After

Zhang's expedition, royalty, envoys, merchants and even ordinary citizens from all the countries along the route used it frequently, giving rise to the major route that connected central China, the Western Regions, Arabia and the entire Persian Gulf.

In a broader sense, after the development of several centuries, the Silk Road extended to Korea and Japan eastward and to Italy and Egypt westward, becoming a bridge of the political, economic and cultural exchanges between East and West. Today, the Silk Road has almost become another name for the cultural exchanges between East and West.

People may think the Silk Road is a continuous trade route, but actually very few travelers have traveled the route completely. Normally goods were transported by a series of agents on different routes, and businesses took place in the bustling mercantile markets of the oasis towns along the way.

The trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of China, India, Egypt, Persia (now Iran, Arabia and Rome), and helped to lay the foundations for the modern world in several respects. But in the late Middle Ages, the use of the Silk Road gradually declined as the sea trade increased.

Cultural exchanges

Among the important impacts of the Silk Road was the influence on the cultural exchanges and mergence between China and the West.

Zhang Guogang, a professor of the Department of History of Tsinghua University, said in one of his recent articles focusing on the role of the Silk Road in facilitating the cultural exchanges between East and West that many important products or inventions of China, such as silk, porcelain, tea, paper-making skills, printing, compass and gunpowder, were spread to the West through the Silk Road in ancient times.

Professor Zhang also said in the article that the cultural exchanges between China and the West started earlier than the mission of Zhang Qian, or Zhang would not have found Chinese products in areas of Afghanistan during his explorations. But after the official connection between China and the West, China made great efforts to maintain this economic and cultural artery. In the Han Dynasty, the court would send several large visiting groups to the Western Regions. The envoys would bring a large quantity of silk, satin or other products to the Western countries and bring back various precious and rare materials and products, during the zenith of the East-West economic and cultural exchanges.

In China, archeologists have found many silk and porcelain products with designs of different cultures, which shows that in the past many silk or porcelain products were made in China to meet the demand of foreign buyers. Some products bore Buddhist designs, which are believed to have been specially produced for buyers in countries where Buddhism was dominant. Zhang added that few of these silk products were made in the Xinjiang area but most were produced in the hinterland of China, especially the area of today's Sichuan Province, where the textile industry was very developed at that time.

Porcelain products were another kind of important export of China in the middle and late period of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang said. During this period, Chinese porcelain craftsmen already knew how to expand the sale of their products by borrowing Western designs. For example, many China-made porcelain products in the Tang and Song (960-1279) dynasties were produced in shapes of the Western gold or silver wares. Although this kind of porcelain products were mainly for export, the exotic style has actually influenced the domestic art of China to some extent, Zhang said.