Taomo Zhou (Nanyang Technological University (NTU)

This talk tells a backstory of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by tracing the voyages of three Chinese ships managed by the China Ocean Shipping Bureau—both as mobile vessels at sea and as permanent presence on land. People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships functioned as a distinctive type of state space in international waters, remotely serving but temporarily disconnected from the PRC state. When mobile at the sea, these ships functioned as vessels not only for passengers and commodities but also for the Maoist ideology; upon their arrivals in foreign ports, the ships became floating venues for public diplomacy. The retirement of Minghua—a cruiser turned one-stop entertainment centre in Shenzhen—coincided with the beginning of China’s Reform and Opening. Having become part of the city landscape, the ship was turned into a dynamic experiment field for the market economy and a medium through which ideas travel and identities shift.