Visualising the ‘Belt and road initiative’: China’s transport future reflected through its history

Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative frames China’s engagement with the world through trade and diplomacy. Hailed as a twenty-first century Silk Road, the initiative connects China to its trading partners across land and sea. Though it also serves as an engagement with the world at large, including ordinary citizens, among whom the readers of the anglophone China Daily. On the 5th of December 2019, this newspaper printed one of many “Public Interest Ads” promoting its logistical connection to the world as a driver of “Peace and Cooperation”. This article analyses the visual depiction of two mirrored ships on the advertisement. First, by reflecting on the tension between past and present depicted through an analysis of the image as an independent cultural item. Second, by contextualising the image and its meaning in the broader, considering political and ecocritical aspects of this image. In doing so, the article sheds light on the Barthesian mythology that underpins the visual connection between past and present – with an eye on the future.