Giving shared history a future

China and Central Asian countries are building a regional network to safeguard their common Silk Road legacy, report Ma Jingna and Hu Yumeng in Lanzhou.

For centuries, Dunhuang, Gansu province, stood at the crossroads of the ancient Silk Road, connecting East and West through trade, travel and the exchange of ideas. That legacy lives on in the grottoes, ancient cities and other heritage sites scattered along the route. Today, it is also driving a new chapter of cross-border cooperation in heritage conservation.

The effort took center stage at the 2026 China-Central Asia Seminar on Silk Road Cultural Heritage Conservation, held in Dunhuang in late September. More than 70 experts and scholars from China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan gathered to discuss a shared challenge: how to exchange conservation expertise across borders while adapting methods to different environments, materials and local needs.

For China and Kyrgyzstan, this cooperation is taking shape through a joint laboratory that brings together research, conservation practice and professional training.

"The joint laboratory is increasingly becoming an important platform for cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and China," said Aisin Duishanalieva, director of the Republican Inspectorate for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments under the Ministry of Culture, Information and Youth Policy of the Kyrgyz Republic.

She said the partnership could expand to include joint heritage monitoring, digital archives, archaeological research, documentation technologies, and professional training.

Approved by China's Ministry of Science and Technology in September 2025, the China-Kyrgyzstan Belt and Road Joint Laboratory for Cultural Heritage Conservation builds on nearly a decade of cooperation between the two sides, including joint surveys, research projects and academic exchanges since 2017.

The laboratory marks a shift from individual projects and occasional exchanges to a more systematic framework for studying, conserving, and presenting Silk Road heritage.