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The Silk Road to Modern Migration: How Economics Forces Shape Us

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

A recent article from Brooklyn Paper reports that Brooklyn leaders are protesting the Trump administration’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Venezuelan and Haitian migrants. The piece highlights that nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country since 2013, driven by a severe humanitarian crisis marked by food and medicine shortages.

The U.S. should not only welcome these migrants but also recognize its role in creating Venezuela’s crisis. Decades of economic sanctions have exacerbated the country's instability. As a major trading partner, particularly in the oil sector, the U.S. played a critical role in Venezuela’s economy. But U.S. sanctions started under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, whose policies sought more independence from U.S. influence. The U.S. crippling sanctions isolated Venezuela and deepening the humanitarian catastrophe.

A similar pattern has unfolded in Africa. Muammar Gaddafi repeatedly warned in 2010 and 2011 that his removal would turn Libya into a gateway for African migration to Europe. His warning became reality after NATO-backed forces toppled his regime. Libya descended into chaos, becoming a hub for human trafficking and a major transit point for migrants crossing the Mediterranean into Europe.

Whether in Latin America or Africa, Western intervention often ignores long-term consequences. Now, both the U.S. and Europe are facing the fallout of their own actions—millions of displaced people fleeing the instability that foreign policies helped create.

Shifting to today's topic, I will continue my discussion on the Silk Road. In a previous post, I mentioned Jeong Su-il, the former spy-turned-scholar who published The Silk Road Encyclopedia in 2016 at the age of 82. Though a self-claimed staunch Korean nationalist, ironically Jeong dedicated his life to studying the Silk Road—an area seemingly unrelated to Korean culture and history.

The Silk Road officially emerged during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE), with its origins commonly traced to Zhang Qian's diplomatic missions in 138 BCE. However, informal trade routes linking China to the West likely predated this period.

Some, like historian Peter Frankopan, argue that the Silk Road’s origins go back to the Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE, when trade routes stretched from Mesopotamia to the Himalayas. But the key issue with this claim is that while trade existed, there was no silk involved—meaning it cannot truly be called the "Silk Road" without silk.

From today's migration flow of the poor to the rich land to the ancient trade routes, history repeatedly demonstrates how economic forces shape human movement—sometimes in ways that leaders fail to anticipate.

Links:

"Brooklyn leaders protest Trump administration’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan, Haitian migrants."  https://www.brooklynpaper.com/bk-protest-trump-remove-temporary-protected-status/

"A life stranger than fiction"  https://www.koreaherald.com/article/26907

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