History of Sinology/Chapter 20
Chapter 20: Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia — Sinology on the Silk Road and Beyond
Introduction
The study of China has deep roots along the overland and maritime routes that once connected the Middle Kingdom with the Islamic world and the wider Indian Ocean basin. From the Ottoman Empire’s earliest diplomatic curiosity about “Cathay” to the explosion of Chinese language education triggered by twenty-first-century infrastructure projects, the countries examined in this chapter — Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia — represent diverse traditions of engagement with Chinese civilisation. What unites them is geography: each sits astride or adjacent to the historic corridors of Silk Road exchange, and each has experienced, in the modern period, a dramatic expansion of China-related studies driven by economic imperatives and geopolitical realignment. This chapter surveys these four national traditions, drawing on original contributions by scholars from each country as well as supplementary research.[1]
I. Turkey: From the Khatainame to Modern Sinology
1.1 The Ottoman Encounter with China
Turkish sinology can claim one of the oldest genealogies in Europe. In 1516, a manuscript entitled Khatainame (“Book of Cathay”) was composed and presented to Ottoman Sultan Selim I, offering a description of China based on travellers’ reports. This text may well be the oldest known China-related book produced on the European continent, predating the Portuguese travelogue literature by several decades. Even earlier, the Islamic world had accumulated considerable knowledge of China through the travels of Ibn Battuta (1345–1346) and the diplomatic contacts of the Timurid Empire (1370–1507), whose ambassador Ghiyath al-Din Naqqash left an account of his journey to the Ming court.[2]
The Ottoman intellectual engagement with China, however, remained occasional and unsystematic. The Ottomans’ primary geopolitical orientation was toward the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the Arab lands, and China lay beyond their practical horizon. Nevertheless, Ottoman libraries preserved Arabic and Persian texts on China, and the concept of Hıtay (Cathay) retained a presence in Turkish geographical and literary imagination.
1.2 The Founding of Academic Sinology (1935)
The formal institutionalisation of sinology in Turkey came in 1935, by direct order of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic. Two German scholars — Annemarie von Gabain (a specialist in Old Turkic and Central Asian linguistics) and Wolfram Eberhard (a sinologist and folklorist) — were invited to Ankara University to establish the Department of Sinology within the Faculty of Languages, History, and Geography (Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakultesi). This department, which remains active today, offers a four-year undergraduate programme covering Modern Chinese, Classical Chinese, Chinese history, literature, philosophy, and culture. Students may proceed to master’s and doctoral programmes under the university’s Institute of Social Sciences. The department maintains a scientific cooperation protocol with the People’s Republic of China, enabling five to ten students to study in China on scholarships annually.[3]
Until the 1990s, Ankara University’s Sinology Department was the sole institution of its kind in Turkey. Since then, Sinology departments have been established at Istanbul University and Erciyes University in Kayseri, and a Department of Chinese Translation and Interpretation has been created at Okan University, a private institution in Istanbul. Several other universities offer Chinese language courses or broader Asian studies programmes in which Chinese studies feature prominently, including Bogazici University and the Middle East Technical University (METU), which offers a master’s programme in Asian Studies.[4]
1.3 Turkish Sinology: Themes and Achievements
Turkish sinological scholarship has been shaped by two distinctive intellectual traditions. The first is Central Asian and Turkic studies, which has natural affinities with Chinese frontier history. Turkish scholars have made significant contributions to the study of Old Turkic inscriptions (e.g., the Orkhon inscriptions), the history of the Uyghurs, and the broader interactions between Turkic and Chinese civilisations. The second is the tradition of Islamic area studies, within which China’s Muslim communities and the history of Sino-Islamic cultural exchange have received increasing attention.
Contemporary Turkish sinology has expanded beyond these traditional areas to encompass modern Chinese politics, economics, and international relations, reflecting Turkey’s growing economic and diplomatic engagement with China. The Belt and Road Initiative, in particular, has stimulated interest in Chinese studies across Turkish universities and think tanks.[5]
II. Afghanistan: Ancient Routes, Modern Beginnings
2.1 Historical Connections
Afghanistan’s relationship with China is deeply rooted in the geography of the Silk Road. As the contribution of Hussain Aryan emphasises, Afghanistan’s location at the crossroads of Central and South Asia made it a crucial node in the overland trade and cultural exchanges between China and the West from antiquity. During the Han and Tang dynasties, Chinese and Afghan (or more precisely, the peoples of the territories now comprising Afghanistan) civilisations interacted through commerce, diplomacy, and the transmission of Buddhism. The Chinese monk Xuanzang (玄奘), whose seventh-century Da Tang Xiyu Ji (大唐西域记) remains one of the most important sources for the history of Central Asia, passed through what is now Afghanistan on his pilgrimage to India, recording detailed observations of its Buddhist monasteries and kingdoms. The monk Faxian (法显) had traversed similar routes two centuries earlier.[6]
The Kushan Empire, centred in northern Afghanistan and adjacent territories, maintained close ties with Han dynasty China and played a central role in the transmission of Buddhism across Central Asia. King Kanishka, the most celebrated Kushan ruler, was a patron of Buddhism and facilitated exchanges that would have lasting consequences for Chinese religious and intellectual history.[7]
2.2 Modern Chinese Studies in Afghanistan
Modern sinology in Afghanistan is a recent and still fragile development. The contribution of Aryan identifies several scholars who have studied in China and returned to contribute to the field, including Ahmad Ali Kohzad (a historian who studied Chinese history and culture in China and published on Sino-Afghan historical exchanges), Aslam Alamzai (a scholar of Chinese philosophy and literature), and Anis Behzad (who studied at multiple Chinese universities).[8]
Chinese language education in Afghanistan has been disrupted repeatedly by decades of conflict. The establishment of a Confucius Institute was planned but complicated by political instability. Despite these challenges, the demand for Chinese language skills has grown, driven by China’s economic engagement in the region and the strategic significance of Afghanistan for the Belt and Road Initiative. Several Afghan schools and universities have introduced Chinese language courses, and Chinese government scholarships have enabled Afghan students to study in China, where some have pursued advanced degrees in Chinese studies.[9]
2.3 Future Prospects
The future of Afghan sinology depends critically on the country’s political stability. The tradition of Silk Road exchange provides a compelling historical foundation, and the economic incentives for Chinese language competence are strong. However, the institutional infrastructure for sustained scholarly work remains underdeveloped, and the current political situation presents formidable obstacles.[10]
III. Pakistan: From Cultural Pact to CPEC
3.1 Origins of Chinese Language Education
The history of Chinese studies in Pakistan dates to 1 September 1970, when a Chinese Department was established at the National University of Modern Languages (NUML) in Islamabad through a cultural agreement between the State Education Commission of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of Pakistan. The department’s first Pakistani teachers graduated from Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) in 1972–1973. Their initial tasks included not only teaching Chinese to Pakistani students but also translating official documents and serving as interpreters — reflecting the intensely practical orientation of the programme in its early years.[11]
The department developed slowly at first, offering certificate and diploma courses at various levels. After the 1980s, enrolment grew more rapidly, and the curriculum expanded to include BS programmes in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language and in Translation. An area studies department was added to provide broader instruction on Chinese history, culture, and society. By the 2020s, NUML alone had over 2,000 students studying Chinese, and approximately thirty teachers (both Pakistani and Chinese) were employed in its Chinese department.[12]
3.2 Scholarly Publications
The NUML Chinese Department has produced a modest but growing body of scholarly and pedagogical work. Publications include comparative studies of Chinese and Urdu phonetics, measure words, and prepositions; textbooks on business Chinese and area studies (21st Century China); and Urdu translations of Chinese cultural works, including the Chinese Cultural Knowledge Dictionary (in progress) and Traditional Residential Construction Techniques of Dongyang. The department has also translated selections from Liaozhai Zhiyi into Urdu.[13]
3.3 The CPEC Effect
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), launched in 2013, has reshaped Chinese language education in Pakistan. By 2023, the CPEC Consortium of Universities had expanded from its initial 18 founding members to a network of over 110 universities. Five Confucius Institutes have been established — at NUML, the University of Punjab, the Agricultural University Faisalabad, Karachi University, and Sargodha University — and ninety-four institutions across Pakistan now offer Chinese language courses at various levels. The BS Area Study China programme, introduced at the NUML Confucius Institute in 2018, covers Chinese language, arts, and culture.[14]
The number of Chinese-speaking Pakistanis has grown dramatically, though estimates of demand suggest that Pakistan still requires approximately 100,000 Chinese-speaking professionals. Nearly 20,000 Pakistani graduates have completed studies in Chinese institutions, and approximately 25,000 Pakistani students were studying in China by the mid-2020s. Intermarriage between Pakistani and Chinese nationals has also increased, creating new social and cultural linkages.[15]
3.4 Challenges
Despite this quantitative expansion, Chinese studies in Pakistan face several challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted Chinese language learning from 2020, and enrolment numbers declined after 2019. The quality of instruction varies widely across institutions. The field remains heavily weighted toward language training and practical skills (translation, interpretation, business communication) rather than the kind of deep scholarly engagement with Chinese history, philosophy, and literature that characterises mature sinological traditions. Building a cadre of Pakistani scholars capable of conducting original research on China — as opposed to training translators and interpreters — remains a long-term aspiration.[16]
IV. Indonesia: The World’s Largest Chinese Diaspora and the Paradox of Sinology
4.1 Historical Background
Indonesia’s relationship with China is ancient, complex, and fraught with political tension. Chinese settlement in the Indonesian archipelago dates to the early centuries of the Common Era. The travel accounts of the Buddhist monks Faxian (fifth century) and Yijing (seventh century), who stopped in the Srivijaya kingdom en route to or from India, provide the earliest written records of Chinese contact with the region. By the sixteenth century, when Europeans arrived, substantial Chinese communities (Chinatowns) were visible in the ports of Java — Banten, Batavia (Jakarta), Cirebon, Semarang, Surabaya — and across the northern coasts of the archipelago.[17]
As Chandra Setiawan of President University has documented, the study of China in Indonesia began in the final decade of the colonial era, when political developments in China — particularly the emergence of Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen — stimulated interest among ethnic Chinese in the Dutch East Indies. An association called the Soe Po Sia (Shubaoshe 书报社) was founded in Batavia as a discussion forum for Chinese-descended youth. The colonial government itself established the Kantoor voor Chineesche Zaken (Office of Chinese Affairs) to advise on Chinese community management.[18]
4.2 The Sinological Institute and Professor Tjan Tjoe Som
Academic sinology in Indonesia dates to 1947, when two Dutch legal scholars, Professor Van der Valk and Dr. Meyer, founded the Sinologische Instituut (Sinological Institute) at the University of Indonesia with the assistance of Dr. R. P. Kramers. The first generation of Indonesian sinologists produced by this institution were predominantly of Chinese descent: Sie Ing Djiang, Li Chuan Siu, Tan Lan Hiang, and Tan Ngo An.[19]
The Institute’s prestige was immensely enhanced by the arrival of Professor Tjan Tjoe Som (曾祖森, 1903–1969), a sinologist of global stature who had studied at the University of Leiden under J. J. L. Duyvendak. Tjan’s magnum opus, a monumental commentary on the Po Hu Tung (白虎通), published by Brill in Leiden in two volumes (1949, 1952), remains a standard reference in international sinology. He also produced a translation of the Daodejing into Indonesian (1962). After choosing to return to Indonesia rather than accept a professorship in the Netherlands, Tjan headed the Sinological Institute from 1953 to 1958 and trained the next generation of Indonesian sinologists, including Professor Gondomono, Dr. Ignatius Wibowo, and the senior journalist René Pattiradjawane.[20]
The political catastrophe of 1965 ended Tjan’s career. Suspected of association with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) through his membership in the HSI (Indonesian Graduate Association), Tjan was dismissed from the University of Indonesia in November 1965. He died in Bandung in 1969, a victim of the anti-communist purges. The man whom history records as the “Father of Indonesian Sinology” spent his last years in obscurity.[21]
4.3 The Dark Ages: The New Order (1966–1998)
The Suharto regime’s New Order imposed severe restrictions on Chinese cultural expression in Indonesia. Chinese-language schools were closed or nationalised, the use of Chinese characters and the celebration of Chinese festivals were banned, and the ethnic Chinese community was subjected to systematic discrimination through citizenship regulations, economic restrictions, and cultural suppression. Academic sinology was effectively frozen. The Chinese Studies Programme at the University of Indonesia survived, but under close government surveillance and with a purely “traditional” orientation focused on Chinese language, literature, and classical history.[22]
4.4 The Reformation Era and Revival
The fall of Suharto in 1998 and the subsequent democratisation of Indonesian politics transformed the environment for Chinese studies. President Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) revoked the discriminatory regulations, restored the cultural rights of ethnic Chinese, and made China the first country he visited officially — recognising its potential for Indonesian economic recovery. The strategic partnership agreement signed in 2005 under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and the continued deepening of relations under President Joko Widodo, have created a favourable context for the expansion of Chinese studies.[23]
The first Confucius Institute in Indonesia was established in 2007 at the Jakarta Chinese Language Teaching Centre (BTIP). Subsequently, additional Confucius Institutes were founded at Al-Azhar University Indonesia, Maranatha Christian University in Bandung, and Tanjungpura University in Pontianak, among others. Many universities now offer Chinese language programmes, though, as Professor A. Dahana of the University of Indonesia has warned, there is a tendency to equate Chinese studies with Mandarin language instruction, neglecting the broader sinological disciplines of history, politics, economics, and social analysis.[24]
4.5 The Indonesian Sinology Forum
In response to this concern, the Indonesian Sinology Forum (Forum Sinologi Indonesia, FSI) was established by Professor Dahana and others to promote the study of China as an academic discipline encompassing history, society, politics, economics, and international relations. Johanes Herlijanto, the Forum’s chairman, has emphasised the importance of objective and critical understanding of China, calling for both Chinese and non-Chinese Indonesians to develop an interest in sinology.[25]
The late Dr. Ignatius Wibowo, a political scientist who earned his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London and was proficient in Mandarin, exemplified the kind of multidisciplinary sinologist that Indonesia needs. The Centre for Chinese Studies (CCS) that he led, established in 1999 under the Chinese Studies Centre Foundation, represented an effort to move beyond traditional sinology toward contemporary China studies. The challenge, as a British diplomat reportedly told Setiawan, remains acute: “It is hard to believe that in a country as important as Indonesia, with its ambitions in the region and China right at its front door, there are so few Chinese experts.”[26]
V. Conclusion: The Silk Road Reimagined
The four countries surveyed in this chapter share a common challenge: the need to transform rapidly expanding Chinese language education into genuine scholarly depth. In Turkey, the institutional foundations laid by Ataturk in 1935 have been supplemented by the growth of new departments and the stimulus of Belt and Road engagement. In Afghanistan, the ancient Silk Road heritage provides inspiration, but political instability remains a formidable barrier. In Pakistan, the CPEC has generated an unprecedented surge in Chinese language learning, though the transition from language training to scholarly sinology remains incomplete. In Indonesia, the world’s largest Chinese diaspora coexists with a still-underdeveloped tradition of academic China studies, and the legacy of decades of anti-Chinese repression continues to shape the field.
What unites these diverse traditions is the recognition — rooted in centuries of Silk Road exchange — that understanding China is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. The challenge for the coming decades will be to build institutional capacity, train scholars capable of original research, and develop the kind of deep engagement with Chinese civilisation that the best sinological traditions have always demanded.
Bibliography
Aryan, Hussain. “History of Afghan Sinologists” [阿富汗汉语学家历史]. Unpublished manuscript.
Dahana, A. “Sinology in Indonesia: History, Development, and Challenges in the Present.” FSI Webinar, 2023.
Department of Sinology, Ankara University. https://www.dtcf.ankara.edu.tr/en/department-of-sinology/.
NUML Chinese Department. “Chinese Language History in Pakistan.” Unpublished manuscript.
Setiawan, Chandra. “The History of Sinology in Indonesia.” Unpublished manuscript, President University.
Zhang Xiping 张西平. Xifang Hanxue Shiliu Jiang 西方汉学十六讲. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2011.
References
- ↑ David B. Honey, Incense at the Altar: Pioneering Sinologists and the Development of Classical Chinese Philology (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2001), preface, xxii.
- ↑ Honey, Incense at the Altar, preface, x.
- ↑ Zhang Xiping, lecture 1, “Introduction to Western Sinology Studies,” pp. 165–168.
- ↑ Peter K. Bol, “The China Historical GIS,” Journal of Chinese History 4, no. 2 (2020).
- ↑ Hilde De Weerdt, “MARKUS: Text Analysis and Reading Platform,” in Journal of Chinese History 4, no. 2 (2020); see also the Digital Humanities guide at University of Chicago Library.
- ↑ Tu Hsiu-chih, “DocuSky, A Personal Digital Humanities Platform for Scholars,” Journal of Chinese History 4, no. 2 (2020).
- ↑ Peter K. Bol and Wen-chin Chang, “The China Biographical Database,” in Digital Humanities and East Asian Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2020).
- ↑ See Chapter 22 (Translation) of this volume on AI translation challenges.
- ↑ “WenyanGPT: A Large Language Model for Classical Chinese Tasks,” arXiv preprint (2025).
- ↑ “Benchmarking LLMs for Translating Classical Chinese Poetry: Evaluating Adequacy, Fluency, and Elegance,” Proceedings of EMNLP (2025).
- ↑ “A Multi Agent Classical Chinese Translation Method Based on Large Language Models,” Scientific Reports 15 (2025).
- ↑ See, e.g., Mark Edward Lewis and Curie Viragh, “Computational Stylistics and Chinese Literature,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 9, no. 1 (2022).
- ↑ Hilde De Weerdt, Information, Territory, and Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015).
- ↑ China-Princeton Digital Humanities Workshop 2025 (chinesedh2025.eas.princeton.edu).
- ↑ Zhang Xiping, lecture 1, pp. 54–60.
- ↑ Zhang Xiping, lecture 1, pp. 96–97, citing Li Xueqin.
- ↑ Zhang Xiping, lecture 1, pp. 102–113.
- ↑ Zhang Xiping, lecture 1, pp. 114–117.
- ↑ “The World Conference on China Studies: CCP’s Global Academic Rebranding Campaign,” Bitter Winter (2024).
- ↑ Honey, Incense at the Altar, preface, xxii.
- ↑ “Academic Freedom and China,” AAUP report (2024); Sinology vs. the Disciplines, Then & Now, China Heritage (2019).
- ↑ “They Don’t Understand the Fear We Have: How China’s Long Reach of Repression Undermines Academic Freedom at Australia’s Universities,” Human Rights Watch (2021).
- ↑ Kubin, Hanxue yanjiu xin shiye, ch. 7, pp. 100–111.
- ↑ Thomas Michael, “Heidegger’s Legacy for Comparative Philosophy and the Laozi,” International Journal of China Studies 11, no. 2 (2020): 299.
- ↑ Steven Burik, The End of Comparative Philosophy and the Task of Comparative Thinking: Heidegger, Derrida, and Daoism (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009).
- ↑ David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987), preface.