The South China Sea Rim is a core area of the Maritime Silk Road, ranging from
South and Southwest China to Southeast Asia. It has developed a cultural landscape
in which all parties are interdependent through very complex processes of ethnic
communication and social interaction. In this temporal-spatial process, the cultural
exchanges occurring in this area are not only shaping the cultural ecologies of those
involved but also integrating their societies. The networked inter/inter-regional social
systems lay a methodological foundation on which the South China Sea Rim is dealt
with as a whole. These social systems can be defined as a social unit, transcending
the lower levels of family, community, ethnic group, nation and transnational region
and making up a significant component of the global society. This concept presents
a new research pathway to the interpretation of “community of a shared future for
mankind” and the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

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• Intra-regional social systems: cases of the Maritime Silk Road around the South China Sea Rim