The Silk Road (1980-1981)

Stars: Lars Svedberg, Kôji Ishizaka, Graham Webster

In September 1972, an NHK director covered Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei's visit to Beijing, China. During the visit, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai invited journalists and reporters for their support in introducing China to the rest of the world, which signalled the thaw of post-war Sino-Japanese relation. The director proposed Silk Road could be the subject of a TV program to illustrate cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world. The executives of NHK supported this idea, but by mid-1970s the camera crew for another program had not been able to enter the Silk Road region. A breakthrough came after various negotiations by the end of October 1978, with Deputy-Premier Deng Xiaoping's visit to Japan. On New Year's Eve 1978, permission was granted and a joint project with China Central Television (CCTV) was born.

It was the first time a foreign television crew was granted entry into the Silk Road region within Chinese territory, who captured the country at the beginning of the economic reform. The historic documentary also reflected international tension in the Central and Western Asia regions at the time, as it was produced in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet–Afghan War and during the Iran–Iraq War.

Since the program was first broadcast in the 1980s, several archaeological sites visited in the program have since been destroyed by natural disasters or by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.