The Power of the Silk Road Metaphor

This summit appears to have been infused with a lot of the old Silk Road mythology, it's taking place in Xi'an at the end of the ancient Silk Road. She sort of analogized many of the contemporary linkages between China and various Central Asian states. Is that just kind of dressing here or is there a deeper kind of significance to what this tells us about China's strategic goal? On one hand it is dressing, it is a flowery depiction of the history which is a lot more complicated.