Peace Road History
A Global Peace Project involving 125 nations aimed at Promoting World Peace
From the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to Santiago de Chile.
From London to New York.
Realizing the Dream of One Global Family
The International Peace Highway was first proposed at the International conference on the Unity of Sciences in 1981
“Peace Road” is a global peace project aimed at actualizing the “International Peace Highway” originally proposed by Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon at the 10th International Conference on the unity of the Sciences on November 10, 1981 in Seoul, South Korea.
“This will be able to connect the world through a super highway, starting from Cape of Good Hope in South Africa to Santiago in Chile, and from London to New York, making the world a single community.”
- Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon (120 Nations Speaking Tour for World Peace, May to August, 2006)
“The vision is for a high-speed transportation artery linking the entire globe. On the day of its completion, much of our world will become one village linked by one road. The process of constructing the highway itself provides the world’s peoples and governments a common purpose. The transnational lines of commerce and recreation that open up will stimulate inter-ethnic exchange of culture and goods, and draw us to live in harmony as neighbors.”
- Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, Mother of Peace
Peace Road was created as an educational initiative to raise public awareness of the vision of the International Peace Highway and two of its key components: an undersea tunnel between Korea and Japan, and a Bering Strait tunnel to connect Alaska and Siberia. The focus of Peace Road 2021 is the tunnel that would connect the U.S. and Russia, running under the Bering Strait.
Physically linking these two nations by tunnel and road would be just the beginning of a profound alteration in how we perceive each other, encouraging a realization on both sides that we truly are neighbors.
Until today, there has never been a road or highway specifically conceived and built as a highway to world peace. The International Peace Highway epitomizes Father and Mother Moon’s conviction that humanity is one family under God and that if people could meet each other in daily life, through culture, trade, and travel, the historic fears and misunderstandings that often divide us from our closest neighbors would break down in the face of our increased mutual familiarity.
The History of Connectivity
Humankind’s desire to reach out to other peoples is one that goes back to ancient times.
Trade routes and infrastructure have been vital to the growth and stability of civilizations since the dawn of human history. Until roughly 9,000 BCE, a land bridge connected Siberia and Alaska, allowing humans to cross from Afro-Eurasia into the Americas. Around 114 BCE, the Han Dynasty of China expanded its Central Asian trade network, creating the “Silk Road,” which contributed to the economic and cultural interconnectedness of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania for millennia thereafter.
The Romans built a massive network of roads throughout their Empire, connecting Western Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, many of which are still in use today, after thousands of years.
President Dwight Eisenhower, a former general, concerned about the United States’ ability to mobilize in the face of military attack, advocated for the building of the interstate highway system, which was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.
In 1994, the Channel Tunnel or “Chunnel,” was completed, creating the first-ever fixed link between the island of Great Britain and continental Europe. In 2013, the People’s Republic of China launched the Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious global development involving infrastructure development and investments in 152 countries.
The vision of the Peace Road Initiative goes beyond the materialistic desire for the economic and political benefits of an international road, and champions the spiritual dimension, which aims to tear down the walls that have historically divided us – racism and cultural differences, prejudice and fear – and bring humankind together as one family under God.
Peace Road Initiative Timeline
The Peace Road Initiative seeks to bring humanity’s ages-old dream to fruition. Work has been going on since the plan was announced.
1981: UPF founders Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Rev. Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon suggested the construction of a highway between Korea and Japan, two former enemy nations, at an international science conference in Seoul.
2005: At the UPF Inauguration, the founders began advocating for the building of a “Peace Tunnel” across the Bering Strait, to connect North America and Asia. Rev. Sun Myung Moon made the following statement:
“This tunnel can help make the world a single community at last…Think of how much money the world is wasting on war. The time has come for nations to work together, pool their resources and, as the prophet Isaiah taught, beat our swords into plowshares and pruning hooks.”2008: The Foundation for Peace and Unification (FPU) was established, which sponsors an international thesis competition on the topic, “The Significance of the Bering Strait Project and the Korea-Japan Tunnel Project from a Providential Viewpoint and Ways to Pursue These Two Projects.”
2009: FPU sponsored the Bering Strait International Ideas Competition. The first-place winner is submitted by Taller 301, an architecture firm based in Bogota, Colombia. They propose the creation of a series of artificial islands by dredging and land reclamation at the narrowest point between the Chukchi Peninsula, Russia and the Cape of Prince of Wales, Alaska — a distance of about 52 miles.
2012: The first Peace Road Forum was held.
2014: The World Peace Tunnel Foundation (WPTF) established the Peace Road Academy, for university students.
2017: The World Peace Tunnel Foundation changed its name to the World Peace Road Foundation.
Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon expressed the dream as a basic human desire in her 2020 memoir. She wrote:
“I want everyone to be able to travel the International Peace Highway by car or even bicycle from Cape Town to Santiago, from London to New York. I want taking a trip with your sweetheart through any country around the world to be as easy as visiting your hometown.”
