India and China reopen Silk Road
NET News Network
Guwahati, July 6: Asian giants India and China opened a Himalayan border pass to trade on Thursday, 44 years after a brutal war shut the ancient Silk Road route.
As local music from either side of the border played through the chilly mist, Indians and Tibetans -- in traditional costumes -- joined the festive atmosphere, crossing over to talk and share bread, sweets and tea.
Scores of businessmen queued to complete formalities before
crossing the border post at Nathu La pass -- "the pass of the listening ear" -- to visit newly built markets on either side after the formal opening ceremony.
"Today is a historic day," said Pawan Chamling, chief minister of India's Sikkim state, connected by the pass to Tibet.
Although smuggling in the area has been rife, local businessmen are keen to take advantage of the new opportunities opening the pass will create in the remote area.
Ties between India and China, the two most populous nations, were dogged by mutual suspicion for almost three decades after a border war in 1962, until
surging trade and economic ties pushed political disputes into the backseat.
The reopening of the pass, part of the historic Silk Road -- a network of trails that connected ancient China with India, Western Asia and Europe -- occurred on the birthday of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan and Buddhist leader in exile in India.
It came days after Beijing linked the Tibetan capital of Lhasa with a railway and is seen as another move by China to help modernize the
long-isolated region.
Some analysts feel closer economic bonding would also eventually help the two leave the border row behind.
"Initiatives like these will slowly change the perception of our two peoples about the border dispute, which has remained the most vexed problem," Sudheendra Kulkarni, a senior official in previous Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's office, wrote in the Sunday Express this week.
"In hostility-free relations between two neighbors, borders unite -- not divide -- markets and peoples," he said.
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