06-08-2006, 11:20 AM
<b>Warily, India and China to reopen Silk Route trade</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Just a few yards away bulldozers on both sides of the frontline are building not fortifications but a road, to connect India and China and reopen a historic trade route. New Delhi and Beijing plan to reopen the Nathu-la pass in June after more than 40 years, a potent symbol of rapprochement between Asian giants who fought a Himalayan war in 1962.
<b>For an initial five-year period the pass, at an altitude of 4,310 metres, will handle limited border trade between the tiny northeast Indian state of Sikkim and southern Tibet. It will be a modest start, but it promises much more.</b>
"We are very much looking forward to the opening of the pass," said B.B. Gooroong, adviser to Sikkim's chief minister. "It is symbolic... but we have to break the ice."
<b>The Sikkim government's enthusiasm is not entirely matched in New Delhi,</b> where the establishment still remembers being caught off guard by China's sudden advance across the Himalayas in 1962.
Much of the 3,500-km common border remains disputed, and Indian officials say they are not yet ready to throw open the doors.
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<b>For an initial five-year period the pass, at an altitude of 4,310 metres, will handle limited border trade between the tiny northeast Indian state of Sikkim and southern Tibet. It will be a modest start, but it promises much more.</b>
"We are very much looking forward to the opening of the pass," said B.B. Gooroong, adviser to Sikkim's chief minister. "It is symbolic... but we have to break the ice."
<b>The Sikkim government's enthusiasm is not entirely matched in New Delhi,</b> where the establishment still remembers being caught off guard by China's sudden advance across the Himalayas in 1962.
Much of the 3,500-km common border remains disputed, and Indian officials say they are not yet ready to throw open the doors.
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