“Rebuilding the Silk Road”
November 2005
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In September 2005, after 43 years, a section of the historical Silk Road has been reopened. Thanks to an agreement between China and India, the road—closed since 1962, due to the war between the two countries over the sovereignty of the border state of Sikkim—can now be traveled again, through the pass of Nathula that links the two states. The old road has been renewed and is now being used by trucks and lorries carrying vegetables, spices and tea from India to China.
The first Indo-Chinese agreement for the reopening of the road dates back to 2003, when former Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee signed an agreement in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart to create the plan. But work only started in April 2005, after Chinese Premier Wen Jibao’s official recognition of India’s sovereignty over the Sikkim gave the final political imprimatur to the project. India and China also have plans to reactivate another section, linking the Indian city of Ledo, in the eastern peninsula, south of Bangladesh, to the Chinese city of Kuonming, through Myanmar. This road was built in 1945 by the American army as strategic infrastructure in the war against Japan, and was used for only eleven months. Through this 1,300 km road, India and China hope to further develop commerce, preventing goods traveling from one country to the other from being shipped for over 6,000 km.
Why this increasing interest for these long out-of-use linkages and, in particular, for the legendary Silk Road? What is usually referred to as the “Silk Road” is actually a network of routes rather than a single byway, given the harsh terrain of the Asian continent, and especially its Central region, which has always prevented the development of a single, linear trans-Asian pathway. Its major route started in Venice and passed through Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India and China, joining cities like Samarkand, Kashi, Peswar, Turfan and Xian.
From east to west, the Central Asia region, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the autonomous region of Xinjiang in China, stretches nearly 4,500 kilometers. The region is geographically remote: the four Central Asian republics and Chinese Xinjiang are all landlocked, except for the inland waterways they share, which have limited value in reaching the outside world. International trade in the region thus involves the shipment of goods over long distances through neighboring countries.
The region creates substantial barriers to communication. The terrain varies from the second-lowest point on earth, in the Turpan basin (154 meters below sea level), to mountain peaks that rise 7,400 meters high in Kyrgyzstan, forming the border with China. Deserts cover much of western Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The Taklamakan Desert in southern Xinjiang is a great challenge to modern trade and transit. The dry grass plains of Kazakhstan run into the towering Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan, while more than 90% of Tajikistan is mountainous. These geographical barriers, in addition to constant political frictions among states, corrupt and untrained personnel, inadequate border crossing facilities and procedures, transit restrictions and charges and poor control by police and other authorities, have thus limited travel to only three corridors—the so-called “continental land bridges”.
These include the Trans-Siberian Railroad, built between 1891 and 1904, which connects St. Petersburg and Moscow to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, and the honey-combed network of rails throughout the Central Asia region, designed to meet the Soviet Union’s strategic need for minerals and raw materials.
Both road and rail networks reflect outdated priorities. Corridors between the Central Asia republics and Xinjiang are limited, because of the previous acrimonious relationship between the Soviet Union and China. The former economic integration of the Central Asia republics within the Soviet Union drove their transportation infrastructure toward European Russia, especially Moscow. The roads were to serve the monolithic Soviet economy and links with neighboring countries had no priority, thus preventing any land-link between China and Europe.
Today, the increasing commercial flows between China, India and Europe, through Central Asia republics and Turkey, can by no means be satisfied by the existing network. Hence, the increasing pressure to expand it.
Above all, the reopening of the India-China stretch is of a piece with the broader Chinese strategy that involves not only at strengthening the communication system with fast-growing neighboring countries, but also at developing the second of the aforementioned “continental bridges”, for it to serve as a direct link to Europe through Central Asia. At the moment, nearly all of China's exported goods to Europe are transported by sea. Even goods from the hinterlands of Xinjiang, Gansu and Mongolia have to be first transported to seaports by rail and then shipped to Europe. Thus, the development of the China section along the Eurasian Continental Bridge has been listed as a priority in the country's western development strategy.
With Russia’s hold on Central Asia, and its old channels fallen into disuse, China is stepping into the vacuum, using existing networks to pursue its strategy of western geopolitical expansion, increasing Beijing’s leverage over its resource-rich neighbors by reinforcing the physical connections between the political center and the periphery.