The Nathu La Pass is 4,545 meters above sea level. It is 460 km away from Lhasa and 550 km from Kolkata. The pass used to be an important trade passage between China and India and part of the fabled 'Silk Route.' Currently China and India trade mostly through sea route.
China and India recorded $ 18.73 billion in trade volume in 2005, up 37.5 per cent from the previous year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. The volume is expected to exceed $ 20 billion this year.
India and China are celebrating 2006 as the year of Sino-Indian friendship.
However some analysts say that Beijing stands to gain immensely by transporting goods through India. At present, China uses transit facilities offered by Myanmar to service land-locked Tibet by sea. But with Kolkata port merely 550km from Tibet, the revival of cross-border trade at Nathu La will dramatically slash the distance Chinese goods have to travel.
Indian analysts are outraged that even as China eyes the new corridor to Kolkata port, it is building all-weather, tank-capable roads in border regions which India claims belong to it. Some experts believe that India has made a tactical mistake by consenting to the reopening of the Nathu La pass in the first place. Said one of them: "But India can still make amends for its Himalayan blunder by using its growing relationship with the US and Taiwan to counterbalance China. Henceforth, India must act like a nuclear power vis-à-vis China and not the loser of the 1962 war."
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