《参考消息》2006年6月14日第8版：现代丝绸之路穿越喜马拉雅山
彭博新闻社2006年6月13日文章：中国和印度决定重新认识丝绸之路关系
China, India Set to Rediscover Silk Route Ties
By Andy Mukherjee
June 13 (Bloomberg) -- The Western world's rediscovery of China and India has produced an important s_______① effect: （1）It has become a trigger for the two rising Asian superpowers to renew their own 2,000-year-old acquaintance.?
It's still early days in the courtship, though if it continues, 2050 may not look much different from 1750 when the two nations together controlled as much as 57 percent of the world's manufacturing output.?
This month, China and India will reopen the only all-weather overland trade route joining them through the Himalayas at 14,500 feet above sea level.?
Nathula is still a work in progress: The crossing, in its present form, is suitable for mules, not big trucks. （2）The more important point about the reopening of the pass -- it was closed after China and India fought a brief but bitter war in 1962 -- lies in the political symbolism of the move.?
By opening Nathula, the two countries will be shaking off the diplomatic m________② -- and the resulting economic constraints -- that has hindered the development of China's southwest and India's northeast and prevented the nations from tapping a reservoir of power, gas and oil in their backyards.?
（3）Landlocked parts of China's southwest have been left behind even as coastal regions in the east have benefited from investments and jobs in trade-linked manufacturing. India's northeast has similarly suffered because of its geographic isolation. If the two contiguous[1] regions were developed in sync, they could become an economic powerhouse together, trading not just with each other but also with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal. China's southwest and India's northeast have 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas, 1.5 billion tons of c_______③ oil and 900 million tons of coal reserves, according to economists Biswa Bhattacharyay at the Asian Development Bank in Manila and Prabir De at the Research and Information System for Developing Countries in New Delhi.?
The Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, which flow through India's east and northeast, have the potential to g_______④ 90,000 megawatts of electricity annually. Only a fraction of this potential is being exploited because it is too expensive to transport the power to industrial centers in northern India.?
``M________⑤ investments are required for the development of the hydropower resources of the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin and can be productive with enhanced cooperation between China and India,'' Bhattacharyay and De say. ``Hydropower in India's northeast can be marketed in the southwest provinces of Bangladesh, China and Myanmar.''?
Natural resources are becoming increasingly vital for both China and India. （4）At the same time, policy makers in both countries are aware of the need to reduce regional economic dispar
