NATHU-LA, India (Reuters) -- As the rain sweeps across the high Himalayan pass, a Chinese soldier arrives at the three strands of barbed wire which separate his country"s territory from that of long-time rival India.

(来源：英语学习门户网站EnglishCN.com)

But this soldier is no longer brandishing a gun, on this once most sensitive of borders between the world"s two most populous countries. Instead he takes some video for his family back home and pauses to shake hands across the rusty fence.

(来源：英语麦当劳－英语快餐EnglishCN.com)

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. (来源：最老牌的英语学习网站 EnglishCN.com)

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.

(来源：英语资料下载 http://download.englishcn.com)

For an initial five-year period the pass, at an altitude of 4,310 meters (14,200 feet), 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. (来源：英语麦当劳 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

"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." (来源：英语麦当劳 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

The Sikkim government"s enthusiasm is not entirely matched in New Delhi, where the establishment still remembers being caught off guard by China"s sudden advance across the Himalayas in 1962. (来源：英语分类信息 http://fl.englishcn.com)

Much of the 3,500-km (2,200-mile) common border remains disputed, and Indian officials say they are not yet ready to throw open the doors.

(来源：英语麦当劳－英语杂志 EnglishCN.com)

Nevertheless a gradual process is under way which could eventually lead to a significant trade route opening up from the Indian port of Kolkata to the Tibetan capital, Lhasa.

"They will go slowly, and there is still some distance before we get full-fledged transit trade," said foreign policy analyst C. Raja Mohan. "But there is potential." (来源：英语麦当劳－英语杂志 EnglishCN.com)

A study commissioned by the Sikkim government suggested trade across Nathu-la could reach $2.8 billion a year by 2015.

Today that figure appears a little fanciful. It is hard to imagine anything larger than a minibus negotiating the narrow road that snakes for 56 km (35 miles) through the steep forested hills from Sikkim"s capital, Gangtok.

(来源：EnglishCN英语问答中心[e问e答])

A few corrugated iron warehouses have been built to handle customs and immigration formalities, and a small trade mart erected to exchange goods at Sherathang, a chilly hamlet eight km (five miles) below the pass. (来源：英语美食指南 http://food.englishcn.com)

Nor has the Sikkim government yet won"s Delhi"s approval for its plan to build a new, two-lane 22-billion-rupee ($500-million) highway from Nathu-la to western India, bypassing Gangtok"s already congested streets. (来源：EnglishCN英语博客基地)

But pressure is building from China, as it tries to bring economic prosperity and extend political control over its vast, remote and sometimes neglected west. Lhasa lies just 520 km (320 miles) by road from Nathu-la; Kolkata is a stone"s throw away compared to Beijing. (来源：英语博客 http://space.englishcn.com)

The passes between Sikkim and Tibet were once part of the Silk Road, a network of trails which connected ancient China with India, Western Asia and Europe. (来源：EnglishCN英语博客基地)

Revived during British rule in India, trade across Nathu-la took off after independence in 1947 and China"s invasion of Tibet in 1950. A decade later, more than 1,000 mules and horses and 700 people took the narrow trail every day.

(来源：英语麦当劳－英语学习门户 EnglishCN.com)

India imported raw wool, animal hide, and yak tails for use in shrines. It sent clothes, petrol, tobacco, soap, Rolex watches and even disassembled cars, including one for the Dalai Lama, the other way. Payment came in sacks of Chinese silver dollars.

Trade came to an abrupt halt in 1962. Five years later skirmishes at Nathu-la left scores dead on both sides. (来源：英语麦当劳－英语学习门户 EnglishCN.com)

As India and China rebuilt relations, two minor trade points were opened at the western end of the border in the 1990s, but agreement to open the more significant Nathu-la pass came during then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee"s trip to China in 2003. (来源：最老牌的英语学习网站 EnglishCN.com)

At the same time China indicated it was ready to drop its claim to Sikkim, a former Buddhist kingdom which had merged with India in 1975. (来源：英语电影下载 http://bt.englishcn.com)

"That was a very major landmark agreement from the political perspective," said one Indian official. "Now it is the economic side which will come into play."

(来源：英语博客 http://space.englishcn.com)

Sikkim has few industries, but officials hope the local Dansberg and Yeti beers, produced at a factory in the south of the state, will prove popular across the border.

(来源：英语分类信息 http://fl.englishcn.com)

Even more exciting could be the prospect of tourist traffic one day crossing Nathu-la. Officials hope that Sikkim could eventually be the center of an international Buddhist pilgrimage circuit, from Tibet to Thailand and India to Nepal.

But even in Sikkim, there are concerns. Representatives of the mainly Buddhist Bhutia and Lepcha minorities are worried that unregulated development will bring in tens of thousands of outsiders and swamp their fragile cultures.

Truck traffic could bring alcoholism, prostitution and AIDS. Roads mean pollution, landslides and ecological damage, they say. (来源：英语论坛 http://bbs.englishcn.com)

"Negative effects are bound to come," admits state industry and commerce minister Ram Bahadur Subba. "But development work has to be carried out."