Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c13.s3.t2.165

v2.c13.s3.t2.165

During World War II, the importance of Assam as a route from India to China was revived. The old Tea-Horse Road (*chamadao*) between Tibet and Yunnan was used to send supplies to western China from India when the Japanese blocked the routes through Burma. More than 25,000 horses and mules were used to transport all kinds of goods through Assam and Tibet to Lijiang in Yunnan province of China. At the same time, an oil pipeline from Assam to Burma to China (known as the A-B-C pipeline) was also constructed despite tremendous difficulties in assisting the war effort. However post-1947, Assam’s loss of a common boundary with Burma (through the carving out of the separate states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya) and the impact of the 1962 border conflict with China which came very close to Assam, greatly reduced the possibilities to continue and revive the age-old linkages between Assam and China. Nevertheless, with more recent initiatives, including India’s ‘Look East’ policy from the 1990s and efforts to foster sub-regional cooperation between southwestern China, Myanmar, India and Bangladesh, the prospects for reviving Assam and northeastern India's linkages with China are once again favourable.