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Junaid Kathju

High in the eastern Himalayas, where yak caravans once carried silk and salt between empires, a border crossing closed by suspicion six years ago is stirring back to life.
The Nathu La Pass, a remote border trading post connecting India’s Sikkim state with China’s Tibet region at 4,310 metres (14,140 feet) above sea level, reopened to commerce on Saturday for the first time since 2020.
For the roughly 600 registered traders in Sikkim who used to depend on this ancient route, the reopening means a livelihood restored. For diplomats and analysts, it reflects a broader recalibration of ties between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Before its closure following the onset of the pandemic and deadly Galwan Valley clashes of 2020, Nathu La Pass was a conduit for the export of rice, flour, tea, tobacco and copper products from India, with yak tails, wool, raw silk, horses, salt and butter among the goods heading in the other direction.
Trade in those items was the result of an agreement signed in 2006 that reopened Nathu La for the first time since the 1962 India-China war.

But a field study last year by Himalayan researcher Sangay Lachenpa of Shiv Nadar University’s Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies found that many of the items listed in that agreement were no longer traded in any real quantities.
“This trade generates alternative livelihood patterns for the local population,” he said, calling for the list to be given a modern overhaul to ensure “better flow of economic activity” and prevent the gap being filled by informal, unregulated commerce.
Trade via the Nathu La Pass peaked at roughly US$9.5 million in 2016, according to Lachenpa’s study, collapsing to barely US$1 million a year later after the Doklam crisis, a 73-day military face-off between India and China triggered by road construction in the disputed border region.
It never fully recovered, only reaching around US$5 million in 2019 before the following year’s border closure ended it altogether.
Against India’s US$151 billion in bilateral trade – and record US$112 billion deficit – with China last year, commerce at Nathu La Pass is little more than a rounding error.
But Lachenpa said economic activity at the pass was symbolically important.
“It signifies a gradual thaw in the Sino-Indian rivalry,” he said, pointing also to the growing ledger of “confidence-building measures” that included the reopening of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra pilgrimage route last year.

A Bangladesh-style upgrade?
Nathu La could be so much more than just a remote trading post, according to economist Biswajit Dhar, who called for the custom post at the pass to be upgraded into a full integrated checkpoint, complete with warehouses and quarantine facilities, on par with India’s crossings into Bangladesh.
“Steps must be taken to upgrade the land customs station at Nathu La,” said Dhar, a distinguished professor at the Council for Social Development think tank in New Delhi, adding that doing so could “enable hassle-free trade”.
Nathu La joins two other Himalayan passes between India and China – Shipki La and Lipulekh – that were reopened for trade under an agreement reached in August last year following talks co-chaired by Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Yet analysts said the latest diplomatic thaw was also tinged with caution.
India, in particular, “has long sought to condition the progress of economic relations on stability on the border and improved political relations”, said Ivan Lidarev, a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies who specialises in China-India relations.
The narrow scope of the reopening, with its limited number of goods and trades, reflected lingering anxiety in Delhi that Chinese products – and Chinese influence – could flood in and overwhelm local operators, he said.
Such anxieties no doubt factored into the two days of talks Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had with Chinese officials in Beijing from Monday, days before Nathu La’s reopening.
The visit officially centred on advancing bilateral ties, trade, people-to-people exchanges and border peace, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

The significance of Nathu La’s reopening is threefold, according to Saheli Chattaraj, an assistant professor of Chinese studies at Somaiya Vidyavihar University in Mumbai.
“First, it reconnects the border economy,” she said, restoring “a degree of economic normalcy along a frontier that had increasingly been viewed through the prism of military security”.
“Second, it creates a confidence-building mechanism” as it allows officials and traders on both sides to regularly interact.
Third was the geopolitical aspect. By invoking an older history of connectivity rather than the 1962 war or clashes at Galwan, both nations could “portray themselves as civilisational and developmental powers of the Global South”, she said.
Chattaraj further urged India to pursue “de-risking without decoupling” in its China ties, referring to a reduction in dependence without abandoning the relationship altogether.
In this way, he said the reopening of Nathu La could “mark the beginning of a managed thaw” – if accompanied by sustained military and diplomatic dialogue – rather than a “return to the pre-2020 relationship”.


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Six years after Nathu La’s closure and the deadly Galwan border clashes, its reopening throws local traders a lifeline


Six years after Nathu La’s closure and the deadly Galwan border clashes, its reopening throws local traders a lifeline.


India and China revive Himalayan trade at high-altitude pass

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Six years after Nathu La’s closure and the deadly Galwan border clashes, its reopening throws local traders a lifeline

Six years after Nathu La’s closure and the deadly Galwan border clashes, its reopening throws local traders a lifeline