The modern silk route might see the light of the day forty-five years after it was first proposed. Also known as the Asian Highway, this route will once again link Asia with Europe when complete and become one of the most important examples of regional cooperation in recent times. It will be an entire system of routes that – by land and by sea – would connect Tokyo to Turkey, Bhutan to Bulgaria. The highway will connect capitals, major ports, commercial centres and tourist sites of Asian nations and break the relative isolation of a number of Asian countries. 

The plan for an Asian trans-national route was first conceived by the United Nations in 1959 but could not be implemented due to the existence of typical geopolitical hurdles at the time and distrust stemming from the Cold War. But the end of the Cold War changed this environment. The project gained support in the 1990s and the Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) started negotiating routes and road specifications for the network since 1992. A draft proposal was completed in November 2002 and 32 countries approved the text of an agreement for upgrading inferior stretches and building new links in November 2003. The projected length of the highway has doubled and is currently 140,000 km. The agreement was finally signed by the 23 Asian countries at the 60^th session of the UNESCAP held in Shanghai, China and will go into effect 90 days after eight countries ratify it. Besides India, some other prominent countries to sign this agreement are Pakistan, China, Iran, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam.

The agreement in Shanghai has outlined the roads to be built and upgraded and establishes minimum standards for the highway routes, with an overall budget and timeframe for completion to be announced in 2006. Though most of these roads are already in existence, many will require extensive improvements to meet international standards in time for the scheduled completion of the network in 2010. Signs would be unified and border facilities improved to handle an expected increase in traffic. Though Beijing is a key proponent of the plan, the potential Asian Highway routes through China only 13,530 km at present. One would link Shanghai to the border crossing with Pakistan; another would connect the border with Mongolia to the north and Laos to the south.

The main route of Asian Highway – I is expected to start in Tokyo and terminate in Istanbul, passing through North and South Korea, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Armenia. A trunk route will extend through St Petersburg to Russia’s border with Finland.

So far, funding for most of the preliminary work on the Asian Highway has come from Japan. Further financing is expected to come from the bigger participating nations, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Big nations like Japan, China, South Korea, Russia and India would certainly benefit from the better trade links a unified highway system would bring. But the project is also designed to help smaller, landlocked countries gain coveted routes to seaports. As envisioned, seven landlocked countries would be included: Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal and Uzbekistan. Island nations would be linked by ferry to the Asian continent.