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When China and Afghanistan signed a Friendship and Mutual Non-Aggression Treaty in 1960, they called it "a new Silk Road," evoking nostalgic memories of a link between the two countries established 2,100 years ago. The old "Silk Road" stretching from China to Rome was opened by Chang Chien, a special envoy of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (140 B.C.), who was seeking a military ally against the Hsiung-nu tribesmen in China's northwest. The Ta Yueh-chih people, then living in the Afghanistan area, originally lived in the Kansu area of China but migrated towards the Oxus River valley under pressure from the Hsiung-nu tribesmen. The Hsiung-nu, therefore, gave Chinese and early Afghans a common cause for alliance in the following century. As early as 104 B.C. an official envoy from the Afghan kingdom travelled the Silk Road to the Chinese Imperial Court.

The Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed in Katmandu on July 31, 1950, by Nepal and India, declared that "The two Governments hereby undertake to inform each other of any serious friction or misunderstanding with any neighbouring State likely to cause any breach in the friendly relations subsisting between the two Governments" (Article II). Moreover, Nepal was "free to import, from or through the territory of India, arms, ammunition or warlike material and equipment necessary for the security of Nepal" (Article V). With the Chinese Communists preparing to reassert China's claim to Tibet, it was obvious that India sought "to ensure" that Nepal, together with Bhutan and Sikkim, should not be "included in the Communist Chinese sweep" along the Himalayas.