Recently, Beijing took a big step closer to Nepal. 848 passengers left Lhasa, riding 16 oxygen-filled cars pulled by a heavy China-made locomotive. Two hours later, they arrived in Shigatse. It will take just two hours to travel to Nepal when the extension of the railway is completed by the year 2020.

The new $2.2 billion extension to Shigatse costs 50,000 yuan per meter, making the railway line the most expensive ever built in the world. And because of the harsh terrain it traverses, it is also necessary to build numerous bridges and tunnels.

When it is finished, sometime before 2020, the Beijing-Lhasa-Shigatse-Kathmandu Railway will be a powerful revival of the snowy caravan route through Tibet to Nepal.

There is a 1,000-year-old caravan route between China and Nepal on which traders and Buddhist pilgrims have been trekking until this day. The caravan trade dated back to the 7th century.

To achieve the overall objective of building a major overland trade thoroughfare from Beijing through the Himalayas to South Asia, China's Tibetan Autonomous Region has a construction plan of linking the railway with the three border towns of Gyirong, Zhangmu and Yadong as part of the 13th Five-year Plan ( 2016-20), according to Yang Yulin, deputy director of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Railway Office.

Gyirong was historically one of the major international corridors. 1,300 years ago, Princess Brikruti and the lotus-born Padmasambhava, founder of Tibetan Buddhism, came to Tibet through Gyirong.

Zhangmu, located on China-Nepal border, handles about 80 percent of China's trade with Nepal and many tourists.

At Yadong, a frontier county and trade market with India, travelers go through the Nathula Pass to India and also to Bhutan. With the running and extension of Chinese railway line in the Himalayas, the Himalayas will be no longer an impassible natural frontier.

China-Nepal caravan route will usher in a significantly growing flow of people and goods.

The landlocked Nepal which is sandwiched between two giant neighbors, China and India, will have fast container trains to carry its goods and people through China to the world.

In the past, Nepal has been dependent on India for international trade and transit facilities, because it has no outlet to the sea.

The Beijing-Shigatse railway is a landmark project, connecting China and South Asia more closely by carrying out mega projects in fields like energy, infrastructure. Such connectivity would help revitalize Nepal's economy. Traditionally, the goods traded by the Himalayan caravans are handmade products, garments, silver and bronze statues of various deities, hand knitted carpets, perfumes, herbal medicines, incense, jewelry and thangka.

The China-Nepal economic corridor will be a game-changer in terms of trade, investment, connectivity and economic integration in South Asia.

Even though Beijing is still behind New Delhi in terms of overall trade and investment in Nepal, China will hopefully catch up. China's continued development will bring huge markets and opportunities to its Asian neighbors. Nepal can take a ride on the Chinese express train.

Railway connectivity will make Nepal no longer an isolated country, but an economically-booming zone of peace desired by both its northern and southern neighbors.

The extended Tibet railway line sends clear message of China's efforts at upgrading its relations in Southeast Asia.

Hundreds of years of interaction among peoples in China, Nepal and India have created tremendous religious, ethnic and cultural affinities.

The Himalayas Mountains and the many rivers that flow from Tibet to this region have made Sino-South Asian relations interdependent.

This is part of a key-note speech recently given by Professor Li Xiguang, dean of Tsinghua University International Center for Communication Studies, at Arniko Society, Katmandu, Nepal. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn