Foreign and Military Affairs
Friends gather to open gas line
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-15 06:57
SAMAN-DEPE, Turkmenistan: Valiant blood-sweating horses, Turkmenistan's national emblem, performing in an equestrian show. Hundreds of costumed folk artists playing their country's traditional music.
The scene was more of a gathering of friends rather than an official and commercial event.
And its spirit of regional cooperation has been so prevailing that you could clearly feel the unity in the thundering cheers from the audience to the hugs and handshaking among the four state leaders from China, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
To those who have already seen their cultures deeply intertwined in the past, the new gas pipeline is indeed an energy silk road that binds the four countries more closely together.
The 1,833-km pipeline, starting from Turkmenistan and threading through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan before reaching China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has took a route similar with the ancient Silk Road. The historic road was a path of commercial exchanges in the region in a then isolated and agriculturally dominated world economy.
While this new energy silk road was unleashed with leaders of the four countries loosening a pipeline spigot to raucous applause to send the first consignment of gas on its way, more efforts are needed in the follow-up to ensure its sound operation.
As Zhang Guobao, China's top energy official said, it needs unremitting efforts from all countries involved to develop this new energy corridor.
