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This chapter focuses on infrastructure connectivity issues that are required for providing efficient service links between production blocs. It argues that after enjoying a rich history of about 1,600 years, the Silk Roads (land connectivity) went into disrepair. Now, for various reasons, land connectivity is once again making a comeback in Asia. First, is the growing importance of supply chain trade or parts and component trade which require efficient service links. The second is the ‘Go West’ policy and the ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy in China. The third is the opening of Myanmar, the node between SA and EA. This chapter also reviews bilateral, regional, and Asia-wide efforts to revive land connectivity including the ASEAN–India Connectivity projects and the recently initiated Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Economic Corridor. The chapter then proposes several new Trans-Himalayan Economic Corridors for seamless Pan-Asian connectivity between South Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia.

Bangladesh and the India’s North East are much more than next door neighbours. Being geographically contiguous, they are ‘natural markets’ for each other. India and Bangladesh are now working together to widen and strengthen their cooperation. In the field of security, they have made significant progress in recent years. Now they could build on that foundation of cooperation and remove the bottlenecks affecting improved trade and connectivity. While India can help develop Bangladesh’s export and investment climate, Bangladesh can let India use its infrastructure for surface and maritime connectivity to move men and material to the Northeast . Equally important is the need to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers, develop and modernize the infrastructure along the border, and facilitate connectivity bilaterally and within the sub-region and beyond.

India has joined several regional groupings in the East in an attempt to develop better relationships with its neighbours in the area. The background for such initiatives has been detailed. The policy dynamics now emerging are also analysed, specially how that impacts on India’s northeast. A strong argument for a more proactive foreign policy to leverage these regional groupings for furthering national interests and that of India’s northeast is made.

It is argued that India’s approach to its Northeast.and towards the BCIM-EC initiative is not practically grounded. The failure of Look East Policy in bringing development to the Northeast amply proves that Northeast is yet to be provided with a viable and economically complementary partner to interact with. In any logical analysis, China is only such suitable economic partner for Northeast India. An attempt is made to look at the India’s economic fears in opening out Northeast to the Chinese and specific concerns of India regarding engaging China, Myanmar and Bangladesh are also discussed. They are not necessarily economic. Considering the Sino-Indian strategic juxtaposition, India’s real and perceived apprehensions, and the prospects of BCIM-EC for the Northeast, an argument is made for graduated engagement. It makes a case for sector specific opening of India’s Northeast to Chinese investment.

In May 2013, crowning the efforts of the Track II Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar (BCIM) Cooperation Forum, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced the intention to appoint a Joint Study Group to consider the feasibility of establishing a BCIM Economic Corridor connecting Kolkata and Kunming through Bangladesh, India’s North East, and northern Myanmar. The initiative has been widely welcomed as a means of carrying forward India’s ‘Act East Policy’ and stimulating development in the land-locked North East region. Acknowledging that the ‘corridor’ approach to sub-regional economic integration is as yet relatively untried in the South Asian context, this article seeks to draw on comparative experience to adduce some of the conceptual and practical challenges inherent in the BCIM Economic Corridor project as it presently stands, urging the development of a comprehensive master plan to effectively coordinate national development priorities with the wider objective of sub-regional economic integration.