Forty-five years after it was first proposed, a modern version of the ancient Silk Road that once linked Asia with Europe is taking shape, in the form of a 140,000 km web of highways and ferry routes that will again connect the two continents.  The Asian Highway Agreement, signed by 23 Asian nations, including China, Japan and South Korea is intended to ensure construction of a road system that would ease the isolation of many landlocked Asian nations and establish a modern version of the ancient trading route that once linked the continent to Europe by camel train.  The Asian Highway would be not one road but an entire system of routes that by land and sea would connect Tokyo to Turkey, and Bhutan to Bulgaria.  Large nations like Japan, China, South Korea, Russia and India would 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 sea ports.

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