A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power

Published in the US by Random House on 29 May 2007 (Hardback – $26.95)
More about China Road on the Random House website
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Published in the UK by Bloomsbury on 4 June 2007 (Trade Paperback – £12.99)
More about the book on the Bloomsbury website
Buy from Amazon.co.uk

Route 312 is the Chinese Route 66. It flows three-thousand miles from east to west, passing through the factory towns of the coastal areas, through the rural heart of China, then up into the Gobi Desert, where it merges with the old Silk Road. The highway witnesses every part of the social and economic revolution that is turning China upside down.

In this utterly surprising and deeply personal book, acclaimed NPR reporter Rob Gifford, a fluent Mandarin speaker, takes the dramatic journey along Route 312 from its start in the boomtown of Shanghai to its end on the border with Kazakhstan. Expanding on his popular eight-part series for Morning Edition , Gifford reveals the rich mosaic of modern Chinese life in all its contradictions, as he poses the crucial questions that all of us are asking about China: Will it really be the next global superpower? Is it as solid and as powerful as it looks from the outside? And who are the ordinary Chinese people, to whom the twenty-first century is supposed to belong?

Gifford is not alone on his journey. The largest migration in human history is taking place along highways such as Route 312, as tens of millions of people leave their homes in search of work. He sees everywhere the signs of the booming urban economy, but he also uncovers many of the country’s frailties, and some of the deep-seated problems that could derail China’s rise.

The whole compelling adventure is told through the cast of colourful characters who Gifford meets: garrulous talk show hosts and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic prostitutes, cellphone salesmen, AIDS patients and Tibetan monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club, hitch-hikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with migrant workers at truck-stops along the way.

By travelling Route 312, Rob Gifford gives a face to what has historically been a faceless country for Westerners, and breathes life into a nation that is so often reduced to economic statistics. Finally, he sounds a warning that all is not well in the Chinese heartlands, that serious problems lie ahead for China, and that the future of the West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3 billion Chinese people.