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A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
Random House
June 2007
On Sale: May 29, 2007
352 pages
ISBN: 1400064678
EAN: 9781400064670
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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 National Public Radio 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. 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 signs of the booming urban
economy everywhere, 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
colorful characters Gifford meets: garrulous talk-show hosts
and ambitious yuppies, impoverished peasants and tragic
prostitutes, cell-phone salesmen, AIDS patients, and Tibetan
monks. He rides with members of a Shanghai jeep club,
hitchhikes across the Gobi desert, and sings karaoke with
migrant workers at truck stops along the way. As he recounts his travels along Route 312, Rob Gifford
gives a face to what has historically, for Westerners, been
a faceless country 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, and that the future of the
West has become inextricably linked with the fate of 1.3
billion Chinese people.
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