This is one of the most readable as well as insightful books about China to have come out in recent months. It is an account of National Public Radio reporter Rob Gifford’s journey of nearly 5,000 kilometres on Route 312 across the breadth of China, starting in Shanghai and ending at the Kazakhstan border. So, at one level, it is a travelogue following a time-honoured pattern — eccentric Englishman undertakes an unusual solo road journey, ‘because it is there’.
But Gifford is also an experienced journalist who has lived and worked in China for six years, and who is an accomplished Mandarin speaker. So, at another level, Gifford’s journey affords us deeper insights into China’s problems and promises as they affect the lives of the variety of characters who journey with him, as Route 312 transits the vast expanse of a country in the midst of unprecedented transformation.
Gifford has an observant eye and a felicitous writing style, so the story proceeds at a lively pace. He comes across a relaxed and companionable traveller rather than a nosey journalist, thus putting at ease those who accompany him at various stages of his journey. Accordingly, many of the issues that confront China come alive very vividly in the real stories of the taxi drivers, policemen, peasants, hookers, salesmen, migrant workers, social activists and students who share their thoughts, frustrations, anger, dreams and aspirations with him on their journey together. Interspersed are Gifford’s own reflections and speculations on China’s history, culture and political development.
As Route 312 twists and turns, Gifford conveys his own sense of the journey’s highs and lows. From the entrepreneurial dynamism and frenetic energy of the coastal belt to the desperation of poor AIDS-stricken Henan farmers betrayed by the machinations of a corrupt and uncaring local authority; from the strikingly modern wisdom and scientific orientation of a Daoist monk on Mount Huashan to the resigned pragmatism of a Tibetan teacher in remote Xiahe. Reflecting the trajectory of Route 312 itself, the second half of the book covers the author’s journey across the Tibetan culture areas of Gansu and the deserts and grasslands of Xinjiang. His conversations with settlers, migrants and the indigenous people are frank and revealing. The narration brings home the complexities involved when globalisation and state development agenda meet cultural differences and identity issues in these remote regions.
Fairly early on in the narrative, Gifford touches on the age-old question—China or India: where is life better for people? He admits that, like many Westerners, his heart is with democratic India. At an Indian restaurant in Hefei, he engages the Indian manager in conversation and finds him disappointingly evasive on the subject. Still, after wrestling with the question for many days, Gifford concludes, reluctantly but firmly, that he would “go for the sweet and sour pork over the chicken biryani any day.” And the reason is the crucial difference symbolised by Route 312 itself, as it carries migrant workers from deep within China to the rapidly developing cities and zones of economic activity. As he says, “China is a brutal place to live if you are on the bottom rung, but there is an exit…and a job at the other end (of it)….there are simply more opportunities in China (than in India) to improve your life…” India, he contrasts, has a much smaller manufacturing segment, and a restrictive social environment that limits opportunity and upward mobility to those most in need of them.
Will China be the next superpower? Will it, can it, transform itself into a democracy? Or will its contradictions cause it to implode into chaos? These questions run through the book, and one can sense Gifford’s own intellectual struggle as he is swayed at different times between the dictates of journalistic objectivity, moral outrage and sheer admiration for the tenacity and humanity of the people he meets. Along with the drama and audacity of China’s transformation, the country abounds in contradictions, as Gifford discovers. There is the focus on naked capitalist accumulation in a moral vacuum, but also the revival of Confucian ethics and Daoist religious practice. There is increasing internationalisation living side by side with a sense of China’s victimhood through the last two centuries. Even as he tries to make sense of these seeming opposites, Gifford feels convinced that China is rediscovering itself and will fashion its future in a manner reflecting its unique essence.
On completing this book, this reviewer had a fleeting sense of regret—what happened to Murat, the courageous, thoughtful Uighur engineer in Xinjiang, and to Wu Yan, the forlorn call girl in Xinyang? If only for a few moments, the reader had connected with them, their hopes and their lives. Should they remain in limbo? Here, perhaps, lies the seed for a sequel?
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CHINA ROAD
A JOURNEY INTO THE FUTURE OF A RISING POWER
Rob Gifford
Random House,
$17, 322pp
