Not all of China's 800 million peasants have been won over, however. Their opposition to tolls slapped on local roads prompted Zhu to explore other means of financing road construction. The road is a metaphor for the tensions between the traditional rural way of life and the agents of change. He points to the way defiant peasants take over the shoulders of newly paved local toll roads to dry corn and rice, or roll rocks onto the road to obstruct truckers, whom they blame for endangering livestock and luring women to work in roadside brothels. Only when peasants benefit from sharing the roads they once monopolized do they begin to feel responsibility for maintaining them.
History shows that building roads is the easy part of a vicious cycle.
Dealing with the ensuing traffic and pollution will be harder, as the U.S. experience with smog and creeping suburbia has proven. In the meantime, China's toll collectors will have plenty of time to sleep. Time Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines .