The road China has taken from a centrally planned economy has been brave.
Now it takes a day-and-a-half, thanks to an upgrade of the Friendship Highway, as the China-Nepal road is called, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In five years, the number of cars on the road in China more than tripled.
Demand may be restrained if growing traffic congestion outpaces even China's vigorous road-building programme.
ECONOMIST: When will China produce a car brand people want to drive?
The episode, titled "Drew Carey: The High Road to China, " is scheduled to air November 18 on ABC.
The only glimmer of hope is a new road to China, just opened through the country's mountainous east.
Western traders brought these counting boards east on the Silk Road to China.
In five years, the number of cars on the road in China more than tripled -- just in the last five years.
China implemented its first road safety traffic law in 2004, mandating helmets for motorcyclists and seat belts for passengers in the front seat.
The G30 is the longest road in China, running for 4, 400km (2, 700 miles) from the coast of eastern Jiangsu province to Urumqi, close to the Kazakhstan border.
BBC: China fireworks truck blast causes deadly road collapse
Sand Hill Road about China innovation.
FORBES: China deals, funds still strong despite new reality: ask Ushi, NLVC
But in China I think that the gap is wider, certainly than it is in the States, and it's almost a case of natural selection where people come to a fork in the road in China and either go to the state sector or to the private sector.
Perhaps if he had, like Egyptologist Howard Carter, discovered gold, jewelry and other fabulous funerary objects during his exploration of the ancient overland road to China rather than musty books of Buddhist sutras (even if they did include the world's oldest known printed volume), his lasting fame might have been secured.
The local priest, surfacing from a week-long binge, lit beeswax tapers to Innocent of Irkutsk, the saint who in the 1720s had repaired the road to China and was now about to bring civilization to Prigorodnaia in the form of a ribbon of macadam with a freshly painted white stripe down the middle.
All supplies have to be brought in by road, from China to the south.
More than 60, 000 people were killed in road accidents in China last year.
Already China has built a new road, giving its landlocked Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces efficient access to Rajin, Asia's most northerly year-round ice-free port.
In the process, China is on the long road toward building a small army of lawyers that can compete with the U.S. in upcoming WTO battles.
Preliminary talks have been held about a direct road link to China across the remote 76-kilometer (47-mile) border between the two countries, according to Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry.
The conversion is rejuvenating China's ancient Silk Road to the west, immortalised by Marco Polo in the 14th century but rarely used since sea routes made the camel trains redundant.
BBC: News | oldBusiness | The future shines for China's Silk Road
The Panjiayuan "Dirt Market" not far from the China World on the Third Ring Road.
That title now belongs to China, with ramifications down the road for the dollar as go-to currency for the pricing of tradable goods.
The flagship center, located on Maoming Road in Shanghai, China, has seven theme rooms: Snow White, Lion King, Cars, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Winnie The Pooh and Toy Story.
Growing nations like China or India adding cars to the road increases demand.
WHITEHOUSE: Weekly Address: Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Companies
Down the road one can imagine a China that is all those things, and a positive influence on its region and on the world as well.
And as it relates to China, we're going to continue to work cooperatively with the Chinese where we have common interests and where we have differences, particularly as it relates to making sure that China is living up to the rules of the road.
Mr Thubron spent eight months travelling the 11, 300 kilometres (7, 000 miles) of the old Silk Road from Xian in the heart of China to Antioch (Antakya) in Turkey and, although he scrupulously admits in a note that his trip was broken by fighting in northern Afghanistan and that he was obliged to continue the following year, this interruption does not disrupt the flow of his narrative.
And growing demand in countries like India, Brazil, and China, which tripled the number of cars on the road in the last five years, will drive prices even higher over the long term.
Under an ambitious scheme, it could be developed to take goods by road and rail between Gwadar and south-west China.
ECONOMIST: More extremist attacks��and establishment fantasies
And the President made the point about the shared interest the United States and China have in terms of making sure that there are clear rules of road, as it applies to maritime security.
应用推荐