China's Roads

China's roads are classified by grade into expressways, national highways, provincial highways, county roads, and township roads. Expressways and national highways are funded and built by the central government, while provincial highways and below are constructed by local governments according to local conditions. With the exception of toll expressways and a few tolled bridges on national highways, the rest are essentially free. China's road network enjoys a solid international reputation; many foreign travelers and returning overseas Chinese marvel at its extensive coverage—even remote mountain villages are connected by paved roads. That said, serious problems with waste and inefficiency remain.

The waste is most evident on expressways. Many see very little traffic. When driving yourself, it's common to find no cars ahead or behind for long stretches—and this isn't just in Xinjiang or Tibet; it happens in developed provinces too, resulting in an enormous waste of resources.

Traffic efficiency is an even bigger issue. Many expressways—not only in mountainous regions but also across flat plains—have only two lanes in each direction. That's tolerable when there aren't many trucks, but once heavy truck traffic picks up, efficiency plummets. The original Beijing–Tianjin–Tanggu Expressway was a case in point: packed with heavy trucks, making every trip nerve-wracking. Conditions only improved after the second Beijing–Tianjin Expressway opened and diverted some of the traffic.

The problem is even more glaring on national highways. Many have only one lane per direction, yet some serve as major freight corridors—National Highway 107, for example. A single truck crawling along at 50 km/h will cause a long line of cars to back up behind it, and with heavy oncoming traffic, passing is nearly impossible. Plenty of passenger car drivers resort to overtaking on the shoulder, which is both illegal and dangerous, since shoulders are often occupied by pedestrians and farm vehicles. Every time I have to judge the speed and distance of oncoming traffic and gamble on pulling into the opposite lane to pass, I can't help cursing under my breath. Overseas Chinese who return to rent cars generally avoid national highways altogether—the experience tests not just your driving skills but your nerves. China's high rate of traffic accidents is closely tied to this.

Province by province, Shanxi has it worst. Road conditions there are poor: two-lane expressways and single-lane national highways make up a large share of the network. During the autumn coal transport season especially, driving a car there is an absolute nightmare (don't ask me how I know). Every year when that season rolls around, I silently wish safe travels to everyone on Shanxi's roads.

Provincial highways and below actually don't suffer from low efficiency. Since heavy trucks mostly stick to national highways, taking a provincial or even county road in a passenger car often means a smoother ride.

China urgently needs to overhaul its road network: scrap impractical expressway projects and channel those resources into building and widening the expressways and national highways that form key transport arteries. On busy corridors, expressways should have three lanes per direction and national highways two; where widening is difficult, new parallel routes should be built to relieve congestion. Existing two-lane expressways that cannot be widened should no longer charge expressway tolls and should be reclassified as national highways. These upgrades wouldn't merely boost efficiency by a third or a half—they would multiply it several times over, while drastically reducing traffic accidents.

(This article describes conditions as of 2026.)