China and the Long March

Lately I've been reading a book about the Long March, the epic journey of the Red Chinese Army across southern, western, and finally northern China in 1934 as they struggled to evade the Nationalists and preserve their incipient revolution. (The Long March by Harrison Salisbury) During the course of a year they marched thousands of miles, and finally a force of less than 10,000 had survived in tact across mountains, rivers, marshes, and deserts.

To survive they were forced to innovate in countless ways, and one small detail typifies their experience: The army was mostly illiterate at the outset, but not at the end. How? Each day, each soldier wore a cloth on their back with a different character in the vast Chinese alphabet printed on it. So day by day as they marched, they learned to read.

The survivors of the Long March became China's leaders for the next two generations, among them Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. Now that China has sets its sights on the path to becoming a world leader, the events of its origins, and the psychological roots of its founding events become more and more relevant for the rest of the world to understand.

For a more contemporary view, I can also recommend One Billion Customers by James McGregor, which presents the epic journey of western companies venturing into the vast Chinese marketplace. The book details the art of negotiation in China, which anyone considering a deal there must consider carefully!