For Jardine, Matheson & Co. and other big British traders in Red China, the road to disillusion has been a way of travail. After the Reds won the China mainland, such firms as Jardine's, Butterfield & Swire, and Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp. had the rosily misguided notion that they could do profitable business with Mao Tse-tung. It was in part because of their illusions and their influence that Britain's Labor government of the time recognized the Mao regime.
For a short while matters went well; then the Reds began the big...
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