Family fosters UK-China ties for 3 generations

Editor's note: As the People's Republic of China celebrates the 75th anniversary of its founding this year, China Daily asked prominent international figures to reflect on their relationship with the country and to talk of the direction in which they see it going.

For Jack Perry Jr, the relationship between him and China was rooted in stories, distant travels, the influence of his father and grandfather, and an unwavering spirit of icebreaking passed on for three generations.

Jack has taken the helm of the 48 Group, which promotes equal and mutually beneficial trade between the United Kingdom and China, since February. He is the third generation of the Perry family which has been active in the business and trade between China and the West.

Throughout his childhood in the 1980s, Jack remembered asking his mother where his father was, and the answer he got had always been "China", because his father, Stephen Perry, was often on long trips to China for trade partnerships.

"China, to me, was a place of magic — a faraway land where my father would return with stories of accomplishment and progress," said Jack. "These trips were more than just business ventures; they were journeys that brought back a sense of family unity, values, and a deepening of our family's connection to China."

The Perry family's China story dates back to the early 1950s, when Jack's grandfather, Jack Perry Sr, despite the huge amount of pressure at the time, made the first trade with the newly founded People's Republic of China.

Since the founding of New China in 1949, the United States has imposed an embargo on the country. One year later, when the Chinese People's Volunteers army joined the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the US pressured more European countries to impose an embargo on China.

There was a thaw in the relations with the UK in 1953 when a group of 16 British business representatives embarked on a trip to China to discuss trade, which later became known as the "Icebreaking Mission".

John Boyd Orr, a British politician who was then serving as the first director-general of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, led the Icebreaker group, while Jack Perry Sr was the group's organizer.

Born in a Jewish immigrant family in East London in 1915, Jack Perry Sr worked from scratch to found his company manufacturing and selling clothes in 1937. Despite ups and downs, his business grew into a conglomerate in the women's dress industry in the late 1940s.

In his memoir From Brick Lane to the Forbidden City, Jack Perry Sr described the hostility and opposition he encountered in the UK and the hospitality and enthusiasm he experienced in China because of the icebreaking trip.

He recalled the encouraging words from Boyd Orr: "The Iron Curtain and the Bamboo Curtain would be less dangerous if there were more wagons crossing over them carrying goods from one side to the other. Trade increases understanding."

After days of negotiation in Beijing, the group signed a business agreement of 30 million pounds ($39.6 million) overall with the China National Import and Export Corporation on July 6, 1953.