Mr China by Tim Clissold Monday, 31 May 2010 00:00 Written by Carole

Mr China is (according to The Economist, anyway) the slightly disguised story of Asimco, founded by Jack Perkowski, a Wall Street banker, who raised more than US$400 million for investment in China in the early 1990s. Asimco, of which Clissold was President for a time, invested in car components factories and breweries and watched the bulk of the money get stolen, re-directed and dribble away.

In the early nineties, China finally opened for business and Wall Street wanted to get in on the act. When the investment bankers arrived from New York with their Harvard MBA's, pinstripes and tassly shoes, ready to negotiate with the Old Cadres, the stage was set for a collision between Wall Street's billions and the world's oldest culture. The book tells the true story of a Wall Street banker who had climbed to the top but found that it wasn't enough. Looking for glory, he came to China to surf on the next new investment wave and teamed up with an ex-Red Guard and an Englishman living in Beijing. In less than two years, they raised four hundred million dollars and bought up factories all over China. But they learned the hard way that China plays by its own rules. Left sitting in their board rooms whilst the Chinese marched off in their own different directions, they looked on as their four hundred million slid towards the abyss. Faced with no option but to fight, they embarked on a series of desperate battles to regain control from powerful local Chinese. Their struggle in such unfamiliar territory provides a unique and amusing insight into the fallibility of Wall Street and the chaotic workings of modern day China. It reveals the human face of a vast and complex country struggling to modernise but determined to stick to its own rules.

Review by Amazon.co.uk