China Bound

Robert Bickers uses the archives of John Swire & Sons to follow a family business from its Liverpool origins through two centuries of global commerce. The firm’s expansion into China after the 1860s connected shipping, trade, insurance and industrial investment with Shanghai and Hong Kong. Its companies later helped shape modern transport through the China Navigation Company, Cathay Pacific and container shipping.

The corporate history becomes a wider account of empire, war and globalisation. Swire survived rebellion, Japanese occupation, the Communist victory of 1949 and the reorientation of Hong Kong’s economy, repeatedly adapting family control to new technologies and political regimes. By following owners, managers, compradors, sailors and workers, the book shows how a private company both influenced Asia and was transformed by it.