Tai-Pan

by James Clavell Book 2 in the The Asian Saga series.

First published 1966

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4.6(10,772)

After Britain occupies Hong Kong during the First Opium War, merchant prince Dirk Struan intends to make the new island the permanent base of his trading house. His plans depend on maritime power, credit, opium profits and political influence, all of which are contested by his former shipmate and bitter commercial rival Tyler Brock.

Struan must protect his company while managing a divided family, secret Chinese alliances and the uncertain authority of the colonial government. The novel presents the founding of British Hong Kong as a struggle in which trade, piracy, diplomacy and dynastic ambition are inseparable.

Hong Kong’s future is still uncertain, which makes Struan’s ambition unusually speculative. The island is valuable because British naval power and treaty rights have opened new commercial possibilities, but trade depends heavily on Chinese partners and on practices such as the opium trade that carry enormous political and moral consequences. The novel treats mercantile success as inseparable from imperial expansion.