The Book Depository Kings of Shanghai by Jonathan Kaufman

Author: Ralph Blumenau

Rating: 5

Review: This is the story of the great Jewish business dynasties of Iraqi ancestry, the Sassoons and the Kadoories. David Sassoon was born in Baghdad, then in the Ottoman Empire. He was the leading member of the wealthy Jewish community there. In 1829 the Turkish authorities turned against the wealthy Jews, and David Sassoon fled, arriving in Bombay in 1832. There he identified himself solidly with the British, and within a decade had become one of the richest people in India, and was also a great philanthropist. He made more money by selling Indian-grown opium to China, then a declining power. China tried to stop the trade, but after two Opium Wars, was compelled, not only to permit the trade throughout the country, but also to cede Hong Kong and extra-territoriality in five “treaty ports”, one of which was Shanghai, where in 1863 the British and Americans fused their concessions into the “International Settlement”. David had eight sons. In 1850 he sent his second son, Elias, to Shanghai, where he continued to sell opium. In 1867 Elias broke way from the family company, David Sassoon Sons & Co, and founded his own, E.D.Sassoon & Co. By the 1870s the Sassoons controlled 70% of the trade and had become fabulously rich. When David died in 1864, his eldest son, Abdullah, succeeded as head of the family firm; the English gave him a knighthood – he became Sir Albert - and he and three other brothers settled in London, from where they ran the family business somewhat perfunctorily. These four, like the English Rothschilds, became members of the social set around the Price of Wales, the future Edward VII. For some years, the family had managed to delay action against the opium trade; but an international conference in 1907 finally outlawed the trade. However, the family had long invested the profits of that trade in real estate and in factories, and they remained stupendously wealthy. The Sassoons were distantly related to the Kadoorie family. Salih Kadoorie was a Baghdad banker. When he died in 1876, his six sons were still teenagers and unable to take over his business. His widow Rima sent four of them to Bombay to work for the Sassoons. In 1880 the Sassoons set the youngest, Elly, aged thirteen, to Hong Kong. When he was about eighteen, he broke away from the Sassoons, and founded a stockbroker’s company. He gradually acquired shares for himself. On a visit to London, he met and married Laura, the niece of the wealthy Frederick Mocatta, the head of Jewish community in London, and this gave him entry into London society. They made a home in Shanghai. Elly became a financier and a millionaire. His wealthy elder brother Ellis figures very little in Kaufman’s book; but, unlike his brother, he had had received British citizenship and a knighthood in 1917. When he died in 1922, Elly inherited much of his wealth, in particular a chain of hotels. He and his sons lived, with 42 servants, in Marble Hall, a vast mansion built for them. In 1926 the British government at last gave Elly British citizenship and a knighthood. He continued his philanthropic work, and, unlike the Sassoons, was a Zionist and helped to finance the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among all the disorders and civil wars in China, the International Settlement in Shanghai was a haven of security and cosmopolitanism. But while those who lived in the glittering bubble of the International Settlement, the areas of the city outside the Settlement were squalid and heavily over-populated. Those living in the Settlement were untouched by the tensions between the communists and the nationalists which had culminated in 1927 in the massacre of 12,000 communists in Shanghai. Meanwhile the Sassoon family had splintered somewhat, and it was no longer as powerful as it had been before. E.D.Sassoon & Co, became more successful than David Sassoon Sons & Co. In Shanghai, the business was run by Reginald, the patriarch David’s great-grandson (not grandson, as Kaufman has it), who was not a good businessman. Edward Sassoon, the grandson of the patriarch, had reluctantly taken over control of David Sassoon Sons & Co, and thought that his son Victor should involve himself in the family’s business. (Kaufman makes Victor, too, a grandson rather than great-grandson of the patriarch.) Instead, Victor went to work with E.D.Sassoon & Co. He had a reputation as a playboy; but, to everyone’s surprise, he was very successful in Bombay, expanded the network of the banks run by the company, and became the representative of India’s textile industry. He visited the family’s business in Shanghai, and noted how much more stable conditions were there than in restless India. He liquidated the Indian business and moved the proceeds to Shanghai where he built a nine-story headquarters called Sassoon House, which also included his suite, a hotel and several luxury shops. He now quite overshadowed the opulence of the Kadoories. He built many more hotels and office blocks, and then added other commercial properties. Chiang Kai Shek’s government, which was corruptly bleeding Chinese businessmen dry, saw Victor as valuable magnet for foreign investment, would not kill the goose that was laying such golden eggs and courted him assiduously, while Victor bought government bonds to help fund the Nationalists’ army – and, with all his business activities, kept up his playboy life-style, threw lavish parties, took photographs of nude women, and ran a racing stable whose horses won many races, not only in Shanghai but also in Europe. But the golden time in Shanghai was drawing to a close. The Japanese had started a war against China in 1931. In 1932 they bombed Shanghai and soon they controlled the area outside the International Settlement. Meanwhile the Nationalists began to resent the foreign wealth when the rest of the country was so poor. They began to challenge the privileges of extraterritoriality. There was one interesting side effect of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. In their war against Russia in 1905, much of the money that financed their war had come from the Jewish financier, Jacob Schiff, who hated the antisemitism of Tsarist Russia. The result was that some Japanese saw the Jews as allies. They accepted the thesis, promoted by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the powerful Jews controlled the world; but they drew the conclusion from this that they could be useful allies of Japan, and Victor was of course the richest and most powerful Jew in the region. They approached Victor who, though he distrusted them, played them along, and the Japanese allowed Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria into the Japanese-controlled area of Hongkew, just north of the International Settlement. Victor, unlike the Kadoories, was not at all religious; but he was well aware of the danger that Nazism was for all Jews, including members of his family in England. Besides, he was already known as a charitable philanthropist. Elly Kadoorie had already helped Jewish refugees from the Nazis to find shelter in Shanghai (one of the few places in the world which let them in freely) but as their numbers grew, he approached the by now much richer Victor for additional help, and Victor agreed and made generous, if primitive, arrangements for the refugees. In August 1939 there were 15,000 Jewish refugees in Shanghai. But when Japan joined the Axis in 1940, the Japanese began to put pressure on the Jews in general and on Victor in particular, demanding that he merge his vast property holdings with a Japanese company. Victor, fearing that the Japanese would take over the International Settlement and that he would be arrested, left Shanghai for India, just weeks before Pearl Harbour: he would never return to Shanghai or Hong Kong, settling in the tax-free Bahamas, where he died in 1961. Elly Kadoorie had two sons, Lawrence and Horace. He had groomed Lawrence to take over his business in Hong Kong. Horace was in Shanghai where he ran a school to which he was deeply committed, and he stayed in the city. After Pearl Harbour, the Japanese did indeed take over the International Settlement, took over Victor’s investments, and put Horace under house arrest. Elly Kadoorie had decided in 1920, long before these events, to move some of his wealth from Shanghai to British-ruled Hong Kong, where he, too, built hotels and developed Kowloon and the New Territories. Lawrence continued this policy. Elly was now 76 and ailing, was living with Lawrence who now, at 42, was effectively in charge of the Hong Kong business. The Japanese took over Hong Kong. Lawrence had not expected this. He thought Hong Kong was invincible; and, besides, both brothers had admired Japan, had thought it more civilized than China, and had holidayed there frequently. After the surrender of Hong Kong, the Japanese interned its English population. After a while Elly, Lawrence, his wife and two children were allowed to return to Shanghai, but there they were again imprisoned. Elly died there in 1944. Harsh and brutal though the conditions in the internment were, at least the Japanese declined German suggestions of adding to the Holocaust. Lawrence survived the war, as did 18,000 other Jews. After the war, Horace remained in Shanghai for the time being, but Lawrence returned to a devastated Hong Kong, where he still owned many assets. He worked closely with the colonial government in rebuilding Hong Kong. By the time Horace, fleeing from the advancing communists, joined Lawrence in Hong Kong in 1948, the city had already been transformed. Lawrence put him in charge of the hotels there, and the two brothers worked very closely together. As some 20,000 Chinese refugees arrived in Hong Kong, Horace began helping many of them with interest-free loans to start a new life as farmers in the New Territories. Lawrence invested a million dollars in Horace’s Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association (KAAA). By 1962 the KAAA had helped 300,000 refugees and

Author: Bookaholic babe

Rating: 4

Review: I have just finished reading ‘Kings of Shanghai’ by Jonathan Kaufman, on Kindle. I have learned so much - not simply about the Sassoon and Kadoorie families, but also about the historical backdrop against which they lived their complicated lives.Lawrence Kadoorie was born in 1899 and was still working at age 94. He became Lord Kadoorie in 1981. His family’s humanity and philanthropy are evident in the book. The Kadoories and the Sassoons saved the lives of 18, 000 Jewish refugees, during World War 2.The amount of research Kaufman did for this book is evident, but it is never overwhelming. History is brought to life and, despite there being few photographs, the writing conjures up many visual images.The main players are described in detail and we also see a number of minor characters who add to the tableau. Kaufman’s narrative is interesting and easy to read. It is an excellent book.