Jack Perry Jr takes on the 'icebreaker spirit' of his father and grandfather to boost trade between both countries
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.
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"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.
'Historic event'
"We felt we had participated in a historic event from which we could all draw immense satisfaction," wrote Jack Perry Sr in his memoir.
The trip paved the way for another trade mission with 48 businessmen from British companies the year after, which later became known as the 48 Group.
"The need for joint consultations and collective discussions with the Chinese gave birth to the formation of the '48 Group' of British traders with China. From its very inception, its philosophy and objectives were nonideological," wrote Perry in the foreword to the book The 48 Group: The Story of the Icebreakers in China.
"It concentrated on one single-minded purpose, to develop and extend Britain's trade with the new China, from which all companies would benefit commercially," he added.
And Jack Perry Sr was right. In the next seven decades, the China-UK trade volume kept growing to an annual total of more than $100 billion in recent years, and the two-way stock investment reached nearly $50 billion.
Last year, President Xi Jinping congratulated the event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the trailblazing "Icebreaking Mission" in the China-UK trade.
In his congratulatory letter, Xi pointed out that 70 years ago, British entrepreneurs represented by Jack Perry Sr, keenly seeing the bright future of the People's Republic of China and the huge potential of China-UK cooperation, broke the ice of ideology with courage, and took the lead in opening up the channel for China-UK trade exchanges.
Xi commended the generations of "icebreakers", who have witnessed and actively participated in China's development and reform over the past seven decades and achieved their own development and growth through mutually beneficial cooperation.
Jack Perry Sr's decision to continue engaging with China after the first trade deal hugely influenced his son Stephen, who was only five during the 1953 icebreaking trip. Stephen started to work for his father when he was still in college.
"The days after the founding of the People's Republic of China were marked by a resistance in the West to accepting it. Those who believed in trade and interdependence, like my father, were in a minority in the West," Stephen said.
" (My) father's conviction was that solid business relations create peace," he added.
Recalling his first visit to China in 1972, traveling from Beijing down to Guangdong province, Stephen said he was amazed by the country's hardworking people, and that it was as if every inch of the ground was used for agriculture, that there were millions upon millions of people working in the fields everywhere they went.
In that year, Stephen and his father facilitated a trade deal between the United States and China in the context of then US president Richard Nixon's icebreaking trip. In the same year, China and the UK established ambassadorial relations.
"I was part of the group that sold the first commodities from America to China. And being around Nixon's mission and that background made me feel a part of history," recalled Stephen Perry.
As the second generation of the icebreakers, Stephen witnessed the reform and opening-up policy being rolled out across the country since 1978, and in the following years, the 48 Group advised and helped set up a lot of joint ventures between Western and Chinese companies.
Besides commodity trade, Stephen was also involved in cultural exchanges as he worked to bring the English musical Les Miserables to Shanghai for the first time in 2002, and later introduced British composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals, including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, to the Chinese audiences.
Stephen has been giving talks, accepting interviews, and writing extensively about China over the past decades. In 2018, he was awarded the China Reform Friendship Medal by the Chinese government for his role as a promoter of Sino-British economic and trade exchanges. A year later, he became an honorary professor at the University of International Business and Economics.
Earlier this year, at the age of 76, Stephen retired from the 48 Group after a lifetime of doing business and trading between China and the UK.
During the 2024 Icebreakers Chinese New Year Dinner in London in February, Stephen announced his retirement in a room of prominent figures in the China-UK business community.
"Throughout the times, we have been very clear about our commitment to building China-British relations through trade and business, and it comes to the end of my reign as the chairman of the board of The 48 Group," he said. "My son, Jack, is going to take over. He has a mission in his hands. He needs to rebuild a young and vibrant 48 Group."
Just like his father, Jack Perry Jr has been immersed in the family's talks about China since childhood. "I grew up in Chinese restaurants in London and listened to my father talk with others about China," he said.
In 1992, Jack Perry Jr set foot in China for the first time during a family trip. The then 8-year-old was stunned by the Great Wall, the Beijing streets swarming with bicycles, and the curious locals flocking to have a taste of the newly opened McDonald's.
"I was just a boy watching my dad have meetings and everyone was listening to his every word. It was inspiring to see him and the difference in culture," recalled Jack. "For me, this was the beginning of a lifelong journey of learning how to see the world differently."
Carrying on the baton
In 2006, Jack visited China again. This time, he stayed in Shanghai and Beijing for four years and set up an entertainment company to gain hands-on experience in doing business in China.
He also launched Young Icebreakers, a channel to share ideas, raise awareness and promote the achievements of British and Chinese young people, creating a sense of collaboration and community among young professionals in the UK who are interested in China and the broader community.
After becoming the chairman of the 48 Group, Jack became busier than ever, traveling between London and cities in China for business conferences and expos, and exploring the market opportunities that China offers. He visited dozens of companies in various provinces across China, looking for potential partners for UK businesses, and organized the 2024 China-UK Biomedical Exchange and Cooperation Forum in Beijing.
"I want to do action, and I want to make business happen between China and the UK and one cannot make effective changes without being willing to go out in the wind first," he said. "So I'll go out 40 times if that means one company can do business."
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To Jack Perry Jr, the spirit of the Icebreaking Mission is to stand up for what is right even when the weather is bad. "It's easy to go out on a summer's day," he said. "I think the icebreakers stand up when the weather is cloudy, stand up when it rains."
"My grandfather did that. When he went to China, he was called a 'traitor'. My dad did that, he was called similar things, but still, they stood there. They stayed there during times that were difficult and did what was right," he said.
When the US administration announced tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in May, Jack was among the first to point out that the nature of the tariffs was scapegoating China for US domestic problems.
"I think we are at a turbulent time, and I realize it is the time for a Perry to stand up to do the right thing," he said.
"I'm from the family of icebreakers, but I haven't ice-broken yet. My goal is just to do what's in our DNA. We are not shying away that we are a friend to China, and we would stand up even when the weather might be turbulent."
