Through the Jade Divide

On the night of May 22nd 1944, five British civilians cut through the double thickness of eight feet high barbed wire enclosing the Lunghua Civil Assembly Centre in Shanghai and disappeared into China.

They faced appalling odds. Shifting allegiances and universal terror meant that local peasants were not to be trusted.

Chiang Kai Shek's troops were spread across a wide field of action and controlled the people's livelihood; Communist guerillas were operating in small, well organised and effective units and controlled the people's hearts.

The Ta Tao police of Shanghai's puppet government patrolled the backstreets and go-downs of the municipal and rural districts; the collaborationist troops of the Wang Ching Wei regime patrolled the countryside and border regions of the occupied territories; the Imperial troops of Japan's China Expeditionary Army controlled all major rail and communication centres along the East coast of China. The five escapes were spirited by local Chinese guerilla networks through some of the most physically hostile territory on earth - wild China of mountain ranges and myths, rope bridges, torrents and unbroken ravines; rugged highlands shrouded in mist and cultivated patchworks sunk in haze. 46 years later, the son of one of those escapees set out to retrace his father's route to freedom, some three thousand miles from Shanghai to Kunming.

This is the story of two Chinas, told through two separate but related journeys.

It bridges the divide between China's past and present and spans the gulf between foreigners and Chinese.