Things that must not be forgotten : a childhood in wartime China

To grow up in Beijing in the 1930s was to become engulfed in the colossal struggle of ideologies - and nations - that shaped modern China.

Born into privilege, separated by the filthy chaos of the city by servants, limousines and the stone walls of the Legation Quarter, Michael David Kwan saw his pampered life disintegrate as the Japanese overran China and the world moved towards war.

Inexorably, the family was gradually drawn into the maelstrom.Kwan's father, a wealthy railway administrator, became active in the resistance against the Japanese.

Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist and Mao Zedong's emerging communists were united against the invaders, but Kwan's father knew it wouldn't always be so.

He had to protect his interests, his family and his future any way he could.

In Beijing, the Kwan household became a gathering place for high-level resistance members.

At their summer villa in Beidaihe, the family surreptitiously aided the guerrillas in the nearby mountains.

In Qingdao, the Kwans lived next door to a Japanese admiral and his wife.

From a treehouse overlooking their garden, little David innocently befriended the Japanese couple while his father, now Commissioner of Finance in the pro-Japanese government, secretly worked for the resistance, even sheltering a wounded US airman.

Disclosure would have meant summary execution for the entire household.After the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Japan's surrender, the family's problems were exacerbated.

David's father, now imprisoned, had to prove he was not a collaborator but rather a leader of the resistance.

China moved towards chaos as the nationalists and the communists vied for power.

David, aged twelve, was sent to relatives in Shanghai before being spirited out of the country, not knowing if he would ever see his family again.This biography balances the innocence of childhood against the grim machinations of war, self-preservation against brutal authority, love of family against love of country.