Family bonds are growing stronger as China-UK relationship endures

Editor's Note: The Communist Party of China has just concluded its 19th National Congress in Beijing. China Daily asked two foreign experts for their views on developments in China and the country's global leadership.

During Simon Haworth's third trip to China in 2010, the English entrepreneur wrote an email to his father. The reply he received helped Haworth understand that his family has a deep bond with China that stretches back more than five generations - 150 years - far longer than he had realized.

In the 1880s, Haworth's great-great-grandfather started the first silk business in Manchester, England, to trade with companies in Jiangsu province by partnering with Jardine Matheson, a British conglomerate headquartered in Hong Kong.