This volume examines Britain's relations with China from the end of the World War II to the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. It demonstrates how Britain's effort to recover something of its pre-war commercial pre-eminence in China were handicapped by its post-war financial weakness and the political influence acquired in China during the war by the United States. Believing it might still be possible to keep one foot in China's commercial door, Britain parted company with its American ally by recognising the Chinese Communist government at the beginning of 1950. Britain's view of the unfolding civil war in China is recorded in detail throughout, especially in the context of how Hong Kong might be retained as a British colony.