Sterling Seagrave – författare

Be so subtle that you are invisible. Be so mysterious that you are intangible. Then you will control your rivals's fate'Sun Tzu, from The Art of WarA community of fifty five million expatriates. Up to two trillion dollars in assets. A highly integrated interconnected network of influence and favour. A firm base on the Pacific Rim. Ambitions to influence the West. Imagine the potential power of such an organisation. You don't have to. This is the Overseas Chinese.Sterling Seagrave's brilliant new book, Lords of the Rim, uncovers a complex web of operations which already dominates the Far East and which is already making inroads into the West. It is a superbly researched and spectacularly told account of an extraordinary phenomenon, telling just who the Overseas Chinese are and how they became so powerful. Spanning thousands of years it encompasses stories of murder and betrayal, bravery and corruption; of triads, syndicates, kingmakers, merchants, emperors, generals, spies and pirates.In telling this masterful and entertaining history, Seagrave provides the reader with a cautionary tale: that Chinese strategies so effective for centuries are just as succesful today.

In 1945, US intelligence officers in Manila discovered that the Japanese had hidden large quantities of gold bullion and other looted treasure in the Philippines. President Truman decided to recover the gold but to keep its riches secret. These, combined with Japanese treasure recovered during the US occupation, and with recovered Nazi loot, would create a worldwide American political action fund to fight communism. This ''Black Gold'' gave Washington virtually limitless, unaccountable funds, providing an asset base to reinforce the treasuries of America''s allies, to bribe political and military leaders, and to manipulate elections in foreign countries for more than fifty years.