Bridge Builders:
Simon Haworth

It's quite the hop from China to Cheshire. The leafy county in England's northwest, so beloved of Premier League footballers, may not immediately bring China to mind – after all, it's more than 9,000 kilometers from Stockport to Shanghai.

However, one man rooting through his family keepsakes in a Cheshire attic found himself instantly transported not just thousands of kilometers but also hundreds of years, as he realized he had been inadvertently continuing a bridge-building story spanning six generations.

The realization happened to Simon Haworth in 2016. Cheshire-based but globally-minded, the entrepreneur had already set up companies working with counterparts in the U.S. and China. And it was when discussing the latter partnership that his father alerted him to the wider expanse of history.

"I was speaking to my father about my engagement with China," Haworth tells CGTN, "and he said, 'You do remember that the family has a very long engagement with China?' 

"I remembered that my grandparents had been to China in 1963 for a month: they'd taken film and written diaries with really interesting information. I remembered that, but my father said 'Go and look in the attic.' 

"I went upstairs at the family home at Free Green Farm in Cheshire, just near Manchester, and there was a chest full of information – including my grandmother's diaries, but also some books by my earlier ancestors. And it became clear that I was the fifth generation in a row to engage with China. 

"My great-great-grandfather had started the trade in 1874, and when I took my eldest son George over to China, he was the sixth generation in a continuous line to engage with China. And I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't realized how long that amazing engagement had been going on."

With hindsight it seems obvious for Haworth to engage with China – especially given a cute childhood misunderstanding stemming from his grandparents' groundbreaking trip. 

"When my grandmother first came back from China, she came up to the farmhouse to explain about her trip to us children," he recalls. "This was in 1963, so I was just a little bit more than one years old – so explaining to me wasn't going to be easy. 

"However, she explained to my siblings that every fourth child in the world is Chinese – that's the level of growth of China. And so with proper children's logic, my elder brothers and sisters turned to me and said, 'Simon, you're the fourth child. You must be Chinese.' And from that day on, they told me I was Chinese – until I was 10 years old, I didn't really know whether I was Chinese or not. 

"Now, of course, my brothers and sisters ring me up with the evidence of what I've been doing and they say, 'Look, we were right – you are Chinese,'" he laughs. Such is his immersion in the culture that he even has an unofficial Chinese name: "My name is Simon Haworth, but just about everyone in China that I know calls me Xi-meng 西蒙."

It's part of an unusual, fascinating adventure in a new culture. "For me, engaging with China has been a very peculiar journey. To then discover the depth of my family's connections is an extra that has just brought it all to life."

Haworth wasn't simply following the family trade – indeed, his line of work is a radical departure from his forebears, and his own son is moving the dial again.  

"We started during the Industrial Revolution, trading between Jiangsu and Manchester bringing silk into the UK, and for the next four generations that was our trade. Now with me we're trading biotechnology and with my eldest son in property, we're trading between the UK and China in a different realm."

Again, it comes down to Haworth's pragmatic worldview.

"What really persuaded me to engage with China is opportunity," he explains. "I have a view of the world and I'm always seeking sources of capital and sources of market – and China was one of those places where you got both: You have capital and market in the same environment. 

"I also think that there is a very important stage that I would describe as 'China's Turn'. I think the baton of global leadership passes slowly from country to country, and right now it's China's turn. And so to be involved in the growth and development of that relationship is very important."

As a general rule, whenever humans grow attached to a certain place, it is through people. So it is for Haworth, and the man born on the other side of the world whom he nevertheless calls his brother.

"I still think the most important reason for Wuhan being so central is the personal connections," he reflects. "Once I arrived in Wuhan I engaged with some of the people there, particularly Yu Tantan. I consider Yu Tantan to be my younger brother."

Yu is a senior editor for the Changjiang Daily in Wuhan, and like any good editor, he realized a brilliant story when he saw one in Haworth continuing the family history of engagement with China. So impressed was he, and so happy to work with Haworth, that he flew to the UK for research and interview purposes. 

"He made the effort to come over here to engage with the family, and he ended up writing an amazing book called Cambridge Notes about the six-generation engagement with China," says Haworth. "He has put an extraordinary amount of work into sharing that story."

It has been worthwhile: Cambridge Notes has become extremely popular. 

"The book has been received extraordinarily well in China," says Haworth. "Tantan and I have done many book signing events and presentation events, but he has done hundreds of engagements with Chinese people, young people, old people to introduce the story."

The 150-year sweep of history is the hook, but Haworth believes the story works at a deeper level: "I think it's been able to reflect a personal picture of Britain and how the link with China is important to us," he says.

"I think it's at the personal level in China that it seems to have been extremely well received. The story has caught people's attention, the idea of 150 years of continual connection that we're still continuing with six generations in a row."

There were teething problems to overcome – not least the matter of communication. "Tantan and I are separated by language," admits Haworth. "We don't speak each other's language very well, but via various means of communication – through interpreters and Tantan's English is getting better and better – we have connected at a very personal level to really understand each other. 

"And so that's one of the great joys of my engagement with China, is to find an individual whose life I find fascinating. And we have a mutual respect for what we are doing in our different countries."

Indeed the countries are different, and the personal backgrounds are very different, but the friendship is strong enough to find the differences fascinating while enjoying the similarities. 

"Tantan's family has come through a very traditional Chinese route, my family has come through a very traditional British route – but still, the two individuals absolutely see eye to eye," says Haworth. "We're fascinated by each other's observations and lives – it's really interesting to me to understand Tantan's family history. And for him, it's interesting to see my family and to come up to the house and to see the various elements of the family history that we hold."

The bridge metaphor recurs again and again in Haworth's conversation – in relation to his painting, his business and his entire worldview. 

"My dream for this bridge-building activity between the UK and China is not to do with business," he insists. "The dream is about personal connections. We have had projects where we have linked young people in the UK with young people in China, because my dream is that the two nations understand each other at the personal level."

Before the pandemic struck, Simon had hosted children from Wuhan at his parents' house to give them a quitessential English experience. He had also helped them get to know peers in the UK and form friendship with them. On one occasion, the children from Wuhan had performed the dragon dance in the garden of the family home, which is now a much treasured memory for the Haworth family.

Simon admits forging understanding at the personal level is no easy task and takes a lot of work, "That takes a lot of removal of prejudice and misunderstanding and mis-facts from both sides. And we have to be humble about that. We're not perfect, neither side is perfect, we need to learn from each other and learn about each other. 

"So my dream is not to do with business. Business is a conduit for me for what we're doing: business, art, culture, all a conduit for what we're doing. It's about the person to person connections. And if I can see understanding between the British people and the Chinese people, that is worth it."

Those connections have been threatened in recent times, but it's not surprising that the man with a 150-year family connection to China takes a long view of history.

"We're in an interesting time," he says, with a hint of understatement. "If you look back over the last few years, the relations sometimes between China and the UK have gone in the wrong direction, they've got worse."

Haworth has a strong idea as to why that might be.

"There's a really simple reason for that, I think, that's underlying this whole piece: This is about China's turn. China is stepping into a really important global role right now and taking on that challenge. That responsibility is not easy."

He refers back to the end of Pax Britannica and the rise of a new hegemony across the ocean – the Atlantic Ocean.

"When America took on the challenge that Britain held, we didn't do that lightly. We didn't say, 'Oh, welcome, America, you take over now' – we fought with them. And so it's no surprise that the relations are a bit brittle between different nations at the moment. 

"But I would say those are at the national level, at the political level. The point is, what is the link at the personal level for business? There's always opportunity, business is able to see that, and it's the individuals that will bring that about. I see the government as setting the field upon which we play, and it's then down to us to do that."

As Haworth's family proves, business connections between the two nations have a long history, but the structure has changed. "In the old days, there used to be a bridge between Britain and China, but there was a big gate at either end of the bridge that's gone. The trouble is, there's prejudice and misunderstanding stopping people going across that bridge. And that's what we have to address. And it's not about political differences. It's about human engagement."

For his devotion to friendship and understanding, Haworth was given the Yellow Crane Friendship Award in Wuhan, a city he considers his second home, and the Chinese Government Friendship Award, China's highest honor for foreign nationals.

With the zest that has seen him through decades of successful business ventures, Haworth is warming to his theme – and setting himself a challenge. 

"Our governments have built a bridge. The physical structure, if you like, has been built by our two governments, has given us the environment. But bridge-builders, we have to now cross that bridge. We have to help others cross that bridge to engage. And it's only if the individuals engage that the bridges will work."

Clearly delighting in his metaphor, Haworth smilingly raises the stakes.

"There's only four cars on the bridge. In fact, there's probably two cars and a bicycle, compared to the capacity of the bridge between the UK and China. This is the only time in my life where my job is to create a traffic jam – to try and get more traffic on that bridge between the UK and China."

For some, this could be hollow rhetoric, but Haworth walks it like he talks it. In 1887 his groundbreaking great-great-grandfather sent his eldest son Harry to Shanghai for work experience. After all these years and generations – including Simon's grandfather and grandmother, with their 1960s Wuhan visits carefully recorded by cine film and diary – Simon did the same thing, sending his eldest son George for a work placement in Shanghai.

Now George is working in property in London and Cambridge, engaging when he can with Chinese investors. Even his youngest daughter, 11-year-old Amara is determined to take up learning Chinese, hoping one day she could visit cities her great-grandparents enjoyed so much. The six-generation story continues, and Simon Haworth couldn't be happier as he has a new project with with to engage. "Agritech is the new revolution," says Haworth, "Agritech will do more for human health than biotech in the years ahead and China is the most important and growing market."

With the new vision in mind, Simon is confident about the new chapter he is going to add to his family's story with China, "My family has now been connected with China for nearly 150 years and six continuous generations," he says. "But that's just the start. My task now is to set us up for the next 150 years."