THE wealthiest and most powerful people on earth pass through the iron gates that surround Sidney Rittenberg’s home. There was a time when he shared a cave with Chairman Mao, lived on two bowls of gruel a day, and autographed the Little Red Books of fans during the Cultural Revolution. Today Rittenberg is consulted by the likes of Bill Gates as America’s foremost expert on investment in China.

He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and became an historic figure in China, where he is known as Li Dunbai, a name borrowed from an ancient poet. He lived in China for 35 years, was an adviser to Mao and a prominent member of the Communist Party.

In the 1960s he was a key figure in the Cultural Revolution and confidante of the infamous Gang of Four. “Police used to stop traffic so people could get my autograph,” he says.

However, twice he was held in solitary confinement for a total of 16 years, accused of spying for the US. He was pardoned both times. His wife, Yulin, and four children were held in labour camps during his second spell which ended in 1977.

Now 83, he has returned to the US with his family, having renounced communism, to become what he once despised: a capitalist, and a consultant to boot. There is nothing further removed from the means of production. From his single-storey house in Seattle he charges six-figure sums for his services.

Rittenberg was a 24-year-old soldier in the US Army when he arrived in China. He would not have got there had it not been for R. J. Reynolds, owner of the Camel cigarette factory where he used to work.

His application to join the army was rejected because of his poor eyesight, and he went back to the plant where he was also a union organiser.

“But R. J. was also the president of the local draft board, and no sooner had I begun organising the Camel factory than my rejected application was approved . . . ”

In the army he learnt Japanese and Chinese and worked in Shanghai. “I fell in love with China,” he says. After his discharge in 1946 he worked in the UN famine relief mission, and was horrified by the corruption. “And I knew that the Nationalist army, being supported by the Americans, was selling all the donated food on to the black market. It was criminal.”

It was this injustice that rekindled his old Communist Party links, which were formed during his university days, and led him on a 45-day journey by foot to Yanan, where he met Zhou Enlai, the future Chinese premier, and Mao.

Mao invited Rittenberg to the caves where his forces were based, for an education in US life. “Although the Americans were on the side of the Nationalists, Mao was convinced that he would need America as a close ally once he had won the war.” But President Roosevelt would not talk to Mao. If he had, Rittenberg believes, the economic revolution in China could have begun decades ago.

Despite his ideology, Mao liked America, says Rittenberg. He enjoyed the idea of a country where everyone was free. “He was a great paradox this man Mao,” he says.

“He (Mao) said to me in the Forties: ‘In China we don’t suffer from too much capitalism, we suffer from too little’.”

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