Forced labour to high finance: Investor's unlikely journey

Weijian Shan became one of the first students sent by Communist China to the United States, where he went on to finish a doctorate, studying economics under future Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen. [AFP]

Exiled to the Gobi Desert at the age of 15, Weijian Shan's days were marked by gnawing hunger and back-breaking forced labour. But his sense of hope was kept alive by an unlikely source -- insecticide manuals.

Now one of Asia's top financiers and the head of Hong Kong-based private equity firm PAG, Shan told AFP that reading -- virtually anything he could get his hands on -- effectively saved his life, providing "an escape" from the harsh realities of Mao Zedong's oppressive regime.