It was Christmas Eve, and most families were making holiday plans, with one eye on the storms threatening to roll across Australia’s east coast. The Wus – wealthy and very, very private – had other things on their minds.

Jina Chen, the matriarch, Alex Wu, her husband, and Michael and Jack Wu, their two children, had come up with an audacious play. Even though they were the targets of one of the biggest attempted asset seizures in Australian Taxation Office history, the Wus were working on a plan to take back control of their family business – one they had sold for a fortune to an entity far more formidable than the tax office: the Chinese government.