Two Peasants and a President (38 page)

“Yeah, there’s no doubt about it. The knife’s sticking so far out of my back I can see it in the mirror,” Dahl said to a president who’d been sound asleep minutes earlier.  “No, the horses are already loose and there’s not a thing we can do about it but say we’re sorry.”

“What!  You think I can just tell him that there was this little mix up and the most important fugitives in the world waltzed off that carrier and are now on Japanese television.   Those people hate each other.  The
Chinese
vice-president’s going to think either we arranged it or we’re the biggest
bumblers
on the planet.  Aside from shooting down his plane, I’ll be damned if I can think of any way we could have screwed this up worse.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he just turns around and heads home.”

“Look, Mr. President, there’s a slim chance that we can mitigate this thing if our friends in media can be persuaded to knock it down, imply it’s a hoax.  All we have to do is discredit an already disgraced sea captain and a couple of newlyweds who happen to be related to him.  Refugees lie all the time to get into this country; they’ve got no credibility whatsoever.”

“Yeah, but the thing’s already all over the Japanese media,” said the president. 

“So
what!  Those people are always
at each others’ throats.  Who is there that has any proof?  Nobody.  We
just do what we’ve done before:
d
eny it.  There‘s still plenty of time before the
Chinese
vice-president arrives to get everybody‘s story straight.  But I’m gonna have to make some phone calls pronto.  I’ll keep you posted.  Meanwhile, try to relax and focus on the meeting.”

******

The morning news programs and most of the New York and Was
h
ington print media went to bat for their man, either ignoring the story alt
o
gether or casting it in fifteen seconds of dubious light.  Other accounts of events in China were predictably ridiculed and research was begun on a c
ampaign to discredit and smear C
aptain Davis and his family.  But it would not be enough to placate the Chinese vice-president.  Papers in Europe and the Far East immediately picked up the story and ran with it.  There were simply too many places where the heavy boot of China was deeply resented for the story to go away, and with the captain and his friends doing convincing interviews in Tokyo, it had firmly taken root. 

It was about to take root on the
set of a popular and nationally
synd
i
cated New York morning show where an obviously sincere young woman was describing the most horrific honeymoon that any of the millions of viewers could have ever imagined.  From the moment she and her husband had been drugged to the room in a prestigious Chinese hospital where she was just hours from being dissected, the story of her ordeal and the courageous di
s
sidents who had risked their lives to rescue her was riveting audiences.

The most powerful part of the interview came when the camera cut away to a diminutive Chinese lady sitting in a Tokyo studio.  The young American spoke eloquently of her courage, inspired by a son who had been executed and whose organs had been removed and sold because he had raised his voice in defense of peasants whose homes were being razed solely to e
n
rich corrupt speculators.  

Those whose job it was to attack and discredit the young woman quickly began to run into problems.  Satellite shots of the Chinese Northern Fleet
sortieing
were hard to explain as a routine exercise when it could be clearly seen that they were stopping and boarding ships and boats across the Yellow Sea.  A warship just checking fishing licenses with heavy weapons trained on a small boat was a stretch
,
and the complete absence of any credible explanation or evidence to show how the American couple got from Hong Kong to Tianjin in the first place was providing some embarrassing moments for talk show hosts who make a living attempting to spin events to their e
m
ployers’ and the administration’s advantage. 

Most of all, it was Holly’s impassioned recounting of a horror beyond imagination.  That she could simply have fabricated such a tale as well as her emotional response to it seemed more than all but a very few viewers could swallow.  To most, attempts to impeach her story appeared to be bullying, and the effort to discredit her was becoming untenable.  What was worse for the administration was the steadily rising tide of anti-China sentiment and resentment of the fact that China had not only become America’s banker but
was clearly expecting more in return than Americans were willing to give. 

The coup de grace, so to speak, came in the form of taped conversations that appeared on the internet and quickly went viral.  In them, one of the president’s closest aides and an associate could be clearly heard talking about blackmailing Senator Baines using a hooker.  Not only did they discuss botching the job on the first attempt, but they intended to try again.  That people close to the president were involved in a tawdry scheme to smear a senator whose popularity had risen dramatically as a result of his ant
i
-China campaign reflected badly on the administration. 

It also made it increasingly more difficult for certain Democratic senators who would soon come up for re-election to vote against the tariffs bill that Baines supported. The bill had recently
been
amended to include tariffs on a range of tech toys and tools as a result of China declaring that it would severely restrict sales of rare Earth minerals that are used in everything from phones to electric car batteries
,
and of which it produces more than nine tenths of the world supply.  The bill, which had passed the House, now had almost enough votes to pass in the Senate.  If the president were forced to veto it, his veto would not only reinforce growing suspicion that he was siding with China, it would also jeopardize his green energy initiative, whose products rely heavily on rare Earth minerals.  

On the morning of the Chinese vice-president’s visit, Senator Baines stood on the floor of the Senate to condemn China for its attempt to hide the kidnapping and attempted murder of American citizens for the purpose of selling their organs for profit.  In a new twist, he revealed that one of the European women who had fled the hospital in Tianjin had gone public, claiming that she was unaware that her diseased kidney was going to be r
e
placed with one from a living person who had been kidnapped for that pu
r
pose.  The sheer weight of bad news was crushing attempts to spin or di
s
credit a story that was now front page news on every continent.  Worse, in the view of the Chinese vice-president, Washington, and in particular Senator Baines, had caused the greatest loss of face for China since Tiananmen Square. 

57

A large and v
ocal crowd greeted the Chinese Vice-P
resident’s limo
u
sine as it entered the White House grounds.  Predictably there were more than the us
ual free Tibet, free
Falun
Gang
and anti-currency manipulation protestors present.  Filipino expats and sympathizers by the hundreds lined the iron fence surrounding the residence.  Some managed to get close enough to lob eggs.  In what would soon change, only one sign read: 
Invasion of the body snatcher. 
The limo reached the White House portico festooned with dripping egg yolks.  It was an inauspicious beginning.

The first thing the agent opening the limo door noticed was not the usual balding pate of most senior diplomats but a head of thick black hair.  The Chinese vice-president stood up, revealing an expressionless soapstone face resembling a Forbidden City statue.  Li
Guo
Peng
, presumptive heir to the Chinese presidency, mounted the White House steps with the air of an emperor come to instruct the American president in what was required of him.  The president noted the icy demeanor and a handshake with all the warmth of a brass door knocker.  His smile was met with the briefest curl of a lip, as if disdaining the meaningless expenditure of energy to convey a friendship that did not exist. 

Li sat stiffly, eyes cast downward during the introductory formalities, providing opportunity for those in the room to stare at his mirthless face, a face seemingly un-warmed by lifeblood passing through its veins.  To a president who is fond of placing his hand on the back of those with whom he speaks, the prospect seemed abhorrent, as if his touch might reveal
arms and shoulders of stone.  When it was time for him to speak, Li
’s
eyes circled the room like a teacher’s, pinning each student to what he was about to say.

His prelude, as his persona, droned like an organ pedal-point, a single deep tone underscoring, accompanying everything.  ‘Core interests which must be respected’ rumbled a warning, a forbidden place, open to neither discussion nor negotiation, territorial claims in Tibet, Taiwan
,
and now the entire South China Sea, doors that for the West needed to be opened but for China were sealed like a tomb.  

That other nations’ interests and even borders could be so cavalierly dismissed infuriated the gathered diplomats.  But most have forgotten what Mao
Tse-Tung
once said:  “Power
flows
from the barrel of a gun.”  While
the West focused on the joys of consumerism that cheap Chinese goods had made possible, China focused on its 5 year, 10 year and 20 year plans, all of which ensured that one day the rest of the world would learn the meaning of what Mao had said. 

Ironically, Li also spoke of building trust and cooperation, a fascinating concept given the unprovoked sinking of the Philippine ship, not to mention the ongoing genocide in Tibet.  Evidently there were no bounds to what this ma
n was capable of.  He had cheek,
of that there was no doubt. 

Li also broached the subject of removing export restrictions on a wide variety of high tech items which could clearly be of use to the Chinese mil
i
tary.  Larimer, the Secretary of Defense found himself wondering why China hadn’t simply stolen the
m, as it had so much of America’
s defense inventory.  That there was actually anything left that they hadn’t stolen was the only real surprise, and with new restrictions on rare Earth minerals
,
without which virtually all tech items could not be manufactured, there might be little to export anyway. 

As the meeting wore on, the Chinese vice-president eventually got around to what he called ‘speaking with one voice
,
’ clearly referring to the American president’s inability to stifle criticism.  That free speech had been a fundamental precept here for
around
250 years seemed not to matter.  Beijing had for decades chaffed at the American concepts enshrined in their Bill of Rights, but now the Chinese felt they were in a position to be more bold and assertive abou
t any speech of which they didn’
t approve. 

Had a visionary or even a historian, rather than a politician, occupied the White House, he might have pointed out that China’s transformation into an economic and military powerhouse had only been possible with America‘s cash.  The gradual evolution from manufacturer and seller of low priced consumer goods to principal banker to the United States had been aided by a long series of willing congressmen and women who seldom let principles or economic planning stand in the way of their re-elections. 

Now the American president had provided China with the final piece of leverage it needed.  The enormous expansion of the United States gover
n
ment’s scope and power required the already staggering $1.15 trillion in China’s US Treasuries holdings to rise even further.
  America’s banker had come to
demand something in return.  Much as Europe and the United States had looked the other way when Germany annexed the Sudetenland, Li was making it clear to the American president that he too must look
the other way as China expands
its power in Asia. 

Ironically, Li
Guo
Peng
had fully intended to give the American president the cash infusion he so badly needed, but with his pathetic failure to
keep a handful of troublesome people away from the press, Li decided to imprint his displeasure indelibly by suspending additional investment.  The term ‘further study’ was used, but the message was clear. 

As Beijing saw it, there was a far greater problem than the bungled matter of the escapees.  The effort to keep the United States from interfering with a centuries old dream was nearly off the tracks.  China has always seen itself as the rightful heir to the world’s center of influence and power.   It could not simply step back and watch it all disappear into the abyss. 

For the first time, trade had actually dwindled, not by much, but enough to be noticed.  Men and women who could no longer even take for granted having a job, much less owning a home were focusing their collective anger on China.  The tariff bill seemed about to pass in the Senate.  That the president would veto it didn’t matter; it was the ground swell of anti-China sentiment that threatened everything.