Two Peasants and a President (43 page)

If it came to a battle, the Vietnamese captain had no intention of backing down.  His orders specified protecting the cargo carriers but not firing the first shot.  If the Chinese frigate were to attempt to board one of the cargo ships, he was to place his warship in between them.  But if a Chinese ship or aircraft were to lock on to his ship, he was free to defend himself. 

When the Vietnamese SU-27 fighters were within 75 kilometers, they were picked up by the Chinese J-10 fighters’ radar.  Their pilots now realized that the Vietnamese had a strong hand and if they played it, some of the Chinese pilots would be unlikely to return to base.  In the back of their minds, they were wondering if at this moment more Chinese fighters were being sent to back them up.  While that might be comforting, the escalation could prove fatal to all. 

In a small clearing in the northernmost jungles of the Philippines, a compact CIA elint (electronic intelligence gathering) unit was ‘watching’ the most tense encounter since the sinking of the Philippine warship.  However, this time the danger was far greater since both combatants were far more well-armed an
d had a long history of belligere
nce.  In what took less than a second, a burst of encrypted data was fired from a transmitter cleverly co
n
cealed in a rickety pier along the shore to an American military communic
a
tions satellite overhead, the first step on its journey to the Pentagon and u
l
timately the White House.  

Chinese sensors picked up the energy burst but calculated its tran
s
mission point as just off shore rather than along it.  Due to this slight mi
s
calculation and their inability to decipher the encryption, they believed that an American submarine had allowed its antenna to rise to the surface to co
m
municate with the 7
th
Fleet, still in Japanese waters.

The potential involvement of a United States carrier battle group was not new.  China had been, in its eyes, shamed by two United States carrier battle groups sailing through the Straits of Taiwan before and
ever
since
had
been developing a series of weapons to defeat that threat, including an alleged 6,000 mph carrier-killer missile and an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse)
weapon.  While it was not believed that either of those systems were online, China has a huge arsenal of land-based missiles along its coast as well as hundreds of warplanes.  The most dangerous aspect of all these events was the dramatic elevation of the possibility that a critical error by either party could start a war. 

As the CIA’s electronic message quickly made its way up the military chain of command, one of the many civilian satellites, some of which had been paying particular attention to the area since things started heating up, noticed the unusual proximity and activities of Chinese and Vietname
se naval assets as well the
cargo ships.  It was obvio
us that not only was something
afoot, but that when warships of nations which had clashed in the past come together, the outcome could be unpredictable. 

******

While the signal emanating from the CIA base reached its destination more quickly, the civilian satellite’s transmission soon found its way to the media. This followed the previous day’s report of China stopping Vietnamese container and cargo ships on the high seas.  Questions were directed to the White House and Pentagon and with no answers forthcoming, the media turned to its audience.  China’s cavalier and threatening actions, even more off the charts than usual, were generating no small amount of concern around the globe.  The uncertainty had driven the price of oil to new highs which jeopardized an already weakened global economy, but rather than dampen enthusiasm for the boycott, it only strengthened it.  Not since WWII did America have an enemy that was so universally detested.  In the United States, as well as abroad, people were becoming more intransigent.  China’s actions surrounding events in Tianjin had felt like a personal insult to many, and once again their extraordinary hubris was inflaming passions like nothing since Pearl Harbor. 

There was an interesting parallel that went largely unnoticed except among historians and military types.  In the late 18
th
century, when European ships were buying and carting off vast loads of Chinese goods of every type, the western powers approached the emperor to request that China reciprocate by buying western goods.  Empty ships on the return voyage to China meant lower profits and higher prices in Europe.  The emperor, with typical arr
o
gance, told the envoys that Europe had nothing that China needed or wanted and that their products were inferior to what China possessed.  Unfort
u
nately, the emperor had apparently failed to notice that the West did have one thing which China did not: ships with large guns.  What ensued was a war in
which China was forced to open its ports and to buy a product that would later spawn other conflicts: opium. 

While few in the West think historically, most being occupied with more important concerns such as sitcoms and sports, China has studied its history carefully.  Their 5 year, 10 year and 20 year plans ensure that such mistakes are not repeated and that one day soon China would be the one who had the ships with big guns.  Up to this point, their plan had worked quite well and their power had grown, but if there was a single flaw that one could point to in their strategy, it might be their continued love affair with arrogance.  The current situation was a perfect example; they still had not grasped the sea change in the attitude of the average citizens in the West.  This was leading them to a potentially perilous conclusion: that the West would, in the end, back down. 

News of heightened tensions in the South China Sea reached a public that was already fatigued and disgusted by China’s display of bratty behavior.  That officials in Beijing would, after everything else they had done, try to prevent goods from reaching the United States was almost beyond belief.  For the first time in anyone’s memory, there were so many demonstrators around the Chinese embassy that riot troops were called in to prevent a breach of the Chinese compound.  No room in the embassy was now beyond the noise of the angry crowd, and the ambassador messaged his concern to Be
i
jing.  That the reply was a rebuke did not bode well for future events. 

More troubling was the burning of a tractor-trailer rig whose contents appeared, at least from the logo on the trailer, to be Chinese.  Four youths in a fast car had hurled a Molotov cocktail at it and driven off.  The president finally took to the airwaves in an attempt to calm things down, but in a move that baffled everyone, his speech made it clear that he blamed the Republ
i
cans.  This time Senator Baines remained in his Senate seat as other Repu
b
licans and even a few Democrats denounced the president for such an absurd and uncalled for partisan gesture.  The president’s inept and ill-considered words managed to do what few at this point thought even possible: make things worse. 

Some of the more volatile members of society combined their already shaky grasp of propriety with liberal amounts of alcohol, and the torched truck incident began to be repeated.  In several cities, flash mobs looted stores under the pretext of protesting Chinese goods.  That most of these goods somehow ended up in their homes and apartments did not seem to them at all inconsistent.  Community leaders appealed for calm and, for the most part, it was at least partially restored. 

H
olly had returned home to a well-deserved rest, but given the fragile
state of the public mind at the moment, an appeal was made to see if her considerable charm could be used to reignite the spirit of cooperation instead of Molotov cocktails.  In spite of the fragile state of her own mind, her i
n
domitable spirit once again
rose to the occasion and she delivered a speech in the House of Representatives that had all present on their feet.  Without r
e
gard to party affiliation, every major news organization broadcast the speech in its entirely and within the hour it went viral on the internet and social m
e
dia. 

Perhaps it was the youthfulness of the speaker, perhaps it was what she had been through; for whatever reasons most of America listened and heeded.  The faltering boycott began to return to an organized and focused state and, for the most part, the violence subsided.  The president wisely kept his mouth shut for a change.  Once again breaths were held and all eyes were on China. 

Tourism there had trickled virtually to a halt.  Hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions were devoid of customers.  Airlines cut their flight sche
d
ules as frightened flyers stayed home or boycotted altogether.  Tour guides squatted before empty attractions eating cheap noodles.  Trade shows didn’t bother to open as most buyers had canceled.  Factories laid off workers who would not be receiving unemployment checks.  The mood that at first had been frustration was evolving into anger.  Try as they might, Chinese censors had not been entirely successful at hiding what had happened in Tianjin and its aftermath.  With increasing numbers of displaced workers on the streets, rumors flew and smuggled reports of Holly’s speech in Paris reached more and more people. 

******

In the combat information center aboard the
Dinh
Tien
Hoang, officers watched the converging flights of Chinese J-10’s and Vietnamese SU-27’s, now inside each other’s air-to-air missile envelope.  China and Vietnam were within a finger’s breadth of war.  Any one of the eight pilots approaching each other at super-sonic speed was capable, either by intent or miscalcul
a
tion, of starting a conflict that could envelope several nations as well as plunge an already teetering world economy into the abyss. 

As blips on radar screens drew closer, a Vietnamese pilot with exce
p
tional eyesight could now make out the distant shapes of the approaching Chinese fighters.  He and all the others were well aware that he who fires second dies first.  He prepared to lock up the closest, a move that would seen by Chinese attack radar sensors and would provoke a counter response and mean the inevitable launch of missiles.  With his finger poised to perform the
lock, his sharp eyes detected a maneuver, or so he thought.  His heads up display confirmed what his eyes had just told him: the Chinese fighters were turning. 

The Vietnamese flight leader ordered his flight to turn away and circle to the East, over the projected path of the ships below.  He had no way of knowing that the Chinese commander in Hainan had orders that his fighters were to attempt to intimidate the convoy into turning back to Viet Nam but were not to attack unless fired upon. 

Also unbeknownst to him was a parallel battle raging in Beijing.  In China, the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), to all extents and purposes, controls the country.  The Politburo Standing Committee consists of four to nine people, typically older men, who make all major decisions in China.  But implicit in the decisions taken by them is the acquiescence of the People’s Liberation Army. 

The current crisis was a perfect demonstration of what happens when the two groups disagree.  On the one side, Li
Guo
Peng
, presumptive heir to the presidency and a hardliner with powerful friends in the PLA
,
felt that that China’s amazing success is attributable to its iron fist and intransigence in international affairs.  On the other side,
Sheng
Guangzu
, the Chinese Premier felt that the days of governing from the turret of a tank were over and more democracy must be introduced to avoid turning the growing insurrection into a civil war.

Sheng
Guangzu
was, by all appearances, the antithesis of Li
Guo
Peng
.  Short of stature and quiet in manner, his early years had been marred by the arrest of his parents during the Cultural Revolution.  Raised by an aunt, he had dedicated himself to the battle of logic and reason since his size and disposition did not lend themselves to the life of a warrior.  In 1991, when he rose to give his first speech of any significance, chuckles were heard around the hall since at his full height of five foot three inches, only his head could be seen above the lectern.  However, the power of his speaking style and the obvious wisdom of his words quickly brought a respectful silence to the hall as his listeners discovered a man who would one day be referred to as the Mark Twain of China.  He was also destined to become one of the youngest men to ever sit on the Politburo Standing Committee. 

In recent weeks, however, a mystery had not been unfolding.  Not . . . since unfolding implies to some extent being revealed and reveal is a word that China would like to strike from the lexicon entirely, such is the secrecy with which they prefer to conduct their affairs.  The mystery that was not unfolding was
Sheng’s
disappearance.  The Premier had not been seen in
public in almost three weeks.