Ultimatum (16 page)

Benton gazed at him. It was almost arrogant, the way Wu refused to back down. And yet his manner was anything but arrogant. It was almost apologetic, as if he was sorry that he had to keep insisting that he was right— but he was right.

“All right,” said Benton, “which faction is on top at the moment?”

Olsen interrupted. “I think maybe we need to give the Senator a brief introduction to the dramatis personae,” he said, and he looked in the direction of Elisabeth Dean.

“There’s President Wen,” said Dean, “whom you know, of course.”

“What did you think of his speech last week?” asked Benton.

“His New Year’s speech?” Dean shrugged. “Same every year.”

“So it didn’t mean anything?”

“No.”

Benton looked at Wu and Chan. They appeared equally unimpressed. Olsen smiled.

“So where does Wen stand?” asked Benton.

“His instincts have always been progressive,” replied Dean. “But he won’t sacrifice the party. He’s strongly influenced by the history of Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union. He’s studied it carefully. He won’t go down that route. When you’re dealing with Wen, that’s the thing to remember. He wants to be seen to be progressing—and he genuinely does want progress—but not at the risk of the party’s role. If he has to choose between the two, he’ll choose the party. He’ll choose stability.”

“So if we can give him a way to look progressive without threatening the party’s role, he might be interested.”

“That’s right, Senator,” said Olsen. “That’s Wen.”

“Right now, he’s trying to avoid a showdown,” said Chan. “Recently he’s tried to do that by building up a group of traditionalists after a period in which the progressives made headway. It’s a kind of balancing of forces he’s trying to achieve. The premier, Zhai, is a progressive who has seen his influence wane. Xuan Qing, the mayor of Shanghai, is still a force to be reckoned with, and probably the most outright progressive among the senior Chinese leaders.”

“What about the vice president?” asked Benton.

“Wen sidelined him years ago,” said Olsen.

Dean nodded. “Hui’s a nonentity. The most important of the group Wen’s promoted recently is Ding Jiahui, who now holds the public security ministry. This gives him control of elements of the security apparatus as well as influence across the provincial governments. There’s also Zhou Zhanwei and Wu Kejie. They’re all hardline protégés of Ex-president Zheng. Wen sidelined them at the start but now they’re back in favor and they’ve been elevated to full Standing Committee membership. In the meantime, they’ve all been busy creating independent power bases. Ding’s is by far the strongest.”

“The patronage system magnifies the effect through the tiers of the hierarchy,” explained Chan.

“Also, there are some senior party figures who try to adopt an unaligned stance,” added Oliver Wu. “The foreign minister, Chou, and the finance minister, Hu, particularly. Hu tries to maintain a kind of neutral, technocratic stance. But if things get hot, that won’t be possible. We think he may come down on the progressive side.”

“We’re not sure about that,” said Sandy.

“In the army, the key figure is General Shen Bihua,” said Dean. “He’s the ranking military officer on the Central Military Commission. Wen tries to keep him close, but it’s hard to say how much patience Shen would show in a crisis. Ever since 2013, the military hasn’t had a lot of respect for the political side. The party avoided a coup by a whisker.”

Benton frowned. “The message I’m getting is that we’re looking at an unstable country with a bunch of unresolved tensions, and the regime is splitting into camps around those tensions, the way you always see regimes doing in these circumstances. You’ve got those who are intent on retaining the status quo by suppressing the tensions —as they see them—-and those who believe the status quo can’t be retained, because the tensions can’t be suppressed, so
they
have to change. Now, I’m no historian, but history bets on the side of the second group, doesn’t it? Eventually, the tensions demand resolution, and in the long run that can’t be managed by trying to suppress them.”

“In the long run,” said Larry Olsen. “But it can be a damn long run, and history tells you that before that bet is won, an awful lot of side bets can be lost.”

“Agreed. So what are they going to do?”

“Crisis favors the regressives,” said Elisabeth Dean. “Continuity favors the reformers.”

“How so?”

“The reformers fear loss of control. They’re reformers, not revolutionaries. The regressives also fear loss of control, but feel they can impose it as long as they get started quickly enough. The reformers don’t want to have to impose control because that would undo their reforms. It would turn them into regressives.”

“So what happens?”

“As Sandy said, there may be an external shock that precipitates events. In that case, they scramble.”

“We think the regressive faction is better positioned,” said Chan.

“In which case, the reformers themselves may try to precipitate a crisis before that happens. One which they feel they can manage and will leave them in a superior position.”

“What if they lose control?” said Benton.

“They may. It’s a risky strategy. If they actually do lose control—even in one city, or one province—then they’re the emperor with no clothes. That’s the end of the ball game.”

“What would be the pretext if they had to manufacture one?”

“Taiwan’s a perenial possibility, but hard to control, and essentially it speaks to a traditionalist agenda. We don’t think the reformers would try that.”

“But if they lead in that,” said Chan, “they gain the credibility to deal with other issues from a reformist stance. We wouldn’t put it past them.”

“We think it’s very unlikely.”

“Senator,” said Oliver Wu, “the point here is, the only function of the United States in all of this is the extent to which it helps or hinders each faction’s plans.”

“I understand,” said Benton, and he turned back to Dean. “Let me ask you this. Say I’m involved in a negotiation with the Chinese government, or say I may be considering it, how do I handle it? Generally. What are the guidelines?”

“At the top level—understand who you’re dealing with. There is no Chinese government, there’s only the party. There is no party, there are only factions. Sometimes there aren’t even factions, but only individuals. Understand that person. How much power does he really have? What are his motives?”

“What else?”

“It would depend what the negotiation’s about.”

“Let’s put that aside. What else?”

“I know I’ve already said it,” said Oliver Wu, “but be aware that your only value to them is as a factor in their own domestic political considerations.”

“I said I understood that.”

“Senator, with respect...” Wu hesitated.

“What is it, Dr. Wu?”

“You said that very quickly. But if you think about what it really means . . .” Wu frowned, as if searching for a way to bring it home to the senator. “Sir, think about the way you might approach a major international issue, arms control in space or environmental migration or emissions reduction, for example. If you think about the way you’d approach it, what would go through your mind? I’m guessing here, but you might think of something that’s outside your own narrow partisan agenda. One or two things that aren’t just about how you’ll stay in power.”

“Of course there would be.”

“Well now imagine that you don’t.” Wu paused. “Imagine that’s the
only
test you use. For everything. How it helps you stay in power. Really imagine what the world looks like from that perspective.” Wu paused once more. “Now put yourself back on the other side of the table again, and you’re looking at a half dozen people who are exactly like that. And the biggest threat to them staying in power isn’t you, or anything you’re talking about, but the person sitting right next to them. Or maybe not. You don’t know. They might not even know. They might not even know that they don’t even know. These are the people with whom you’re trying to do a deal.”

Larry Olsen sighed demonstratively. “Ah, diplomacy! There’s nothing quite like it. The art of maneuver in the darkness. The triumph of perspicacity over uncertainty.”

Joe Benton glanced at Olsen impatiently. It was less than two weeks to his inauguration. The time for philosophy was over.

“Senator,” said Oliver Wu, “I’m not exaggerating. That’s what you’re dealing with here.”

~ * ~

Tuesday, January 18

Blair House, Washington, D.C.

They were on draft twenty-six.

The inaugural week had begun on Sunday, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. In conscious reference to the Founding Fathers of the republic, Joe Benton and Angela Chavez and their families met with a descendant of each of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Then, after a ceremony in the Liberty Bell Center, a train emblazoned with the star-spangled banner took them from Philadelphia to Washington in time to appear at a concert at the Lincoln Memorial, before going to Blair House, the official guest residence, where they would spend the next four nights before moving across the street to the White House.

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the schedule of events included the traditional governors’ luncheon in honor of King at which Benton spoke. The following evening, after a day of engagements, the president-elect held a reception for the Washington diplomatic corps. He gave a short speech outlining his commitment to a secure and prosperous America in a secure and prosperous world. He and Heather appeared briefly at another couple of dinners and didn’t get back to Blair House until after ten. Sam Levy, Jodie Ames and John Eales were waiting, along with Barry Murphy, a boisterous, redheaded Arkansan who was on Jodie’s staff and had become deeply involved in the process of drafting Joe Benton’s inaugural speech.

Benton had his pen out and half-moon reading glasses on his nose as he looked over the draft. Old-fashioned, he still liked to use paper. So did John Eales. Sam, Jodie and Barry worked directly on screens.

The speech started with a reference to the foundation of the republic more than two hundred fifty years before, to the house the Founding Fathers constructed, and which had been built on, generation by generation, over the quarter millennium that had passed. “Building a house” was the idea they had settled on as the major theme for the speech, which allowed Joe Benton to continue to talk about a new foundation but to extend the rhetoric in a way he hadn’t done during the campaign. In parallel, the language of “it’s time” would occur on a number of occasions, and at the end the two themes would come together to build the exhortation that would be the speech’s finale.

The work was painstaking, line by line. Benton was prepared to spend as long as it took. When midnight came they were still deep in the text.

“I’m not sure about this,” said Benton. “Today,” he read, “I tell you that we have the opportunity to put behind us once and for all the invidious forces that bring poverty and misery into our communities.” Benton paused. “Put behind us once and for all? Are you saying they’re going to go away forever?”

“You want to be aspirational,” said Levy.

“Aspirational, not naive. Joe Kowalski knows we’re not going to change everything.”

“I hate Joe Kowalski,” said Levy.

“Well, he’s my friend.” Benton smiled. “Sam, you can do better.”

“Yes, sir,” muttered Levy.

Benton frowned, still considering the sentence. They talked about it and came up with a better formulation. Benton still wasn’t entirely happy.