“I see. Why’d you even bother with the previous war games? Did they expect the ROC army to wait politely while you made ten trips to get enough troops on shore?” Donna looked annoyed.
“Not exactly, the scenarios called for the securing of key beaches and port facilities using airborne troops and amphibious assault, then lifting the remaining forces using non-amphibious assets. A lift capacity of 20,000 isn’t a large enough margin to do the job safely. Certainly not without many other factors playing in China’s favor such as the neutralization of Taiwan’s navy and air force and complete surprise.”
“Well, how would you do it this time, if you were the Chinese?”
Cliff Dowling walked back into the room. Colonel Lake slid into his chair to the left of Dowling’s and said in a stage whisper, “That you’ll have to see at 1555 hours Comrade Premier!”
Dowling addressed the room, “Remain on schedule. I still expect the briefings to begin at 3:30.”
6
An Idea
Fu Zemin sat up on a pillow watching TV and smoking. His son had gone to sleep early and he and his wife had uncharacteristically made love twice that night. His right arm was draped around his wife’s snuggling body, his left hand cared for the cigarette.
State-run TV was blaring forth about casualties among the Australian and American troops in East Timor—serves them right, Fu thought. How ironic that the Americans helped East Timor gain its independence. A quarter century ago, China had provided some arms and training to the East Timorese independence movement, hoping to sting the Indonesian generals and their government that had so brutally destroyed Indonesia’s Communist Party in the mid-60s, killing some 300,000 Communists and civilians alike. What a delicious turn of events, the Americans helped complete what we failed to accomplish.
One part of Fu, the nationalist part, didn’t like the idea of America barging into another part of Asia and trying to peel away a troubled province from the mother country as they were doing to Yugoslavia with Kosovo. He thought of Tibet, even Taiwan. No, the Americans were too full of themselves, too powerful. Something must be done to stop them.
He wondered how American strength might be turned against them, just like in Vietnam where their self-assuredness and lack of historical awareness pulled them in, and power and face kept them there for far longer than any other nation would have stayed. He thought of the martial arts where the weakest woman could best a strong but untrained man because she could use the man’s strength and size against him. Could the Americans be manipulated into another quagmire, this time in Asia, to accompany the ones they were mired in the Balkans and the Middle East? Could this be made to China’s advantage?
Fu yawned and snuffed out his cigarette. Tomorrow he would write up some recommendations for the Party to consider. Perhaps it was time to be bold, really bold. Belgrade, the Stealth Fighter, the successful operation in Western China, Fu counted up his chits and realized he had enough to spare. He could afford to make a gamble—if this one pays off, I’ll get noticed by the Chairman himself. Fu smiled as he went to sleep.
7
War Games
Donna practiced her briefing two more times under her breath and consulted with more of the players in the room. There was a fair degree of experience and smarts in this room. She wondered why the CIA didn’t take greater advantage of the expertise in the uniformed services. She vaguely remembered that someone decided back in the early 60s that two distinct pillars of intelligence, one military-based, the other, civilian, was supposed to prevent that dreaded Washington disease: groupthink — where all the analysts and decision-makers go along in a herd mentality, never daring to challenge the conventional wisdom.
Soon 3:30 PM rolled around and Donna gave her four minute and forty-five second briefing, summarizing how the PRC could achieve a peaceful reunification with Taiwan only by transforming themselves into a pluralistic democracy. As she said so, she thought about the idea of the Communist Party allowing a free and fair election with opposition party candidates. Stranger things have happened, but she wouldn’t bet the farm on it. The Party leadership enjoyed too much power to simply give it all up to get Taiwan back. Other than a four year period from the end of Japanese occupation in 1945 until the Nationalists fled to the island in 1949, Taiwan hadn’t been ruled from the Mainland since 1895 when Japan took possession of the island from a weakened Ch’ing Dynasty. One thing China was good at was waiting for the right moment — after more than 100 years, what’s a few more years, give or take? She concluded by saying that a face-saving federation with China, especially in light of Hong Kong’s treatment to date, might be acceptable to the Taiwanese if they perceived that America had completely abandoned them and that the military balance had swung irrevocably over to the Chinese side. Since Dowling wanted all questions held to after the briefings, Donna simply sat down when finished.
Dr. Wendell slowly got up. He perched his reading glasses on the end of his nose and held his yellow legal pad of hand-written notes about 18 inches from his face. He addressed his notes, not the exercise participants.
“I want to begin by saying that I don’t believe the Chinese would ever risk military confrontation with the U.S. over Taiwan,” the doctor barely concealed his disdain for the process and those in the room. That being said, the man from State straightened, looking like something had been lifted off his chest.
Since he was a professional, he would humor the proceedings anyway and give them a dose of his wisdom. “China, in the unlikely event that it would seek to conquer Taiwan by force of arms, would probably seek to do so while the U.S. was otherwise committed to a major engagement elsewhere in the world. For example, in the Middle East. Japanese interference should be negligible. While it is true that the Japanese fleet has technical and operational superiority over the Chinese, it is extremely unlikely that the Japanese would come to the aid of Taiwan.” Dr. Wendell droned on, reading from his notes, listing more reasons why China should not expect to encounter interference unless it openly challenged U.S. military power.
North Korea was another matter. Dr. Wendell paused to change the subject, flipping to a new sheet on his legal pad in the process, “North Korea’s armed forces are in a state of complete disrepair. Their leadership is reclusive and simply trying to make it through another year. Should China actually want to enlist their assistance as an adjunct in a military campaign, presumably to threaten or tie down U.S. forces, they could probably do so by massively increasing food and fuel shipments to Pyongyang. After a year or two of improved conditions, the nation and the military might be better prepared strike south. Of course, such assistance is in no way a guarantee of future cooperation from Pyongyang.”
That was it. Instead of ten minutes, Dr. Wendell blessed the room with four minutes of his “brilliance.” A few faces expressed relief he was now quiet and had sat down. Dowling looked a little cheated.
Mr. Amos Ye, an international economist and trade advisor for the Commerce Department stood next. He wore an impeccable dark brown silk suit and a perfect poker face. He spoke like old money from the East Coast. Had Donna asked, she would have discovered that Ye’s family had roots in San Francisco dating back to the mid-1800s. Holding a few three by five cards, Ye stood, smiled and began, “The United States imports and exports yearly an amount roughly equal to 20 % of its GDP. For China, that number is 12 %, but growing. China’s main trading partners for exports are the U.S. and Japan. China imports most of its goods from Japan, Taiwan and the U.S.