Song hadn’t risen to the top of both global business and the last surviving Communist autocracy without an in-built safety valve that detected disasters. He sensed that while the new deal with Pakistan would largely go unnoticed, the mayhem which was mushrooming over Tibet and the Lama Togden could test the limits of their statesmanship.
‘Just what hell is going on in Lhasa?’ pressed Overhalt. ‘The networks are comparing it to Phnom Penh after Pol Pot took over.’
‘You want the truth, Reece?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I haven’t got a clue. Tibet comes under Tang Siju, a deputy chief of General Staff. You want his mobile number? I’m only the Foreign Minister.’
‘Jamie, don’t do this, for Christ’s sake. Drop by the China World Hotel, if you don’t want to be seen at the residence. You’ve got to fill me in.’
Prime Minister’s Residence, Tokyo, Japan
General Shigehiko Ogawa had been in the waiting room of the spartan official residence for more than half an hour, while the Prime Minister’s nightcap with a visiting American trade delegation wound up. Ogawa was Japan’s long-serving Director, Defence Intelligence Headquarters and since the Dragon Strike war he had been charged with substantively increasing the human intelligence network inside the centre of power in China.
More than any other power in the region, including the United States, Japan had the ability to feed agents into China’s institutions. But it had been painstaking work and there was still a long way to go. While Ogawa knew just about every negotiating tactic in advance from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation (MOFTEC), he had failed to make any headway in the Second Artillery Regiment, which controlled China’s nuclear weapons programme.
He had, however, thanks to a sickness, had some success within Zhongnanhai. While he was unsure of the value of his intelligence, Ogawa, who was just two years from retirement, felt he should let the Prime Minister know what he had found out, even if it meant wasting his evening waiting for an audience. The intelligence had come by way of the interpreter of Tang Siju, the Chinese security chief. Tang’s usual interpreter was off with the flu. The replacement was a spy for the Japanese.
The Americans left noisily, passing through the anteroom, eyeing Ogawa as if he was a janitor waiting to clear up. Then Prime Minister Shigeto Wada greeted him formally and offered him tea.
‘I have information that China authorized the coup in Pakistan and has formed a new military alliance with the new government there,’ began Ogawa.
‘But the two governments have always been strategically close,’ said Wada.
‘The Foreign Minister, Jamie Song, and Tang Siju, of the General Staff Department, have both given their personal backing to General Hamid Khan for specific support during this crisis.’
He handed Wada a transcript of two separate meetings at which Tang had used Ogawa’s agent as interpreter. One was of the conversation within Zhongnanhai with the Pakistani Ambassador, Jabbar, and the Defence Attaché, Hussein. The second was in the military General Command Centre in the Western Hills just outside Beijing. Hussein and Jabbar were with Tang, being consulted on moving extra troops towards the Indian border.
‘In order to both threaten and humiliate,’ said Jabbar, ‘I suggest you concentrate your area of attack on the Thag La Ridge, as you did for the 1962 war.’
Prime Minister’s Office, South Block, Delhi, India
‘We are facing a scenario which only our doomsday soothsayers would have forecast,’ said Hari Dixit. ‘A military strongman has taken power in Pakistan on an Islamic Kashmir ticket and China is pouring troops towards our border in a way that is reminiscent of our humiliating war in 1962.’
The Indian press had not yet had time to advise on how Hari Dixit should handle Hamid Khan, but they had had a field day with China’s attack on the Tibetan government-in-exile and Major Choedrak’s mission into Lhasa. The daring and bravery of the men involved was heralded as if it was a new era of Indian nationalism, and it was conveniently forgotten that the commandos and aircrew were, to a man, Tibetan. The capture of Dehra Dun airbase and the theft of the Antonov-32, the faked flight-plan for the Mi-26, the refuelling in Sikkim and the sheer ingenuity of the break-out at Drapchi had fired the public’s imagination. As yet, very little was known about what had happened in Lhasa itself. But reports from Dharamsala implied that Togden was still at large somewhere in Tibet, protected by men from the Special Frontier Force.
The Times of India, regarded as the voice of the establishment, suggested that Prime Minister Dixit should distance himself from the whole affair. ‘It beggars belief, during a decade when relations with China have been so difficult, that the government maintained a fighting force of ten thousand Tibetans, stationed them close to the Chinese border and gave them an environment in which to carry out the sort of operation we have just seen.’
The reaction of other newspapers was not so restrained. The Hindu agreed with Dixit’s decision to disband the SFF, but argued that the ‘Drapchi incident and the unforgivable violent response in Dharamsala by the Chinese should be used to pull the festering border problem of Tibet to the forefront of Sino-Indian relations. Until this problem is solved, very little can move forward between the two great Asian superpowers… and, on the issue of sanctuary, India would be morally obliged to offer Lama Togden a safe home should he survive his present flight from Chinese-controlled territory.’
The Pioneer was among the more jingoistic newspapers. It ran pictures of Major Choedrak and his senior officers with potted stories of their lives, together with intricate military details about the two aircraft stolen for the mission. Togden himself received a double-page spread and was hailed as a ‘new global voice’ for the Tibetan cause. The paper’s columnists called on the Indian air force to give air cover for Togden’s escape and for those SFF troops still in India to go in and give him safe passage. ‘China has stolen territory from India,’ raged the editorial. ‘It represses the people of Tibet. It is an ally of Pakistan which has caused immeasurable suffering to the Indian people, and, most importantly, China is not a member of the club of democratic governments. In brief, China is the world’s “Enemy Number One”.’
‘Foreign Minister, what are your thoughts?’ asked Dixit once he had convened the meeting.
Prabhu Purie took a few seconds to answer. ‘My instincts are to follow the moderate line set down in The Times of India, although it would not be a popular one in the present climate.’
‘True, there is a groundswell for us to play tough. It is a case where the line between mob rule and democracy blurs.’
‘We do have a chance now to create a formula agreeable to both sides,’ said Purie. ‘Something to be implemented when the Dalai Lama dies.’