‘China is a second-rate military power, and as such is more like Iraq or Serbia was — a regional and not a global threat. We could defeat it in a conventional air, land or sea war in a matter of days. We could cripple its economy with sanctions. But I’m afraid life is not that simple. It has just brought on line the (East Wind) DF 41, the solid-fuel missile with a range of 8,000 miles. It already had the less accurate DF 5, which could hit the Continental United States. We think they have a DF 41 silo in Luoyang in Henan province under Unit 80304 of the Second Artillery, which handles the nuclear programme; one at Tonghua, about fifty miles north of the Korean border with Unit 80301; and one with Unit 80303 in the hills just outside of Kunming. Because the DF 41 is so new, the missiles would share silos with the lesser-ranged existing weapons. Unit 80303, for example, which also holds the DF 21s, range about 1,200 miles, would be used to attack India. China’s doctrine is to be able to absorb a first strike and hit back. There is no way we could guarantee eradicating every silo and launch station in a first strike. Absolutely not. Nor could our own land-based theatre missile-defence system protect us against a Chinese strike. The whole emphasis of Chinese long-range power projection is its missile programme. To give an example of the detail they are concentrating on, their transporter erector launchers have been refined to make an erection and retraction within two minutes, meaning they can drive it out of a tunnel, fire the missile and get back into hiding again before we even know where it is. So yes, Mr President, we can defeat China, but we may lose a city or two in doing it and I am pretty certain no president would ever think the fight worth it.’
‘And India, I take it, has nothing so lethal with which to threaten us,’ said Hastings.
‘More importantly, it has no reason to,’ said Joan Holden. ‘It is a democracy with an independent judiciary, a constitution which protects political debate, freedom of religion, the ownership of property. It might be flawed, but politically it’s our way of life.’
‘They also act like a bunch of assholes,’ added Jebb.
‘If I could add an extra warning to our dilemma,’ said Tom Bloodworth. ‘The technology which Alvin has referred to in the Chinese missile programme is only a fraction of what we believe they stole from us in the eighties and nineties. They haven’t really started working with it yet. The classified information taken included material on seven different thermonuclear warheads: the W-88 Trident D-5, the W-56 Minuteman II, the W-62 Minuteman III, the W-70 Lance, the W-76 Trident C-4, the W-78 Minuteman III Mark 12A and the W-87 Peacekeeper. One of the twists is that it was probably American technology which helped create the neutron bomb used against the Indian forces. There is no way they could have gotten it so far advanced so quickly without it. I apologize if I sound angry about this, Mr President, but our stolen technology has led to China building smaller, more versatile warheads, so, like Alvin said, they can fit more missiles into less silos. On top of that, they now have mobile and submarine launchers which can hit the United States.’
‘We have, incidentally,’ said Jebb, ‘stepped security right up at the Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge and Sandia laboratories where this type of research is taking place.’
‘Fine,’ said Hastings looking up at the clock. ‘I’m well across the scandal of Chinese espionage, but I don’t see the point of bringing it up right now.’
‘For the past fifteen years, China has been pulled between inward-looking factions who want to concentrate on economic reform and more aggressive hawkish factions who are impatient for power status,’ said Bloodworth. ‘That debate is still going on and, if that damn prison rescue hadn’t happened in Lhasa, I believe that President Tao would not have been prompted to push things to the brink. Ten years from now, however, the Chinese missile programme could be so advanced that we couldn’t face it down. The moderate faction might have collapsed and war with China would be far bloodier than any hostilities which we embark on now.’
‘I don’t want a war with China,’ said Hastings. ‘Not ten years, not twenty years from now. Not ever.’
‘We struck a deal after the Dragon Strike campaign,’ said Bloodworth, ‘and in a few years Beijing has bounced back again. Germany struck a deal after the First World War. Fifteen years later, Hitler was preparing for the Second World War. We nuked Japan, and it’s been compliant ever since.’
‘I don’t like what I’m hearing,’ said Hastings.
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Jamie Song ushered the Russian Ambassador, Nikolai Baltin, into President Tao’s official reception room in Longevity Hall. The windows, dripping with condensation, looked out over the Garden of Benevolence and beyond onto Nan Hai, or southern sea, the smaller of the two lakes in the compound.
The two men stood awkwardly in silence, waiting for Tao to arrive. They knew that anything they said would be recorded and this was not the time for small talk. Tao arrived grim-faced without an interpreter. Baltin was a fluent Mandarin speaker. Song was glad that the unsophisticated security chief, Tang Siju, was in the Western Hills, putting his hawkish views into practice in Tibet, rather than using them to wreck diplomacy in Zhongnanhai.
‘You wanted to see me, and I am here,’ said Tao, abruptly.
‘Thank you, President Tao,’ said Baltin. ‘President Gorbunov is worried that the United States has everything to gain from the outbreak of war and that we — Russia and China — have everything to lose.’
‘Has President Gorbunov sent you on the request of John Hastings?’
Baltin shook his head. ‘He believes the United States will use this crisis to divide our strategic alliance, particularly your conflict with India.’
None of the men were sitting down, and Tao paced the room before answering. ‘The long-term aim of India is to draw Tibet out of China and bring it under Indian influence, just like Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. If we show weakness, India will support a fully independent Tibet and win applause within the international community for doing so. I would not even be surprised if it offers to run an interim administration there, in other words, claiming its own suzerainty, which would be recognized by the Western powers.’
‘We don’t believe that is the case,’ said Baltin.
‘Well, we do,’ said Tao. ‘India and China have a difficult history. While we are naturally the Great Power in Asia, India has tried to assume that role through its colonial links with the West. We have still not forgotten the gracious way in which India treated us at the Afro-Asian Bandung Conference in 1955. Comrade Zhou Enlai gave the most memorable speech about the resentment of Western domination, which was applauded by all, particularly those Western puppets which resented our presence. “Most of the countries of Asia and Africa have suffered from colonialism,” he said. “We are economically backward… If we seek common ground to remove the misery imposed upon us it will be easy to for us to understand each other, respect each other, to help each other.” Nehru embraced comrade Zhou afterwards.’
‘Which is precisely what President Gorbunov would like you to do to Prime Minister Dixit.’
‘I haven’t finished,’ snapped Tao. Baltin fell quiet, remembering the Chinese president’s penchant for lecturing. ‘Since the end of colonialism, India has purported to be the civilized face of Third World development. At Bandung, Nehru was gracious, like a father to an adopted child. Yet it was comrade Zhou who stole the show and no amount of embraces could hide the fact. While Nehru had been selling his books to Western publishers and dressing in Western suits, comrade Zhou had been commanding our fighters to rid China of corruption and oppression. The developing countries knew that Zhou was the genuine reformer. Nehru resented it deeply. Nehru’s India had copied the Western democratic model and used English as its national language of communication. We pursued a more difficult path of finding our own way, the Asian way, which has proved more suitable to the culture of this region. We are now richer than India. Our people are better educated. Our hospitals and schools are better equipped. Our influence in global affairs is greater. The Chinese people are more confident.