`Now China has broken that pledge in a most horrible and bloody way. The Ambassador has said we have illegally occupied reefs. He accuses our troops of violating the border area. I'm not going to answer those accusations because if I do your viewers will be asked to judge who's telling the truth and who isn't. The key element, which we all know to be true, is that French citizens have been killed by Chinese pilots. Vietnamese and other nationalities are also victims. We are not discussing the occupation of reefs. We are discussing the mass murder of civilians by the Chinese government.'
The anchor broke in: `You talk about your ASEAN allies.
Are you convinced that they will support you against China?'
`That is what ASEAN has been about ever since its inception. The 1972 proclamation of South-East Asia as a zone of peace stated just that. Written into the articles of ASEAN is the pledge that no state may stand by and watch the dismemberment of another by a foreign power. In Asia we have a problem with short-termism. We have always put money ahead of culture and civilization, which is why we were so easily colonized in the nineteenth century.'
`So you are saying that-'
`Please let me finish, because it is important,' interrupted the Vietnamese President. `My fellow leaders in ASEAN are right now under great pressure from the overseas Chinese businessmen who have an extraordinary control over the economies of their countries. For example, 10 per cent of the population of Thailand is Chinese. Yet Chinese business accounts for 90 per cent of the wealthiest families. It is the same throughout South-East Asia. These are the families who can coax China into change, who can bring pressure for reform. If they were united they could cripple the Chinese economy by freezing their investment. I urge them to act as we in Vietnam did with France and America. We fought and won. We sacrificed and now we are friends with both countries on equal terms. Our pride is high. Never has Vietnam put profits before its independence and freedom.'
`Do you welcome the support from the French government?'
`We can't win a war with China. We welcome support from whoever offers.'
`And from the Americans with whom you fought so bitterly less than forty years ago?'
`Before that we fought France. And you are invited back.
Our founding father Ho Chi Minh offered Cam Ranh Bay to the Americans in 1945. If they had taken it then perhaps there would have been no war.'
`Is it still on offer?'
`We have now seen that if a responsible superpower weakens in East Asia an irresponsible one moves in. And I would say this to the Ambassador in your studio. We might have fought America and France, but our soldiers have never been used to murdering their fellow countrymen unlike those in China.'
The anchor turned to the Chinese Ambassador for a response.
`The Chinese nation has a history of five thousand years and has a national characteristic of strong self-respect,' he said. `Over the past hundred-odd years, the Chinese nation has had its fill of aggression and devastation by Western foreign powers. We therefore highly treasure our independence and sovereignty.'
While the Ambassador struggled with his rhetoric, the head of Vietnamese security came into the room and slipped Nguyen Van Tai a piece of paper. The President read it, and then interrupted the Ambassador. His voice was transmitting while the cameras remained for a few seconds on the Ambassador's face. `I am not sure what point the Ambassador is making, but I have been given some devastating news.'
`Go on,' prompted the anchor.
`Right now, Chinese attack aircraft are in action over civilian areas in our northern port city of Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City, better known to many of you as Saigon. One of the Chinese missiles landed on the roof of the Rex Hotel. There were guests having breakfast. Many are dead. Residential areas in Haiphong have been attacked, mainly near the port. An apartment block, where port workers and their families live, has collapsed. Again, it was early morning. Many people were at home. Merchant ships have been sunk in Haiphong, but that appears irrelevant against the huge loss of life.'
It was still dark when the driver picked Kobayashi up and handed him copies of the Nihon Keizai (Nikkei) Shimbun, the financial newspaper, and the Yomiuri Shimbun, a general news broadsheet. Kobayashi was the head of strategy and trading at Nomura Securities pan's, and the world's, biggest dealer in shares and bonds. He looked first at the Yomiuri Shimbun. It was close to Prime Minister Hyashi's faction in the Democratic Party and in Japan, after all, politics was business. Hidei Kobayashi's driver took the same route every morning, and this morning was no exception. After turning into Aoyama-dori Kobayashi's car made its way east, towards the Imperial Palace and beyond that Kabuto-cho. But this morning something was different. Along the way Kobayashi could not help but notice the queues forming at gas stations. The Chinese attack on Cam Ranh Bay had dominated the television news bulletins the night before and the broadcasts that morning were already full of the naval blockade of the South China Sea and the attack on Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City. The Japanese motorists, he reflected, were taking no chances.
The sky was lightening with the approaching dawn as he reached the Imperial Palace and it was serene. The moat surrounding it was like a mirror reflecting perfectly the massive cedars and cypresses planted to keep prying eyes from the Imperial family. At the corner of Hakumi-dori and Hibiya-dori ill dominated by the Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company building from where the American General Douglas MacArthur ruled Japan after World War II turned north along Hibiya-dori. This is the Marunouchi district of town where `old money' corporate Japan has its headquarters. The great houses of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo are headquartered here, as are some of the leading banks such as the Industrial Bank of Japan. Since the seventeenth century, when the Shogun Ieasu Tokugawa made Edo his capital, the commercial and financial heart of Tokyo had been to the east of and beyond the Imperial Palace. In the aftermath of the firebombing of Tokyo more than sixty years before Tokyo's owners had rebuilt the city, or at least this part, in the image of its destroyers. Marunouchi was one of the most Western-looking areas of the city. The streets were wide and regular, the buildings square and squat. On the street in some parts of Marunouchi, like the fashionable Ginza area, it felt almost Parisian. Small, immaculately manicured and boxed trees lined streets full of high-priced boutiques and smart coffee shops.
It was a glorious winter's morning: cold and crisp. It was also clear and that meant the sun would shine today. As Kobayashi surveyed the newspapers the headlines were universally gloomy. The Nikkei's splash said it alclass="underline" Minami umi shokku! it trumpeted. `South Sea shock', indeed. China's military action the day before was sure to send share prices lower on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The yen would come under pressure and the prices of government bonds would fall, which meant that interest rates would rise. Other Asian stock markets would not be immune from this. Kobayashi's job was to profit from this mess or, at the very least, minimize the losses to his firm. A kilometre or so north his driver turned left into Eitai-dori. As they crossed Sotobori-dori Kobayashi looked up, noticing the pre-war facade of the Bank of Japan, one of the few surviving buildings of the American firebombing. The Bank would have its work cut out for it today, he thought. The car turned north into Chuo-dori and drove toward Nihonbashi, the graceful old two-arched bridge from where all distances from Tokyo are measured, and the headquarters of Nomura nearby. An item in the Yomiuri caught his eye. It was a commentary by Professor Hiroshi Sato, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Hyashi. Professor Sato said he thought Japan could build something new from the current adversity. `For too long we have been prepared to hide behind others' skirts. We have legitimate national interests and we should assert them with whatever means we have at our disposal.'