There was no guarantee that the wealth of the Far East would solve the problems. But the opportunity was too great to risk by being drawn into a regional conflict. The consumer market was growing so fast that each Chinese province would soon represent the buying power of a European country.
But today a spectre of morality had been cast across trade with China and the Far East. France, without consultation, was moving its warships and fighting men to protect a former colony in Asia. The Chancellor had no doubt that the British navy would get involved in a day or two.
He flicked on his television set to see France announce the deployment of warships from its base in Tahiti. He hoped, in the spirit of economic competition, that when the crisis had blown over he could announce new joint-venture deals worth billions of Deutschmarks, with Daimler-Benz moving into Chinese provinces once earmarked for Citroen.
After the television broadcast, in the car back to his official residence, the French President flicked through the cue cards to which he had referred. He knew the statistics intimately, knowing that his policies would be applauded in the cafe´s and tabacs throughout France. There were two unquestionable assets in French political life: a mistress and overseas troop deployment.
The President suffered no less from economic problems than his friend the German Chancellor. France was undergoing painful reforms to wean it off subsidy and welfare. Clawing back benefits had caused the worst riots since the 1960s. But the President had no doubt that both rioters and government ministers would agree on the announcement he had just made. Over the years, the statistics had been unchanged.
50 per cent of the public thought more should be spent on defence, compared to between 20 and 35 per cent who thought spending should drop. 45 per cent believed France's national security was better preserved with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) than with either neutrality (16 per cent) or a European alliance (30 per cent).
90 per cent of French people believed troops should be sent to free French hostages. 84 per cent said they should go to protect French lives. Whatever other political nightmares he was facing, French military action against China would be the one which could be carried out without dispute. Vietnam belonged to France, not to the European Union.
Rebuilding Vietnam, its roads, ports, telecommunications, and armed forces, would more than compensate for the irritating and difficult business of getting contracts in China.
Light was fading over Moscow when the American Ambassador was shown into the suite of offices at the Russian Foreign Ministry. Even during the few metres from the Ambassador's limousine to the majestic front doors, the chill wind of the Moscow winter cut through his overcoat and numbed the exposed skin on his face. The Foreign Minister was sitting in a comfortable chair in the corner of the vast room. His manner was informal. The two men had worked with and against each other for nearly twenty years as the Soviet Union and then Russia lurched through its changing political face. The Foreign Minister had always regarded the Ambassador as a democratic ideologue who was short on pragmatism. Today he was preparing to give America a sharp jolt of reality. But he let the Ambassador speak first.
`Yergor, I will begin as a humble man always does, by quoting the words of one of my predecessors, Charles Bohlen, a far greater Ambassador to your country than I will ever be. He said: "There are two ways you can tell when a man is lying. One is when he says he can drink champagne all night and not get drunk. The other is when he says he understands Russians." Well, I can do neither, so can you help me?'
`You want to know what we are doing with China,' responded the Foreign Minister, without acknowledging the humour of the opening gambit.
`Perhaps we could start at the beginning. Did you know about Dragonstrike?'
`Is that what they're calling it? No, I didn't, Andrew. Nor I think did the President. Our generals, as you know, are a rule to themselves. But as it is difficult for anyone to know what the Chinese are thinking I wouldn't be surprised if they had been kept in the dark with the rest of us.'
`What, then, are you supplying to them in the way of military equipment and personnel?'
`Only what we are obliged to do under our contractual arrangements. I'm sure the CIA has as many details as I have. But there are the Su-27 attack aircraft, Kilo class submarines. They even keep talking about buying an aircraft carrier from us. For years our air force is flying men and equipment to China on Beijing's request. It is obliged to under the deal we signed with the People's Liberation Army.'
`We want you to stop.' `It is out of my hands,' said the Foreign Minister. `Why don't you call Rosvoorouzhenie, the state corporation for export and import of armaments and military equipment? They're handling it.'
`Yergor, don't get involved in this one. The world's getting dangerous enough with China going crazy. If Russia goes in…'
There was a silence of thirty-three seconds. The Foreign Minister then replied.
`Andrew, if I wanted to stop those airlifts, I couldn't. The generals would put the phone down on me. They would do the same to the President. And, frankly, during our negotiations over the past couple of years, America has been too blind to see what's going on. The dangerous world has been created by your policies, not by flying some aircraft spare parts to China.'
`I cannot agree to…'
`Then stop thinking about agreeing and listen for once.' The Foreign Minister got up and walked around the room as he spoke. `What were you fighting against during the years of the Cold War. Communism? Or an expansionist Russia whose Marxist banner provided the excuse to plot her containment? Tell me, what do your analysts conclude is the character of my country? Are the Russian roots stained only with Bolshevism? Or will they always be at odds with what you call the Free World and the West because the Russian Bear will for ever be a threat?
`If you were fighting Communism, then you saved the Russian people and are now helping them recover, creating lasting democratic and economic institutions, and joining the global community as an strong and equal partner. But perhaps not. If Communism was the enemy, then why has your government been so friendly towards China? You have given us no evidence that America's campaign of containment was not against Russia herself; that America does not intend to weaken her and divide her. Many people think that America believes the long-term security of Europe lies with a feeble Russia, surrounded by an isolating cordon through which we cannot expand d this is the view fuelling the constituencies of your enemies, the Communists and the Nationalists.'
`Which do you adhere to, Yergor?'
`I am not entering an academic debate, Ambassador. I am giving you a message for your President.
`The policeman to this cordon is the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. This is a military and not a political organization. And far from leaving it as it was, an effective weapon for Western Europe, you are now allying yourself with Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. You are parking your tanks on our front lawn. Poland says it is willing to host NATO nuclear weapons. It is an act of hostility.'