“And the Taiwanese are still telling ’em to go fuck themselves?”
“Exactly,” said Admiral Morgan. “And before we’re a lot older, I’d say there’s going to be a ferocious battle over that museum. And you can bet the Taiwanese have put in some very thorough security systems. Even if Taiwan falls, as it plainly must, there’s no guarantee that collection will not be wiped out. The Taiwanese may even use it as a bargaining card.”
“You mean, ‘If we can’t have it, nobody’s having it’?”
“Possibly. But more likely, ‘We have the power to destroy it, at the touch of a button…if you go and guarantee to leave us alone forever, you can take it with you. Failing that, no one shall have it.’”
“Meanwhile, gentlemen, what are we going to do about the situation militarily? I ask this in the full knowledge that my National Security Adviser has already spelled out the plain and obvious truths of the matter. There’s no possibility that the United States of America is going to all-out war with China over Taiwan. The most we would ever have done would have been to place a lot of very heavy muscle in the area and dare anyone to take us on.
“Today, however, that is not an option. China is, as Arnie has said, already on a war footing, prepared to fight and die for her cause, which she is already doing. We’re not going near the place.”
“And how do we answer Taiwan’s cry for help?” asked Harcourt Travis.
“We offer to negotiate for them,” said the President. “We threaten to make China into a pariah in world trade. We threaten to withdraw all trade with anyone who trades with China. We rescind their most-favored-nation status. We ban their exports. Call in their debts. All that and more. But we’re not trading missiles, shells and bullets with ’em.”
“Nor torpedoes,” said Arnold Morgan.
“You mean, really, we just sit back and let the battle play out?” asked Bob MacPherson.
“’Fraid so,” said Arnold Morgan. “But I am working on a plan to make them pay a very high price for what they have done. And I think we can confine their future activities to the China seas.”
“Sounds like a particularly ambitious plan,” said Harcourt Travis, “since we’re dealing with a nation that has just stood the world on its head, and apparently has no qualms about wrecking economies and then going to war.”
“It is an ambitious plan,” said Admiral Morgan. “And it’s a plan that I like a lot for two reasons. First of all, because it involves a large amount of dynamite, and second of all because it will create a multitude of hugely pissed off Chinamen.”
“I like it, too,” said the President. “Don’t know what it is, but I like it.”
The meeting continued for the rest of the morning, and still made no headway with regard to military discouragement of China. It was agreed the State Department would send the most strongly worded communiqué to the Beijing government “deploring in the extreme the vicious military action undertaken this week by China against their peace-loving neighbors, an independent state now recognized by the United Nations.”
Harcourt Travis pointed out that no civilized single country had undertaken any such unprovoked action in the past quarter of a century, save for Serbia, and earlier Argentina against the Falkland Islands. In Harcourt’s opinion the Chinese would do well to take note of the fate that befell the leaders of those countries, and would be advised to cease and desist in this totally unwarranted bullying of a small island neighbor.
He did not anticipate a reply, nor did he get one.
Travis had been reluctant to put American threats of any kind into writing, and that afternoon Admiral Morgan had the Chinese ambassador brought in to answer some hard, searching questions. But the ambassador merely stalled and said that China was simply answering a request from the Taiwan government “to stabilize the situation in their country, with a view to normalizing relations with the mainland, which would be in everyone’s interest.”
Arnold Morgan, who by now had pictures of the burning Naval base in the Penghu Islands, produced them and asked if that was China’s way of “stabilizing the situation.”
Somewhat uncharacteristically, Ling Guofeng produced two pictures from his own briefcase and offered them to Arnold, who stared in amazement at the 500-foot-high inferno that was still blazing from the oil refinery in the Strait of Hormuz.
“And might I assume this is your way also?” asked the ambassador.
“You may assume anything that makes you happy,” growled Admiral Morgan. “And I’ll accept, if you like, that persons unknown blew up a few barrels of your oil. But that’s a whole hell of a lot different from going to war with another, much smaller country, killing the civilian population, hitting them with bombs, cruise missiles and your entire Navy. That’s not even comparable. And I want you to express to your government our horror at your actions and to warn them in the strongest possible terms that there will be consequences, which none of you will much enjoy. That’s all.”
Ambassador Ling considered himself lucky not to have been expelled from the United States forthwith, and he wished the National Security Adviser good-bye and hurried from the West Wing of the White House.
All week long such meetings would take place as the USA argued, cajoled and threatened the Republic of China in any way it could. It recruited support from every one of its allies, from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Australia and Japan. Canceled China’s most-favored-nation status, banned imports from China, and had its allies do the same.
Meanwhile, on the seas beneath the endless air battles, the Chinese Navy continued to deploy its warships, running them down from the Northern Fleet to form a silent blockade of the great port of Keelung, home of Taiwan’s Third Naval District and the northern patrol squadron. The Taiwan Air Force, its airfields and runways severely damaged, half its pilots now dead or missing, spent the nights licking its wounds, repairing airstrips and fueling fighter aircraft ready to face the Dragon again tomorrow.
And all the while, the Chinese warships moved into control positions, dominating the strait, establishing safe lines of communication and supply. Overhead, to the north of the island, Special Forces were packed into aircraft dropping behind Taiwan’s beaches to the west of Keelung, the remote area chosen by Admiral Zhang and his senior commanders for the opening beachhead of the conflict.
This Chinese strategic planning had taken many months to finalize, but ultimately the tactics had evolved almost of their own accord. The vast majority of the Taiwanese people live on the coastal plains on the western side of the island, principally in the north around Taipei, and in the major population centers in the south around Tainan and Kaohsiung.
Inland, the country is mountainous and forbidding, and the east coast is guarded by towering cliffs rising up from the sea. Any attempt to attack from the east would have been absurd, and the prospect of serious operations in the mountains would have been daunting to any invader. And China’s objectives were clear: to bring about the total surrender of the island without having to fight for every inch of territory or for the outlying islands.
Plainly the objective had to be secured in the shortest possible time, at any cost, to avoid unnecessary collateral damage. The Chinese military had no wish to destroy what they wanted before they even laid hands on it. There was also a determination to avoid excessive casualties on both sides, and an unspoken need to avoid damaging China’s world political standing any more than was absolutely necessary.
Nonetheless, they had to get troops in there, and all through the week they landed Special Forces under the cover of darkness by parachute and from the sea. They were delivered by submarine, small merchant vessels, and fishing boats, dropped into the shallows along Taiwan’s 1,000 miles of coastline on suitably lonely beaches — made even more lonely by the near-total destruction of the island’s military communications systems.