‘I suspect it’s turned out exactly like they planned,’ said Oakley.
‘Well, if I can use your own words, Mr Secretary, that’s your view and you’re entitled to it. We need to ask, what do they want out of this? What do we want? Where’s the overlap? Or if there isn’t any, where could we create an overlap if we’re both prepared to move a little?’
‘They’re not prepared to move,’ said Rose. ‘We know that.’
‘That’s what they say.’
‘They want to prove a point, and beating us, or even standing up to us and getting beaten, allows them to do that. The point they want to make is they’re not intimidated by us.’
‘That they have military power,’ added Abrahams, ‘to put alongside the economic power they’re already exerting.’
‘Probably,’ said Ellman. ‘If they could make those points, they’d love to.’
‘Well, great,’ said Oakley. ‘Isn’t that just a convoluted way of saying what I already said?’
‘No. Because the question is why? Why make these points about your power? Why now? And what are you going to do with them once you’ve made them?’ She paused. ‘Mr President, we know they want greater say in international institutions. We know they feel they were short changed after 2008. We know they want to be seen as a partner in world leadership.’
‘Then they need to learn to act like one,’ said Oakley.
‘Exactly. That’s what
we
want. We want them to act like a responsible leader in the world. A responsible leader that doesn’t destroy the financial markets of a friendly country just for the hell of it. That doesn’t imprison its servicemen. That works with us on climate change instead of rejecting every proposal because it isn’t enough. But to paraphrase Joel Ehrenreich, they’ll be looking at us and saying similar things about what we should be doing in relation to them. Now, somehow getting those things together, that’s our objective. To come out the other end of this process – and it’s a long process, it’s not one month or one year – as partners solving global issues from one perspective. So the question is, how can this situation help us get there? How do we take this crisis and use it? Not how do we use it to slap them down as hard as we can, but how do we use it to start turning them into a partner? How do we use the fact that they want to make some kind of a point about their power or about their lack of intimidation – whatever it is – to help us advance
our
agenda, to help start making them behave in the way we want them to?’
‘We beat the crap out of them,’ said Oakley, ‘so they’ll listen next time when we start talking.’
‘And that’s exactly the wrong attitude.’
‘And what we have exactly from you, Ambassador, is a whole bunch of fine-sounding theory, and back down here in the real world, meanwhile, we have two aircraft strike groups bearing down and a bunch of guys surrounded in Sudan, and if you think backing down is going to get those guys out then, I’m sorry, but that’s just not the world anyone else lives in. It’s sure as hell not the world President Zhang lives in.’
‘Secretary Oakley, don’t twist my words. I never said we should back down. They have to be accountable. They absolutely have to be accountable.’
‘Well, you don’t want to back down and you don’t want to hit them, so I’d like to hear what you
do
want to do.’
‘I want to give them a way out.’
Oakley laughed.
‘If there’s going to be a way out of this, they can’t lose face. Zhang is facing pressure over this and he can’t lose face.’
‘To hell with his face.’
‘You can say that, but if we’re asking him to lose too much face, he just won’t do it. That’s the reality. He can’t do it.’
‘Can’t he? Zhang chose to start this thing and it’s about time he learned what that means. I say we make him lose so much of his goddamn face he won’t dare ever come back for more.’
‘And our economy?’
‘The here and now is the military issue. We make them lose so much face they don’t dare touch our economy either.’
Ellman stared at him for a moment, then turned to Knowles. ‘Mr President, this is a historic moment. Whether it developed opportunistically or in some other way, it’s here and now. The United States is being challenged in a way it has never been challenged before, not even in the Cold War. The challenge in the Cold War was military. This is way bigger. Take away all the weapons, take away the guys in Sudan and those strike groups, and it’s still there. We respond to this as if it’s a military challenge, and we miss the point. We miss the opportunity.’
The president frowned. There was something about the way Ellman had put that. Take away the military challenge, and the underlying challenge was still there. That was true. That was an important point, one that seemed to have been lost sight of in the rush to a military response.
‘I’m intrigued,’ said Ed Abrahams. ‘Ambassador, what’s your idea for letting them get a way out?’
‘It means taking a chance.’
Oakley snorted. ‘Backing down, you mean.’
‘No, sir. Not backing down. I said it means taking a chance.’
‘We’re going to take a chance with them? That’s great. Let’s not worry about what they’ve already done. Let’s not worry about the eleven men they killed when we went in to get our boys back. Let’s give them a chance to screw us over again.’
‘John,’ said Rose, ‘you haven’t even heard what she’s got to say yet.’
‘We need to give them a way out of this,’ said Marion. ‘To paraphrase Mr Abrahams earlier today, we need to invite them into the tent and hope they piss out. I suggest that–’
‘Mr President,’ snapped Oakley. ‘Ambassador Ellman in her ivory tower can hope all she likes. I can tell you what’s really going to happen. If we invite them into the tent, they’re going to piss all over us.’
The president ignored him. He looked at Ellman. ‘Tell me what you mean.’
PRESIDENT ZHANG SAT at the head of the table at the daily meeting of the Central Military Commission. On one side of him was Defense Minister Xu Changjiang and on the other side General Fan Keming. In theory, as chairman of the commission, Zhang was the most senior figure in the military chain of command.
One of the two admirals on the commission was giving an outline of the battle plan for the
Mao Zedong
and
Chou Enlai
strike groups against the American forces. He expected forward elements of the
Kennedy
strike group to be in position to join battle off Lamu Bay in support of the
Abraham Lincoln
within two hours of the arrival of the Chinese ships. The objective of the plan was the recovery of the
Kunming
and
Changchun
. Should the two ships or any others be destroyed during the fighting, the objective would be continuation of the battle until a surrender of the American forces on terms providing compensation for the losses suffered by the Chinese forces.
‘And you believe our forces will be capable of bringing the American fleet to surrender.’
The admiral glanced at Xu, then back at the president. ‘Yes, President Zhang.’
From the looks that he could see around the table, Zhang doubted it. He doubted that any of the other twelve men shared the admiral’s faith, including the admiral himself. But standing up to the American fleet and inflicting at least some losses on them could be portrayed as a victory. He knew the way the Chinese press would be ordered to present it.
He looked at Xu. A couple of years previously the defense minister had developed a twitch that made his left eye blink frequently. He was blinking now, more often than normal.
‘Thank you, Admiral,’ said Zhang.
The admiral nodded.
Fan gave an overview of other developments. He described the current deployments of the Russian, Japanese and Taiwanese navies and the deployment of land forces on the Indian and Russian borders. People’s Liberation Army troops had been dispatched to reinforce both sectors. After a Chinese victory, action by the United States could be anticipated in a number of sectors including punitive strikes on mainland army installations. The commission staff had drawn up plans for a series of pre-emptive strikes on US military facilities in the East Asia region to prevent this, as well as having a number of pre-selected targets in Hawaii and the west coast of the United States for immediate retaliation if US forces responded. Submarines would be in position to launch missile strikes at the naval bases in Pearl Harbor, San Diego, China Lake and Puget Sound.
Zhang listened with a growing sense of unease. ‘When will you launch the pre-emptive strikes in our region?’ he asked.
‘As soon as battle commences between the ships,’ replied the general.
‘And the retaliatory strikes?’
‘If the Americans respond with any other action.’
‘Do you think the Americans will be able
not
to take action if we launch these pre-emptive strikes?’
‘They may retaliate,’ said Fan calmly. ‘But they should not. The strikes will be in our region. Their defensive intent will be clear.’
‘But if they did take action, we would retaliate on their west coast?’
‘Yes. But if we do not launch the pre-emptive strikes, we do not protect ourselves. We must launch them. If the Americans are wise, they will not retaliate. They will see that the pre-emptive strikes are defensive.’
‘The strikes will be forceful,’ said another general. ‘They will see that we will defend China with every means we have available.’
Zhang glanced at Xu. The defense minister blinked.
Zhang turned back to Fan. ‘What will the Americans do after we retaliate for their retaliation?’
‘After these strikes are launched, it will take them some days to put in place new deployments.’
‘And then?’
‘That will be a new phase, if they wish to open it.’
Zhang nodded. ‘General Fan, these pre-emptive strikes do not sound defensive.’
‘We are defending ourselves. The aggressive action was the hijacking of the two ships. Everything we do now is defensive.’
‘Maybe we should not do the pre-emptive strikes.’
‘Then we will be hit.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘We will be hit and the people will see that we are hit,’ said Fan pointedly.
Zhang was silent. He envisaged a terrible series of escalatory actions. But he was not in control of the situation. It was unclear to him to what extent Fan had engineered it. Before President Knowles had made his public demand that China force Sudan to release the two American airmen, he had told Fan that he wanted the airmen released. He had told the Sudanese president as well. The American president’s demand had made it easier for Fan to keep helping the Sudanese army hold them, if that was what he was doing. Zhang had not authorized that, much less had he authorized a Chinese-led ambush of an American rescue force to be planned, although it was clear from the military reports he had seen, and from what President Knowles had told him, that this is what had happened. By then, the
Chou Enlai
and
Mao Zedong
were under way towards the Kenyan coast. They must have been placed on station to be ready to intervene. He had not been consulted prior to their departure. From the beginning, therefore, the order that would have been required from him was not to let the carriers go, but to turn them around.
All of this had changed the balance of power in the crisis. While it had been economic, he had held the levers. Once it became military, it was Fan who had the initiative.
Zhang couldn’t be sure what would happen if he made the demand for the ships to turn around. He could not be sure it would be obeyed. If that happened, if he gave the order to turn the ships around and it was not obeyed, he would be facing a coup. He would have to finish Fan or he would be finished himself.
Those ships would not be sailing without Xu’s agreement. Zhang knew that didn’t mean Xu had put his support definitively behind Fan, but it did mean he had put himself in a position to do that. If Zhang demanded that the ships turn around, Xu would have to decide. The question was whether this was the right moment to put the defense minister in a position where he would be forced to make that decision.
Zhang was certain that Fan would not move against him if Xu’s support was not assured. To do that would run the risk of provoking a civil war with roughly equal military factions confronting each other on either side. He, Zhang, would be supported by the security forces, and Xu would have the leadership of the air force and key naval units. Fan would have the hardline wing of the army, which believed after 2014 that the military, as the guarantor of the state, should hold open political power. Fan would not want to see the Chinese air force, on Xu’s orders, bombing army barracks. On the other hand, if Fan believed that he had Xu behind him, or if he believed the defense minister had been abandoned by his supporters, he might move. The internal security forces alone would be no match for the army. The fight would be bloody, but the army would prevail.
Zhang glanced at the defense minister. Xu was blinking furiously. He must know, thought Zhang, that if he brought Fan to power, he would not last long. That was what had kept the balance of power between the three of them for the past four years. Even now, if he lost his support, he would become irrelevant. So the question Xu must be asking himself, thought Zhang, was what would cause his support to drain away? What would cause the admirals and air force generals to abandon him? Being ordered to go into battle with the Americans – or being ordered to turn around? If that was the most important question for Xu, Zhang knew, it was the most important question for him too.
Zhang did not believe the admirals really wanted to fight the Americans. For all the talk he had just heard, he didn’t believe they thought they would win and he didn’t believe they would want to see two of their precious new carrier forces destroyed. But if the only way to avoid this was to back down, would they accept it? If he gave the order in the commission to turn the
Chou Enlai
and
Mao Zedong
around, and if Xu stood with him, would they feel that the Chinese military would lose so much face against the Americans that they would nonetheless support Fan in opposing it? Actually the question was not whether they would – but whether Xu believed that they would. It was not reality that mattered now, but perception. If Xu believed that his supporters would desert him if he agreed to back down, he would countermand the order. If he countermanded the order, then Xu would have definitively joined Fan, and the general would have won.
Yet if Zhang did not give the order, there would be a battle off Lamu Bay that would escalate on the other side of the world even before it was finished.
He had told the American president that the ships must be released. He had told him again and again. The only other thing he could have said was that Knowles must release the ships because he did not feel strong enough to give the order to turn the
Chou Enlai
and
Mao Zedong
around, but he could not say such a thing to the American president. Even if Knowles complied, the damage to China would be incalculable.
Zhang did not know what he would do. There was little time left now. The Americans had to back down. If they did not, he didn’t know whether he would risk the coup or the confrontation. The confrontation, he felt sure, would escalate, but he did not know how far, and if he cracked down immediately on the opposition, domestic unrest might be contained. The coup, if he gave the order, might not happen, but if it did, the violence in China would be terrible, and the country’s enemies, inside its borders and out, would seize the opportunity to seek their own goals.
Fan was watching him.
‘How long is it until the carriers arrive?’ he asked.
‘Thirty-six hours.’