The eight left as they came: unseen and til the morning, when the full horror of their actions was discovered noticed. However, throughout the towns and villages along the SinoVietnamese border om Zhelang from the west and Xiatong to the east Vietnamese guerrillas unleashed a series of `pinprick' operations that struck terror in the hearts of local populations and a desire for retribution in China's leaders 2,200 kilometres to the north.
The South China Sea
Local time: 2345 Monday 19 February 2001
GMT: 1545 Monday 19 February 2001
The New World was the pride of Shell's fleet. Its Liberian-registered owner, New World Transport, was a company jointly owned by Shell Transport Maritime and Consolidated Navigation. Built by Hyundai at its Ulan complex in Korea six years earlier, it had cost nearly $60 million. It was the second of two sisters incorporating the latest `Double-Vee' (double hull) design for very large ships, developed by Hyundai Heavy Industries, Korea's biggest conglomerate in collaboration with Monaco-based Consolidated Navigation SA, which enabled a deeper than usual forward double bottom to better absorb a hull impact, and additional ballast tanks to reduce hogging and sagging in rough seas. It was a mammoth vessel some 334 metres long, with a breadth of 59 metres and a depth of 31.50 metres. It had been designed to enable three grades of oil to be transported simultaneously. In all, it was carrying 270,000 tonnes of oil, which its giant seven-cylinder diesel engine (capable of 34,650 b.h.p.) managed to move through the water at a stately 15 knots.
The New World was bound for the Shell refinery near Tokyo. It had taken on its cargo of oil at the Saudi Arabian Ras Tanura terminal in the Persian Gulf, and sailed straight across the Indian Ocean to the Andaman Sea and through the Malacca Straits. It had entered the South China Sea 70 hours earlier, and was sailing at 16g 49 N, 117g 66 E, about 200 nautical miles to the west of the island of Luzon.
The Master, an Englishman in his late forties, had just looked up at the ship's clock on the bridge. He was weary. All day he and his crew had been noting the position of Chinese naval vessels in the South China Sea. They were used to the scream of the engines of high-performance military jets passing overhead. They had also spotted submarine periscopes. He was hoping for at least a couple of hours' sleep. He took a fix with the ship's Global Positioning System (GPS) and noted it in the log. The Master spoke to Shell in the Hague, to confirm his instructions to keep sailing. His Belgian first officer was being woken up. The Master would wait for the BBC World Service radio news at midnight and then hand over the watch until 0300. As the news headlines were being broadcast, the night sound was shattered by automatic weapons fire. Bullets smashed the reinforced glass in the wheelhouse.
THREE
The South China Sea
Local time: 0010 Tuesday 20 February 2001
GMT: 1610 Monday 19 February 2001
The master slumped to the floor, bleeding. In the pitch black of night a lookout on the starboard side of the New World had failed to notice the two dinghies speeding towards the tanker. They had been launched by the Chinese submarine moments before. By the time he was aware of the dinghies' presence they were about to come alongside. Each carried six commandos. He froze. The twelve men were dressed in Chinese military uniforms. They carried assault rifles, handguns, and stun grenades. All wore steel helmets which partially covered their faces. The Master had regained his composure and was on his feet once again. The bullet had grazed his forehead. He had a minor flesh wound. Nothing more. He turned to the starboard side of the bridge and peered into the chartroom, where his First Officer had been examining charts a few moments before. But instead of a man bent over a chart table, the master saw his First Officer standing with his hands in the air. In front of him was a Chinese soldier who was pointing a pistol at his head. Before the master could react another Chinese soldier appeared and began pushing him back. With his free hand the soldier opened fire on the ship's communications systems. `Officer? Officer?' he yelled, waving the pistol at the Master. `Me!' screamed the Master. The intruder turned to bundle the Master, still bleeding, down the bridge stairway and past a group of frightened seamen, the last time any of them would see him alive. The soldiers, who had since been joined by others, herded the remaining crew-members at gunpoint into a cabin on C deck. From there, the crew of the New World could only hear what was going on. There was the distant sound of shouting. Then the sound of a scuffle followed by running. A gun shot. Silence. The Master had been murdered.
On the bridge, a man in the uniform of Communist China was at the helm.
The Foreign Ministry, Beijing
Local time: 0145 Tuesday 20 February 2001
GMT: 1745 Monday 19 February 2001
Jamie Song stood just outside the perimeter of real power, but to the world's television audience he was the face of modern China. He cut an impressive figure. His command of idiomatic American English reflected his years at Harvard, first as a student then as a visiting fellow in the late eighties. Before the Communist Party recognized the worth of his unflustered urbanity, he became a millionaire software tycoon. He counted among his friends the chief executives of many of America's blue-chip companies whom he had guided over the bumpy path of making money in China. He knew they would be watching his interviews. He had turned down the BBC, France's TF1, Germany's ARD, and the other American networks. The televisions in the Pentagon, the White House, the State Department, and in the executive offices of the men who ran corporate America would be tuned to only one channel N. That's why he had allowed CNN to install a satellite dish in the Foreign Ministry compound.
Song was a spiritual child of Deng Xiaoping. One of the sayings that made Deng famous throughout the China of the late 1980s and early 1990s was his injunction to Communist Party officials to `Be bold'. By this Deng meant they should be imaginative in solving the problems of economic development. If this entailed being entrepreneurial then so much the better. After all, it was he who had also said `to get rich is glorious'. Independently wealthy, Song's boldness was displayed for all to see in his television appearances during the crisis. The American government was his enemy. Through CNN the American people could be his allies. Wires trailed through his office. The camera picked up his library in the background with volumes of Mao, Deng, Adam Smith, Thatcher, Churchill, and others. A carved glass model of a golfer was on the window sill. His desk was busy enough to look as if he had been working. And it was getting close to peak lunchtime viewing on the American east coast . . .
Anchor: On today's show live from Beijing we have the first, exclusive interview with a Chinese leader since the beginning of the South China Sea crisis. He's one of the masterminds of Operation Dragonstrike and he's here to tell why China's doing what none us can understand. Jamie Song, the Chinese Foreign Minister, is going to tell us why China is attacking Vietnam. Why its troops have occupied the atolls and reefs of the Spratly and Paracel Islands places most of us had not heard of a couple of days ago. You can talk soon enough, Jamie. And with me in the studio is Chris Bronowski, a China expert from the Rand Corporation. Chris is a specialist in the Chinese military. He'll tell us if Americans should be afraid of China. It's certainly a lot richer than it used to be. Welcome, Chris.
COMMENTATOR: Thank you.
ANCHOR: The first quick question for you, Chris. Should we stock up for war with China. A Communist state, we know. But surely not?
COMMENTATOR: I'd say not this month, Mike.
ANCHOR: Jamie. War or not?
JAMIE SONG: I hope not, Mike. Who wants war when we're all making so much money?
ANCHOR: You're not saying no, though. So why? An unprovoked attack on Vietnam? What is the point?
JAMIE SONG: Mike, as you Americans say, let's cut the bull. Vietnam is exploring oil reserves in what it calls the Nam Con Son Basin, in a joint venture with an American company, Conoco. There is a long-standing agreement among governments in this region to develop the resources of the South China Sea jointly. We have repeatedly said that we will n
ot tolerate Vietnam's breach of the agreement. President Tai has put a Washington law firm, Covington and Burling, on retainer to act for Vietnam . . .
ANCHOR: And they say Vietnam is within its rights.
JAMIE SONG: That's what they're paid to say. Vietnam was not within its rights to start work without regional agreement. So we stopped them.
ANCHOR: You bombed Haiphong, Ho Chi Minh City, Cam Ranh Bay, and Da Nang.
JAMIE SONG: As you know, in any military action a government has a responsibility to safeguard the lives of its troops. To take the area back, we had to neutralize Vietnamese air and sea power.
ANCHOR: Chris, isn't that over the top?
COMMENTATOR: The Foreign Minister is a skilled advocate for his government. Technically, he is right about the regional agreement. He's reiterating a policy which has been in place for many years. You know, Mike, I hear many times people talking about the unpredictability of China. But China is about the most predictable country in the world. If it's going to attack Vietnam, it'll tell us some time beforehand. And there has been a lot of sabre rattling.
ANCHOR: But Jamie says, apart from Vietnam, no war for the moment. Our first caller is from Europe, the German capital, Berlin. Go ahead, Germany.
GERMANY: Good evening, Foreign Minister.
JAMIE SONG: Good evening.
GERMANY: The definition of Fascism is authoritarian nationalism. Given the almost absolute control by the Communist Party, would you describe China as a Fascist country?
ANCHOR: An apt question from Germany. Jamie Song, are you a Fascist?
JAMIE SONG: We prefer the words disciplined to authoritarian and patriotism to nationalism. But Mike would be unhappy if I became semantically technical. Fascism like Marxism was or is rooted in Europe. In Asia, there is a cultural tendency to respect our elders, our parents, and our government. We tend not to question so much. We don't have political shouting matches like in your elected parliaments.
ANCHOR: Fascist or not, Jamie?
JAMIE SONG: I am the wrong generation. I am a Socialist and a Confucianist.
ANCHOR: Chris. Is Jamie a Fascist?
COMMENTATOR: Jamie's right when he says that Fascism is too European to have that label tagged to him. But the main difference is that Hitler destroyed Germany by overambitious territorial expansion. China isn't an empire builder in that style.
ANCHOR: Hanoi, Vietnam. You're live with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Jamie Song.
HANOI: Foreign Minister, while your aircraft are bombing Vietnamese people will you admit honestly that the assault has nothing to do with Conoco but that China is frightened of a newly democratized Vietnam?
JAMIE SONG: Absolutely not.
ANCHOR: Then what's the problem?
JAMIE SONG: Your anger should be against President Tai, who has misled the Vietnamese people into thinking they have sovereign right over territory which is not theirs d for making them believe that China would not respond.
ANCHOR: What does that mean, Chris?
COMMENTATOR: This has happened before. There have been small naval battles over the past twenty or thirty years between China and Vietnam and China and the Philippines.
Anchor: Texas, you have a question?
Texas: I'm in the oil business, Foreign Minister. Our own surveys show d excuse me for being blunt at your northern oilfields are garbage. Fifty barrels a day per well. Your offshore fields are OK. But soon your country will need to import eight million barrels a day just to keep up with development.
ANCHOR: And your question?
TEXAS: You've taken the Spratly and Paracels because you're facing an oil crisis. Yes or no?
ANCHOR: Jamie, are you short of oil as well as grain?
JAMIE SONG: We're not self-sufficient. But neither is the United States. Your caller is quite right about our need to import eight million barrels a day. And we'll do that by securing our supply bases and diversifying.
COMMENTATOR: If I could clarify, Mike. Foreign Minister, is that why you've now implemented your claim to the South China Sea?
JAMIE SONG: We still intend to develop jointly with our neighbours. However, the threat posed by Vietnam which also has a shortage of oil s forced us to clarify the position. But I can assure all your viewers, wherever they are in the world, the trade routes to and from the Pacific will remain open. This is an isolated regional dispute about which there is nothing to fear. China's business is trade and development. Nothing will deter us from that course.
Highway One, Vietnam
Local time: 0600 Tuesday 20 February 2001
GMT: 2300 Monday 19 February 2001
The unprotected convoy of twelve Toyota Hi-Ace vans moved slowly west through the potholes in the appallingly unmaintained surface of Vietnam's main highway. The passengers, a mixture of Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, Americans, Canadians, and Australians, were used to the uncomfortable five-hour journey between the port city of Haiphong and Hanoi. There were three teachers of English, a banker from the European Union sent to advise on the setting up of small businesses, a doctor and nurse from Me´dicins Sans Frontie`res, two representatives from the UN's World Food Programme and UN Development Programme, a diplomat from the Australian embassy, seven Scandinavian aid workers, a Korean delegation examining bridge-building contracts, and, ironically, a Japanese team from Toyota, which was expanding its distribution network in northern Vietnam. Many of the passengers had been attracted by the backwardness of Vietnam. Haiphong, with its dilapidated French Colonial buildings, ugly Communist apartment blocks, and archaic, Soviet-style shipyard, instilled an even greater affection for this brave and battered country than the tourist stopovers of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.
Rain fell in sheets. The driver of one van had to lean out and clear the windscreen with a rag because the wiper had broken. Often the convoy stopped, one of the vehicles trapped in a huge crater, its back wheels spinning, spewing up waterlogged filth, while dozens of people pushed from behind to get it out. The discussion among the foreigners was mainly whether they would take the French evacuation flight out of Hanoi that evening. Civilian flights had been stopped. Air Vietnam had flown its own airliners to Bangkok.
The swelling of the tributaries of the Red River made the ferry journeys more hazardous. The convoy was given priority, but that meant shifting other vehicles out of the queue, which stretched bumper to bumper from the riverbank. Out of the twelve vans, only nine made it on to the first ferry and three were waiting behind at the crossing when the tragedy happened.
Some of the passengers were having tea at the little stalls set up on the muddy roadside. Tiny cassette players blared out Western pop music. Hawkers attracted attention to themselves by banging their wooden boxes and yelling. The ferry arrived at the riverside with the clanking of its sides and shouts from the ferry boys who caught and threw ropes. Drivers started their engines. They revved and screamed as the wheels battled with the mud. Horns blared. All this sound drowned the first warning sounds of fighter aircraft overhead and low. Visibility was poor. Clouds came and went. The wind blew heavy thick gusts of rain into the river settlement. It wasn't until the clouds moved away for a moment that those on the ground were able to see clearly the dogfight going on above between one Vietnamese and two Chinese fighter planes.
In a computer-simulated battle the Vietnamese MiG-21 Fishbeds would have been no match for the two Chinese Su-27s. But computers rarely take into account human initiative and training. The Vietnamese pilot was forcing his aircraft to the limit, trying to throw off his pursuers, while, it was thought, escaping to the safety of Laotian airspace 200 kilometres due west. The Vietnamese took his MiG straight up, above the clouds. He straightened out for less than three seconds, then took the aircraft down to the predicted enemy position. On breaking cloud cover, he scanned for and found his target, quickly manoeuvring into a firing position and hitting one of the Chinese aircraft in the tail, rendering it out of control. It crashed and the pilot had no chance of survival.
; But in his enthusiasm the MiG pilot had continued too close and his wingtip was damaged by debris. His aircraft went into an uncontrollable roll, and as it did so, tracer bullets struck it. The young surviving Chinese pilot kept firing short bursts from his 25mm nose gun until the MiG exploded in a fireball on the western side of the riverbank. The flames reached a petrol tanker, then in an inferno roared skywards. Vehicles all around the ferry jetty caught light. Those foreigners who had made it across in the first journey were burnt alive within seconds.
Even then, the Chinese pilot brought his aircraft around again, and opened fire with his gun, strafing the ground in short bursts until his ammunition was exhausted, before turning and heading back across the border into China. Many more vehicles burned. Petrol ignited. His act of vengeance killed 378 people. Of the 87 foreign nationals being evacuated from Haiphong, only 9 survived. One, from UNDP, videotaped the whole catastrophe. Within hours his pictures were shown on television news channels throughout the world.
The Prime Minister's residence, Tokyo
Local time: 0800 Tuesday 20 February 2001
GMT: 2300 Monday 19 February 2001
The Japanese cabinet was reasonably comfortable with Japan's stockpiles of oil. The government maintained a stockpile equal to eighty days' consumption, and industry a stockpile equal to seventy-five days' consumption. With the storage facilities dotted around the coastline, Japan could hold out for quite a while. There was no immediate cause for concern. However, the hijack of the Shell New World had raised the stakes dramatically.
The cabinet's Defence Committee meeting had been in progress for ten minutes when there was a knock on the door and an army officer walked into the room carrying a large envelope, requesting to see General Ogawa. General Ogawa rose, excused himself, and motioned to a younger officer to leave the room. The Prime Minister spoke.
`While the General is out of the room, I think it is very important that all of us when meeting Chinese officials in the coming days underline to them in the strongest terms our concern about their action in the South China Sea.' Just then General Ogawa came back in. Hyashi looked up and said: `General, what news?'
Dragon Strike -- A Novel of the Coming War with China (Future History Book 1) Page 12