Ultimatum

by Matthew Glass

  There was a hush in the Oval Office.

  Wen didn’t speak.

  “President Wen,” said Benton, “together we can make great progress for both our countries. If we do this carefully, and with good faith, there can also be stability. That is the prize we can have, progress with stability. History will judge us kindly if this is what we achieve. But this requires us to agree, and to act. We must act now. Now is the moment.”

  There was silence on the line again. Then Benton heard Wen’s voice start up in Mandarin.

  “To seize a moment in history…This requires good faith.”

  “I agree.”

  “Before proposals must come. . . trust between the leaders. Then there can be proposals. Then the moment in history can be seized.” There was a pause. “Trust comes from knowing the other ... A telephone is good, but face-to-face is better.”

  “Face-to-face is good when there is something to agree on,” said Benton.

  As his translator interpreted the response, Wen laughed.

  “Let us agree generally,” said Wu, translating Wen’s response, “and agree on specifics later.”

  “President Wen, time is short. We need to be bold in the levels of emissions cuts we propose. If we can find a way of getting twenty to twenty-five percent in cuts, then we can really get somewhere.” Benton paused, listening for Wen’s response. He avoided looking at the others in the Oval Office. In giving specific numbers, Benton had gone further than agreed or even discussed. “President Wen, this is necessary for both our countries. We need to agree on the kind of magnitude, the ballpark, and then our people can get down to details.”

  Wen’s voice started up in Mandarin. A second later Wu translated. “First we should agree generally.”

  “Yes. Exactly. If you and I can agree generally right now on the magnitude of the cuts, then that pushes everything ahead. That’s what we need. Can we agree that our people should be working on mutual cuts in the range of twenty to twenty-five percent?”

  Benton waited tensely for Wen’s response.

  “I heard that the difficult situation in your... in Montana was resolved with little bloodshed today.”

  Benton frowned at the jump in subject. “Yes.”

  “I am glad.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate your saying that. It was a difficult time, but our forces did a fine job and I’m proud of them. But to come back to—”

  “We sometimes have difficulties as well. Sometimes we also are called upon to act inside our own country.”

  Benton didn’t reply to that. “President Wen, I want to come back to what I was saying. Can we agree on what we should be doing?”

  “Of course. First we must meet face-to-face, then comes trust. I met President Gartner a number of times.”

  Benton didn’t know what to say in response. He glanced at Larry Olsen. Olsen shook his head emphatically. He cut his hand crisply through the air. This wasn’t going anywhere. Wen wasn’t going to be drawn. Anything else Benton said would just create a hostage for the future.

  Benton tried again. Wen wouldn’t be drawn.

  “We must talk more often,” said Benton eventually.

  “I agree,” said President Wen.

  “This is very useful.”

  “Yes.”

  There was silence in the Oval Office after Benton put down the phone.

  “Have you ever heard such crap?” exploded Olsen. “Comparing our action at Whitefish to some of their dirty internal repression?”

  “He didn’t necessarily mean that,” said Ball.

  “He damn well did. You watch, that’ll come back at us. Next time we say something about their repression, they’ll start yelling about Whitefish.”

  “You don’t give them credit for anything.”

  “Don’t I? Well, we’re not getting any proposals from them, that’s for sure. Wen’s just going to sit.”

  “We should go meet him,” said Ball.

  “Yeah, right.”

  There was silence again.

  Joe Benton was frowning, staring at the phone. He felt somewhat troubled now for having said as much as he had. Suddenly, as he spoke to his Chinese counterpart, it had occurred to him that he could cut through everything by throwing out the numbers. Yet it had had no effect. The other leader was obviously willing to sit back and wait. Now Benton wondered whether he had made a mistake. He had revealed something, and the other man hadn’t, and that didn’t feel right.

  Or maybe it wasn’t so bad. The numbers weren’t a secret. At some point, Wen had to know them.

  And yet, it did feel unbalanced.

  Benton looked up at the others. “I don’t think that did any harm, right? I don’t think that set us back.”

  ~ * ~

  Monday, March 28

  Oval Office, The White House

  Oliver Wu thought it was unlikely that President Wen himself sanctioned the leak to the press.

  “It makes you lose too much face, Mr. President. The contracts, that’s one thing. Only we know what the connection is. It’s a strong public act, but it gives you room to back down privately. It’s different if you have to back down from something in public, that’s when you lose face. At this stage, I don’t think Wen would want that to happen. It would make you harder for him to deal with later, if he wants to, because you’ll lack credibility. Making your opponent lose face is always a two-edged sword. Wen would be very sensitive to all of this. Losing face is probably a more powerful weapon in his mind than it is in yours.”

  Benton smiled ruefully. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Also, the Chinese press has barely mentioned it since the leak happened. That’s another important indicator. If Wen was really using this to make you lose face, it would be everywhere.”

  Jackie Rubin wasn’t sure they needed to be thinking only about Wen. “Someone else over there could have leaked it, couldn’t they?”

  “True, but what would they have had to gain?” said Wu. “If it’s someone else in the upper echelons of the party, then this isn’t about us. It’s about them and their position in the party. That’s not to say they wouldn’t use it, because they would. But I’ve gone through all the likely instigators—Ding, Zhai, Xuan, Ma, Li, even Chou—and I don’t see what it does to build anyone’s position. If someone in the Standing Committee had come out and said there’s no risk of anything, then, yes, it makes sense to plant that question in a news conference with the president, for example, to discredit him. But no one’s said that, at least not publicly. There’s no context for this. Without context, without some kind of relationship to the ground on which power is being struggled for, a leak has no value.”

  “What if it’s designed to create context?” said Eales. “It might be a first step. Next thing they might leak that we’ve been meeting with Chen.”

  “Then they’d be attacking Wen.”

  “That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. But this is a very roundabout way of doing it. I’d expect to see more context first. I could also be wrong on the first count. Maybe Wen does want the president to lose face. That’s possible for reasons we don’t understand. I’m not ruling it out. I just don’t see it as being high on the list of probabilities, and there was nothing in the conversation with Wen that even hinted at it.”

  “So what are we saying?” said the president. “The leak didn’t come from the Chinese side?”

  “I think what Oliver’s saying,” said Larry Olsen, “is that it’s probably not Wen, and if it’s not Wen, and yet if it did come from within the party, and yet without any context, it’s a reflection of an internal tension that’s too subtle for us to see right now. So we should come back to what we need to decide today, which is what we do now.”

  Benton agreed. What he wanted out of this meeting was a conclusion, even if only a preliminary one, about what should be done next.

  “Go ahead, Larry,” he said.

  Olsen glanced at him. Benton knew what was in tha
t look. Inevitably, there was a residue left from his accusation about the leak.

  “Go ahead,” said Benton again.

  “There’s a number of things. First, we haven’t done anything since those contracts were given away. That’s almost three weeks ago now. Second, this thing comes out about Miami going underwater, and we don’t say anything except that we support the Kyoto process and a multilateral approach. Third, Mr. President, you talk to Wen and he won’t engage on anything but setting up a meeting. I think he thinks you’re backing down.”

  “Or that we’re going to start using a more conventional approach,” said Alan Ball pointedly.

  “That’s not how they’ll be looking at it. They think we’re beat. That’s what they’ll be saying to themselves.”

  “Thank you, Larry,” said the president. “You’ve made yourself clear. Dr. Wu?”

  “I agree with the secretary, Mr. President.”

  “We know they’re not sending Chen back with anything,” said Olsen. “That much is clear. So where are we? We make a noise, they call our bluff. Now what?”

  “Sanctions, right?” said Ball impatiently.

  “I’m sorry, Alan, but if not, they really have called our bluff. They win. Fine. Just so long as I know. I’ll go put this file at the bottom of the pile and see if I can bring peace to the Congo.”

  “Mr. President,” said Ball. “Wen invited you again to come to Beijing. Why not build trust in the way he says?”

  “Sure,” muttered Olsen. “Let him give us a banquet in the Great Hall and prevaricate for another year.”

  “I have a suggestion,” said Ben Hoffman. “Why doesn’t Larry go?”

  “When?” said Eales.

  “Now. As soon as he can. It just seems to me there’s an awful amount of uncertainty. For one thing, we don’t know what Chen’s been saying to Wen. Even after your conversation, sir, we don’t really know what Wen’s trying to say to us. Why don’t we go find out? If going to meet President Wen yourself is too big a thing, Mr. President, then let’s get Larry to go.”

  “Wen won’t talk to me,” said Olsen.

  “You can talk to their foreign minister, though, can’t you?”

  “I don’t know if Chou’s in the loop. He’s got no power.”

  “He’s not the only one you’ll meet, right?” said Eales.

  Olsen frowned. “What’s the message here? They blow us off on the contracts, the president calls Wen. Wen doesn’t give him anything, so I come supplicating. What are we trying to say to them?”

  The president smiled slightly. He didn’t see Larry Olsen supplicating to anyone.

  “What’s the message?” said Olsen again.

  “No message,” said Hoffman.

  Olsen shook his head.

  “You’re just going to talk,” said Eales. “Larry, they know we care about this. They know we want action. It’s no secret.”

  “They’ll see it as weakness.”

  “You already said they think we’re beat. How much more weakness can we show?”

  “John’s right,” said the president. “Larry, I don’t see what we’ve got to lose here. You said yourself, they think we’re beat. If we’re going to show them otherwise, we’re really going to have to do something. So before we take some kind of action, if that’s what we’re going to have to do, don’t you think it makes sense to try to gather a little more information? Wen might meet you. If not Wen, Chou. Chou might be in the loop.”

  “Mr. President. . .”

  Benton smiled. “Dr. Wu, you don’t need to put our hand up.”

  Wu nodded quickly. “Sorry, sir. Well, in my opinion, the secretary’s right. Our going there will be seen as weakness. It will be seen as supplication. That’s a very bad way to be perceived from the Chinese political perspective.”

  “Then we just have to be prepared to follow it up with action. I like this approach. Alan?”

  Ball shrugged. “It’s better than slapping on sanctions and getting into a trade war.”

  “How long would it take to organize?”

  There was silence from Olsen.

  “It could be quick,” said Wu. “A couple of weeks if Chou’s agreeable.”

  “Larry? What are your thoughts?” The president watched him. Even if Olsen didn’t want to do it, maybe he should. In fact, maybe it was important he did it because he didn’t want to. It was about time, Joe Benton thought, that he saw Larry Olsen carry out an action that wasn’t his own idea. If he couldn’t do that, perhaps Alan Ball was right. Perhaps there really was no place for him in the administration.

  He glanced at Ball. Ball, who had hardly looked at Olsen during the discussion, was watching him expectantly.

  “Larry?” said Benton.

  Olsen frowned. “Let me think about it.”

  ~ * ~

  Tuesday, April 26

  Zhongnanhai Government Complex, Beijing

  Lights flashed as the photographers snapped their shots. Olsen’s visit had commenced the previous evening with a banquet hosted by Foreign Minister Chou. Now, at ten o’clock in the morning, Larry Olsen was sitting opposite Chou at a table in one of the meeting rooms of the massive government complex off Tiananmen Square. Along his side of the table were another dozen people, including Elisabeth Dean, the undersecretary for China at the State Department, and Alvin Finkler, the U.S. ambassador to Beijing. An equal number of Chinese officials were drawn up opposite.

  They had an hour planned at the table, then ninety minutes in smaller groups to discuss a number of agreed issues. During this time, Olsen would confer with Chou. In the afternoon, more discussions were scheduled. Olsen would meet Zhai Ming, the premier, and Ma Guangen, the vice premier. A twenty-minute slot was also penciled in for a meeting with President Wen, but the Chinese side had been clear that this was unconfirmed and should not be released to the press as part of the scheduled agenda. That would end the official element of the secretary of state’s stay. In the evening there would be drinks with members of the Beijing American chamber of commerce before dinner as guest of honor with the Association of American Universities in China. The following morning Olsen was scheduled to have breakfast with a group of selected CEOs before leaving for Tokyo, where he would spend twenty-four hours before heading back to the States.

  The photographers were ushered out of the room. Chou spoke. The Chinese foreign minister was a native Shanghainese speaker and Olsen found his Mandarin hard to follow. He gave up concentrating and focused on the translation of Oliver Wu, who was sitting on his left. Chou was expressing his hopes for a successful meeting. Olsen responded. An interpreter sitting behind Chou translated Olsen’s words. “This is our first meeting,” concluded Olsen. “I appreciate your hospitality, Minister Chou. Let’s make sure we get off to a good start.”

  There were smiles and nods all round.

  They headed into the agenda. Olsen had asked Dr. Dean to lead the discussion. The man sitting beside Chou, the director general for North America in the Chinese foreign ministry, did most of the talking on the other side. The topics were ones that would have been on the agenda of almost any U.S.-China bilateral in the past two decades: trade, Korea, energy security, various regional affairs. Off the agenda were ones that were listed publicly only at times of tension between the two countries: Taiwan, free access to the Internet, human rights, the U.S. military presence in Colombia, which the Chinese side raised whenever the U.S. raised human rights. Those were the things Olsen would get to with Chou in private.

  The meeting broke into groups. Chou and Olsen, together with their interpreters and an aide on each side, were ushered into another meeting room. This time they sat in armchairs. Tea and coffee were brought.

  “Can we get you something else, Secretary?” asked Chou in English.

  “Coffee’s fine, thank you,” said Olsen. The young woman who had brought it in served them. She served tea to the others and left.

  “Mr. Secretary, I am very glad to have this opportunity to get to kn
ow you,” said Chou.

  “Likewise, Minister,” said Olsen. He had met Chou briefly at a couple of diplomatic functions but had never spoken with him at length. Chou Yongyue had a reputation as a prickly, long-winded character who was quick to react to anything he perceived as a slight toward China or the party.

  “There are some things I would like to discuss with you.”

  “Please,” said Olsen.

  Chou switched into Mandarin. He started talking about the case of a Chinese student who was in prison someplace in Kentucky. Olsen hadn’t been briefed. All he could say was he’d look into it. Chou took an envelope containing the details from his aide and handed it across. Sounded like the kind of thing you’d normally deal with at embassy level. Chou was probably going on about it to preempt the human rights conversation which he knew was coming.