Two Peasants and a President

by Frederick Aldrich

  Had a visionary or even a historian, rather than a politician, occupied the White House, he might have pointed out that China’s transformation into an economic and military powerhouse had only been possible with America‘s cash. The gradual evolution from manufacturer and seller of low priced consumer goods to principal banker to the United States had been aided by a long series of willing congressmen and women who seldom let principles or economic planning stand in the way of their re-elections.

  Now the American president had provided China with the final piece of leverage it needed. The enormous expansion of the United States government’s scope and power required the already staggering $1.15 trillion in China’s US Treasuries holdings to rise even further. America’s banker had come to demand something in return. Much as Europe and the United States had looked the other way when Germany annexed the Sudetenland, Li was making it clear to the American president that he too must look the other way as China expands its power in Asia.

  Ironically, Li Guo Peng had fully intended to give the American president the cash infusion he so badly needed, but with his pathetic failure to keep a handful of troublesome people away from the press, Li decided to imprint his displeasure indelibly by suspending additional investment. The term ‘further study’ was used, but the message was clear.

  As Beijing saw it, there was a far greater problem than the bungled matter of the escapees. The effort to keep the United States from interfering with a centuries old dream was nearly off the tracks. China has always seen itself as the rightful heir to the world’s center of influence and power. It could not simply step back and watch it all disappear into the abyss.

  For the first time, trade had actually dwindled, not by much, but enough to be noticed. Men and women who could no longer even take for granted having a job, much less owning a home were focusing their collective anger on China. The tariff bill seemed about to pass in the Senate. That the president would veto it didn’t matter; it was the ground swell of anti-China sentiment that threatened everything.

  From Li’s perspective, one voice held the power to derail decades of Chinese planning; one man was the catalyst without which the firestorm would subside. Americans now trusted Virgil Baines more than they trusted their president. Every time he spoke, he shoveled more dirt on China’s dream. Something had to be done.

  ******

  In a suite in the Chinese Embassy lavishly appointed for the use of top level dignitaries, Li Guo Peng sat facing one of two men who had recently displeased him. The other had been secretly flown back to Beijing with a serious neck wound. Because the injury had not been treated quickly in a US hospital, the man had not survived the long flight.

  Facing the vice-president was one who, until now, had never disappointed. He had already paid for his error with a wound that still made it excruciatingly uncomfortable to sit. Had he been anyone else, he would have also paid with his life. But this one was special.

  If one were to judge him purely by his physical stature, one might be unimpressed, but beneath the tailored suit was a highly trained and conditioned body. More importantly, from the standpoint of his masters, the well-conditioned body held a mind with no conscience. Utterly none.

  His childhood spanned the Cultural Revolution, one of the most horrific periods in a history filled with horror. Intellectuals, teachers, musicians, artists, in short anyone with more than the most rudimentary education was either eliminated outright or sent into the countryside to pick up night soil, a euphemism for the excrement that the peasants deposited outside each night.

  His father had been a teacher, his mother a violinist, a marriage made in hell from the standpoint of Mao Tse Tung, the despot responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions of his own people. The teacher and the violinist had been dragged out of their bed one night and carted off. He never saw them again.

  The young boy was quite bright, that much was obvious. Rather than take up a noble profession as his parents had, he was taught to kill. But his task was not merely to put a bullet in those who knelt before him in defeat and submission. This one would be no mean executioner. There were others who were more spirited and clever, those who did not meekly accept their fate. These required skilled hunters, single-minded workmen who would track and kill their prey regardless of where they sought safety. Of these, the piano tuner was the best. His tool of choice, a piece of piano wire with heavy metal loops at each end, hence his name.

  58

  Given that he had outmaneuvered them so completely, the State Department neglecting to return several calls from his office was not surprising. Nor was the rude snub out of character for bureaucrats who routinely hand out billions in taxpayer dollars to those who hate America and who never intend to pay a dime of it back.

  The State Department does, however, hold the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. Considering his end run around them, it was highly unlikely they would be more willing to allow Ping and the other dissidents to enter the United States now than they had been to begin with.

  While the Japanese government had been only too happy to use the refugees for its own purposes, it could not be expected to put them up at government expense indefinitely. Furthermore, since it was Americans who had been saved by their courageous action, it should be for Americans to in turn help. If the State Department could not see the basic fairness in this, then Senator Baines would appeal directly to the people.

  The appeal consisted of a campaign to put a face on the heroic efforts that Chinese dissidents in general, not just these particular dissidents, make to the cause of freedom everywhere. Since those still in China could not be identified directly, certain friends of the senator saw to it that a series of video and print portrayals of the lives of those now waiting in Japan found their way into the media. Simultaneously, businesses and families were sought who would volunteer to help give the refugees a new start.

  The first whose story was aired was Min, the doctor who had been forced to harvest organs from people in whose chests a heart sometimes still beat. The horrific and ghoulish details of his journey from the Hippocratic oath to the execution grounds outside the hospital moved millions not only to tune in but to demand that the refugees be given asylum and eventual citizenship.

  The second story to air was that of Ping, her life in a small rural village, and her son’s courageous but ultimately tragic battle against corruption. By the time Ping’s story had aired, and with others waiting to share theirs, the administration was already being subjected to a withering assault for its attempt to cover up the torment of these people. In a more troubling development, at least for the White House, China made it known privately that the already strained relations as well as prospects for any future investment could be damaged beyond repair if the bad publicity were to continue unabated.

  Predictably, the State Department, in what it called a humanitarian gesture, announced that the refugees would be granted resident visas. The heroic Captain Davis and his charges were soon happily boarding a flight to Washington and a new life.

  It had been hoped by both the administration and China that the refugees’ story would soon fade, and while some of its intensity did begin to dissipate, China persisted in angering the world by doing what it does best: bullying everyone. Its perennial support for the worst dictatorships on the planet had only grown, and with it Virgil Baines’ determination to shine a light on ways in which the administration was complicit.

  While China continued to assert its total sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, punctuating it with periodic displays of overt military aggression, the administration postponed consideration of the Philippines offer to base ships at Subic Bay. That and its ambiguity re Taiwan’s desire for independence sounded suspiciously like capitulation to some. They saw clear signs that the president was willing to trade access to the western Pacific for financial support for his unprecedented government expansion.

  The de facto ceding of much of Asia to China should have ignited a firestorm of
protest, but once again short-term monetary and political gain obscured the judgment of many in Washington. To those with any historical perspective, it would be quite simply the largest and most tragic uncontested transfer of power and territory in history. But alas, far too many people simply weren’t paying attention to what was going on in the world around them and probably wouldn’t ever care unless it impacted them personally. By then, any chance to influence events would have likely slipped through their fingers.

  This was the challenge that Senator Baines and his allies confronted. Apathy and the unquestioned acceptance as fact of the administration’s propaganda meant that millions of Americans were, for all extents and purposes, in a perpetual state of hypnosis. Somehow, they would have to be awakened.

  Baines, his colleagues, and sympathetic corporate partners began to formulate a strategy to do just that. First, it was obvious that if you wanted the attention of America’s youth, you would need to go through their eyes, and their eyes were on smart phones, tablets, game consoles, television and computers. Second, you would have to compete with the best that Madison Avenue and Silicon valley have to offer. In other words, your message would not only have to be vivid and compelling, in the first seconds it exploded on the screen, it must indelibly imprint its message.

  During these strategy sessions a troubling fact began to emerge: that which causes the hearts of America’s youth to beat more quickly invariably involves implicit personal gain. The latest shoes or set of wheels were obvious magnets, but even songs, sports and sitcoms were in reality just expressions of what some had that others wanted. Their lyrics and even their characters were in essence icons of desire for lifestyles that provided things.

  What America’s slumbering generation failed to grasp was the direct correlation between their freedom, as expressed in the things they take for granted, and China’s growing power. Freedom is implicit in all of their toys, freedom to have and freedom to use as one wishes. What joy is there in a smart phone that doesn’t allow you to speak freely? What satisfaction is there in a tablet that displays not what you choose to see but what is chosen for you by others? America’s youth needed to awaken to the fact that what they hold dear was under threat. To accomplish this, their already overloaded synapses would need a jolt, or rather a series of jolts to sensitize them to the danger.

  The first series of electric shocks would flow directly from China’s decision to in effect embargo rare Earth minerals, the materials without which smart phones et al would cease to exist. Baines found it easy to enlist both support and funding as well as creative talent from tech companies that had so much skin in the game. Without access to rare Earth minerals, American companies would be relegated to middle men whose logos were, in essence, all that remained of once vibrant enterprises. America would be buying directly from China. While the new products would resemble the old, they would be modified, in other words, heavily censored; no more unlimited access to the internet, no more free exchange of ideas, no more mention of certain terms or concepts, no more pornography. Business as usual, but on China’s terms.

  On a Friday afternoon at 3:00 pm, the first electric shock flowed outward into the ether. Pop-ups showed Chinese police officers snatching smart phones from teenagers and checking for banned content. Violators, which included virtually everyone, were herded into paddy wagons. Cell blocks of shaved heads, waiting for a phone call they would never get, flashed onto the screen.

  Outrage exploded from the left; insults flew like arrows from bastions in California, Boston and New York. Airwave assassins spewed clouds of vile poison in a vain attempt to silence the unwelcome message. Hyperbole was stacked upon exaggeration until the teetering piles cast frightening shadows over the very people who created them.

  On Saturday, the electricity flowed again, this time showing Americans attempting to surf the internet, their clicks spawning screen after screen with bold type letters: BLOCKED. Beneath the letters, grave warnings of prosecution and incarceration underscored the message. The stern face of a Chinese policeman glared from screens across America.

  A fascinating barometer of the success of the campaign soon began to emerge. Left-leaning talk show hosts and pundits who at first reviled the messages, belatedly began to realize that China’s reach would not necessarily be confined to its own borders. Controlling much of the planet’s resources would eventually empower China to dictate to those who needed those resources. With its enormous cash reserves, China could easily afford to surreptitiously acquire controlling interests in the media. It slowly dawned on smugly confident anchors and commentators that their ‘opinions’ might one day be handed down from Beijing, that their programs could be shut down not for negative ratings but for negative thought, as interpreted by the authorities in the East.

  The following Friday, a new electronic talisman flowed outward onto millions of screens. In it, the headquarters of a hugely popular electronic device maker were shown shuttered and empty, the picture of its visionary founder hanging askew on the wall of its lobby along with its iconic fruit. Since the raw materials that went into its products were controlled by China, China held the de facto controlling interest in the company and no longer cared to maintain the facade of a corporate headquarters in the United States. Now, not only were its products manufactured in China, its entire edifice and management resided in China. Shareholders who once had been able to express their wishes through an elected board of directors found themselves without any real voice. Products once loaded with clever apps and programs from the creative minds of citizens of the free world now contained only that which had been approved by Beijing. Devoted fans and customers of the once iconic symbol of American ingenuity were forced to buy directly from Communist China, assuming they had a job to provide the wherewithal. And that was a questionable assumption.

  Suddenly some of the most naïve and gullible people on the planet found themselves engaged in a most unusual pursuit – thinking. Granted, more than a few of these new brain waves were so unaccustomed to logical processes that they quickly burnt out like sparklers in the sand, but as their owners stumbled through unfamiliar territory, some actually had ideas. Whether they sprung from video game strategies or were newly minted, they were nonetheless the rudiments of logical thought. What was more important was that these thoughts were nudging their owners in the right direction, toward the realization that world events could actually impact them. Even more strikingly, it dawned on a few that it might be wise to take action before they were flattened by the onrushing tsunami.

  Now electrons that had formerly focused on a make-believe Italian plumber and his assistant were free to be put to use defending their owner and not a whoopee-yelling avatar. Rather than blindly assuming that an accident of birth had endowed them with extra lives or an always charged up health meter, it began to occur to them that they were far more vulnerable than their game characters. Their lifestyles and the freedoms they had long taken for granted were endangered. They had become the hunted and Bowser was China.

  As a wasteland of unoccupied brain matter was slowly settled by the electron pioneers of logical thought, astonishing events were seen across the country. Those who formerly occupied Wall Street with smart phones in hand now began to converge on the Chinese embassy, demanding fair trade, not just free trade. Young people who had been pooping on police cars one day were the next proclaiming rights of free speech – for Chinese dissidents. Pale skinned denizens of their parents’ basements clad in pizza stained T-shirts began to emerge from their computer caves into the light.

  Ping had become a national hero. On cotton-covered chests across America, despicable false heroes and mass murderers like Che Guevara and Mao Tse Tung were replaced by the peaceful image of a diminutive yet marvelously dignified Chinese woman.

  The bureaucrats of Beijing were beside themselves, as was the American president. His dream of a vast government that knows what is best for everyone was crumbling at his feet. Presidential decrees, recess appointme
nts and end runs around the Constitution now began to falter and grind as the green oil that greased their gears ran dry. Like the last emperor, the president had become little more than a Communist puppet, willing to trade away anything to preserve his ideology. But the trust of the people who elected him had been squandered.

  Talk show hosts who failed to see what was happening and persisted in biting at the heels of those who dared to disagree with administration-speak now found their ratings sinking below sea level. Pundits who would have openly rejoiced in the death of Socrates, had he been around to vilify, were beginning to feel like Robespierre, the 18th century French politician who placed so many necks in the guillotine but never dreamed he would one day find his own there.

  Congress, ever mindful of the next election, checked the windsocks outside their windows and discovered there had indeed been a transformation. Constituents who’d listened silently as their president apologized for America’s sins, now demanded the respect America deserved. Taxpayers who sat still while their State Department passed money out to their worst enemies made it clear that to write a check to Pakistan or Egypt was to write your own arrest warrant. ‘Of the People, By the People and For the People’ became the mantra for the awakening. There had been a sea change, and it wasn’t global warming.

  59

  It promised to be a special dinner. Ping had mentioned that she would like to cook them a meal, so Virgil and Molly took her to a Oriental grocery where she scooped up more than a hundred dollars of ingredients. Back at Virgil’s house, she was happily humming to herself in what must have seemed like the kitchen of a hotel. Though they could not have known it, Ping had not felt such delight since she had cooked for her husband and son.