Two Peasants and a President

by Frederick Aldrich

  Feigning illness and the unavailability of his usual doctor, Li asked Ma Wen’s doctor to see him. Expecting to be dealing with the usual ailments of the most powerful men in China, Dr. Chen Zu stood poised with stethoscope hanging around his neck, waiting to shake the hand of a man he’d never met. He wore a kindly smile, one soon to be ruffled by an unusual demand.

  ******

  “If the western economies, and indeed the world, are to find a light in this ever-darkening tunnel, then we must find the light switch together,” said Senator Baines, addressing the Senate. “We cannot continue to rain down blows on each other’s economies and to brandish our swords and expect to move anywhere but downward into the abyss.”

  “Make no mistake,” he continued, “my words are not a balm; I do not speak to calm you, rather to unite you to rise above what has gone before. Let my message not be confused with weakness and indecisiveness, for they will only lead us back down the path from which we came. Our voices must be as one, first: to admit to ourselves that we have allowed partisan differences to imperil our nation; second: to say to China that we can no longer allow trade between our two nations to unfairly favor one side or the other; and third: that from this moment on, that nation’s attempt to dominate its neighbors and us by force of arms or wealth can only lead to disaster for all. It . . . Must . . . Cease!”

  “I propose that each government appoint three representatives to formulate rules to prevent the unfair trade practices that have placed us all in jeopardy. I further propose that for ninety days, during which time the parties will meet, that trade be resumed as it was before. Finally, I propose that if, according to our representatives, at the end of ninety days, substantial progress has not been made to level the playing field, then this nation will reinstate recent tariffs. China as well as the United States knows that these tariffs have caused pain for all. I would therefore hope that the threat of their re-imposition will provide sufficient impetus for each side to move heaven and Earth to break the impasse.”

  Some compared the senator’s words to Winston Churchill. Others had nothing kind to say. All agreed that a statesman was needed. The president had considerable eloquence, but it now seemed to most that while he wore the hat of a statesman, in his heart he was not. Many who had been swept away by his bold oratory and stirring words had come to the conclusion that they were just that, words. Some had less flattering things to say, but few now thought that he was a man who could be trusted. Two days after Senator Baines speech in the House, the president spoke similar words. He would later try to take the credit, as he had done often in the past. But few were listening.

  What the senator had proposed was bold, there was no doubt, but those with their feet firmly planted knew that it was a very long shot. The gulf between what had been and what was needed was wide and strewn with obstacles. The way forward involved honesty and a willingness to sacrifice, qualities always in limited supply. But the senator had yet to squander the people’s trust and for this reason they were willing to follow him, at least for now. Once again, it was China’s move, but from Beijing came only silence.

  Military satellites were the first to notice that China’s ships and planes no longer sallied forth from their bases; for that all were grateful. Old China hands postulated that a major shift in the power players was in progress, possibly even a coup. But it was clear that the world would only learn the details when China wanted it to. And the details would shock everyone.

  ******

  Ping was lonely. She had only seen one of her friends since they had arrived and she spoke of them often. Virgil and Molly could tell that though her gratitude was abundant, her memories were increasingly melancholy. Molly proposed a gathering of all of them plus the captain’s family. There would be a backyard feast with everything from satay and spring rolls to good ole fashioned Texas barbecue. When they mentioned it to Ping, it was like the sun peeking through a storm. Her footsteps around the house lightened perceptibly and once again she hummed the melodies of her youth as she cooked and knit.

  It was decided that on a Saturday evening three weeks hence, both a reunion and a celebration of all that had been gained since their journey out of hell would be held and that if it wasn’t the best party anyone could remember, it wouldn’t be for the lack of trying. Molly and Ping began the party planning while Virgil worked to find three individuals who could be comfortable in the role of everything from ambassador to accountant and had the stature and trust of the people. The State Department reported only that a wall of silence existed between the US and China. It was as if the bamboo curtain had again descended.

  The boycott was, for the most part, continuing to hold. People encouraged each other to stick with it because there was nothing to replace it and because Senator Baines inspired trust, unlike some in Congress. But trust and especially patience are perishable and Baines knew that without China’s participation in a remedy, an economy that was still teetering was likely to collapse entirely.

  That China had undergone tumultuous leadership changes in the past was unquestioned; that even the more typical evolutions of power were shrouded in secrecy was well known, but something was amiss in what the State Department was telling him. He did not believe that China’s silence could be complete; it didn’t make sense. Considering his recent experience with the State Department and their collusion with the White House in the cover up, trust was non-existent.

  Baines once again relied on someone whom he trusted completely: Thomas Benedict, Director of Central Intelligence. Benedict had put everything on the line when he learned from Commander Moore of the horrific saga of the American newlyweds. He had intervened personally when it became obvious the White House would not. He had burned an important asset in Tianjin to ensure that he could follow the progress of the escape across the Yellow Sea, and he had saved the lives of three Americans and a courageous group of Chinese dissidents when the Chinese frigate was upon them. He had also compromised the Secretary of Defense with his request that a United States submarine be employed on a mission that was unsanctioned and unknown by the president.

  For this he expected to be dismissed or even imprisoned. But he would not go quietly, not as long as there were traitors afoot. He would not be silenced as long as the dream of the founding fathers was put at risk by men and women who were not patriots, whose aim was to undermine the Constitution and everything for which it stood. The president and the secretary of state now realized that the DCI and secretary of defense had made an end run around them.

  Had there been a strong president in the White House, Benedict would no longer be in Langley, he would be consulting with his attorney in preparation for his trial and likely conviction. But at no time in this presidency had the man in the oval office been more weak. He could no longer feel confident that in a showdown with his DCI and secretary of defense, he would prevail. He could dismiss them, of course, but in so doing might in the end hasten his own impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. So the president closed ranks with those he trusted and shut out those he did not.

  The irony that White House intrigue now resembled the court of a Chinese emperor was not lost on Senator Baines. Like Benedict, he was a patriot who would gladly sacrifice his life to contain the greatest internal threat to freedom that had existed in his lifetime. That there were those who would gladly see him sacrifice his life or even help him down the path was not lost on the senator. Patriots had been sacrificed before and patriots would give their lives over and over to preserve the republic. That the real enemy was not only in Beijing saddened him, but it did not deter him in the least from what he had to do.

  Benedict confirmed what he already knew: there was indeed a power struggle in Beijing. The presumed heir to the Chinese presidency, whose grace and kindly disposition had so endeared him to his hosts in Washington, was locked in a struggle with a faction that believed that the loosening of the central government’s tight rein on the people was inevitable. Unrest could not be stifled
indefinitely, and in spite of efforts to contain and conceal it from both the Chinese public and foreign governments, it was spreading. Li Guo Peng believed that a crackdown like that in Tiananmen Square, though on a broader scale, would continue to ensure the Party’s tight grip on power.

  As in struggles in other totalitarian states, the critical question was: on whose side is the army? Benedict believed that at this point they had not yet committed to a crackdown, preferring to let Li stick his neck out and see who rose to the surface, but he stressed that in the past, the military had always ended up siding with the hard-liners. It was not a promising prospect for the senator and a nation in severe economic turmoil. The uncertainty continued to push up oil prices and the strain on the tenuous spirit of cooperation on the part of the American public.

  Baines resolved to focus for now on those things he believed he could impact. The price of oil, hence gasoline was crushing families and businesses. World supply was adequate but fear and uncertainty were keeping prices artificially high. Speculators had long been a favorite target during times of high prices, but it was not quite so simple as most people believed. Those who had skin in the game needed to hedge future needs. Without the ability to hedge, thus plan ahead, transport companies, railroads, airlines etc. would be crippled by wildly fluctuating prices.

  However, a sound argument could be made that those who would never take delivery of a drop of oil and only speculated for profit were unfairly harming the economy. Under current regulations, a speculator who never actually uses more oil than that in the crankcase of his car, could buy an oil futures contract worth $100 with as little as $6 of his own money by using what is known as margin. That was manifestly unfair. A similar situation with sky rocketing silver prices had been brought under control by raising the margin rate on silver futures contracts to 50 percent. Silver prices had immediately plummeted.

  Therefore, the senator introduced legislation that would curb the ability of those with no skin in the game to speculate with little or no money of their own. The measure to raise the margin rate on oil futures contracts to 50 percent quickly passed the House and after a few recalcitrant senators saw the light, passed in the Senate. The president signed the bill and less than a week later claimed credit for it. No one cared. The price of oil had immediately begun to fall and with it the growing pessimism that was threatening the spirit of cooperation and the boycott.

  Then the senator made his next move. China’s continued refusal to come to the table or even acknowledge the efforts being made to remedy the situation was unacceptable. So the senator upped the ante with legislation that would further hike tariffs on a broad range of goods. To offset the impact on those whose livelihoods and businesses depended on the China trade, he offered tax credits and deductions. And to those who were filling the void by manufacturing needed items here at home and creating jobs, he offered other tax incentives.

  The effect of these moves on morale was instantaneous. Americans, for the first time they could remember, felt that their government was actually working for them, and they redoubled their efforts to pitch in and help. The falling prices they saw each day at the gas stations they passed served as a meter of sorts of the success of their cooperation. Spirits that had been flagging were given a boost and the importance of that boost could not be overestimated. The senator once again had breathed life into the boycott and into the determination of the American people.

  The moves had a dramatic effect in China. Factories were forced to lay off thousands of workers as the tariffs made their products uncompetitive. Unrest and dissent smoldered as hard-liners pressed for a crackdown. Li pushed through a regulation that codified what had long been practiced: secret incarceration. It was now entirely legal for authorities to arrest any citizen and hold him or her for six months without telling anyone, not even the family. The person detained could be spirited off to a distant jail and the worried family would be left to wonder what had become of their loved one.

  In a further indication of how far Li was prepared to go, several western businessmen were arrested and charged with crimes relating to their companies’ operations in China. Since the charges in each case involved infractions that appeared to be both nebulous and opaquely technical in nature, most observers assumed it was pure retaliation. The many other ways in which China appeared to be interfering in the operations of western companies only reinforced that assumption.

  Perhaps most troubling was the fact that China seemed in no way inclined to work toward a remedy and, in fact, was only growing more bellicose. Had Congress been more attuned to global realities and not just partisan politics, it would have been obvious to them that China was simply playing hardball as they always did. But few realized that the United States’ long history of knuckling under to China, North Korea and others only reinforced and prolonged this behavior. Given the American state of mind, it did not seem likely it would dawn on anyone soon that playing cream puff when the other side plays hardball is always a losing strategy.

  The CIA had been receiving indications that one of the most important members of the Politburo Standing Committee was gravely ill. Ma Wen’s gradual transformation from hardliner to moderate had provided hope that China might become more flexible and ultimately helpful in breaking the impasse. With Sheng apparently out of the picture and Ma Wen in poor health, the likelihood of a rapprochement seemed dim. But even the analysts in the CIA did not foresee what was about to happen.

  ******

  Had the two hulking, rectangular shapes not been familiar sights, they might easily have been confused with multi-story apartment buildings, except for the fact that they were moving. In the dim twilight, the twin gray ghosts passed almost unnoticed by the Filipino fishermen motoring out to the place where they would cast their nets. At almost thirteen hundred feet in length, the two behemoths moved slowly across the horizon, shadowed by the Dinh Tien Hoang, Vietnam’s most modern frigate.

  The frigate’s combat information center was quiet, the sailors on duty there staring almost blankly at their displays. This was the third rotation since the standoff with China had ended peacefully, and given the inactivity in recent days of China’s navy and air force, it was expected to be uneventful. The surface radar scanned an unbroken sea, devoid of any but commercial shipping and fishing boats.

  The two Panamanian registered container ships each held the equivalent of fifteen World War II freighters, much of which was merchandise destined to replace the Chinese goods now affected by the boycott. Vietnam, as well as several other countries, had been quick to fill the void and were handsomely profiting from the disagreement between the two larger nations. They were also enjoying immensely tweaking the nose of their ancient enemy.

  A sailor with headphones tethered to the sonar display had been wishing he had a hot cup of coffee when the speakers in his headset suddenly erupted. The sonar contact was distant but distinct. An anti-ship cruise missile had been launched from a submerged submarine almost thirty miles away. The combat information center erupted as sensors picked up, then attempted to track the missile. When the projectile broke the surface and its solid rocket booster ignited, it presented a vivid image for the ship’s sensors, but within less than a minute the booster had detached and the missile leveled off at slightly over ten meters above the waves. The YJ-82 missile’s turbojet engine was now pushing it over the sea at almost the speed of sound.

  The Dinh Tien Hoang had been shadowing the two container ships at 19 knots, their best speed, but it now increased to its full battle speed of 29 knots in an effort to place itself and its defensive systems between the leviathans and the missile, which was closing at 600 mph. Two jammers and a PK-16 countermeasures rocket launcher were immediately switched on along with an AK-630 6-barreled, 30mm point defense gun.

  The jammers saturated the area in front of the missile with powerful signals designed to disrupt the missile’s guidance system, but the YJ-82 cruise missile had its own powerful anti-jamming capability and b
ored through the electronic noise. The frigate then began launching countermeasures rockets, hoping to distract the missile’s lock, but the missile’s target was almost thirteen hundred feet in length and with its flat sides and zero stealth characteristics, it was more than an easy target. Now only the 30mm Gatling type cannon waited for the missile to come within range. Switching on its terminal guidance radar, the missile ducked to only four meters over the water and began to jink, its hit probability a proven 98 percent.

  Sailors on the bridge of the container ship saw the stream of 30mm projectiles streak across the water before they saw the missile, just four seconds before it struck their ship. The missile’s 165 kg semi-armor-piercing anti-personnel blast warhead easily pierced the ship’s side and exploded in the engine space, killing all the crewmen there and starting a raging fire. In less than five minutes, the giant ship was listing and taking on water.

  A Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopter lifted off the stern of the frigate and headed for the submarine’s last known position but was recalled when the ship’s radar detected two Chinese J-10 fighters taking off from Hainan.

  Without power to operate its pumps, the container ship continued taking on water until, more than three hours later, it rolled over and sank, leaving dozens of containers bobbing in the sea.

  An American reconnaissance satellite had recorded the attack and less than twenty minutes later, Thomas Benedict and several analysts were watching it at Langley. The message was clear: China had upped the ante. Rumors drifting out of Beijing indicated that Ma Wen had had a heart attack and was not expected to live. The hardliners were now virtually unopposed.