by Ian W Taylor
CHAPTER TWO
SATURDAY - BEIJING
5,000 kilometres away in Beijing, the Chinese Minister for Defence, Zhang Wei, was having lunch with General Lui Chen in a corner of the dining room of the Grand Palace Hotel. General Chen had recently lost favour with the Politburo and had been forced out of his position as head of China’s military. Nevertheless he maintained considerable influence and was a close and loyal colleague of the ambitious Minister.
Zhang was sipping his third cup of green tea after a sumptuous meal.
“Is all in readiness for our plan General?”
“Yes, Captain Xu and his men are in position and everything is ready for the assault at the mine opening on Friday,” said Chen.
“Are you confident that it will succeed?”
“Xu is our best man and an explosives expert. He has a professional team with him. He has never failed in the past.”
“Good, because there can be no mistakes and no evidence to link either of us with the action. Let the world believe it is an attack from an Islamic State organisation. In three weeks’ time the Party Congress is convening to elect a new Politburo which will decide China’s future. I must be elected to the leadership of the Politburo if China is to assume its rightful place as the world leader. I have the support of the Committee Secretary but he will deny all knowledge of it if the plan fails. If our plan works, the members of the Politburo will have no choice but to elect me as their leader.”
The General sipped his whisky. “And the Japanese will be set back years in their quest to become a world power.”
“Yes, they think they have fooled us into believing that the Jabiru mine is just supplying them with uranium when our informants tell us their real intention is to secure supplies of rare earths which they need for their military technology. China controls 95% of the world market for rare earths and we have refused to supply the Japanese with these materials because of their actions to take over the disputed territory of the Senkaku Islands. Our intelligence says that the Jabiru mine holds the richest reserve of rare earths in the world and we must stop the Japanese from getting access to them. The Australians refused our offers to buy the mine and they will pay a huge cost for playing favourites with the Japanese. Without these materials Japan will be prevented from carrying out their plans to build up the technology capability to make them a military power. Most importantly we must prevent the Japanese from expanding their power in the Pacific and put an end to their claims over the Senkaku Islands. It will take them a long time to recover from this set-back.”
“It will be an interesting couple of weeks Minister. Japan will be a spent force after this and you will be directing China’s new path in the world,” stated the General.
They discussed their plans for another ten minutes before leaving the hotel.