Dragonfire (37 page)

BBC
: But surely you are powerless against China? All but the poorest Third World governments have diplomatic relations not with Taiwan, but with China.

Lin
: We have always been powerless, but we have become a leading light for both how the developing world should modernize and how it should handle the transition to
democracy. So what I am saying is this. I have called an emergency session of both houses of Congress. They are ratifying a bill which will create the independent nation of Taiwan. At noon today,
there will be nationwide celebrations to mark our transition. As from noon today, Taiwan will be an independent nation.

BBC
: But you are already as good as independent. You raise your own taxes, issue your own visas, have your own defence force. Why risk stability?

Lin
: The time has come for the international community to recognize that we are a nation in our own right. The policy of constructive engagement with a one-party state
has merely strengthened China’s ability to do what she is doing now. What we will celebrate at noon will be a beacon of political morality to the world.

Alvin Jebb and Joan Holden walked into the room together. ‘Switch to CNN,’ said Holden. ‘Reece Overhalt just called saying Jamie Song is live, in vision from
Beijing.’

Jebb was on his mobile to the Pentagon finding out the location of American naval forces in the Pacific. His expression indicated the news wasn’t good. Bloodworth made a call from the
President’s Oval Office desk, took notes and moved extra satellite imagery over the eastern coast of China to watch troop and aircraft movements.

‘Why didn’t Lin tell us?’ said Hastings.

‘It would have been suicide for him and us,’ said Holden, sitting down and pouring herself a coffee into the empty cup used by Bloodworth. ‘Independence is about not consulting
other powers. If he had, we would be accused of giving Lin permission.’

‘Song’s coming on,’ said Bloodworth, finishing his call. Jebb shut down his mobile. The Oval Office fell quiet.

CNN
: Within the past few minutes, Foreign Minister, Taiwan has announced its independence.

Song
: Yes, I heard that, too, Mike. It’s unfortunate.

CNN
: President Lin described his announcement as a beacon of political morality to the world.

Song
: Yes, I heard that, too, and his rather naive attempts to slur my government. The fact is, Mike, that India and China are in conflict right now over very complex
issues regarding the sovereignty of both nations. It is not an immature conflict. It is the type of conflict which historically nations have fought, which you fought in your Civil War, your war in
Vietnam, your conflict with Iraq and in Europe throughout much of the last century. Anyone who claims that the global economy, the Internet and all that are going to stop nations going to war
against each other is naive in the extreme.

CNN
: But was it necessary to sink the Indian destroyer
Bangalore
and cripple the British frigate
Grafton
, with at least 450 people dead?

Song
: Let me try and answer that not in the emotional way in which you put the question but in the pragmatic way of geopolitics. We had intelligence information which we
are making public on the Internet right now that the
Bombay
was under orders to sink a Chinese-flagged tanker heading for China with oil from the Middle East. We could not allow that to
happen. It would be an infringement of all international shipping laws. We also have intelligence that this man – and I understand you have agreed to float the pictures over this interview
– this man, Michael Hall, is a member of the British Royal Marines. He was captured while on a sabotage mission at our naval base on Great Cocos Island. That Britain attempted to interfere in
this conflict is abhorrent; that it decided to interfere on the side of India is a wound which will take a long time to heal. It was only right therefore that we defend our territory.

CNN
: Is it not Myanmar or Burmese territory?

Song
: We have a lease to use it as a military base. If we attacked American facilities at Okinawa, Japan, it would be seen as an attack on United States forces.

CNN
: All right, Foreign Minister. It seems that everyone is digging themselves deeper into the big holes. Pakistan is already finished. The UN calls it a non-functioning
nation. You and India seem to be digging at the same speed, but both downwards. Taiwan has scooped its first shovelful of earth. How is China now going to dig itself out?

Song
: We need help, and that’s why I’m here, Mike. You’ve got a second video you’ve agreed to run. This was not shot by a Chinese television crew.
We invited a neutral Russian crew to Lhasa. They picked their own interpreter and they were free to go anywhere.

Song fell silent and didn’t speak throughout the first minute of the video. It showed a gang of Tibetan youths, brandishing modern weapons, moving in against a row of
Chinese shops. They sprayed the shop-fronts with automatic weapons fire, shattering the windows, which fell out onto the pavement. Then they lit petrol bombs and threw them inside. The shop-owners
mostly lived upstairs with their families and they came stumbling out, coughing, clutching their children and helping their elderly relations. As they emerged from the smoke, they were cut down in
a hail of gunfire, women, children, the old, so fierce and unrelenting that those behind turned back and fled into their burning homes. One of the Tibetans moved forward, executing the wounded with
a single gunshot to the head, until he ran out of bullets. Then he took out a machete, yanked up the body of a young woman by her hair. The camera unashamedly went close up on her face, her eyes
danced around, between consciousness and shock. Her hands flailed out and the Tibetan began hacking at her neck with the machete to decapitate her. The crowd cheered and the CNN presenter came back
into vision, looking utterly stunned.

CNN
: We apologize. We should have brought you out of that footage earlier, but these were raw pictures, just fed in over the Reuters satellite from Beijing. I think we
get your point, Foreign Minister.

Song
: I would like to make an appeal to your audience. Do not force China into war over Tibet. What we have just seen shows that there are no good or bad guys in a
struggle like this. It is a horrible thing and both sides are capable of terrible atrocities. Yes, both the Chinese and the Tibetans. We cannot simply give Tibet away now. Thousands of Chinese who
have settled there could be slaughtered. I won’t debate the rights and wrongs of that policy, because we all need to look forward. If you let us sort out the present crisis it will end soon.
If you in the West interfere, there is bound to be a bloodbath even worse than the one you have just seen.

Hastings muted the television by remote. ‘That is about the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life,’ he said.

‘Fortunately, we don’t have treaty obligations in Tibet,’ said Holden. ‘But we do with Taiwan.’

Ennio Barber, the President’s personal adviser, had until now stayed quiet. ‘We have to get a statement out quickly,’ he said. ‘Or we’ll be finding ourselves pushed
towards war by Congress.’

‘The Taiwan Relations Act is woolly about our obligation to use force to defend Taiwan,’ said Holden.

‘But the American people will expect it,’ said Barber.

‘Alvin, when can we get a carrier group into the area?’ Hastings asked his Defence Secretary.

‘The
Harry S. Truman
carrier group is just south of the Korean Straits heading out of the Sea of Japan. It’ll take at least a day to get anywhere near Taiwan.’

‘OK. Joan, I need to speak to Reece Overhalt in Beijing and get me Lin in Taiwan. Let’s see if this is one Asian crisis we can defuse in a few phone calls.’

China World Hotel, Beijing, China

Local time: 0730 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 2330 Monday 7 May 2007

‘The passing of
the legislation we can ignore,’ said Jamie Song. ‘But if the celebrations go ahead, we will have to move in.’

‘What do you mean, “move in”?’ asked Reece Overhalt. The two men were standing on the balcony again, a sign from the Foreign Minister that the conversation was not being
recorded.

‘Reece, that is out of my hands. The military run our military strategy on Taiwan. When they take it over, I will be watching it on BBC and CNN just like you.’

‘Give me your best- and worst-case scenarios, then.’

‘Best case, we will have tests with DF-15 or some such short- or medium-range missile like we did during the presidential elections in 1996. Medium case is that we’ll do that and
blockade the Straits of Taiwan, throwing a cordon around the island, but not firing a shot unless attacked. Worst case is that we’ll send a missile into the Parliament building as
they’re passing the independence legislation. Now tell me, what will John Hastings do?’

‘They’re sending the
Harry S. Truman
down from the Sea of Japan. We’ve got fighter crews on high alert in Okinawa. And that’s about it. If you can hold off, we can
hold off. We can handle the missile tests. The blockade would give us all room for negotiation and if no one wants war, it won’t happen. If you send in a missile, I guess we’ll have to
knock out your missile bases. But like you, Jamie, that’s not a threat. It’s a guess from a non-executive ambassador.’

Jamie Song shook his head. ‘I’ll pass that on to my president, Reece. But I’m not sure even he will be in control of the Taiwan conflict. The military will not let Taiwan
go.’

Military Headquarters, Western Hills, China

Local time: 0800 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0000 Tuesday 8 May 2007

General Leung Liyin,
the Chinese Defence Minister, was unable to control his anger when talking to President Tao. ‘We have made it absolutely clear that if Taiwan
declares independence we will attack. If we allow the declaration to go ahead, we will be weakened for generations. The Nationalists will have won the war in which our fathers fought. The Americans
will increase its power in East Asia. Internal dissent will increase and the Communist Party will be lucky to stay in power. Total chaos will follow.’

‘It could mean war against America,’ said Tao softly.

Leung banged the table. ‘They won’t touch us. They know we could take out one of their cities with the DF-41. Their theatre missile-defence system cannot guarantee a missile will not
get through. We are prepared to lose cities and the Americans are not. That is why we will win.’

Prime Minister’s Residence, Tokyo, Japan

Local time: 0930 Tuesday 8 May 2007
GMT: 0030 Tuesday 8 May 2007

Prime Minister Shigeto
Wada put the telephone down from a conversation with John Hastings and thought hard, not about what the American President had said, but how he
had said it. Wada’s grandfather had been an administrative official in Taiwan and Wada himself had always looked on Taiwan’s development with pride as if some of its success at least
was down to the infrastructure and manner in which Japan had ruled the islands. Chinese military action against Taiwan now would not directly affect the treaty obligations the United States had
with Japan. But given China’s Dragon Strike campaign of a few years back and its expansion into the Indian Ocean, it was only inevitable that the two East Asian powers would come into
conflict again, possibly sooner rather than later.

His intelligence chief General Shigehiko Ogawa had already predicted a horrific Chinese onslaught on Taiwan within a few hours, certainly before the celebrations were due to start at noon. John
Hastings had spoken like a man who wished the problem would go away.

‘We are talking to the Chinese and the Taiwanese about this,’ Hastings had said. ‘You can be assured we do everything to maintain peace in the Taiwan Straits.’

Wada was not convinced. He felt a tiredness in America, a sense that its days of fighting wars in Asia were over. It had given Japan and its neighbours a generous security umbrella for sixty
years, and had allowed Japan two generations to grow out of the shame it felt after its defeat in the Second World War. But time had to move on. Wada also faced a more practical difficulty. As soon
as China attacked, he expected the United States to use its base at Okinawa as a launching point for military action against the mainland. That would put Japanese sovereign territory under a direct
threat of Chinese attack.

The debate about Japan’s defence role was not new, but Taiwan’s declaration of independence had focused his thoughts. In the past five years, Japan had brought in Boeing 767 mid-air
refuelling tankers for its F-14 fighters and launched the
Osumi
carrier, which could be used with either helicopters or jump-jets. It had put up four spy satellites, which gave it the best
imagery in the region, and had brought in long-range air transport planes to deliver troops or rescue Japanese citizens from anywhere in the world.

Wada glanced at his desk-top screen to see the first official Chinese reaction to the Taiwanese announcement. It had come out quickly, but the words were familiar, showing a lack of imagination
within the Chinese leadership.

‘The Chinese government and people will not tolerate any action for Taiwan independence or any attempt to separate Taiwan from the motherland,’ said the Xinhua statement.
‘China’s territory and sovereignty are indivisible. The Taiwan question is purely an internal matter for China. If there occurs any action for Taiwanese independence or any attempt by
foreign forces to separate Taiwan from the motherland, the Chinese government and people will not sit back and do nothing.’

The fact that China had chosen to release the statement now was an almost certain indication that it would take military action. To do anything less would be an unacceptable loss of face to
President Tao and the military.

Under the constitution, the Japanese navy could patrol 2,400 kilometres out to sea. One of its tasks was to keep shipping lanes open with Japanese minesweepers. It was also allowed to give
logistical and medical support to American forces in combat in the region. Japanese forces were, of course, allowed to defend themselves if they came under attack. None of this conflicted with the
constitutional declaration that Japan would ‘for ever renounce war as a sovereign right’.