Ultimatum (15 page)

“Well, having Alan and Larry in the same room will certainly make for better entertainment, that’s one thing.”

“Creative friction,” said Benton. “Who was it who had the theory it’s the source of all great achievement?”

“I have no idea, but we should invite him to our next meeting.”

The senator laughed.

“How did Al take it, by the way, getting the UN?”

“You haven’t spoken to him?”

Hoffman shook his head. “He probably thinks I schemed against him.”

“Well, he took it,” said Benton. “It wasn’t pretty. He acted like he was offended. In fact, at first he told me he wouldn’t do it. Turned me down flat.”

“And then?”

Benton shrugged. “I told him he’d always have a line to me.”

“And that did it?”

“Who knows? Al wants to be back in the game, right? The UN’s a pretty good stage.”

“Sure.” Hoffman thought for a moment. Then he smiled.

“What?” said the Senator.

“I just wonder whether you like being told you need to be educated.”

~ * ~

Thursday, January 6

Logan Circle, Washington, D.C.

“What the hell is this place?”

Larry Olsen grinned. “It’s an apartment I’m using until I get set up in D.C. again. Belongs to my brother-in-law. Come in.”

The senator took a couple of steps inside. He looked around. The place was a shambles.

“Come through,” said Olsen.

Three people were waiting in the living room. They stood as Benton came in.

“Dr. Elisabeth Dean,” said Olsen. “The undersecretary of state for China. Dr. Oliver Wu, one of the China experts at State. And this is Sandy Chan, the Beijing station controller over at the Agency. Technically, I shouldn’t have invited her to this meeting.”

“Technically, I shouldn’t have accepted,” said Chan, putting her hand out. “An honor to meet you, sir.”

He shook hands with them. They all seemed so young.

“Sit down, Senator,” said Olsen. “Scotch? Don’t have much else, I’m afraid. You take it neat, as I remember.”

“Thanks.”

Olsen poured him a scotch.

“We haven’t talked about any one specific thing leading up to this meeting, Senator,” said Olsen meaningfully. “I’ve just told the guys you want a general briefing about the state of play in China.”

“Thank you,” said Benton. “That would be very helpful.”

“We’re going to have freewheeling discussion.” Olsen sat down. “Elisabeth, would you lead?”

“Certainly.” Dr. Dean paused for a moment, then began. “Senator Benton, we think China today is pretty much in the same kind of situation it was back in 2013. If you remember, the economy had been growing steadily for about thirty years straight at that point. Politically, the party had achieved a kind of precarious balance. From an external perspective, the nature of the regime and its domestic actions were rarely critiqued to any serious extent by other governments. There was a kind of unspoken agreement by which foreign governments turned a blind eye to the way the party maintained power—paying lip service to concerns over human rights but never doing anything about it-—in return for access to China’s markets and its low-cost manufactures. Domestically, the legitimacy of the regime depended on another trade-off—as long as the regime delivered growth and political stability, the middle classes focused on doing business and accepted its rule. But it was a precarious balance. The economy was overheated, with inflation continuously threatening to get out of control. There were numerous social tensions that the regime struggled to contain, in particular an extreme disparity in wealth between the cities and the countryside. And within the urban middle classes, which were growing exponentially, increasing demands for democracy clashed with the objective of the party to stay in power and of individuals in the party and the army to keep feeding on the endemic corruption in the state. These tensions had been strong for at least a decade. The global slowdown created by the credit crisis of2008 and 2009 greatly exacerbated them, despite the Beijing Olympics of 2008, which the party used to stoke nationalist support for the regime and clamp down on dissent. After that, the problems were at breaking point, just waiting for a trigger.”

“And then came the fundamentalist coup in Pakistan in 2013,” said Benton.

“Yes. Nuclear war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir was a real possibility and the global financial system went back into meltdown. Turned out that for China, 2008 and 9 was only a foretaste. 2013 precipitated the crisis in the Chinese banking system, the collapse of their stock market, urban unrest, then the Hong Kong massacre and the political crackdown that followed. The regime’s growth promise—the basis of that precarious balance domestically—had been broken, and the only way the party could stay in power was through brute force. But I would submit it didn’t have to be a Pakistani coup. There were numerous potential shocks at that stage, any number of things that could have disrupted the global economy and thrown Chinese growth into reverse. It could have been the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program. It could have been the Russian expulsion of foreign oil companies. It could have been lots of things, it could have happened a few years sooner as a few years later, but when it was the Pakistani coup that acted as the trigger, political upheaval in China was inevitable, because the guarantee of growth, the source of the regime’s legitimacy, was broken.”

“So what are you saying, Dr. Dean? We’re about to see another financial meltdown?”

“I don’t know about that, Senator. The reason I’ve gone through all this is I’m trying to point out the parallels—and some of the differences— in the China situation today. Their first year of significant economic growth after the 2013 crackdown was 2017. That means by now they’ve had roughly another fifteen years of growth. Today, again, the regime’s legitimacy is based on exactly the same trade-off as before—growth for control. We’re seeing the same disparities in wealth, the same demands for democratization. The difference, this time, is everything’s on an even bigger scale. Their GDP, as you know, is now bigger than ours. Back in 2013 it was under a third of ours. Their middle class numbers some four hundred million, still only a relatively small percentage of the country, but more than our entire population. Consequently, the democracy movement is stronger. The disparity in wealth between the city and the country is even greater than it was—this is a problem the regime just doesn’t seem to be able to solve. And this time round there’s a new element, an environmental opposition. Back in 2013 this was just developing, and the crackdown effectively stifled it for ten years. The Yangtze landslides got it going again and gave it a momentum that has proven pretty much unstoppable. With the degree of environmental devastation the regime has allowed, it’s growing strongly in both the city and the country. In fact, it’s about the only issue that unites the two sectors. The party’s fear of what will happen if growth ceases, therefore, is extreme. Yet for various reasons, the Chinese economy is as vulnerable to external shocks as it was back in 2013. Arguably it’s more vulnerable. The party knows this. In China, vulnerability is not only economic, it’s existential. In the U.S., a financial crisis threatens the party in government, not our form of government. In China, it threatens the regime. Maybe even the cohesion of the state.”

“So what’s the party going to do?” asked Benton.

Elisabeth Dean smiled. “Senator, there are five people in this room. That means we’re likely to get five opinions on that question.”

“Six,” said Larry Olsen. “I’m always good for two.”

Oliver Wu smiled.

“Elisabeth, go on,” said Olsen, and he took a sip of his scotch.

“The party is divided. There are elements that realize in the long term its model of control isn’t compatible with a growing, capitalist society. On the other hand, there are regressive elements that can’t conceive of any future but through the traditional form of party control and whose interests are tightly aligned to a continuation of the status quo. What I say about the party goes for the army, you can take that as read.”

“Except, if anything, the balance in the army is even more regressive,” said Sandy Chan.

Dean nodded. “We face numerous uncertainties, Senator. What are the relative strengths of the factions within the party? What’s the strength of the army relative to the party? If it comes to an open struggle, what’s the process by which the factions seek to win? Are we going to see a struggle within the party itself? Is the party going to split? Would the army seize control? If it’s a crisis that precipitates the struggle, will there be a functional response to the crisis itself, or will it be piecemeal, different things happening in different parts of the country?”

“What happened in 2013?”

“Good question,” remarked Olsen, as if he was a professor at a seminar. “Can I top you up, Senator?”

Benton handed him his glass.

“In 2013, Senator, the regressive faction within the party was clearly the stronger and was able to deal quickly with dissent both within the party and the army, and then to deal with unrest within the country in a more or less coordinated fashion. As a result, the response was functional. I mean that in a political sense—it was brutal, but it had clear objectives and it achieved them. The country held together and the party stayed on top. I don’t think we can say that would necessarily happen this time round. If the response isn’t functional, anything’s possible. The country could split apart, effectively if not in name. In many respects, provincial and even municipal government already wield more power than the central government in Beijing.”

Benton took his glass back from Olsen. He turned to Sandy Chan. “What’s your opinion?”

“I wouldn’t dispute anything Elisabeth has said. The opinions vary when you start to look at the relative strength of the different factions, the different individuals, and the ways they might behave. Our view at the Agency is that a considerable amount of positioning is already going on. Our sense is there’s a showdown coming, and it’s a question of how it’s precipitated. External events might do it, but it’s just as likely one of the factions will seize on a pretext to precipitate it.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“It means we’re a pawn in their game, sir.”

“Every country is a pawn in every other country’s game,” said Benton. “I’m wary of making statements in front of four foreign affairs experts, but isn’t that a fundamental fact of international relations?”

“Senator, you’ve got to look at China somewhat differently,” said Oliver Wu.

“I’m always a little mistrustful when I hear something like that, Dr. Wu. In my experience, in any walk of life, cases are rarely as special as they seem.”

“I understand, sir. But in China . . .” Wu paused. “As we all know, the party isn’t a communist party, whatever it calls itself, but it retains an aggressively statist philosophy, that everything can be sacrificed for the good of the state—which in reality, in the terms of their thinking, means the good of the party. And that includes not only domestic issues, but international as well. There is a difference, Senator, between China and most of the other countries you’re going to deal with in that respect.”

“Which other countries have you studied, Dr. Wu?”

“I’m a China expert, Senator.”

“So how can you make that comparative statement?”

“I have some familiarity with other Asian countries. I also have some familiarity with Russia.”

“But you’re not an expert in those countries?”

“No, sir.”

“And you still maintain China is a special case?”

Dr. Wu nodded. “From my understanding, sir, I do.”