Ultimatum (36 page)

“I agree with the secretary, Mr. President.”

“We know they’re not sending Chen back with anything,” said Olsen. “That much is clear. So where are we? We make a noise, they call our bluff. Now what?”

“Sanctions, right?” said Ball impatiently.

“I’m sorry, Alan, but if not, they really have called our bluff. They win. Fine. Just so long as I know. I’ll go put this file at the bottom of the pile and see if I can bring peace to the Congo.”

“Mr. President,” said Ball. “Wen invited you again to come to Beijing. Why not build trust in the way he says?”

“Sure,” muttered Olsen. “Let him give us a banquet in the Great Hall and prevaricate for another year.”

“I have a suggestion,” said Ben Hoffman. “Why doesn’t Larry go?”

“When?” said Eales.

“Now. As soon as he can. It just seems to me there’s an awful amount of uncertainty. For one thing, we don’t know what Chen’s been saying to Wen. Even after your conversation, sir, we don’t really know what Wen’s trying to say to us. Why don’t we go find out? If going to meet President Wen yourself is too big a thing, Mr. President, then let’s get Larry to go.”

“Wen won’t talk to me,” said Olsen.

“You can talk to their foreign minister, though, can’t you?”

“I don’t know if Chou’s in the loop. He’s got no power.”

“He’s not the only one you’ll meet, right?” said Eales.

Olsen frowned. “What’s the message here? They blow us off on the contracts, the president calls Wen. Wen doesn’t give him anything, so I come supplicating. What are we trying to say to them?”

The president smiled slightly. He didn’t see Larry Olsen supplicating to anyone.

“What’s the message?” said Olsen again.

“No message,” said Hoffman.

Olsen shook his head.

“You’re just going to talk,” said Eales. “Larry, they know we care about this. They know we want action. It’s no secret.”

“They’ll see it as weakness.”

“You already said they think we’re beat. How much more weakness can we show?”

“John’s right,” said the president. “Larry, I don’t see what we’ve got to lose here. You said yourself, they think we’re beat. If we’re going to show them otherwise, we’re really going to have to do something. So before we take some kind of action, if that’s what we’re going to have to do, don’t you think it makes sense to try to gather a little more information? Wen might meet you. If not Wen, Chou. Chou might be in the loop.”

“Mr. President. . .”

Benton smiled. “Dr. Wu, you don’t need to put our hand up.”

Wu nodded quickly. “Sorry, sir. Well, in my opinion, the secretary’s right. Our going there will be seen as weakness. It will be seen as supplication. That’s a very bad way to be perceived from the Chinese political perspective.”

“Then we just have to be prepared to follow it up with action. I like this approach. Alan?”

Ball shrugged. “It’s better than slapping on sanctions and getting into a trade war.”

“How long would it take to organize?”

There was silence from Olsen.

“It could be quick,” said Wu. “A couple of weeks if Chou’s agreeable.”

“Larry? What are your thoughts?” The president watched him. Even if Olsen didn’t want to do it, maybe he should. In fact, maybe it was important he did it
because
he didn’t want to. It was about time, Joe Benton thought, that he saw Larry Olsen carry out an action that wasn’t his own idea. If he couldn’t do that, perhaps Alan Ball was right. Perhaps there really was no place for him in the administration.

He glanced at Ball. Ball, who had hardly looked at Olsen during the discussion, was watching him expectantly.

“Larry?” said Benton.

Olsen frowned. “Let me think about it.”

~ * ~

Tuesday, April 26

Zhongnanhai Government Complex, Beijing

Lights flashed as the photographers snapped their shots. Olsen’s visit had commenced the previous evening with a banquet hosted by Foreign Minister Chou. Now, at ten o’clock in the morning, Larry Olsen was sitting opposite Chou at a table in one of the meeting rooms of the massive government complex off Tiananmen Square. Along his side of the table were another dozen people, including Elisabeth Dean, the undersecretary for China at the State Department, and Alvin Finkler, the U.S. ambassador to Beijing. An equal number of Chinese officials were drawn up opposite.

They had an hour planned at the table, then ninety minutes in smaller groups to discuss a number of agreed issues. During this time, Olsen would confer with Chou. In the afternoon, more discussions were scheduled. Olsen would meet Zhai Ming, the premier, and Ma Guangen, the vice premier. A twenty-minute slot was also penciled in for a meeting with President Wen, but the Chinese side had been clear that this was unconfirmed and should not be released to the press as part of the scheduled agenda. That would end the official element of the secretary of state’s stay. In the evening there would be drinks with members of the Beijing American chamber of commerce before dinner as guest of honor with the Association of American Universities in China. The following morning Olsen was scheduled to have breakfast with a group of selected CEOs before leaving for Tokyo, where he would spend twenty-four hours before heading back to the States.

The photographers were ushered out of the room. Chou spoke. The Chinese foreign minister was a native Shanghainese speaker and Olsen found his Mandarin hard to follow. He gave up concentrating and focused on the translation of Oliver Wu, who was sitting on his left. Chou was expressing his hopes for a successful meeting. Olsen responded. An interpreter sitting behind Chou translated Olsen’s words. “This is our first meeting,” concluded Olsen. “I appreciate your hospitality, Minister Chou. Let’s make sure we get off to a good start.”

There were smiles and nods all round.

They headed into the agenda. Olsen had asked Dr. Dean to lead the discussion. The man sitting beside Chou, the director general for North America in the Chinese foreign ministry, did most of the talking on the other side. The topics were ones that would have been on the agenda of almost any U.S.-China bilateral in the past two decades: trade, Korea, energy security, various regional affairs. Off the agenda were ones that were listed publicly only at times of tension between the two countries: Taiwan, free access to the Internet, human rights, the U.S. military presence in Colombia, which the Chinese side raised whenever the U.S. raised human rights. Those were the things Olsen would get to with Chou in private.

The meeting broke into groups. Chou and Olsen, together with their interpreters and an aide on each side, were ushered into another meeting room. This time they sat in armchairs. Tea and coffee were brought.

“Can we get you something else, Secretary?” asked Chou in English.

“Coffee’s fine, thank you,” said Olsen. The young woman who had brought it in served them. She served tea to the others and left.

“Mr. Secretary, I am very glad to have this opportunity to get to know you,” said Chou.

“Likewise, Minister,” said Olsen. He had met Chou briefly at a couple of diplomatic functions but had never spoken with him at length. Chou Yongyue had a reputation as a prickly, long-winded character who was quick to react to anything he perceived as a slight toward China or the party.

“There are some things I would like to discuss with you.”

“Please,” said Olsen.

Chou switched into Mandarin. He started talking about the case of a Chinese student who was in prison someplace in Kentucky. Olsen hadn’t been briefed. All he could say was he’d look into it. Chou took an envelope containing the details from his aide and handed it across. Sounded like the kind of thing you’d normally deal with at embassy level. Chou was probably going on about it to preempt the human rights conversation which he knew was coming.

Olsen turned to his own aide and was passed a sheet with the details of the latest group of detainees, mostly cyberdissidents and environmental campaigners, whose cases the United States wanted to raise. Chou took the list with a fatalistic expression and listened as Olsen detailed the president’s concern for action on these cases.

“We would very much like not to have to continually make such representations, Foreign Minister.”

“Then don’t make them,” said Chou in English.

“We are committed to supporting the process of democratization wherever we feel it is possible. This has been the policy of the United States government since as far back as President Truman, and this administration takes that responsibility seriously. We will help in any way that we can.”

“The government of the People’s Republic does not require the help of the United States in this,” replied Chou in Mandarin. The translator, a young woman, spoke in flawless, American-accented English.

“What help does it require from the United States?” asked Olsen.

Chou smiled. “That is a friendly question.”

“We are all friends, I hope, Foreign Minister.”

“I hope so, Mr. Secretary.”

“Do you have an answer? President Benton would only be too pleased to know.”

Chou passed the list to the note taker. “I have taken note.”

“Can I tell President Benton anything specific?”

“My government is concerned at the continuing occupation of Colombian territory by military forces of the United States. China cannot support the occupation by one country of another sovereign country’s territory.”

Olsen sighed. They were going to have to go through the charade of talking over the Colombian intervention, as if the Chinese government really cared.

Chou then proceeded to give a rundown of the history of the U.S. involvement in Colombia since President Shawcross’s decision to send troops. Olsen responded by pointing out certain discrepancies between Chou’s version and reality. He also pointed out that President Benton had met with President Lobinas, the Colombian leader, only a week previously in Washington, and President Lobinas had reaffirmed his support for the Cartagena Points, which outlined the objectives of the American intervention. Chou responded by saying that the Cartagena Points required modification. “Mr. Secretary,” he said, “I advise you that we will continue to call for this in international forums, and the progress of relations between our two countries cannot be divorced from this. Nor from the stand of the United States towards the province of Taiwan. Since this is our first meeting, I would like to make clear the position of the government of the People’s Republic of China on this matter.”

It was one of the clearest positions in the whole world, but that wasn’t going to stop Chou laying it out, which he did, over most of the next hour, going all the way back to the surrender of Japanese forces at the end of the Second World War and progressing methodically through every twist and turn in the saga, including the U.S. Congress’s Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the Four Communiqués, and the Manila Understanding of 2017, which set out ceiling levels of PRC troop, naval, and air deployments in the three provinces facing Taiwan and in the Taiwan Strait. He lingered particularly over the Manila Understanding, lambasting it for its manifest unfairness and the sheer impossibility of maintaining its conditions. Part history lesson, part polemic. The Chou treatment, as it was known to foreign ministers around the world. Everyone had to experience it, at least once. At the end of it, their time together was almost up.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to raise,” said Olsen.

Chou stared back at him blankly.

“Foreign Minister, shall we have a moment in private?”