Tibet was the silent, dangerous front which had been swept under the carpet for more than half a century, dormant, but never forgotten. On his way in, Dixit walked past walls covered with photographs of men who had won the highest Indian award for bravery, the Param Vir Chakra.
His private secretary was waiting at the lift and they rode up together to the first floor, turning left towards the room marked OPERATIONAL DIRECTORATE. There had been no time to separate the tables, which had been moved together for a meeting of twenty-five people late the night before. The officials of India’s National Security Council pulled up chairs and sat down. Present were the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister, the Home Minister, the National Security Advisor, the heads of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and the chiefs of the Army, Air and Navy. The Finance Minister, who would have been present, was out of the country.
Briefing
Modern China grew out of years of colonization, civil war and internal conflict. Mao Zedong’s Communist Party took power in 1949. But it was not until 1979, after Mao’s disastrous economic and social policies, that genuine reform began. Western democracies fashionably courted the one-party state with encouragement and investment. The China boom years were temporarily halted by the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings, which underlined China’s intention to remain an authoritarian power. The Chinese leadership believed that political reform would lead to uncontrollable violence. The army and police maintained a repressive presence in Tibet. Missile, aircraft and naval development was aimed primarily at deterring Taiwan from declaring independence. China’s stated long-term goal was to become the leading regional power in Asia. The return of Hong Kong in 1997 was hailed as a victory over years of humiliation by foreign powers. By the end of the twentieth century, China was jostling with the United States, wooing and threatening South-East Asian neighbours, and warily watching Japan. Then, after India’s nuclear tests in 1998, China was forced to begin changing focus.
Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
‘The Indian Ambassador is insistent that a renegade military unit is responsible,’ said the Chinese Foreign Minister, Jamie Song.
‘They were Tibetans, trained by India and using Indian equipment,’ said the Chinese President, Tao Jian. ‘We must decide on a suitable response.’
‘We have declared martial law in Lhasa,’ said Tang Siju, the third man present and the Second Deputy Chief of the General Staff. Tang had served as defence attaché in London, Washington and Berlin, although his German tour was cut short when it became clear he was heavily involved in covert intelligence gathering. His brief now was intelligence and strategic gathering, but his grasp of Western military technology, coupled with his hawkish views and uncompromising discipline against internal dissent, gave him power far above his status. As debate within the Chinese leadership swung between authoritarianism and reform, Tang was often tipped as a successor to President Tao. Jamie Song was on the other end of the pendulum’s swing.
Three of China’s most powerful men walked along the shore of the lake known as the Central Sea in Zhongnanhai, the walled compound in which the Chinese leadership lived and worked. The air was filled with spring blossom swirling like snowflakes, although it had been a cold night and tiny wafer-thin patches of ice clustered in the corners, showing that winter had only just passed.
Tao nodded, but Song blanched.
‘Our policy in Tibet, more than anywhere else, will impact on our global position,’ Song argued. ‘Since the 1989 Tiananmen incident and the Dragon Strike event, we have skilfully become a role model for the developing world.’
‘Tibet is an internal matter,’ said Tang bluntly. ‘The incursion by India has given us an opportunity to act. We should not lose it.’
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London
‘Do we know where Togden is?’ asked Christopher Baker.
‘We don’t, Foreign Secretary,’ said Sir Malcolm Parton, the Permanent Under-Secretary and the civil servant in charge of the Foreign Office. ‘If he’s alive, he’s probably hiding out with ten or twenty of the guerrillas, trying to make their way to India or Nepal.’
‘With the Chinese army in hot pursuit, we assume,’ said John Stopping, the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. ‘Even if he turns up in Nepal, his final destination will be India.’
‘And if he doesn’t make it?’ said Baker. ‘If the Chinese get him?’
‘That would be a more settled outcome,’ said Sir Malcolm, exchanging glances with Stopping.
‘If he gets to India?’ pressed Baker.
‘The Indians might give him asylum with the usual conditions that he doesn’t engage in political activities,’ Sir Malcolm explained. ‘They might feel he’s too hot to handle and pass him on to a third country. Wherever he is he will become a focal point for violent resistance against Chinese rule in Tibet.’
‘And how’s China going to react to India’s inadvertent incursion?’
‘President Tao will milk it for everything he can,’ said Stopping. ‘But quiet diplomacy through the Security Council should keep it in check.’
The Foreign Secretary stood up, looking at his watch, indicating that the meeting was over. His mind was far away from China, a country which he didn’t like and didn’t understand, and which didn’t fall in the British or European hemisphere of world affairs. The press were still running with a story about his numerous infidelities, no doubt leaked by his soon-to-be ex-wife. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs select committee was homing in on a bribery scandal in Malaysia, about which he had known nothing. Apparently, the papers on it had been sent to him at the bottom of his red box one weekend six months earlier.
His Under-Secretary had made a valiant attempt to defend him, so, when Sir Malcolm called asking for an urgent early-morning meeting, he reluctantly agreed. The presence of John Stopping, Chairman of the JIC and soon to be appointed Ambassador to Beijing, indicated that something both secret and significant was afoot. The JIC was not directly involved in policy-making, and Sir Malcolm had not made it clear why he had insisted on bringing Stopping along. The most obvious colleague would have been the Director for Asia — Pacific.
But right now he was running late for a breakfast meeting at Downing Street with the Prime Minister and the new German Chancellor. ‘Draw up some options, will you, Malcolm,’ he said, putting on his jacket. ‘Apart from that my instinct is to keep our mouths shut. It seems that Britain’s most pressing concern is if Lama Togden turns up alive and says he wants to live in Clapham.’
The White House, Washington, DC
‘I think you need to wake the President on this one.’ Reece Overhalt, the American Ambassador, was speaking to the White House Chief of Staff, Charles Nugent, from the secure communications room in the Embassy in Beijing. Nugent was propped up in bed, eyeing his clock and trying to sound polite.
‘I don’t see it, Reece,’ said Nugent. ‘You say it’s an Indian cock-up. If we woke the President every time a Third World government screwed something up the man would be a walking zombie.’
‘China could lose it,’ Overhalt insisted, ‘become uncontrollable.’