`Our northern comrades are short of food, water, and oil. There is malnutrition. There are diseases which have never afflicted our people so widely before. Peasants who come from the womb of our Party are disillusioned. They are rebelling against us. They are organized. They have created their own institutions and they call themselves the New Communists. Our duty is to repair the bond between people and party. But look at us. The barbarian winds of Central Asia are sweeping across our deserts where nothing grows. Our oilfields are barren. Our harvests inadequate. If the Communist Party fails to feed, house, and guide our 1.3 billion people the Party itself will be destroyed. And without the Party there will be no motherland. We will once again be invaded by Western traders. Our rulers will be Boeing, Motorola, Toyota.
`Comrades, in unity is strength; in division there is only defeat and chaos.'
President Wang paused, then addressed Jamie Song directly.
`Foreign Minister, earlier this morning you made another live broadcast. Our embassies report that your first one was a success while our Ambassador to Paris was made to look like a fool by Tai. We have concluded that it's better to fight this propaganda campaign here in Beijing while liaising with our consultants in Washington and Europe. We would like to know how you will focus the next interview.'
`On sanctions, Comrade President. I believe it is possible to use American sanctions to resolve the internal problems you have been describing. In order to do that, we must ensure that apart from Dragonstrike China receives only a minimum of bad international press, which is inevitable.
`I have been studying reports of dissent among our peasants and of the growing popularity of the New Communists, which even the Western media has picked. It is remarkable that they were able to smuggle a statement about the incident in Dingxi out of the Lanzhou Number One prison and get it published in the Washington Post. I suggest that the Ministry of State Security transfers surveillance resources currently used on foreign businessmen, who we should regard as allies, back to Western reporters, who are traditionally hostile. Any Westerner with a video or stills camera found in the provinces should be picked up for questioning, the film taken, and if they are under suspicion of acting for a foreign news organization they must be expelled. But under no circumstances must they be treated badly.'
`What about tourists, Comrade?'
`Watch them. Now. There has been very little problem in the transport of grain between provinces, but due to the southern floods last year we estimated a shortfall of more than 30,000,000 tonnes, which we will have to import. The provinces most affected are the southern coastal regions of Guangzhou, Fujian, Yunnan, and the Yangtze River Delta around Shanghai. These are the areas which are being most troublesome in ignoring directives from Beijing. History may come to regard them as the cause of the fragmentation of China. They are rich. They buy much of their grain directly from America.
`I suggest, comrades, that as soon as Washington announces sanctions we retaliate with the cancellation of our grain contracts. Shipments on their way should be turned back. The American sanctions will target our manufacturing exports, for which most factories are based in the same southern provinces. The jobs of tens of thousands of people will be at risk. There is bound to be social unrest, particularly in the Pearl River Delta around Guangdong, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai.'
`What exactly are you proposing, Foreign Minister?' interrupted the President.
`The art of war is to turn the inevitable attack of our enemy to our advantage. By ending the grain contracts, the American farmer will suffer. And the troublesome south will need our help to bring in supplies from elsewhere in China. As workers in the Special Economic Zones protest we will send in troops from other provinces to take control. In a very short time, Comrades, we can restore the power of Beijing in governing China. Provincial China will realize it needs us in the power from the centre.'
`And the grain shortages?'
`At the most the stand-off will last a few months. Then it will be business as usual. The Americans will renegotiate. If they don't we'll expel their multinationals, give the business to the Europeans, and buy our grain from Australia and Latin America.'
The PLA Dragonstrike commander interjected with a question about American military plans. Jamie Song was deliberately deferential. In modern China, the soldier, not the academic, had the power. `I believe, comrade, that the American alliance with Japan is being severely tested. American businessmen are insisting on a quick diplomatic settlement. The Pentagon is not convinced it can commit forces to a protracted conflict in the South China Sea. I believe retaliatory sanctions together with the worst case scenario small number of American casualties would see the end of American involvement.'
Prime Minister Hyashi's moment of truth came in the afternoon meeting of the cabinet's Defence Committee. He had been preparing for this for many years. During his time as Defence Minister he had immersed himself in defence issues — the state of Japan's readiness, the likelihood of a war with China, missile development, and the greatest taboo of all, nuclear rearmament. In choosing his cabinet Hyashi had paid heed to the wishes of the political barons who led competing factions. But Hyashi — whose faction was small — believed in the art of balance, not dominance. He had spent nights drinking with up and coming members of other factions, not to try to win them over to his group but so that when the time came some of them might serve with him in cabinet. His patience and perseverance had paid off. In Ishihara and Kimura s Defence and Foreign Ministers respectively ashi had two stout allies, men who were apprised of Japan's military position and men who, like himself, were prepared to think the hitherto unthinkable. The Defence Committee reconvened at Hyashi's official residence.
`Gentlemen, I hope you have all had time to read the telegram from Ambassador Katayama in Washington,' Hyashi opened. `I think you will agree with me that it makes sorry reading and requires of us to take decisions today of far-reaching importance to Japan and the Japanese people.
`I want to say at the outset that I expected, when pushed, the Americans would not honour their treaty with us.
When the Nye initiative failed some years ago and was followed eight years later by American withdrawal from Okinawa I knew it was only a matter of time before the 1960 Security Treaty would either lapse or fall at the first hurdle. Bradlay's equivocation with me and subsequently our Ambassador as well leaves me in no doubt that the time has come for us to act.
`We Japanese have always been alone. The security treaty was never much more than a fig leaf, at least since the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. And racial considerations, or more directly racial prejudice, have always been the cancer at the core of USJapanese relations. It is my firm conviction that the roots of USJapanese friction lie in the soil of racial prejudice. American racial prejudice is based upon the cultural belief that the modern era is the creation of the white race.
`When I was Defence Minister I had the opportunity to talk to the Secretary of the US Navy about the Amber System. Amber is supposed to be the colour of caution and this system is named for this concept. Under the Amber System, ordinary vessels such as tankers and container ships are equipped with sonar on their bows. The sonar can detect underwater objects. Some are rocks, et cetera, which navigational charts will show. What the system is looking for is nuclear submarines.