Li paused, but Ryan could tell he had something else he wanted to say.
“Speak up, Ken. Your input is very valuable to me.”
Li said, “China’s hegemonic aspirations are not the only reason for the current conflict. The thing is, Mr. President, you can’t underestimate the strength of the animosity against you personally in the top echelons of the military.”
“You are saying they hate my guts.”
“I… I am saying that. Yes, sir. They were humiliated by the war, and if you read the statements by the Chinese generals that are made for local consumption, you will see that they want glory against the United States.”
Ryan looked to Admiral Jorgensen on the monitor. “Admiral, what do you think about the message from the Chinese? Do we move the Reagan back to three hundred miles?”
Jorgensen, of course, knew he would be asked the question. His answer was measured. “Mr. President, the Chinese have been acting irrationally for the past month. I think it would be suicide for them to attack the Reagan or any of its support ships, but I am not going to say that I don’t think they will do it. If you had asked me a month ago whether the PLAAF would fire on U.S. Navy and Marine fighters flying over international waters, I would have said that I regarded that as incredibly unlikely.”
“Do they have the capability, technology-wise, to hit the Ronald Reagan?”
Without an instant’s hesitation Jorgensen said, “Oh, yes, sir. It can be done. We have anti-missile defensive measures, and they are effective, but not against a sustained barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles fired from the land, air, and sea. If the Chinese really want to sink the Reagan, I am not going to tell you we can prevent it.”
Jorgensen continued, “But if they wanted to affect our capability to stand and fight on their turf, they would not have to hit the Reagan. They could much more easily take out crucial support ships that are not as well protected.”
“Explain.”
“Our nuclear-powered carriers and subs can operate for years without refueling, but the rest of the fleet, all those support ships, they are all being fueled by only six tankers in the Pacific Ocean. It would not be impossible for the Chinese to target those tankers and severely degrade the mobility of the Seventh Fleet. Our ability to project power would be limited. We will be like a bear chained to a tree. The tree would be Pearl Harbor, and we would not be able to venture very far. We have two hundred eighty-five ships deployed around the world, and fifty percent of them are in the Western Pacific. These anti-ship missiles China possesses are a real danger.”
Mary Pat Foley said, “With China’s anti-access/area-denial capabilities, the balance of power has tilted away from the U.S. and our allies in the region, and they know it. They think we would be idiots to challenge them in their territory.”
Burgess said, “We are thinking that that is what is going on here. Getting us into a short, intense fight on their turf, bloodying our nose, so that we will go home and stay home.”
Ryan said, “Then they make a play for Taiwan.”
Mary Pat said, “That’s the golden ring, isn’t it? The Chinese are trying to destroy the Taiwanese government. They do that successfully, and then they move in and pick up the pieces.”
“You don’t mean literally move in?”
“No, not immediately. They will not invade Taiwan. Instead, they want to put their own people in positions of power, weaken the anti-PRC parties, damage the economy and the island’s political relationships with its allies. They do that, and they don’t have to invade. They just have to mop up. They think they can end the ROC by slowly, over time, reabsorbing it into the PRC.
“They have been accepting more risk in Taiwan lately. Pulling out all the stops in getting informants and spies. Buying off politicians sympathetic to the PRC.”
President Ryan discussed the matter a few minutes more, and then he sat quietly at the end of the table for a moment. Finally he looked up at Jorgensen. “Push the Reagan back to three hundred miles exactly, but also bring the Nimitz battle group closer. Move her into the East China Sea.
“Send a message that we aren’t going to play into whatever the hell they are trying to goad us into doing at the same time, but we are not running away.”
Burgess said, “If we pull the Reagan out to three hundred miles, Mr. President, we won’t be able to patrol the Taiwan Strait. The ROC will be on its own.”
Ryan’s eyes settled on Bob Burgess. “Is there any way we can covertly move air support to Taiwan?”
“Covertly?”
“Yes.”
Foley spoke up: “Espionage cases out of the ROC have shot through the roof in the past couple of years. China is now dumping money into its spy services, bribing everyone with access to political or military information who will play with them. It’s a tough place to do anything without the PRC knowing about it.”
Jack said, “‘Tough’ means it will be difficult. That was not my question. My question was: Can it be done?”
Burgess said, “There are contingency plans worked up. We have a plan to put in limited numbers of Marine fighter pilots, outfitting them in ROC aircraft. We aren’t talking about large numbers. But it would be a show of support for the ROC government.”
President Ryan nodded. “Do it. But do it right. Don’t just throw a couple of guys out there without cover or support. If they are detected by the PRC, it just might be the provocation they need to attack Taiwan.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I understand the stakes.”
Jack Ryan stood and ended the meeting by saying, “Send in the Marines.”
FIFTY
Su did not like the way Wei had summoned him today. He had meetings scheduled all day at Zhongnanhai, but shortly before noon his office contacted him and told him President Wei demanded his presence in his living quarters at lunch.
Su bristled at the intemperance of his coequal demanding anything of him, but he cut short his noonday meeting and went to Wei’s quarters without delay.
It was not as if he needed time to prepare for the conversation with the president. He knew exactly what the man would say.
The men embraced and called each other Comrade and asked after their family members, but these pleasantries were dealt with in seconds, not minutes.
In short order, Wei sat down with Su and spoke in a concerned voice. “This is not at all how I pictured events unfolding.”
“Events? I take that to mean events in the South China Sea and the strait?”
Wei nodded and said, “I feel like you have manipulated me to some degree, taking my initial program for economic improvement and folding it into your own agenda.”
“General Secretary, we have a saying in the military: ‘The enemy gets a vote.’ What you have seen over the past weeks — the aggression by India despite our clear warnings, aggression by the United States as we executed carefully calculated maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait to display our readiness to act against any show of force by the ROC — these situations were brought on by our adversaries. Of course, if all my… excuse me, if all our forces stayed at their bases or in their ports, well, then certainly none of this would have happened, but in order to achieve our territorial objectives, which will, in so doing, help us achieve our economic objectives, we had to make these forays into contested areas.”