Ultimatum (61 page)

First: The visits of representatives of the government of the United States to the province of Taiwan is immediately forbidden without permission of the government of the People’s Republic of China.

Second: The export licenses of certain classes of goods from the People’s Republic of China to destinations within the United States will be reviewed and will now be subject to suspension and cancellation.

Third: The People’s Bank of China will review its currency holdings and dispose of excess dollar reserves.

The people of China are united. The people of China will not bow down to the will of any foreign power, but will resist the imperialist aggression of the United States with every part of its will.

Joe Benton handed the screen to Heather for her to look at.

“What’s a unilateral visit?” he said to Jodie Ames.

Ames shrugged.

“See if the communications guys can get hold of Larry and Alan. And come back in on the call.”

Ames went out.

Heather passed back the handheld. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.” Benton looked at the screen again. “It’s strange. I don’t know what it means.”

Ames came back. “I’ll step out,” said Heather, and she picked up her book and left.

Ames sat down. “They’ll be on the line shortly.”

Benton nodded. “So what do I do?” His first speech of the visit would be at a dinner hosted by the Japanese prime minister. “Do I address this tonight?”

“You could. It’s disproportionate . . . It’s unfortunate. Actions such as these gratuitously threaten the livelihoods of the Chinese people themselves...You wish the Chinese government would step up to its responsibility instead of making threats.” Jodie paused. “Or you might not even want to mention it. Don’t let it overshadow the visit. They’ve interfered in a visit to Japan that has nothing to do with them, and we shouldn’t let them do that.”

“But it’s going to overshadow it, right? Whatever we do.”

“In the media. I’m not sure Nakamura would thank you for bringing it into his banquet hall.”

Benton glanced at the screen of the handheld. What was Wen up to? Why do this now?

Larry Olsen came online.

“Have you seen this release?” asked Benton.

“I’m looking at it right now.”

“It’s ridiculous. Have they ever claimed they have right of veto over visits in the region? They can’t do that, can they?”

“Of course not. This is outrageous and not a single country in the world would think otherwise. It’s dumb. Finally Wen’s done something dumb.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea. Maybe they genuinely feel destabilized by your being in Japan. Maybe they think Japan’s going to announce it’s signing up. We’ve been covertly spreading that rumor.”

“And Japan’s been overtly denying it.”

“Maybe that’s why they think it’s true. Mr. President, I told you, you just had to wait. This is good.”

Alan Ball came on. “Mr. President. Did I hear someone say this is good?”

“Al, that was Larry.”

“Yeah, who else?”

Benton ignored that. “What do you think?”

“This is going to hurt,” said Ball. “Exports, the dollar. The market’s going to go crazy.”

“They’re trying to outsanction us,” said Olsen. “Big deal. They’re prohibiting exports of stuff we were going to prohibit importing anyway.”

“They’re going to sell down the dollar.”

“Really? Who’s buying?”

“Larry, that’s a little glib,” said Benton.

“They’ve just turned themselves into an aggressor in the eyes of everyone else in the world. That’s worth paying a price for.”

“They must realize what they’ve done.”

“They may not.”

“They’re not stupid.”

“They’re thinking about other things. Mr. President, this is exactly what we’ve been waiting for.”

“We’ve had reports of arrests overnight,” said Ball. “More than we’ve seen recently. The Chinese press this morning is crazy. It’ll all be in the daily briefing. Your visit’s being reported like it’s some kind of invasion.”

“Are American citizens in danger?”

“No, not as far as we know.”

“Okay.” Benton was silent for a moment. “What do they want? They want me to turn around and not land in Japan?”

“No,” said Olsen. “They know they have no right to demand that and you’d never do it. That’s the whole point. They’re not asking you to do something. They’re saying, because you’ve
done
something, here’s what we’re going to do. It’s a pretext.”

“Mr. President,” said Ball, “look at the first point. No more visits to Taiwan.”

“I don’t understand that,” said Benton. “That’s gratuitous. How can they forbid us going to Taiwan?”

“They claim it as their sovereign territory.”

“Have we got any visits planned?”

“We send people there all the time. We have a trade delegation going in a couple of weeks.”

“Exactly,” said Olsen. “Sir, this is the structure of what we’ve got— you’ve done this, a visit to Japan, therefore we prohibit you sending anyone to Taiwan. You send someone to Taiwan, and…”

“And what?” said the president.

There was silence.

“You think they’re trying to set up a pretext to invade?” Benton looked up at Ames. She was watching him intently.

“That’s exactly what they’ve done. The question is why. Why now? Mr. President, something’s going on over there. What we’re seeing are the external signs. Maybe your visit’s precipitated it. For some reason, they need to start banging the nationalist drum. They need to look tough. Whatever we’re doing, it’s working. We need to sit tight and keep going as we are.”

“Invading Taiwan might not be an option they want to exercise,” said Ball. “They might just be putting a pretext out there in case they decide to. It might be all they want to do is clamp down on some of their opposition people—make a few more arrests, which is what we’re seeing—and they’ll sit back and review things then. Could be that if they do that, they’ll feel secure enough to sit down with us and do a deal on the Carbon Plan. We should take it back into Kyoto now. That’ll give us more support, and it’ll be easier for the Chinese to join us.”

“Easier for them to hide,” said Olsen. “Look, the whole point here is something inside the regime has changed, and it’s changed because of what we’re doing.”

“You think there’s been a shift in control?” said Benton. “You think it’s not Wen anymore?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is, this is the start. We’ve got them into the open. We’re into phase two. This is where they blink, and we get on top.”

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Ball.

“Alan,” said Benton, “I want a security update twice daily. If there’s any danger to American citizens, I want them out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want them hostage to whatever game Wen’s playing. All right. What else do we do?”

“As I said, now’s the time to take this back into—”

“We make a statement about this thing,” said Olsen. “That’s it. We make a dignified statement and let them keep digging their own hole.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” said Ball. “Let’s seize the opportunity to take this back into Kyoto.”

“We’re not taking it back anywhere! Now’s not the time to turn chicken. A statement. That’s it.”

“The president has a speech tonight at the state dinner with Nakamura,” said Ames.

“I wouldn’t say anything there,” said Olsen. “You drag Nakamura in and he’s not going to thank you. We should release a statement separately.” “Jodie?”

“I agree.”

“Mr. President—”

“Alan, right now, for the moment, let’s see where this goes. I’m prepared to do that. I’m going to make a statement, and then let’s see what happens.”

“But, sir—”

“Alan, that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll keep other options open.”

They crafted a statement. At last, it was a chance to paint the United States as victim rather than aggressor, and getting on a high horse would blow the opportunity. The tone was understated, more bemused than outraged.

But it was just a statement, thought Benton, after Ames had gone out to polish the wording. Statements were just statements. It was the reaction they created that mattered.

He wondered if Larry Olsen was right. He had come too far now not to wait a little longer and find out. Maybe Wen had made a serious mistake, or at least had been forced to sacrifice a degree of international support for the sake of something he had to do internally. Or maybe not. If not, what was Wen expecting
him
to do? What he had just done, or something different?

Either way, the pressure on him was about to get even greater. Every sign of deterioration in the situation led to a fresh wave of panic.

The statement was released two hours later. Jodie Ames read it aloud to the journalists on the plane, and it was then streamed to the agencies.

They landed at Narita. It was seven in the morning in Tokyo, six p.m. in New York. The dollar had slid eleven percent. The Dow Jones had plummeted eight percent in the last hour of trading, giving it its biggest one-day fall since 2013, when nuclear war between India and Pakistan seemed imminent.

~ * ~

Friday, October 21

Situation Room, The White House

The Chinese government had reacted to the president’s statement by issuing a response asserting that the province of Taiwan was an inseparable part of the People’s Republic of China. They had also cut air links between the mainland and Taipei and reiterated the demand for a suspension of official U.S. visits. Internally, the crackdown had intensified. The democratic and environmental oppositions were being vilified in the press, and people were being exhorted to inform on anyone suspected of opposition activity. The CIA estimated that upward of five thousand opposition figures had now been arrested and a large number of businesses forcibly closed. A selective shutdown of exports to the U.S. was under way.

“The Chinese government is offering compensation in the way of wages to the factory workers affected,” said Stu Cohen, briefing the National Security Council meeting. “The one thing they don’t want is popular unrest because of the unemployment this will cause.”

“How long can they sustain that?” asked the president.

Cohen shook his head. “They’ve already said they’ll sell down their foreign currency reserves,”

“Who’s got renminbi to pay them?” said Olsen.

“No one,” replied Bob Colvin.

“So what do they do?” asked Angela Chavez. “Print money?”

Colvin shrugged. “They could if they have to. Eventually the inflationary effects would be unbearable, but they could do it for a while.”

“Stu?” said the president, “what about U.S. interests?”

“We’ve got reports of disturbances outside factories doing business with us and a number of attacks on American-owned or affiliated businesses.” Cohen consulted his handheld. “A branch of Citibank had its windows smashed, similarly a McDonald’s and some other franchises. There have also been crowds outside residential compounds that are known to house Americans in Shanghai and Guangdong.”