Baker said nothing.
“A bad thing has been done,” the old man continued, in no hurry to explain himself.
Baker took out a Gitane and lit it, its pungent odor floating about the sampan, shrouding the old man momentarily in a dark fog. How many times had he waited like this for information, Baker asked himself, for the merest suggestion of some of the 2,434 MIAs who were either buried by now or had been kept as prisoners until they were of no more use to the “Black Pajamas,” as the Viet Cong had been known to the Americans? How many times had he waited for one decent lead?
“The gangsters in Beijing are in charge,” the old man said. “Li Peng’s gang.”
“They’ve always been in charge,” Baker said impatiently. He remembered the words of the historian Bo Yang: “With each new dynasty and each new reign throughout Chinese history, the throne has never changed, only the ass that is on it.”
“But not so much when Chairman Deng was alive.”
“Deng,” Baker answered, “was as bad as the rest of them. Who called in the tanks at Tiananmen Square?”
“But Deng understood how far to go.”
“Did he? I wouldn’t know. You should ask the students who were run over.”
“Still,” the old man said, “there must be order.”
Baker had had enough. “Do you know anything about Americans still being held — POWs, MIAs?”
“Yes.”
“What do you know?”
“That Li Peng’s gang have done a bad thing.”
“You mean some MIAs have been taken across the border into China?”
“Possibly, but I mean this giving money to the pirates.”
“Look,” Baker said exasperatedly, “do you have something to tell me about our MIAs or not?” With that, the American straightened up, ready to leave, adding, “There have always been pirates. They made a fortune smuggling cigarettes, liquor — plundering the boat people. That’s not news.”
“But this,” the old man said insistently, making the point with his left forefinger bent, crooked down like a fishing hook, the shape of Vietnam, “this is to make Vietnam look like the aggressor.”
“What are you talking about? What aggression?”
“Against the disputed islands.”
Baker didn’t know too much about any disputed islands. China and Vietnam were always arguing about some offshore reef or such, especially now with the promise of big oil and gas deposits beneath the South China Sea and with oil accounting for more than a third of all Vietnam’s exports. But though Baker’s concern was MIAs, he now sensed there was something bigger at hand. It wasn’t the old man’s chin wagging about Li Peng’s gang, but rather his tone. It was the voice of a man who was too burdened, who had heard something in the sampans or the stalls and had to share it. At first Baker wondered why the old man, a Chinese, would be bad-mouthing China, but if there was something China was doing — or about to do — that might bring down the wrath of the Vietnamese on the Chinese Vietnam community, like the pogrom of 1978-79 here in Ho Chi Minh City from which so many Chinese fled, some taking to the open sea, he could appreciate the old man’s concern.
“How will Beijing make Vietnam look like the aggressor?” Baker asked.
“The pirates are to use the Vietnamese flag.”
“For what?”
“For attacking disputed islands. The flag is to be upside down.”
“Distress signal?”
“Yes. It is to get in close.” The old man looked at Baker with a face the color of ancient parchment. “How long have you been here?”
“In Vietnam? Five, going on six—” Then Baker fully understood. It was like looking through a microscope, suddenly seeing a blurred slide jump into focus. “You mean the Chinese pay pirates to use the Vietnamese flag so everyone’ll think it’s Vietnamese attacking?” But why was the old man telling him this? “Because,” Baker continued, answering his own question, “it would cause trouble between China and Vietnam again, and when there’s that kind of trouble, the Vietnamese take it out on you.” He meant not only the Chinese in Cholon, but all over Vietnam.
The old man nodded. “We are the Jews of Vietnam. But all we want is to live here in peace and harmony.”
“You want me to tell someone in Washington that Vietnamese Chinese aren’t involved? That it’s Beijing behind the attack on the islands?”
“Yes. Beijing will deny it, of course.”
“Let me get this straight. You say Beijing is doing this— attacking the oil rigs.”
“Yes,” the old man said, “to give Beijing an excuse to seize all the islands in the South China Sea.”
“You think Beijing’s so corrupt,” Baker went on, “that it would use pirates to attack two of its own rigs, kill its own—” Baker stopped. It was a foolish question. These were the men who had run over hundreds of their own students. A few dozen oil-rig workers wouldn’t faze them. “But wouldn’t this put off American investors as well?” he asked.
“Not if Beijing and some American investors know the truth of it.”
“But that would mean an American company would have to go along with…”
The old man smiled. It wasn’t a smile of joy, but rather one of wry amusement at the American’s naivete—to think a U.S. company would not secretly side with Beijing, and to think Beijing would be concerned about a few Chinese workers, was to be in a kind of kindergarten of politics. What were a few lives to Beijing if they could use the attacks to bring the world against Vietnam in Beijing’s push to claim
All Baker could respond with was to say that Americans would never do such a thing — stage an incident, kill their own to frighten away the competition, in this case, Vietnam.
“You Americans,” the old man said confidently. “You hold the individual so sacred. Here we are but grains of sand in the ocean.”
“But won’t the Vietnamese twig? I mean, won’t the Vietnamese suspect the raids were to blame them?”
“Of course,” the old man replied. “But for the Vietnamese to retaliate against China would be an act of war. It would be to risk international sanctions against Vietnam, and it has taken Hanoi over twenty years since the Vietnam War, since the American defeat, to build relations up with the U.S. again. It’s only a few years since the U.S. embargo on trade with Vietnam has been lifted.”
“Then China is free to keep hitting whatever claim they like?” Baker asked. “Be their own agents provocateurs? Frighten everyone off the islands, then say they’ll have to garrison them with troops for self- protection?”
“Yes.”
Baker shook his head worriedly. “But without proof, I can’t go anywhere with this. We’d have to have proof that—”
The old man was astonished. “But you are an American officer,” he said, as if that explained everything. “If you tell your government what I have told you, surely—”
“They won’t believe it. Or rather, they might believe it but they won’t do anything unless there’s proof positive.”
“But you are an officer. A—”
“I am a grain of sand,” Baker said. “Besides, why should I believe you — with respect. This could be a Vietnamese ploy to attack their own islands in the Paracels to make it look as if the Chinese—”
“But I have told you the truth,” the old man said, his head rising in indignation.
“And where did
“From people of my blood — who were offered gold to sail with the pirate junks.”
Baker could see he’d deeply offended the old man. “I’m sorry but — I mean, I’d need proof. Otherwise it’s just another story in a sea of stories that one hears—”
“Dalat!” the old man said. “Near Dalat.” Dalat was a temperate city in the central highlands, and during the Vietnam War there had been an unwritten mutual agreement that it was a no-fire zone. Both sides had used it for
