The Bear and the Dragon

that he had a sizable personal fortune which the PRC had graciously allowed him to accumulate, and that, probably more important, he had the intelligence and personal industry to thrive anywhere he chose to live. Fang knew also that Ren could fly to Taiwan and get financing to build a factory there, where he could employ others who looked and spoke Chinese, and he’d make money there and get some political influence in the bargain. Most of all, he knew that Ren knew this. Would he act upon it? Probably not. He was Chinese, a citizen of the mainland. This was his land, and he had no desire to leave it, else he would not be here now, pleading his case to the one minister-well, probably Qian Kun would listen also-whose ear might be receptive to his words. Ren was a patriot, but not a communist. What an odd duality that was …

Fang stood. This meeting had gone far enough. “I will do this, my friend,” he told his visitor. “And I will let you know what develops.”

“Thank you, Comrade Minister.” Ren bowed and took his leave, not looking better, but pleased that someone had actually listened to him. Listening was not what one expected of Politburo members.

Fang sat back down and lit another cigarette, then reached for his tea. He thought for a minute or so. “Ming!” he called loudly. It took seven seconds by his watch.

“Yes, Minister?”

“What news articles do you have for me?” he asked. His secretary disappeared for another few seconds, then reappeared, holding a few pages.

“Here, Minister, just printed up. This one may be of particular interest.”

“This one” was a cover story from The Wall Street Journal. “Major Shift in China Business?” it proclaimed. The question mark was entirely rhetorical, he saw in the first paragraph. Ren was right. He had to discuss this with the rest of the Politburo.

The second major item in Bondarenko’s morning was observing tank gunnery. His men had the newest variant of the T-80UM main battle tank. It wasn’t quite the newest T-99 that was just coming into production. This UM did, however, have a decent fire-control system, which was novel enough. The target range was about as simple as one could ask, large white cardboard panels with black tank silhouettes painted on them, and they were set at fixed, known ranges. Many of his gunners had never fired a live round since leaving gunnery school-such was the current level of training in the Russian Army, the general fumed.

Then he fumed some more. He watched one particular tank, firing at a target an even thousand meters away. It should have been mere spitting distance, but as he watched, first one, then two more, of the tracer rounds missed, all falling short, until the fourth shot hit high on the painted turret shape. With that feat accomplished, the tank shifted aim to a second target at twelve hundred meters and missed that one twice, before achieving a pinwheel in the geometric center of the target.

“Nothing wrong with that,” Aliyev said next to him.

“Except that the tank and the crew were all dead ninety seconds ago!” Bondarenko observed, followed by a particularly vile oath. “Ever see what happens when a tank blows up? Nothing left of the crew but sausage! Expensive sausage.”

“It’s their first time in a live-fire exercise,” Aliyev said, hoping to calm his boss down. “We have limited practice ammunition, and it’s not as accurate as warshots.”

“How many live rounds do we have?”

Aliyev smiled. “Millions.” They had, in fact, warehouses full of the things, fabricated back in the 1970s.

“Then issue them,” the general ordered.

“Moscow won’t like it,” the colonel warned. Warshots were, of course, far more expensive.

“I am not here to please them, Andrey Petrovich. I am here to defend them.” And someday he’d meet the fool who’d decided to replace the tank’s loader crewman with a machine. It was slower than a soldier, and removed a crewman who could assist in repairing damage. Didn’t engineers ever consider that tanks were actually supposed to go into battle? No, this tank had been designed by a committee, as all Soviet weapons had been, which explained, perhaps, why so many of them didn’t work-or, just as badly, didn’t protect their users. Like putting the gas tank inside the doors of the BTR armored personnel carrier. Who ever thought that a crewman might want to bail out of a damaged vehicle and perhaps even survive to fight afoot? The tank’s vulnerability had been the very first thing the Afghans had learned about Soviet mobile equipment … and how many Russian boys had burned to death because of it? Well, Bondarenko thought, I have a new country now, and Russia does have talented engineers, and in a few years perhaps we can start building weapons worthy of the soldiers who carry them.

“Andrey, is there anything in our command which does work?”

“That’s why we’re training, Comrade General.” Bondarenko’s service reputation was of an upbeat officer who looked for solutions rather than problems. His operations officer supposed that Gennady Iosifovich was overwhelmed by the scope of the difficulties, not yet telling himself that however huge a problem was, it had to be composed of numerous small ones which could be addressed one at a time. Gunnery, for example. Today, it was execrable. But in a week it would be much better, especially if they gave the troops real rounds instead of the practice ones. Real “bullets,” as soldiers invariably called them, made you feel like a man instead of a schoolboy with his workbook. There was much to be said for that, and like many of the things his new boss was doing, it made good sense. In two weeks, they’d be watching more tank gunnery, and seeing more hits than misses.

CHAPTER 40 Fashion Statements

So, George?” Ryan asked.

“So, it’s started. Turns out there are a ton of similar contracts coming due for the next season or something, plus Christmas toy contracts,” SecTreas told his President. “And it’s not just us. Italy, France, England, everybody’s bugging out on them. The Chinese have made huge inroads into that industry, and they pissed off a lot of people in the process. Well, the chicken hasn’t so much come home to roost as it’s flown the coop, and that leaves our friends in Beijing holding the bag. It’s a big bag, Jack. We’re talking billions here.”

“How badly will that hurt them?” SecState asked.

“Scott, I grant you it seems a little odd that the fate of a nation could ride on Victoria’s Secret brassieres, but money is money. They need it, and all of a sudden there’s a big hole in their current account. How big? Billions. It’s going to make a hell of a bellyache for them.”

“Any actual harm?” Ryan asked.

“Not my department, Jack,” Winston answered. “That’s Scott.”

“Okay.” Ryan turned his head to look at his other cabinet member.

“Before I can answer that, I need to know what net effect this will have on the Chinese economy.”

Winston shrugged. “Theoretically, they could ride this out with minimal difficulties, but that depends on how they make up the shortfall. Their national industrial base is an incredibly muddled hodgepodge of private-and state-owned industries. The private ones are the efficient ones, of course, and the worst of the state-owned industries belong to their army. I’ve seen analyses of PLA operations that look like something out of MAD magazine, just impossible to credit on first reading. Soldiers don’t generally know much about making things-they’re better at breaking them-and tossing Marxism into the mix doesn’t exactly help the situation. So, those ‘enterprises’ piss away vast quantities of cash. If they shut those down, or just cut them back, they could kiss this little shortfall off and move on-but they won’t.”

“That’s right,” Adler agreed. “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has a lot of political clout over there. The party controls it, but the tail wags the dog to a considerable extent. There’s quite a bit of political and economic unrest over there. They need the army to keep things under control, and the PLA takes a big cut off the top of the national treasure because of that.”

“The Soviets weren’t like that,” POTUS objected.

“Different country, different culture. Keep that in mind.”