austerity measures. This, he explained, would strengthen the nation’s economy over time, but it would also have the unfortunate effect of a short-term downturn of the economy.
“How short-term?” he was asked by the party secretary of the State Council.
Wei lied. “Two to three years.” His number crunchers told him his austerity reforms would need to be in place for closer to five years in order to have the desired effect.
“How much will the growth rate drop?” This was asked by the secretary of the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection.
Wei hesitated briefly, and then spoke in a calm but pleasant voice. “If our plan is enacted, growth will necessarily contract by, we estimate, ten basis points during the first year of implementation.”
There were gasps throughout the room.
The secretary said, “Growth is currently at eight percent. You are telling us we will experience
“Yes.”
The chairman of the Central Guidance Commission for Building Spiritual Civilization shouted to the room, “We have had thirty-five years of growth! Even the year after the war, we did not contract!”
Wei shook his head and replied in a calm manner, striking a stark contrast with most of the rest of the men in the room, who had grown animated. “We were deceived. I have looked at the ledgers for those years. Growth came, mostly as a result of foreign trade expansion that I initiated, but it did not happen in the first year after the war.”
Wei saw, rather quickly, that most in the room did not believe him. As far as he was concerned, he was merely a messenger informing others of this crisis, he was not responsible for it, but the other Standing Committee members began leveling accusations. Wei responded forcefully, demanding that they listen to his plan to right the economy, but instead the others spoke of the growing dissent in the streets, and fretted among themselves about how the new problems would affect their standing in the Politburo at large.
The meeting only deteriorated from there. Wei went on the defensive, and by the end of the afternoon he had retreated to his quarters in the compound of Zhongnanhai, knowing that he had overestimated the ability of his fellow Standing Committee members to understand the grave nature of the threat. The men were not listening to his plan; there
He had become secretary and president because he had not joined an alliance, but in those hours of discussions about the grim future of the Chinese economy, he realized he could have done with some friends on the Standing Committee.
As an experienced politician with a strong sense of realpolitik, he knew his chances for saving his own skin in the current political climate were small unless he announced that the growth and prosperity proclaimed by thirty- five years of previous leadership would continue under his leadership. And as a brilliant economist with complete access to the ultra-secret financial ledgers of his country, he knew that prosperity in China was about to grind to a halt, and a reversal of fortune was the only future.
And it was not just the economy. A totalitarian regime could — theoretically, at least — paper over many fiscal problems. To one degree or another this is what he had been doing for years, using massive public-sector projects to stimulate the economy and give an unrealistic impression of its viability.
But Wei knew his nation was sitting on a powder keg of dissent that was growing by the day.
Three weeks after the disastrous meeting in Zhongnanhai compound, Wei realized his hold on power was under threat. While on a diplomatic trip to Hungary, one of the Standing Committee members, the director of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party, ordered all the state-run media outlets in the nation, as well as CPC-controlled news services abroad, to begin airing reports critical of Wei’s economic leadership. This was unheard of, and Wei was furious. He raced back to Beijing and demanded a meeting with the propaganda director but was told the man was in Singapore until the end of the week. Wei then convened an emergency meeting at Zhongnanhai for the entire twenty-five-member Politburo, but only sixteen members appeared as requested.
Within days, charges of corruption appeared in the media, claims that Wei had abused his power for personal gain while mayor of Shanghai. The charges were corroborated with signed statements by dozens of Wei’s former aides and business associates in China and abroad.
Wei was not corrupt. As the mayor of Shanghai he’d fought corruption wherever he found it, in local business, in the police force, in the party apparatus. In this endeavor he made enemies, and these enemies were only too willing to give false witness against him, especially in cases where the high-ranking coup organizers made offers of political access in return for their statements.
An arrest warrant was issued for the Princeling leader by the Ministry of Public Security, China’s equivalent of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Wei knew exactly what was going on. This was an attempted coup.
The coup came to a head on the morning of the sixth day of the crisis, when the vice president stepped in front of cameras in Zhongnanhai and announced to a stunned international media that until the unfortunate affair involving President Wei was resolved, he would be taking charge of the government. The vice president then announced that the president was, officially, a fugitive from justice.
At the time Wei himself was only four hundred meters away in his living quarters at Zhongnanhai. A few loyalists had rallied at his side, but it seemed as though the tide had turned against him. He was informed by the office of the vice president that he had until ten a.m. the next morning to allow representatives from the Ministry of Public Security into his compound to effect his arrest. If he did not go quietly, he would be taken by force.
Late in the evening on the sixth day Wei finally went on the offensive. He identified those in his party who were conspiring against him, and he convened a secret meeting with the rest of the Politburo Standing Committee. He stressed to the five men who were not conspirators that he considered himself a “first among equals” and, should he remain president and general secretary, he would rule with an eye toward collective leadership. In short, he promised that each and every one of them would have more power than they would have if they put someone else in his place.
His reception from the Standing Committee was cold. It was as if they were looking at a doomed man, and they showed little interest in aligning themselves with him. The second-most-powerful man in China, the chairman of the Central Military Commission, Su Ke Qiang, did not say a single word during the meeting.
Throughout the night Wei had no idea if he would be overthrown in the morning — arrested and imprisoned, forced to sign a false confession, and executed. In the predawn hours his future looked even darker. Three of the five PSC members who had yet to commit to the coup sent word that, though they would not encourage his deposal, they did not have the political clout to help him.
At five a.m. Wei met with his staff and told them he would step down for the good of the nation. The Ministry of Public Security was notified that Wei would surrender, and an arrest team was dispatched to Zhongnanhai from the MPS building on East Chang’an Avenue, on the other side of Tiananmen Square.
Wei told them he would go quietly.
But Wei had decided that he would
He would not go at all.
The fifty-four-year-old Princeling had no desire to play the role of a prop in a political theater, used by his enemies as the scapegoat for the country’s downfall.
They could have him in death, they could do with his legacy what they wished, but he would not be around to watch it.
As the police contingent from the Ministry of Public Security drove toward the government compound, Wei spoke to the director of his personal security, and Fung agreed to supply him with a pistol and a tutorial on its use.
Wei held the big black QSZ-92 pistol to his head; his hand trembled slightly, but he found himself to be rather composed, considering the situation. As he closed his eyes and began pressing the trigger harder, he felt his tremors increase; the quivering grew in his body, beginning in his feet and traveling upward.
Wei worried he would shake the muzzle off target and miss his brain, so he pressed the gun harder into his temple.
A shout came from the hallway outside his office. It was Fung’s voice, excited.
