“And these are the guys we’re concentrating on today? A bunch of Muslims? I didn’t think there were any Muslims in China.”
“At the last count, there were about twenty million.”
From the echo chamber of the long-distance line to Hong Kong, Miles Coolidge saved Marston’s blushes. “If I could just come in here,” he said. His voice emerged crisp and true from the speakers on the dining-room table. “Josh is correct in stating that Uighur revolutionaries have been orchestrating low-level bombing and assassination campaigns in mainland China, but this phenomenon has only recently spread to Beijing. Formerly the separatists tended to operate solely in urban centres in Xinjiang, targeting Chinese soldiers and officials. This expansion of a campaign of violence into the Han heartlands is, we feel, significant.”
There are moments in intelligence briefings, indeed in business meetings of all kinds, when it becomes clear to those taking part that a single individual knows a great deal more about the subject under discussion than anybody else. This was one of those moments. The disembodied voice speaking fluently and informatively from the impossibly distant reaches of East Asia confirmed both Marston and Lambert’s vivid first impressions of the CIA structure on TYPHOON: that Jenson had delegated Josh Pinnegar to run the operation as a test of his worth, but that Pinnegar was just a kid. Miles Coolidge was the one driving the strategy.
He continued. “It’s a generally accepted view that separatists seeking to create an Eastern Turkestan were inspired by the defeat of the Soviet occupying force in Afghanistan and, more recently, by the post-Soviet independence of their neighbouring Muslim republics. However, there’s nothing like the same level of understanding or support for the Uighur cause on an international basis as there is for, say, Tibet.” Coolidge’s expert pronunciation of the word “Uighur” here-capturing the whistled “Ui” at the start, the swallowed “ghur” at the back-contrasted vividly with Pinnegar’s lazy Americanization. It was another mark against him. “In fact, there are probably only a handful of people in North America who really understand or care what’s going on up there.” If this was a dig at Marston, it had no effect. Reagan’s favourite son was nodding slowly whilst enthusiastically taking notes. “That said, there’s now every indication that the separatist movement is becoming increasingly coherent and well organized. Beijing is also worried about a possible domino effect if Urumqi falls, with Tibet and Taiwan following suit.”
“Urumqi being the capital of Xinjiang,” Marston said. He had taken the time to look at his map.
“That is correct, sir, yes.” Miles shook his head quietly in the booth, wondering who the hell Jenson and Pinnegar had got themselves involved with. “Probably I should make it clear at this stage that there are also significant oil reserves in the Tarim basin.”
The single word “oil” acted upon Michael Lambert like a shot of espresso. Oil was profit. Oil was power. A grey-haired executive in late middle age was suddenly lifted from his armchair slumber by visions of construction contracts, pipeline deals, Macklinson refineries and chemical plants.
“The Tarim basin?” he said, eyes squinting like knives.
Miles asked who was speaking and Lambert told him. “Call me Mike,” he said.
“Well, Mike, the Tarim basin is essentially the western section of Xinjiang province. It’s mostly sand. The Taklamakan. Locals call it the Desert of Death, the Place of No Return. The literal translation is ‘Go in, and you won’t come out.’ Either way, it’s a great spot for a vacation.”
It was the first joke of the meeting. Sally-Ann smiled into her lap, Josh and Jenson dutifully smirked, while Lambert and Marston dwelled with regret on the cruel indifference of Chinese geography. Getting oil out of a desert made life infinitely more complicated.
“However, regardless of what goes on there, if the economy accelerates in China over the next fifteen years in the way most analysts are predicting, Beijing is going to need to import a further twenty million tons of oil in that period just to maintain current growth trends.” A car alarm triggered on 5th Street and Miles was asked to repeat what he had said. Josh picked up the baton.
“So the communist government is obviously keen to keep a hold of Xinjiang,” he said. Sally-Ann gave him an encouraging smile. “In case there’s something down there. In case there’s oil or gas.”
“It’s not definitely there?” Lambert looked confused. He hadn’t been expecting a qualifier. Did Xinjiang possess significant oil reserves or not? Marston was staring at the speakers. He seemed to be wondering the same thing.
“Not definitely.” Josh picked through his notes until he arrived at a Canadian SIS report on oil exploration in Central Asia. “The situation is not dissimilar to what’s going on in the Caspian Sea right now. Nobody knows how much oil, how much gas they’ve got down there.”
Miles eased back in. “I might have to disagree with that analysis, Josh.” Prior to the meeting, the three men from the CIA had taken part in a telephone conversation in which Jenson had stressed the importance of presenting a united front at all times to Macklinson executives. Miles was aware that his contradiction would reflect badly on Josh, but knew that it was essential to point out the error. “It’s a common misconception that China doesn’t have any oil,” he said. Josh did what he always did when he felt uncomfortable and patted down his hair. “In fact, quite the opposite. The Chinese authorities have known about the oil and gas potential in Xinjiang for decades. The China National Petroleum Corporation began exploration and production activity in the early 1950s. We don’t really know too much about this in the West because foreign involvement has been limited. That, coupled with the difficulty of operating in what is an extremely hostile and remote region, has also thwarted investment.”
Lambert looked crushed.
“Nevertheless, Xinjiang is going to remain of huge strategic importance to Beijing as a conduit for any oil coming in by pipeline from, say, Kazakhstan. This is the point I think Mr. Pinnegar was about to make when he referenced the Caspian basin.” It was a skilful redressing of the balance and Josh made sure to catch Marston’s eye. “The question everybody out here wants an answer to is how that oil travels to markets in China, Korea and Japan if Urumqi falls. There isn’t any alternative route unless you detour through Russia.”
Marston looked down at his map. With his fingernail he traced an imaginary pipeline from Baku which passed through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, east via disputed Kashmir and finally into Tibet. An impossible journey. He felt a strange surge of empathy for his political brethren in Beijing and realized, with a fizz of satisfaction, that Xinjiang was the key. TYPHOON had its target.
“Could I also add a note on China’s nuclear capabilities?” Josh asked.
Nobody seemed particularly interested in this. Marston was gazing at the speakers again. Eventually, when nobody responded to the question, Jenson said, “Go ahead, Josh.”
“Well, largely as a relic of the Cold War era, China still maintains a huge military presence, both ground and air, in Xinjiang. Most of its nuclear ballistic missiles are also housed there and we’ve seen up to fifty nuclear tests conducted in the Taklamakan desert since the mid-1960s. Those tests have further fuelled separatist violence in the region. Muslim groups ask, with some justification, why Turkic peoples are being subjected to fallout, ground-water contamination and birth defects while the Han population to the east sleeps soundly in their beds.”
Marston stirred. “So you’re saying these guys are ripe for revolution?”
Josh risked a gentle put-down. “Well I wouldn’t want us to get too ahead of ourselves, but you would certainly have to look at the Uighur population and conclude that the notion of separation from the state wouldn’t be a particularly hard sell.”
“Does somebody want to put that in plain English?”
Jenson defended his man against yet another Marston attack. The former Assistant Secretary of Defense was incapable of conducting himself in a professional environment without finding at least one individual to pick on. Usually it was Sally-Ann, but in the late twentieth century’s rampant climate of political correctness, he didn’t want to appear sexist. “What Josh is saying, Bill, is that the Uighurs are sick of being treated as third-class citizens.” Sally-Ann looked up at Josh and did something with her eyes which he interpreted as sympathetic. “Fifty years ago, Xinjiang was their country. When Mao came to power in ‘49, Uighurs made up-what? — about eighty per cent of the population. Today that figure stands at somewhere nearer fifty. There’s been a deliberate policy of Han immigration to dilute the ethnic group.”
“Stalin had the same routine,” Lambert muttered. “Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania. Same routine.” Marston, a fellow Cold Warrior, made a noise which confirmed this. He liked to be reminded of the good old days.
“Stalin had nothing on these guys,” Josh replied. If his voice had assumed a tone of mild insolence it was because he no longer cared what Marston thought of him. He just wanted to get to the nub of the issue and then break for lunch. “The Communist Party hands out financial rewards to Han who intermarry with Uighur Muslims. They’ve also waived the one-child policy for their offspring.”
