The Enemy Inside

TWENTY-FOUR

The Creeping Dragon nearly glowed with pride. His people had launched three small objects into orbit around the earth, antisatellite devices intended to blind and deafen America and its allies if and when the time came for war. The weapons had been hurled into space atop a Chinese launcher and were already conducting maneuvers as they circled the planet.

One of the weapons was equipped with a long extension arm capable of attacking American military and intelligence satellites and literally tearing them apart. It was part of the growing Chinese Star Wars program, a program that the current American administration pretended did not exist.

US satellites that had allowed America to dazzle the world with its military prowess through two Gulf wars were vulnerable to any adversary possessing the technology to destroy their eyes in the sky.

China not only had the ASAT (antisatellite) technology, but believed itself to be further advanced in this field than any other nation. More to the point, at a time when China was increasing its military and scientific research budgets, the United States was going in the opposite direction. America was reducing the size of their military to a level not seen since before the Great War, what the Americans called World War Two.

Cheng would meet up with Ying, his American asset, in little more than a week in Hong Kong, where the man came occasionally for quick trips to visit his money.

The bureau’s assessment had already been delivered to the Chinese premier and to the standing committee of the Politburo. It was without question far more candid and certainly more realistic than the American president’s last State of the Union message.

China had identified the problems of a budding cancer in the US body politic forty years earlier, even as the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard were turning their own country toward chaos. Leaders in China and within the Chinese Army had reacted with an uprising of their own, deposing the “Gang of Four,” Mao’s wife and her cadre, who had given rise to ideological chaos.

A new generation of leaders pulled China back from the brink and set it on a rational course toward modernization. It was a program that required hard work, discipline, and a firm controlling hand by those in power.

Theirs, the new China, was not to be an open and unbridled democracy with its fits and starts and messy course alterations dictated by elections. Modern China would be a nation with vision and a program capable of taking the country and its people into the future.

Most of all, it would possess what America lacked-a well-designed, long-term strategic plan for the direction of the nation, but equally important, the sustained political will to carry it through.

The irony was that many in America thought of China as a socialist state. Yet it was America and its current crop of leaders who promised not only an open and free society but also a national government that was the planet’s ultimate nirvana. A place where if power was transferred to them, these politicians would guarantee a flawless social safety net for all.

The problem was they could not pay for it. They financed it by plundering the surplus trust funds of other programs that they had been bleeding for decades, and in more recent years by selling US Treasuries to Cheng’s own government.

The United States had been digging a deep hole for itself for at least three decades. American leaders sat by watching as vast sectors of their heavy industry hemorrhaged and ultimately fled offshore. Factories that didn’t leave closed down. Some politicians actually assisted these industries in their departure. Many Americans didn’t understand why. The politicians created cover for themselves claiming that this was all part of the “new world order.”

The next round of leaders seemed stunned when they woke up to realize that many of these corporations, multinational American giants, were no longer paying taxes on their overseas income. Wonder of wonders! To cap it off, these selfsame leaders couldn’t agree on a feasible method to encourage or force these companies to bring the money home. To the contrary they passed tax laws that actually discouraged this.

Cheng smiled. The bomb that was killing the United States was not hydrogen, atomic, or neutron. It was either stupidity or corrupt leadership, or both. And in Cheng’s view it was sucking the air out of America. China had become America’s banker for a simple reason. The United States needed ever-increasing infusions of cash.

Americans were told they could have it all. They were, after all, a rich nation!

Some US leaders invited the destitute of the world to cross their leaking borders with assurances that they would be entitled to the same. All that was required was political acquiescence to the politicians making the promises. They extolled America as the “great melting pot” and in the next breath engaged in dangerous games, pitting one group against another, then summed it all up by saying that “Americans needed to come together!” The nonsense made Cheng’s eyes water with laughter.

The reality was that in America the truly rich had regiments of lawyers and accountants with numberless schemes to avoid taxes. And when that wasn’t possible, they could hide their money offshore. There were members of Congress who knew that, because that’s where they hid theirs.

It was irony indeed that in the late 1980s as Beijing edged closer to reclaiming control over the island of Hong Kong and its adjoining territories, many wealthy Chinese abandoned the island, seeking refuge in the West. This despite the fact that Chinese leaders gave firm assurances that they would not interfere with the financial gold mine that comprised international trade in Hong Kong.

Recently there had been difficulties in Hong Kong, demands for democracy. But Cheng knew in the end that Beijing would win. The answer, as always, was patience.

Land prices in Hong Kong were higher than ever, the highest in the world, and business thrived. The reality was that those with power and wealth always thrived, no matter the nature of the political process. To Cheng it was ironic to watch the wealthy capitalists in Hong Kong side with the Communist government in Beijing. Both wanted the same thing, stability. Democracy was expendable. Money could still be made. China needed capital from the West to fuel its modernization on the mainland. Accordingly they did what was necessary to carry the nation forward.

Why slam the door closed in Hong Kong when you could filter the message of libertine freedom from the West and use the open door of commerce and China’s favorable wage rates to bleed your adversary dry? And besides, what better place to do business if your craft was espionage than your own island of economic avarice?