Dragon Fire

Prime Minister’s Residence, Race Course Road, New Delhi, India

‘Cancel the visit to Beijing,’ said Hari Dixit.

‘If you call it off now, the relationship will take years to repair,’ said Prabhu Purie, the Foreign Minister.

Hari Dixit screwed one of the satellite photographs into a ball and hurled it into the corner of the room. ‘They are blatantly breaking international law.’

‘But they regard the SFF attack on Lhasa—’

‘That was not authorized by my government. The force which carried it out has been disbanded. If we end up going to war over that, then we would have ended up going to war anyway, over something else.’ Dixit turned to the Chief of Army Staff. ‘Mr Krishnan, what is your view?’

‘At some stage, possibly months ahead, it will become public knowledge that you visited China, well aware that it was secretly shipping nuclear weapons to Pakistan. Unless those weapons are withdrawn — and I doubt they will be — India will have emerged as the weaker of the two new Asian powers. It is similar to the missile crisis when the Soviet Union tried to ship nuclear weapons to Cuba. I agree with Prabhu’s sentiments. He is correct about China’s reaction. But we have to face them down.’

‘Chandraji?’

‘I think China’s chosen this moment for a shakedown of the Asian powers. I don’t know why, sir. But I agree with the Chief of Army Staff.’

‘Prabhu, call our ambassador in Beijing and cancel my visit. Give him the reasons. We’ll convene a full meeting of the National Security Council and decide how much to release into the public domain.’