Dragon Strike: The Millennium War

FIVE

There was an air of quiet control in the room. No movement was wasted. Everyone was concentrating on the task at hand: a successful detonation and a comprehensive monitoring of the result… 6, 5, 4, 3, 2…

In an underground nuclear explosion, the force is initially contained within the surrounding rock. The energy, unable to spread out as it would in the atmosphere, soon vaporizes the rock, creating a large hole. The pressure within this cavity rises to millions of atmospheres. The vapours expand in all directions, pulverizing rock further and further away from the point of detonation. Within 80 nanoseconds (80 thousand millionths of a second) the temperature at the bottom of the Ogasawara well was 130,000,000 degrees centigrade and the pressure 100,000,000 atmospheres. The Japanese had detonated the device far enough underground for most of the shock wave created by the explosion to be contained within the Earth's crust. Part of the wave, however, always breaks through the surface, where a tell-tale subsidence crater is visible; as it travels upwards it creates a chimney, whose floor is the explosion cavity, littered with pulverized rock. The rest of the wave travels through the ground that contained the explosion, taking many forms: a series of alternating compressions, a `shear wave' which oscillates up and down, and a series of waves through the earth that resemble the waves of the ocean. Whichever form they take, however, the waves travel a vast distance, carrying an echo of the explosive event all the way around the world. It was this shock wave that special seismographs at Lop Nor in China and observation stations in Australia, Russia, and America detected soon after detonation. It was the first test of a nuclear weapon since 1996, when an international ban was agreed by the nuclear powers. Without warning to any of its allies, Japan had entered the nuclear club.

Massive television screens mounted on the sides of buildings throughout the city played news programmes about the killings through the night, interspersed with the first breaking news about Japan's nuclear test, the sinking of the Peleliu, and the escalating fear of war in East Asia. In a carefully balanced diplomatic act, South Korea condemned the Japanese nuclear test, regretted the sinking of the Peleliu, but urged restraint on all sides. In a private exchange it called on China to condemn North Korea's terrorist campaign in the South. American and South Korean troops guarding the Demilitarized Zone were issued with new body armour. Troops at the heavily fortified Fort Boniface some way back from the DMZ were put on the highest alert.

Just before dawn tens of thousands of North Korean students and trade unionists, in a well-organized demonstration, were chanting across the dividing line of the row of huts on the Panmunjon truce village. Waving flags, they demanded immediate unification with the South. North Korean generals gathered on the balcony of a meeting house only metres from the demarcation line. Just over a kilometre away loudspeakers rigged to a 160 metre high flagpole, the tallest in the world, broadcast anti-American propaganda. The slogans hailed the ideals of the Juche philosophy created by the Communist dictator Kim Il-Sung, who was installed by Stalin after the Second World War and ruled until his death in 1994. In 1950 he invaded the South, and with Chinese help produced a military stalemate with the Americans and Allied forces which was still in place today. Juche meant self-reliance and this philosophy had cut North Koreans off from the rest of the world for more than fifty years. They were controlled as no other people had been before and were told they lived in a paradise. Kim became the Great Leader, a godlike figure, many of whose people were so ignorant that they were not aware that a man had landed on the moon. He bequeathed the mantle of leadership to his erratic and spoilt son, Kim Jong-Il, and it was his message which was now bloodying the streets of South Korea. As a microcosm of the facade of North Korea, the village around the flagpole was uninhabited, although lights in the empty apartment buildings automatically turned on and off in an attempt to trick South Korean peasants into believing in the crumbling regime across the line.

A North Korean armoured personnel carrier drove into the DMZ, blatantly breaking the truce agreement which banned all weapons from the area. American and South Korean troops held their fire. 500 kilometres to the south, outside the port of Pusan, a South Korean merchant ship hit a newly laid North Korean mine and sank. The crew were rescued. Police sealed off universities in the main South Korean cities and arrested students suspected of supporting reunification with the North. For years the security forces had claimed that North Korean agents were infiltrating the universities. Today, stunned by events, no one came forward to mount the usual protests.

In an announcement, the South Korean government claimed that China had condemned North Korea, but there was no confirmation of this from Beijing. The details of the exchanges between the two governments only emerged later, when the complex role that China had played became apparent. During the first two days of the conflict, Seoul's Ambassador to Beijing was told only that China considered chaos on the Korean peninsula an internal affair and that it was friends to both countries. Under no circumstances would it interfere.

Two South Korean Tologorae and four Cosmos class mini-submarines which had left their base on Cheju Island, 60 kilometres south of the peninsula, were now in position in three groups in waters off both the east and west North Korean coasts. Each group was escorted by a larger Chang Bogo Type 209/1200 general-purpose attack submarine. The vessels were built in the Daewoo shipyard based on a German design and several of the thirty-three crewmembers had gone to Germany for training. Like their counterparts in the North, the small submarines were used for coastal infiltration, except these had never been in real action before. Now their mission was to destroy the bases for the North Korean mini-submarines at Cha-ho, Ma Yangdo, and Song Jon Tando, on the east coast, and the smaller base of Sagon-ni on the west coast.

At the first crisis cabinet meeting since the attacks began the American-educated South Korean President Kim Hong-Koo asked bluntly whom his colleagues thought China supported: even the South Koreans, steeped in the shadow-puppetry and nuances of East Asian political life, could not read the signals from Beijing.

`Our policy has always been unification by peaceful means and when the time is right,' said the president. `We have never wanted a German model. The humiliation and loss of face for the North is not suited to our East Asian style of politics. The cost would also be prohibitive. It would damage our economic expansion at a time when our manufacturing base is beginning to compete head-on with the Japanese in the global market. Yet it seems the North is intent on wrecking the status quo. I would like to assume that it has not been encouraged by Beijing. If I am right in thinking that Chinese troops and weapons would not be used against us, it would be impossible for them to win. I would also like to assume that whatever their nuclear capability, either the detonation or the delivery system will not work. I would lastly like to assume that there are people working with Kim Jong-Il who have a degree of common sense.'

`You are assuming a lot, Mr President,' interjected the Defence Minister.

`Yes, I am,' the President replied. `But if I don't, the two Koreas will sink very quickly into an apocalyptic bloodbath of destruction far greater than loss of face and unification. The most immediate task, gentlemen, is to neutralize the special forces troops now operating here and ensure they cannot strike again. We have to believe that if we do the South will not be subject to nuclear attack.'

The last time the President spoke to Makoto Katayama, the Japanese Ambassador, was on Monday evening, when the two had met at the National Gallery. The meeting had not gone well. Katayama wanted to press him for a decision on military intervention in the South China Sea and the President was not prepared to give it. Now Katayama had been summoned to explain why Japan had detonated a 50 kiloton nuclear warhead in the Ogasarawas.

Ambassador Katayama was shown in. He was tall for a Japanese, nearly 2 metres, and he looked older than his fifty-four years. His hair was thinning and he had a gentle stoop which lent a slightly scholarly air to his appearance. Katayama's posting in Washington was near its end. He would be returning to Tokyo in the late spring to take up the position of Administrative Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Gaimusho (Foreign Ministry). It was the most senior job a fast-track official in the Gaimusho like him could aspire to. It would place him at the head of foreign policy development in Japan and it crowned a glittering career which had begun more than thirty years before with a first-class honours degree from the law school of Tokyo University.

The President gestured to a settee to the right of his own armchair and enquired whether the Ambassador would prefer tea, coffee, or something stronger. Katayama declined, and sat there waiting for the silence to be broken. The President cleared his throat. `Well, Mr Ambassador, what are we to make of events at Ogasawara? I can tell, just having read the Washington Post's poll of American attitudes to Japan, you have opened a hornets' nest. What do you say?'

Katayama waited for what seemed like an eternity to reply. And then he spoke. `First of all, Mr President, may I, on behalf of the Japanese government and people of Japan, extend our profound sympathies at the loss of the USS Peleliu? It was a shock to us all. Tokyo has instructed our Ambassador in Beijing to make the strongest possible representations to the Chinese government. Now I turn to answer your question. It is a matter greatly to be regretted that things have come to this. But they have, and we have to move forward, not back,' he said. `The simple fact is, Mr President, that you and your country can no longer make good your security treaty with us. This has been amply demonstrated by the events of this week. We understand that and have understood it for some time. The days of Americans fighting wars in Asia are over. You have made your sacrifices, you have safeguarded this region while we have grown strong and rich. But there comes a time in the maturity of nations when we have to bid our foster parents farewell and stand on our own two feet. We've had our growing pains. Need I remind you of New Zealand's effective pull-out from the ANZUS treaty in the early 1980s, your ejection from the Philippines in the early 1990s, and the hostility you've found in Okinawa since the mid 1990s? That your military withdrawal from Asia should coincide with the rise of China as a superpower was, as your government well knows, a matter of grave concern for us. It was a concern that was made no easier to bear with our own people by the incessant attacks successive governments have made on us in the area of trade. And all along you have said, spend more on defence. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand require us to pay ever increasing amounts for our own defence and on the other seek to determine how we then act. That I think is what is meant by the term "imperial overreach", is it not? Japan, Mr President, has not stood still during this period. A new post-war generation has come to power. It has no memory of the Pacific War, it only has questions as to why Japan cannot look after its own affairs.

`Why are you surprised by our modest nuclear test? As I am sure you know better than I, the US government has been providing Japan with the technical know-how to build a nuclear device for well over a decade. We did not take the decision to go down the nuclear route lightly. This did not just mean building some bombs, it meant also having the capability to deliver them. And we have the capability, within a regional context, to deliver a nuclear warhead with accuracy.

`What I think you want to know is our intentions. Prime Minister Hyashi will be making an address to the nation on that matter shortly. I cannot pre-empt it but I can assure you that it holds no genuine surprises, that we look forward to continued close cooperation with the United States. But let me say this. We are in Asia; you are not. We have to deal with China as a military threat and a commercial opportunity; you just have to manage a commercial relationship. Our position is more complex as well. We have the legacy of history to overcome. Even as we speak, we have to assess this new outbreak of violence on the Korean peninsula. Here is a dangerous and unpredictable flashpoint in which people will look to Japan for leadership. All this will be the challenge of Japanese diplomacy in the coming years. As for American public opinion, we look to you to give your people the lead. Racism, an ugly word, has always been part of our relationship. Through leadership, on both sides, it can be ameliorated if not completely eradicated. We cannot run our affairs on the basis of opinion polls in newspapers.'

American satellite photographs showed no abnormal activity on the heavily fortified front line between North and South. The hills and rice paddies, covered with snow, frost, and thick ice, appeared as they always had done at this time of year. North Korean peasants worked muffled up against the sub-zero temperatures and biting winds. The food and fuel shortages had gripped their country for more than six years now since the first devastating floods. Bad times had arrived shortly after the death of Kim Il-Sung and they were not so sure about his reclusive son. They called him `the iron lord of all creatures' and `the great military strategist'. But Kim Jong-Il rarely went out among the people, nor did he offer guidance on agriculture, industry, and the Juche philosophy, as his father had. In the elite circles of Pyongyang there were stories of Kim Jong-Il in wild parties with prostitutes from Scandinavia, France, and Britain; of his drinking; of his deep depressions and uncontrollable temper. No one was sure of the true character of this enigmatic leader. But for the peasants he had certainly not been able to safeguard Korea from natural disasters. They lived on barely subsistence diets and it had been more than a year since their homes had had electricity or any fuel for heating.

Yet just underneath their fields were enough supplies to sustain whole towns, a complex of military installations which this most secretive country built to unleash its offensive against the South when the time was right. Artillery, tanks, fighter aircraft, and helicopters were hidden in tunnels and huge caves hewn out of the mountains. North Korea believed it could launch an intensive surprise attack by delivering artillery support without exposing the weapons. Short-range firepower would come from tank and mechanized units. Hundreds of amphibious vehicles would cross the Imjin River to send in troops and equipment. More than 2,000 prefabricated floating bridges were ready to replace the existing bridges which would be blown by retreating allied forces. In the late Nineties, Pyongyang had tightened its own defences with more than 15,000 antiaircraft guns, together with 500 surface-to-air missiles and a new early warning radar system to intercept intruding aircraft, while the North's 170mm cannon and 240mm rockets would pound the heart of Seoul. One of the first targets would be Seoul's 88 Freeway, which straddled the city but could be used as a runway for the South's fighter jets.

As South Korea's special forces commandos left their submarines and headed for the Northern coastline, defence officials in Seoul were drawing up plans to defend the city in the worst-case scenario of a full-frontal assault from the North.

Each of the commandos knew the base he was attacking as if it was his own. They had studied photographs and been trained in model layouts, although none had believed they would ever have to move in for real as they were now. At Ma Yangdo twenty-four men made landfall inside the base perimeter to avoid the mined terrain on the other side of the fence. Six broke away, killed the guards, and waved ten other men forward. The remainder stayed with the boats. Explosives were laid around the main buildings and the fuel and ammunition dumps. Frogmen attached mines to twelve North Korean mini-subs on delayed timers. Three Soju class fast-attack craft were also in the port: mines were attached to them as well. Within ten minutes, and without being detected, the raiding party had finished its task. The explosives were designed to terrify and destroy. They cut through the buildings, spraying out smaller devices which booby-trapped the whole area around. North Korean troops were wounded and killed by them hours after the attack. The base itself was rendered inoperative, and before pulling away from the combat area mines were laid at the entrance of the port. Two of the other attacks also went according to plan, but at Sagon-ni a North Korean guard spotted the raiding party as the men came ashore. He opened fire, killing two immediately and wounding three more. Spotlights lit up the whole base and alarms wailed as the North Koreans took up positions on rooftops with heavy machine-guns. Six commandos slipped into the water and escaped. Five others were gunned down and at least four were captured alive. A television broadcast from Pyongyang showed the bodies of the commandos, filmed as they lay on the ground in the base. The newscaster interviewed South Korean prisoners, their heads hanging and rolling from side to side in what was meant to be a guilt-racked confession. The South denied the report outright. It said the men were North Korean actors. No mention was made by either side of the successful operations against the three other naval bases.

The exclusive front-page story in the third edition of Britain's Guardian newspaper reached the desks of world leaders less than half an hour after the newspaper hit the streets of London. It was judged important enough by the aides of the American President and British Prime Minister to be read raw without abridgement in bullet points on a briefing paper.

The article was written by the paper's award-winning Tokyo correspondent, Martin Miller, whose contacts in the security and defence industries were legendary. The swiftness with which he had compiled his well-documented account led to accusations that Miller had known of the Japanese plans to conduct a nuclear test for some weeks. But Miller turned the finger of blame back to the American establishment. The headline read: America gave them the bomb with no regrets.

Japan's explosion of a small nuclear warhead came as no surprise to many Washington officials who for some years had advocated a controlled end to the outdated American security pact with Japan. While America's public policy was one of nuclear non-proliferation, a group of powerful officials has for many years been coaxing Japan towards the hallowed nuclear fellowship. They began during the Reagan and Bush administrations when the Soviet Union was seen as the major threat in the Pacific. After that, they believed as an inevitability that at some stage America's security role in East Asia would have to end, probably because of a challenge from an unfriendly power with whom it didn't want to fight. They decided, therefore, to help Japan, a staunch ally, to obtain a nuclear arsenal, before either India or Pakistan declared their bombs or China attempted to test the military resolve of its smaller Asian neighbours.

The policy was blindly simple. America and Europe helped Japan acquire a large stockpile of separated plutonium which immediately gave it an ability to make nuclear weapons. Much of the help came from Savannah River Laboratory. Scientists there passed on technology and hardware for use in two Japanese fast-breeder reactors (FBRs), producing high-quality plutonium, and considered a major threat to nuclear proliferation. The principal behind the FBR is that more plutonium is produced than is consumed. The extra plutonium can be used for other FBRs and so on. However, the FBRs also create plutonium which is far purer than even the weapons-grade plutonium. The International Atomic Energy Agency categorizes Japan's type of plutonium as `super-grade'.

Congress effectively terminated America's FBR programme in 1983, even before US construction began. But Japan operates two facilities. One is the Joyo FBR at the Oarai Research Centre north of Tokyo, which reached criticality in 1977. The second is the Monju FBR near Tsuruga on the coast of the East Sea, west of Tokyo. Monju went critical in 1994. Of critical importance to the development of the nuclear programme was the Rokkasho Mura facility in Amori prefecture. Covering a vast site, the Japanese spent $18 billion on a fuel reprocessing plant alone. It is here that the Guardian understands the government also built a facility to take plutonium oxide, turn it into metal, and machine the metal into shapes suitable for weapons manufacture.

The move to close collaboration between the United States and Japan was sealed when it became clear that Japan was proceeding with FBRs yet America was not. Documents obtained by the Guardian highlight American commitment to keeping abreast of the FBR developments even though they were banned in the United States itself. In 1987, as the programme was being formulated, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review published the following: `… this collaboration will allow the United States to maintain a core of expertise;… technical experts can stay abreast of developments in the reprocessing field as they participate in a viable, long-term mission…' And a year later William Burch, director of the ORNL Fuel Recycle Division, said: `… the bilateral agreement will be mutually beneficial… Japan will be able to speed up its development period of reprocessing technology through its collaboration with the US, while also probably saving some money… For the US… the deal keeps us in the ball game…'

Both American and Japanese politicians have publicly denied Tokyo's intention of going nuclear. In November 1992, as part of its attempt to develop a self-sufficient nuclear fuel cycle, Japan began to import large quantities of separated plutonium. It now has as much as 50,000 kilograms and by 2010 it's expected to have 90,000. Japan has never been more than thirty days away from constructing a nuclear weapon. All it needed was the political decision, which has now been made.

The statistics are chilling. As little as 3 kilograms is needed for one nuclear warhead with an explosive equivalent to at least 20,000 tons of TNT. With its present stockpiles, it's thought Japan has enough super-grade plutonium for more than 200 warheads. They could be attached to advanced cruise missiles, which we may see in tests the Japanese are expected to begin in the next few days. They would weigh no more than 150 kilograms and have a range of about 2,500 kilometres. Defence experts say that at least two of the recently commissioned Harushio class submarines could now be nuclear armed. At the same time, Japan has developed its H-2 space launch vehicle, which the Pentagon says has recently been developed for military purposes. It includes an Orbital Re-entry Experiment capsule, with a payload capacity of 4,000 kilograms.

Japan has always reserved the right to go nuclear. Even in 1957, the then Prime Minister, Nobusuke Kishi, declared it was not unconstitutional for Japan to possess nuclear weapons provided they were within the definition of self-defence.

Since then subtle changes made to the constitution, coupled with a sea change in political thinking, has made the nuclear option acceptable. In October 1993 Masashi Nishihara of the National Defence Academy said: `We are scared of China. Either we can allow China to become dominant, or we can be more equal by confronting them.' Nishihara believed Japan should treat China as the United States had treated the Soviet Union: face them down, then negotiate arms reduction treaties. But to do that, Japan needed the bomb. China's takeover of the South China Sea was the catalyst. Since the early nineties, concern has been growing throughout Asia about China's increased military budget and its plans for territorial expansion. Unconfirmed but well-publicized reports say that since the 1996 stand-off with two American carrier groups off the Taiwan Straits billions of dollars have been redirected to modernize the Chinese army and navy. But it is still no match for either America or Japan. Today, those two countries share global superpower status. Japan, as the new kid on the block, is being warned that any repeat of its Second World War atrocities will not tolerated.

While Asia is both suspicious and resentful of Japan, the alternative is even more ominous e secretive, non-accountable, non-democratic, unmodernized regime of China. Over the next few weeks, the United States will encourage Asians and Americans to bury their memories of more than fifty years ago, and welcome Japanese military power as the new regional security umbrella. Japanese missiles may be able reach American and Indian cities. But today you can be sure they are programmed only towards China.

The task of explaining America's hidden policy lay with Marty Weinstein, the National Security Adviser, whom the President summoned as soon as he had finished reading the article. He asked for an explicit memorandum addressing the points raised by the Guardian, and an opinion poll among those who had read the article to gauge the public level of support. Weinstein explained that while Martin Miller was broadly correct, there had not been an administration policy to help Japan build a nuclear bomb. American nuclear scientists simply wanted to keep abreast of technological development in a field for which Congress had cut off funds. No American laws had been broken. Without the cooperation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Japan would still have nuclear weapons today.

`Marty, explaining away secrets doesn't worry me. We do that all the time. But before sending a task force to blast the Chinese out of the South China Sea, I need to decide whether we should now condemn or cooperate with Japan. Which course would save American lives and protect our national interests?'

`I believe we should opt for cooperation, Mr President. At the end of the day Japan is an ally. We have no conflict of interests.'

`All right. But spell it out, Marty. As I will have to spell it out to the nation.'

`Let's promote it as burden sharing. American cannot indefinitely police the world. So, let's look first at the threat and then with whom we are best allied. In Europe, we can absolutely rely on the British and usually on the French. They are the grown-ups of the security alliance. They're nuclear. The others waver. We have no major unbreakable alliances in South Asia or the Middle East. India would be a natural ally. But historically it's suspicious. It has its own superpower aspirations. Our friends in the Middle East such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia have domestic political considerations to take into account. In the long term the danger is similar to that of China. The Islamic political and cultural system does not blend with ours. The values and aspirations are different. There is only so far a relationship can go. In East Asia, the ASEAN nations will waver. They know they can't take on either China or Japan. They prefer us but sense our time is up. They are pragmatic people. Their focus is on trade and development. They will accept a new order in China or Japan as long as it doesn't jeopardize trade. And we have the wobble of Russia. No one knows what will happen there. Russia is nuclear.

`Over the next fifty years or so Russia, China, and India will jostle for superpower position. Fine, none is a rogue state.'

`Marty,' interrupted the President, `China has attacked Vietnam, taken over sea lanes to the Pacific, and sunk one of our warships with a huge loss of life.'

`Mr President, I'm talking from the viewpoint of history. We can sanction and bomb Iraq, Libya, Panama. We know their leaders are despots. China is not in that category, and I believe we must approach this from that angle. Look what's happened at the UN Security Council. Beijing vetoes every proposal we put forward.'

`OK. Go on.'

`We might have a public policy to fight two major campaigns at once, but as I said, it's becoming impossible because of budget cuts to the military. If we commit to the South China Sea, we will leave another flank wide open. For example, the Sixth Fleet has a long-term NATO commitment in the Mediterranean. Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf remain areas of tension where we cannot afford to withdraw our forces. If Iran watched us at a stand-off with China, if we began to pour supplies into Vietnam or the Philippines as we did for the Gulf War in the 1990s, and then if Iran decided to flex its muscle in the Gulf, we couldn't handle it, Mr President. By that I mean we wouldn't be defeated in battle, but the costs, the body bags, the Middle Eastern and Oriental enemies on the television screens would turn the American people against what we're trying to achieve.'

`Like in the Vietnam War.'

`Precisely. We win on the battlefield but lose in Congress.'

`Are you speculating or do you know something, Marty?'

`I'm speculating with fact. China makes serious money out of selling weapons. In the last five-year period it came to more than $10 billion. Ninety per cent of that comes from the Middle East. Its closest relationship right now is with Iran, which, incidentally, is how they financed the sudden purchase of two very nasty warships from Russia in the past two years. They've bought the Sovremenny class frigates Vazhny and Vdumchivy, which we believe cost them a quarter of a billion dollars. These ships are armed to the teeth and what they carry isn't pretty, it's brutal stuff, Mr President. They scared us to hell in the Cold War days and they've now come back again to haunt us sailing under another flag. China's got missiles and nuclear technology. Iran's got oil money. Russia's got the toys.

`The Chinese violated the Missile Technology Control Regime [MTCR] accord which they signed in 1987. It bans the sale of missiles or technology for missiles that can carry a payload of more than 500 kilograms a distance of more than 300 kilometres. A year later, China sold thirty-six intermediate-range CSS-2 missiles to Saudi Arabia, which paid more than $3 billion for them. It was also working on a deal to sell its newly developed M-9 missiles to Syria. It's been involved with Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and a few others. The common factor uniting those countries, Mr President, is that they are Islamic.

`We first put pressure on China in 1987 when it sold Silkworm missiles to Iran. Then it got worse. In 1989 and 1991 Chinese and Iranian companies struck what in public looked like a commercial deal. But the product was nuclear electromagnetic separator for producing isotopes and a mini-type reactor. The Chinese said it was being used for peaceful purposes; for medical diagnosis and nuclear physics research.

`Atom bombs can be made using a concentrated uranium isotope. That particular deal was dropped, we think because the Russians came up with a better one. But let us assume that Iran is about where Iraq was in the early nineties. It's exploring the nuclear path, but isn't there yet. The next thing we know is that China's sent over what we call calutron equipment, which is needed to enrich uranium. Our intelligence also finds evidence of China supplying Iran with chemical weapons material, thiodiglycol and thionyl chloride, both of which are very nasty substances. The upshot is an aspiring nuclear enemy, possibly with an additional arsenal of mass-destruction chemical weapons. But so far Iran's delivery capability is limited.

`Then we spotted two convoys carrying twenty-six missiles as well as launchers and other accessories moving through the outskirts of Beijing over a three-day period. They went to the main northern port of Tianjin. We believe they were East Wind 31, an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 8,000 kilometres. They're propelled by solid-fuel rockets, can be moved around by trucks and fired quickly. We can't detect them easily and they're pretty accurate.'

`And Iran might have them in its arsenal?'

`We're pretty sure it has, Mr President. They're not the best China has. The East Wind 32 was tested in 2000. It was fired from Xinjiang in the far west and travelled 3,000 kilometres overland and into the South China Sea. Its range is 12,000 kilometres. Its payload can be a 700 kilogram nuclear warhead. If fired from Chinese soil, Mr President, the East Wind 32 could get to Alaska or Western Europe. We also believe they're working on a new submarine-launched ICBM. If they get one of those into the Pacific, they could attack Washington and New York.'

`Thank you, Marty,' said the President. `What exactly are you saying?'

`China sells cheap weapons to the Middle East. A Russian MiG-29 fighter costs around $25 million. A Chinese F-7M is no more than $4.5 million. It secures a relationship with oil-producing countries to ensure supplies for the 8,000,000 barrels a day it will need to import by 2010. It calculates that the relationship with the Islamic countries will withstand international pressure for sanctions against it. In the UN it uses its veto, as we know. With those blocks in place it takes over the South China Sea. After the 1996 stand-off during the Taiwan election, the PLA realized that it could not defeat our navy in battle, and wouldn't even be able to even equal it until around 2020. But it knows we can't handle two conflicts at the same time. So it ensures that Iran has the capability to start a diversion if we try another 1996 battle group deployment.'

`Do you know this will happen?'

`As I said, Mr President, our HUMINT is not good. We don't know what the leadership is thinking. But they don't want to fight us. They want us to lose our nerve and get out of the Pacific. In a normal world, all our concentration would be on this mess on the Korean peninsula. As it is, our resources are deployed against China and we're mostly using Japanese intelligence on North Korean troop and naval movements. If we're going to stay there with any credibility we have to do it in an alliance with Japan as a military and nuclear power which can face down China and keep her at bay.'

Major Lon stared gap-mouthed as Lieutenant Claude Joffe of the French Army Signals Division set up his laptop computer. A French corporal orientated what appeared to be a satellite dish, but instead of heavenwards he pointed it south to Hanoi and the French Embassy there. Soon the exact location of all Chinese units presently flooding across the border would appear on Lieutenant Joffe's screen. The clouds over the battlefield had parted, giving the French spy satellite ideal conditions for monitoring troop movements 100 kilometres below.

300 kilometres to the north-west, in Nanning, a Chinese battlefield manager, Qiao Xiaoming, was engaged in much the same task, at much the same time. He was using a Thomson-CSF Star Burst battlefield information manager which enabled him to communicate electronically and through radio with officers in the field who had mobile versions of his equipment. The graphic display was functioning perfectly. Each armoured division and infantry battalion was illuminated on the screen before him. The images were not photographs, they were more schematic, but with the aid of a computer mouse he could zoom in on any unit and know its strength and capability and exact location in the jungles and on the roads of Vietnam to within 1 metre.

The humble camera had come a long way: it was now digital and connected to a high-speed computer and transmitter: but the satellite the French had stationed above the battlefield did more than just take photographs, process them, and instantaneously send them to an earth receiver. It also possessed a powerful transmitter for other equally secret operations. Like the Americans and the British, French arms manufacturers of `intelligent' weapons liked to stay in control of what they sold to foreign governments, so they wired into the hardware of each piece of military hardware a device that could be activated remotely to render it useless. It could be turned on and off at will, suggesting to the unwary that it was suffering a malfunction. It was insurance, taken out on the basis that today's client might be tomorrow's enemy, or the enemy of a friend. The beauty of it was that the interference could not be traced back to the manufacturer — the Trojan Horse was wired into the silicon chips that in this case animated the Star Burst system.

As Qiao Xiaoming watched 50,000 Chinese troops flow across the Vietnamese border, supported by 250 battle tanks and numerous trucks and lighter vehicles, he was not sure whether to marvel at the wonders of modern science or give in to a sentimental feeling of pride at the activities of his comrades. He did not have time to mull the decision. His screen flickered and then the images upon it dissolved before his eyes. He hit it but it did not respond. He pressed an emergency call button, and then he turned the Star Burst system off and then on again. It seemed to right itself for a moment and then went blank. By the time it did that, half a dozen senior PLA officers were standing around with a look of horror on their faces. To a man they knew that their ability to manage the attack on Lang Son had just slipped from their grasp.

Noburo Hyashi had been waiting all his political life for this moment — the day when he would lead Japan into complete independence and freedom. The NHK television crew was busying itself in his office with lights and leads for microphones. Frank Lloyd Wright, the American architect, had designed the official residence of the Japanese Prime Minister, which was situated in Nagatacho, near the Diet (parliament) building. While Hyashi had no particular liking for Americans as such he had grown to like his official residence. Lloyd Wright's use of blond woods was particularly attractive. He also put big windows in the walls which let in light and enabled Hyashi to look out on one of the most perfectly maintained small Japanese gardens in Tokyo. From his office he looked straight into a plum tree in full blossom. Prime Ministerial addresses to the nation were rare in Japanese politics. The usual practice would be for the Prime Minister (flanked by his cabinet three steps behind) to stand at a lectern in an anonymous white-walled room, make a small speech, and then take overlong questions from reporters. His Private Secretary cleared most of the papers from his desk. A tilted plastic autocue was placed directly in front of the desk, below the line of sight of the camera but high enough so it looked as though Hyashi was looking at the camera when he spoke.

`My fellow Japanese,' he began. `I have requested the opportunity to speak to you today to explain the current situation and the government's response to it. As you know the government of the People's Republic of China launched an unprovoked air attack on the Republic of Vietnam on Sunday. At the same time it instituted a blockade of the South China Sea, denying to Japan and other peace-loving peoples in Asia the use of a vital waterway, and this morning China launched an invasion across the Vietnamese border. We are also trying to assess the fresh outbreak of violence on the Korean peninsula and determine to what extent that also threatens long-term peace in the Pacific. Since 1960 Japan has enjoyed a military alliance with the United States. Part of the requirements that treaty places on its two signatories is for one to come to the aid of the other when its national interest is threatened. Your government decided that such a threat to Japan's survival was created by China's actions on Sunday and through diplomatic channels we sought to invoke our treaty with the United States. Sadly, we could not agree that such a threat existed.

`The government concluded that to all intents and purposes the military alliance which we had with the United States had ended. This left Japan little choice but to act independently. The first part of that independent action occurred this morning when our military forces tested a small nuclear device. I fully understand that given our own tragic experience of nuclear weapons, many of you will be saddened by news that we too possess such weapons. Some, indeed, may be even angry. To those who are I can do nothing more than offer my sincerest regrets.

`It is not the place of the Japanese Prime Minister to lecture the United States. But I cannot conclude this part of my address to you without one observation on racism. The Americans should admit that racial prejudice does not hold any solutions to the problems developing in the world today. It is important that they face the situation aware of the historical context, seeing that the reality is that the power in the world, including economic power, is shifting from West to East. It may not be as strong a shift as used to be expressed last century with talk about the "Pacific era", but at any rate it is in America's interest to rid itself of prejudice against Asia, including that against Japan, in order to maintain a position of leadership in the world.

`Our new position in the world will require us to make changes and sacrifices. Although your government seeks no more for Japan than that it should play a role commensurate with its economic position in the world, we will have to be sensitive to feelings of our neighbours as they adjust to the new realities. We cannot become overbearing, which will not be tolerated in the new era, but by the same token an inferiority complex is equally harmful. The Japanese must move out of their current mental stagnation. If you stay silent when you have a particular demand or an opposing position to express, the other party will take it for granted that you have no demand or opposition. When you close your mind to the outside, remaining in a uniquely Japanese mental framework, you will be isolated in this modern, interdependent world.

`Let me explain the new role for our nation which the government foresees. Japan should open its markets to the extent where there will be no room for complaints from foreign friends, and we should provide money to help developing countries where people are not being oppressed. Japan needs to become aware of its responsibilities. I realize there is a cost associated with this. Certainly the full opening of our markets, and the advancing of large sums of money to developing countries, will be very painful and costly. However, things will not get better in the world until the pain is shared more equitably. How much pain do you think was involved during the Meiji Restoration [1868] when the privileged class of samurai gave up their power, cut their special hairstyles, and tossed out their swords? It allowed a bloodless revolution to take place within Japan. We need such a peaceful revolution in Asia.

`In spite of the legacy of the past, Japan has the capability to take a lead in Asia. I offer two examples from opposite ends of the scale. Japanese popular songs are heard all over Asia today. Karaoke is the most popular form of home entertainment in our region. From Dalian to Sydney this quintessentially Japanese pastime is enjoyed. Then there are cultural treasures such as the Miroku Buddha, or the Horiyuji Temple. They attract interest and respect from all over the world, beyond national, racial, and cultural boundaries.

These are products of refinement from the Japanese people. The original image of Buddha came from India, by way of China and the Korean peninsula. The image of Buddha in Japan is the product of the refinement of Japanese art. The process has been constantly refined and it becomes a product of Japanese intellectual processes; it is clearly Japanese. Everything stops at Japan; the Japanese people refine what has come their way; Japan is the last stop in cultural transition. `These are noble aims for the future. Japan stands ready to offer assistance to our neighbours in Asia, near and far. At the moment, however, we face as serious a threat as we have ever faced. China's adventurism in the South China Sea cannot go unchecked. We have a responsibility to broker peace on the Korean peninsula. We have no desire for dominance in Asia. We seek only stability so that trade can flourish. Yet already one oil tanker bound for Japan has been hijacked. We have dispatched a naval group to the South China Sea. Initially it will conduct missile trials. It will also offer protection for Japanese and Japan-bound shipping.

`The Japanese government stands ready to discuss these matters with the Chinese government. A negotiated peaceful settlement to this crisis has always been and remains the top priority of the Japanese government.'

Hidei Kobayashi, the head of trading and strategy at Nomura Securities, switched the television set off. A hundred and one things were running through his mind at once as he tried to digest what the Prime Minister had said — shock at the nuclear test, fear at being cut adrift from the Americans, pride at hearing a Japanese speak so well — he'd tried to get all of that out of his mind and assess the investment decision. He did not take much time. He decided to buy selectively, especially in the defence area Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui, Nippon Steel, and Sumitomo Steel which he calculated would benefit from bigger orders in the future. After all, Hyashi had said a `security system to meet Japan's needs can be built' implying that it had not yet been completed. Even the might of the Nomura could not turn the market. Foreign selling had become overwhelming. The Nikkei index, which had plunged 1,678 on Tuesday, fell precipitously again. By the end of the morning session it was 2,063 lower at 35,559.

The yen was under enormous pressure. The Bank of Japan virtually stood in the market and bought all the yen the market wanted to throw at it. From its New York close of.75 it fell to.75 in the first hour of trading. It was precisely at this moment that Phillips executed his winning deal. He gave instructions for the remainder of the yen position First China had accumulated for General Zhao to be unwound. First China was sitting on a billion position — the remainder of the position it had built up when the yen was trading around to the dollar. In the London market the previous day some billion had been reversed, netting General Zhao profits in excess of $200 million. In the Tokyo market, First China locked in the remaining gains. With the Japanese currency having fallen 36 per cent weaker, First China moved to cover its position, pocketing the best part of $256 million in the process.

In Hong Kong the market had opened sharply down. Hyashi's television appearance was seen throughout Asia on Star TV, the regional satellite broadcaster. Old memories die hard and the behaviour of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War had been kept alive, partly because its deeds were so appalling and partly to use as a stick to beat Tokyo with whenever its compliance was needed. The market continued to slide all morning as Hong Kong Chinese investors liquidated their holdings of local stocks and switched their funds into US dollars. The Hong Kong dollar, pegged to the US dollar at a rate of HK$7.8 to $1 since September 1983, began to feel the strain of capital outflow. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which regulated banks and money markets, moved to support the local dollar by forcing a rise in interest rates. The authority was required by law to preserve exchange rate stability, so with the currency weakening it had to raise interest rates. This could not, however, have come at a worse time. The 0.5 per cent rise in short term interest rates to 11 per cent only served to weaken confidence in the stock market further.

With the subtitle `Breaking News' running at the bottom of the screen, CNN announced India's condemnation of Japan's nuclear threat. It was a `disgrace and an abomination for the future development of the world'. India also blamed China for initiating its attack on Vietnam. `That irresponsible act has been the catalyst for the creation of a new and unwelcome superpower. Just as the world was balanced, it has become tipped into a perilous adventure.'

Russia said the inevitable had happened: `Nothing on this Earth can stand still. Japan has now barged its way into our exclusive club. Whether or not she will become a welcome member will depend on the level of maturity with which she uses her newly declared power.' The Russian government made no criticism of Operation Dragonstrike.

South Africa described the test as a disappointing trend. `While South Africa and other nations voluntarily abandoned their programmes to go nuclear, Japan was secretly pursuing the path to creating the most destructive weapons available to man. We are waiting to hear what she hopes to achieve and more importantly what level of protection she will offer in treaty to non-nuclear governments and whether she will guarantee a no-strike policy against those of us without such weapons.'

The European Union said the test was a `regrettable and unnecessary change to Japanese policy'. Spain called for an immediate international conference to determine new rules for the nuclear powers. Britain spoke of `having to come to terms with the grim realism of international affairs. At the end of the day Japan is an ally of the democratic West.' Nothing should be done in the present `climate of unpredictability in the Pacific' to damage that alliance. France even came close to subtly contradicting the European Union statement. `It is regrettable that one Pacific rim country has committed an act of such unpalatable aggression to cause another to declare its nuclear arsenal. If it comes to conflict between China and Japan, the government of France will support the Japanese.'

Japanese early warning aircraft monitoring the theatre detected the launch of the Taepo-Dong ballistic missile from a site north of Pyongyang and within seconds South Korea fired Mark IV American-made Patriot missiles to intercept it. The Taepo-Dong had last been tested in 1998 and with a range of nearly 2,000 kilometres it could strike most places in North-East Asia. But the missile was destroyed well before it reached its intended target of Pusan, on the southern tip of the Peninsula. Then the Japanese spotted the mobile launchers for two shorter-range No-Dong missiles, both in the far north of the country near the Chinese border, where North Korea had built up its road and power infrastructure under the guise of creating a free-trade zone. Defence analysts believed the missiles were being moved out of hiding to launch places. While the defence network of Patriot missiles and early warning detection provided a formidable cover against attack, it was not watertight. The failure of Patriots against Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War was a grim reminder of South Korea's vulnerability. Killings were continuing in Seoul itself and North Korean saboteurs had begun a second wave of terror in Pusan and Mokpo in the far south.

In Pyongyang itself there was a diplomatic silence. From Beijing Jamie Song, momentarily diverted from Dragonstrike, put a call through to the North Korean capital in an attempt to talk to Kim Jong-Il. But the Foreign Minister's secretary said that as soon as she spoke the line went dead. All other numbers were either disconnected or rang without being answered. The Chinese Ambassador in Pyongyang said he had been trying to talk to the leadership for the past two days. The German Ambassador, one of the few Western diplomats accredited to the city, reported no unusual activity. There had been air-raid practices but this was routine. The city was blacked out after dark. Blinds were drawn down the windows of the Koryo Hotel, the only hotel open. Spotlights which usually lit up the Arch of Triumph, the statues of the Great Leader, the Juche Tower, and other symbols of North Korean greatness were turned off. But no extra troops were being openly deployed in this graceful totalitarian city, with wide boulevards for military displays, drab apartment blocks for the people, and imaginative monuments showing off the godlike qualities of Kim Il-Sung. The only sign of an impending war was the increased level of vitriol against America and South Korea on television and radio. `Our dear leader Kim Jong-Il is a genius at military strategy and a genius at military leadership,' was one radio message. `We have nothing to fear from the imperialist American invaders and their South Korean puppet army.' Meanwhile a television announcer chastised the selfishness of Western society: `To pursue the right of the individual is to be no better than a worm,' he said. `We have nothing to fear from the guns and missile of worms, for when they face the courageous and unselfish soldiers of the Juche idea, the worms will wriggle and crawl back into the ground.'

A squadron of South Korean F-16 aircraft crossed the Demilitarized Zone low enough to be underneath the enemy radar. They split into three groups to attack North Korean radar and air-defence positions with precision-guided bombs. The operation took a matter of minutes, but not without cost. The North Korean anti-aircraft defences, tested for the first time ever, were on a high alert and responded with enough accuracy to destroy two South Korean aircraft. As the South Korean pilots headed for home, the North scrambled its own aircraft, many of them from concealed hangars inside mountain bases. Over the next thirty minutes, South Korean air defences shot down five MiG-21 fighter aircraft, attacking them with surface-to-air missiles and F-16 fighters on both sides of the DMZ. One North Korean slipped through the first defences and crossed into South Korea, only to point his aircraft towards the sea and eject. He was picked up by American troops and taken straight in for interrogation. A second squadron of South Korean F-16s flew high above Pyongyang and further north to the suspected missile launch sites. They used both free-fall and guided bombs at points in the mountainous area specified on satellite photographs. As they headed back, one F-16 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The pilot died. The aircraft flew past a third squadron attacking radar and air-defence positions around Pyongyang, and a fourth which pounded the Yongbyon nuclear power facility, the focus of the North's nuclear weapons programme. For the next few hours, wave after wave of South Korean aircraft hit military installations in North Korea. Casualties were high. At the end of the day, South Korea had lost thirty-three aircraft. Only three pilots, who managed to nurse their planes back across the frontier, survived.

President Kim Hong-Koo spoke for less than ten minutes to Jamie Song in Beijing, after which he called a full meeting of the South Korean cabinet. `The Chinese government says it will support any action we take to neutralize North Korea. The view from Beijing is that the present regime in Pyongyang could destabilize the whole of the East Asian region.'

`But China itself is destabilizing the region,' interjected the Foreign Minister.

`China may well win in the end. North Korea is bound to lose,' answered the President. `Gentlemen, the way the Chinese Foreign Minister explained it to me was that we in Seoul had a duty to the region to bring stability back to the peninsula. China would play its part by offering diplomatic support and giving asylum to Kim Jong-Il and a select number of his cronies.'

`What will the Americans say?' asked the Foreign Minister.

`I can't see why they would disagree with China. A neutralized North Korea would be one less rogue state to deal with.'

The Chinese met little resistance when they crossed the border. The Vietnamese forces, on orders, simply melted into the jungle. The Chinese commander took this as a sign of cowardice. His motorized units pushed on and were at the outskirts of Lang Son within three hours. There they halted, and fatally there they waited for the column behind to catch up.

Lieutenant Joffe motioned to Major Lon to commence firing. For the past ten minutes Joffe had been relaying detailed coordinates to Lon who, in turn, instructed his artillery officers as to elevation and type of ammunition to use. Lon commanded twenty-five 105mm howitzers. They could lob a shell 10 kilometres that would make a crater 3 metres in diameter on impact. In addition to the guns he had three batteries of multiple rocket launchers of a similar capacity. One after the other the big guns fired, interspersed with the woosh of the rockets. Together they hurled a deadly mix of high-explosive charges for the `hard' Chinese targets, such as the tanks and trucks and armoured personnel carriers, and an assortment of projectiles with variable time-fused munitions that exploded in the air, unleashing wave after wave of shrapnel upon the advancing Chinese infantry. In near real time — with seconds' delay — the French satellites monitored the fall of shot and allowed for target corrections to be passed via Lieutenant Joffe to Major Lon. Many hundreds of Chinese fell where they stood. The pinpoint accuracy of the French `firing solutions' enabled the Vietnamese to take out some of China's prized armour developed after the Gulf War to perform better than the tin cans Beijing had sold Saddam to fight his war against Kuwait. The Chinese commanders did not know which way to turn. With their battlefield management systems inoperable they resorted to voice communications. But again the Vietnamese were ready. They homed in on the Chinese radio traffic, recording it and replaying back on the same frequency but with a half-second delay. The result was that all the Chinese commanders could hear was gibberish; likewise their commanders in Nanning and posts closer to the border. Faced with no means of communication the commanders on their own initiative began to retreat, but as those who survived the initial barrages of shells and rockets tried to go back the way they had come they met fresh troops coming towards them. It was chaos. Unfortunately for the Chinese the concentration of men and machinery this confusion produced simply provided larger targets for the Vietnamese.

In the first battle for Lang Son — the one President Wang participated in — the Chinese captured the town for the cost of 20,000 lives before they retreated across the border. This time the invading army didn't even make it to the town gates. Without even seeing a Vietnamese soldier, let alone killing one, the Chinese, in the space of five hours of concentrated and constant artillery barrage, lost 25,000 men — either killed outright, injured, or missing. Of the 250 battle tanks that entered Vietnam that day only 85 returned. 25,000 men made it across the border, harried and badgered by the Vietnamese Army all the way home.

The Japanese Ambassador's Nissan President drew up in front of the Foreign Ministry ten minutes before his meeting with Jamie Song. Hiro Tanaka was a stocky man in his early fifties. He was a fluent Mandarin speaker who came from a long line of Japanese sinologists: his grandfather was a senior official with Japan's South Manchurian Railway Company, which was the colonizing power in north-east China during the 1930s and 1940s; his father was an army intelligence officer based in Shanghai. Tanaka, and a First Secretary from the embassy who would take notes, climbed the stairs to the Foreign Ministry and entered its somewhat musty interior. Inside another flight of steps greeted the visitors. These were covered with a light brown carpet and led to a suite of rooms, each more magnificent than the other, where Foreign Ministry officials met visiting diplomats and journalists. Tanaka and his official were shown into a medium-sized rectangular room. Along its walls were upholstered armchairs and in between them were tables with ashtrays and space for the ubiquitous blue and white mugs in which Chinese officialdom served green tea. The room was sparsely decorated although one wall was dominated by a painting of blossom that was badly executed but typical of the somewhat flaccid style favoured by China's post-Revolution leaders. Typical also of the room was its appalling overhead lighting. Light globes in Chinese official buildings are unique for their ability to shine but illuminate little. The room was unremittingly gloomy, though well heated.

The door opened. Jamie Song and his retinue swept into the room. Curt bows preceded handshakes and a gesture to take a seat. An assistant to Song handed the Foreign Minister a piece of paper. Song studied it for a while, looked up, and then began to speak.

`Ambassador, you have been summoned here to receive my government's formal protest at your government's nuclear test earlier today. It is a measure of China's horror at Japan's action that I, rather than the Vice Foreign Minister for East Asia, am delivering this note.

`The government of the People's Republic deplores in the strongest possible terms the decision by Japan to explode a nuclear device. The Chinese government has always stood for nuclear disarmament and has strenuously opposed the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The decision by Japan to detonate a 50 kiloton device at a facility in the Ogasawara Islands is a retrograde step and can only increase tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. At a time when China is defending its sovereignty in the South China Sea such a test can only be treated as a hostile act.

`The Chinese government calls upon Japan to renounce the use of nuclear weapons, to uphold the Japanese constitution and renounce war as a sovereign right, and to explain to the international community its reasons for this criminal act.'

Song look up. His face was expressionless. Tanaka, who knew a thing or two about looking impassive, returned his gaze, and held it.

`I shall report your views to my superiors in Tokyo,' he began. `But I am also instructed by Foreign Minister Kimura personally to deliver a note myself. The government of Japan deplores the warlike actions of China in the South China Sea, actions in contravention of accepted international behaviour and in violation of international law. In particular my government views with the utmost seriousness the sinking of the USS Peleliu, a ship belonging to a friend and ally of Japan, engaged on a humanitarian mission. There can be no justification for this act of international terrorism. My government will render any and all assistance the United States requests.

`The government of China must pull back from this adventurism in the South China Sea, to seek a compromise with interested parties, and to return to the path of peace which the world has the right to expect. The government of Japan stands ready to defend its vital interest.'

The two bombs that tore through the international transit lounge at Seoul airport killed 87 people and injured more than 200. They exploded six minutes apart with such horrific force that part of the building collapsed, crushing many of the victims. Another 150 people died when aircraft were wrenched away from their boarding bridges. The fuel tanks of one exploded, sending searing hot metal and fireballs across the runway. Everyone on board that Boeing 737 died. A Boeing 757 was engulfed in flames, although many passengers were able to escape because the aircraft doors at the side were still open. Throughout the terminal, panic led to stampedes and further death, with people being crushed on staircases and in doorways as thousands headed for the freezing open air where they believed there would be safety. But out there the North Korean commandos had set up a suicide killing squad. The crowds were raked with machine-gun fire. Hand grenades exploded, the shrapnel tearing into the bodies of innocent women and children. As South Korean troops moved in, the gunmen became more and more determined. One ran from his hiding place, spraying bullets from two submachine-guns before being cut down. Another fired grenade after grenade. A third shot dead 4 South Koreans before being killed himself. It was never known how many North Koreans were involved in the attack, nor if any escaped. 11 were eventually killed. None was captured alive. 403 people died during the attack. Another 23 died from their injuries over the next day. The airport, which had opened less than two years earlier, was shut down. North Korea had achieved its goal to terrorize the people and strike at the heart of its enemy's economy.

The blue Rolls-Royce Silver Spur II, with the number plate CHN1, pulled out into Portland Place in the West End of London from the compound of the Chinese Embassy. At this time of day, with rush-hour traffic still thick in Regent Street, the Haymarket, and Piccadilly, the journey to the Foreign Office in King Charles Street could take anything up to twenty minutes. It was unusual for the Permanent Under Secretary to summon an Ambassador at such short notice and at such an early hour. But the Ambassador to the People's Republic of China did not regard it as an insult. Dragonstrike was one of those rare watersheds which determine global history. His only problem was that he had received no instructions from Beijing since the operation began. He welcomed the meeting with the PUS, if only to determine what was going on. He had memorized the speeches by President Wang and had committed to memory the more salient phrases in Jamie Song's television interviews. And as his chauffeur snaked his way around Piccadilly Circus and down towards Whitehall, and his Private Secretary read the morning newspapers, the Ambassador became curious as to how London was able to retain its history so beautifully, while in Beijing the past was relegated to museums and usually falsified.

The car drove under Admiralty Arch into the Mall. The royal standard was flying over Buckingham Palace, indicating that the monarch was in residence. The chauffeur turned left into Horse Guards Parade and left again across the gravel of the parade ground, down the side of the garden wall of No. 10 Downing Street to park in the little-known Ambassador's Entrance at the back of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Security was efficient, formal, and fast because the car was expected. The Ambassador was shown up the Grand Staircase, with its marble banisters and deep red carpet, and shown to a familiar, special waiting room on the first floor. He sat for four minutes on a green and cream sofa. Opposite him was a gilded mirror set against gold-painted wallpaper. The most dominant feature was a large picture of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music, playing the organ. The Ambassador had been here several time before, but found this visit brought home to him the irreconcilable differences between the Chinese and European cultures. One preserved its history, with all the flaws and follies. The other, his own, destroyed it and told fairy tales about the past so no one ever knew what happened.

The Permanent Under Secretary, the Head of Britain's Diplomatic Service, made a point of being both cold and official. His job was to convey Her Majesty's Government's displeasure in such a way that the Ambassador would relay the full message back to Beijing. The PUS's Private Secretary took notes.

`The British government deplores your action in the South China Sea. There can be no justification for China's actions. The sinking of the USS Peleliu is contrary to everything we have been trying to achieve in the arena of world peace and the invasion of Vietnam is without question unacceptable. We will not tolerate the continued detention of British citizens caught up in this conflict. All Chinese forces must be withdrawn from all arenas of conflict and hostilities halted immediately.'

`I will report your comments to my government,' replied the Ambassador.

`We will be making public today our intention to support the United States in whatever way is necessary to free the foreign hostages and to secure the shipping routes through the South China Sea.'

`Does that mean you will make a military contribution?'

`It means what it says, Ambassador. You must draw your own conclusions.'

`There are as you a know a number of trade contracts under consideration, and the President of the Board of Trade is due to visit Beijing in May.'

The PUS's response was swift: `We have been down this road several times before, I'm afraid. The trade delegation has been postponed. British companies will be withdrawing their tenders until such a time as things get back to normal. The airport radar, the metro construction, the aerospace joint ventures are all on hold, Ambassador.'

`You are imposing sanctions?'

`Not at all, Ambassador. Our company executives simply believe it is too risky to embark upon business ventures in a country with which we might soon be at war. Your fellow Ambassadors in Europe, America, Canada, Australia, and Japan are being given a similar message. We will no longer assist in the building of a modern China.'

`There are others who will help us,' replied the Ambassador.

`I'm sure the Russians and Indians will oblige,' said the PUS, ending the exchange. `But you could hardly describe their infrastructure and technology as modern.'

The Chinese Ambassador was shown out as he arrived, with cold civility.

With the autocue rolling, the President of the United States looked straight into the camera. He waited for the recording light above the lens to go red. Then he began his address to the nation. Every network broke into its programming schedule. Most had been running rolling news about the sinking of the USS Peleliu the day before. Although it was nearly twenty-four hours since the tragedy there were no pictures, and that was how the President wanted it. The first section of the address recounted the developments of the past four days, beginning with what the President described as an `unprovoked attack' on Vietnam and `unauthorized closure of vital trading routes in the South China Sea'. The President spoke about the tragic loss of life. He then paused before moving on to the sinking of the USS Peleliu. He noted that the last American ship to be sunk in conflict was in 1952 during the Korean War. `China was also our enemy then,' he said. He reminded the American people that the USS Peleliu was not sailing to war, but to rescue American citizens, civilians, who had become stranded on one of the disputed reefs in the conflict area. It had been the President's intention to ensure civilian safety before embarking upon complex and dangerous negotiations with China. He described the attack as an act of terrorism.

`Yet our response has been far more measured than that of our allies, the Japanese. Yesterday they declared themselves to be a nuclear power in the Pacific by exploding an underground nuclear device. I have expressed my regrets personally to Prime Minister Hyashi, but we agreed that neither of our great nations should lose focus about what we needed to achieve. That is to secure the trading routes of our oil and other supplies from the Middle East and South and East Asia; and to safeguard the lives of American citizens in the area of conflict. This is also the view of our European allies who have their own security arrangement with governments of the region.

`Therefore, Prime Minister Hyashi, the Prime Ministers of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, and the President of France have joined me in committing their air and naval forces to free the South China Sea from Chinese control. Our military action has just begun.'

The first Japanese military aircraft to fly across the 25g latitude line which cuts across the northern tip of Taiwan was a new Boeing 767 AWACS early warning spy plane, which had begun operations in 1999. It was vulnerable to attack and was kept well back from possible offensive aircraft. 8 kilometres below, Japan's navy was putting its stamp on the new balance of power in the Pacific. The Kongou class destroyers Myoko and Kirishima and the Asagiri class destroyers Umigiri and Sawagiri sailed through the Luzon Straits into the South China Sea to go to war with China. The amphibious troop and tank carrier Yokohama, with 550 Marines on board, was deployed to take over from the USS Peleliu, but this time both to rescue civilian hostages and recover Discovery Reef and the control of the BP Nippon Oil drilling rig there. Three Harushio class SSK submarines, the Fuyushio, Wakashio, and Arashio, were on patrol ahead. The Yuushio class SSKs Yukishio and Akishio followed. The crews of Sea King and Sea Stallion helicopters dropped patterns of sonobuoys to detect enemy submarines.

100 kilometres ahead of the Japanese task force was the USS Harry S. Truman carrier group. Already her F-14 Tomcat fighters with air-to-air missiles and F/A-18 Hornets with laser-guided bombs and anti-radar missiles had penetrated deep into China's self-declared airspace. Their target was the Woody Island military base on the Paracel Islands. With the Tomcats giving air cover, the Hornets flew in to attack it.

Seven Su-27s scrambled from their base on Hainan Island, and within minutes had engaged the Tomcats in the first ever combat test of strength between the two aircraft. The Su-27 had been designed by Soviet aerospace engineers to beat the American F-14, F-15, F-16, and F-18. They drew from the American design with the advantage that the competing aircraft had already been built and were operational. The Russian aircraft was one of the first to be fitted with air-to-air missiles with their own active seeking device, which allowed the pilot to `fire and forget', or turn away from his target as soon as he had released the weapons. Each aircraft carried ten missiles, six on the wings, two beneath the engine intakes, and two under the fuselage. For ground attack, it had five-round packs of 130mm rockets and could also carry the much-feared Moskit anti-ship missile. A few days earlier, in their missions against Vietnam, this technological edge in performance was incidental. But now, as the Tomcats were in a forward role of air defence to protect an American carrier group, the stark truth had finally travelled all the way from the Pentagon to the White House: Soviet Cold War technology had been transferred to another, more durable Communist power and Americans were facing the consequences.

The fight began when the aircraft were far apart. A Tomcat observer spotted on his warning receiver a signal which he identified as radar guidance for a missile fired from more than 110 kilometres away. The American rules of engagement then allowed the Tomcats to fire. Two had eight long-range Phoenix air-to-air missiles guided to different targets by the track-while-scan AWG-9 radar. Although this was old equipment dating from the 1970s, it had been upgraded and was still a lethal combination. The air was soon full of fourteen Phoenix missiles speeding to their targets, one having misfired on its pylon, and one having failed to guide after launch, falling into the sea. The aircraft with the misfire jettisoned the now-useless missile. But what the Americans did not know before the war began was that the enemy had developed jammers which would confuse the homing heads of the Phoenix that were needed for terminal accuracy. Only two of the seven Su-27s succumbed to the Phoenix attack, and the remaining five closed for the dogfight with their guns and infra-red missiles, which homed on to their targets by fixing on heat generated by their engines. Manoeuvrability and training is the key to the dogfight, and although the Su-27s were more manoeuvrable than the Tomcats the pilots were not as well trained as the Americans with their Red Flag and Top Gun training systems.

The American pilots eluded and attacked the enemy with manoeuvres they called in their jargon yo-yos, max-G turns, offensive barrel rolls, rolling scissors, and diving for the deck. One pilot, who died, was hit not by air-to-air missiles, but by enemy cannon fire when he inadvertently turned his aircraft across the nose of one of the Su-27s, which he had not spotted. One Tomcat observer saw a missile-launch warning from a tail direction. He guessed that from that quarter it would be an infra-red missile. His pilot waited a fraction of a second, broke sharply towards the sun, and the observer fired off flares which exploded into sources of intense heat designed to seduce away the missile. It worked. While up-sun of his attacker, the pilot reversed his turn and in the short time it took his opponent to realize what he had done he was in a firing position with an AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missile, albeit at the edge of its capability. The Su-27 pilot heard in his radar warning receiver the Tomcat radar lock on and he released chaff clouds. This decoyed the first Sparrow but not a second which followed in salvo. The Su-27 was hit and spiralled into the sea. Another Su-27 had used its afterburner too much and became stuck in reheat; it ran low on fuel, and one engine failed. It lost combat energy and was soon picked off by a Tomcat, the pilot ejecting as soon as he realized that he was being attacked.

As the dogfight raged overhead, the Hornets kept to their ground-attack mission on the Paracels. Their air-to-air defence capability was limited because their AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder anti-aircraft missiles had been removed so the aircraft could carry laser-guided conventional and cluster bombs together with some AGM-65F Maverick and HARM anti-radar missiles. The formation leader flew a two-seater with a weapon system operator in the back who was able to concentrate on electronic warfare. The Hornets' jammers first sent out a wave of high-intensity microwaves which filled the skies with radar energy across a wide frequency band. This was called noise-jamming. Then the jammers confused the enemy radar further with more sophisticated methods involving cunningly synchronized pulses and Doppler shifts which pretended to be non-existent targets. Sometimes enemy radar screens were almost obscured by massive jamming which produce a series of spikes emanating from the centre of the radar displays completely confusing the radar operators.

The Chinese fired at least four surface-to-air missiles, but these were easily seduced away by the countermeasures, and seconds later the radar and anti-aircraft defences were being destroyed. Fire-and-forget radar-homing HARM missiles took out two radar-guided anti-aircraft positions. The other radars took the hint and switched off. A third SAM site was spotted when it fired a SAM without preliminary radar lock. The aircraft of the pilot who had seen it was equipped with large laser-guided bombs. He released one but unlike the HARM, he had to keep the laser beam on the target until the bomb hit. Although the laser target designator was stabilized and did not need manual aiming, it limited his manoeuvre. He failed to detect a missile fired from high above by an Su-27. By the time his missile warner alarm sounded, it was too late to escape. However, the missile warhead failed to detonate and the missile streaked close by without doing any damage. The Hornet pilot thought he had escaped but the Su-27 had fired a salvo of two e second one worked and it destroyed the aircraft. The bomb, unguided without being able to home to the laser marker on the ground, did not even detonate, having lost laser-lock, a device introduced to avoid civilian damage in earlier wars. The ground attack continued. Once the defences were taken out, cluster fragmentation bomblets with a wide area of effect were used on the runway and aircraft storage areas. Any aircraft on the ground was a soft target and was either destroyed or damaged by the bomblets and ricochet debris. The runway was pitted with small craters and small mines were also dispensed from the clusters.

Within twenty minutes, all Su-27s had either been shot down or had retreated. Two Su-27s ditched before they could reach friendly land. The Chinese had provided no tanker in-flight refuelling support. The Americans lost two Tomcats and the Hornet which attacked the SAM site. Several Tomcats had to be air-refuelled on the way home. Another Tomcat was damaged so that it could not land on the aircraft carrier; the crew ejected and the aircraft ditched alongside. They were picked up unharmed by the duty rescue helicopter. The Tomcat squadron leader, who himself had shot down an enemy plane and shared another kill, said caustically: `I guess it shows it don't matter how good your aircraft is if you are not trained to fly it properly and don't have the back-up.'

1,200 kilometres to the south, the Nimitz carrier group entered the conflict area through the Balabac Straits. With the same combination of Tomcats and Hornets, the American aircraft first sank the Luhu class destroyer Haribing, already hit at the beginning of the conflict by Vietnamese torpedoes. After returning to the carrier, another squadron took off to destroy the Chinese positions on Mischief Reef. There was no resistance.

French Dassault Rafale multi-role fighters headed for the Spratly Islands, flying from Ho Chi Minh City where they had arrived from Europe only hours earlier. They shot down three lumbering Chinese air-refuelling aircraft and picked off four Su-27s which were still heavy as they were on their way to give air support to the Chinese navy. For the second time in the Dragonstrike war, Vietnamese aircraft took off from Cambodia and Laos. From Vientiane, refuelling at Vinh on the north-east Vietnamese coast, they struck the Chinese naval base on Hainan Island 800 kilometres away. From the Laotian royal capital of Luang Prabang, they attacked PLA land troops positioned in the northern border area.

HMS Ark Royal carrier group left Bruneian waters to lay claim to the most dangerous waters in the South China Sea. The British warships sailed due north to the heart of the Spratly Island group, where the sea was shallow and the Chinese Ming and Romeo submarines were known to be lying in wait. During the Cold War anti-submarine warfare had become a British speciality, so in Asia as it joined forces again with the Americans, Britain took on the same task. But before reaching the area, news came of a failed American attack on the air and naval base at Terumbi Layang-layang. Since its capture from Malaysia, the Chinese had flown in their most sophisticated radar and anti-aircraft systems, together with more than twenty Su-27 fighters and Fencer ground-attack aircraft. Western intelligence had failed to detect the extent of the defences there. In a first wave, three Tomcats and four Hornets were shot down. The Americans were unable to put up a second attack immediately because of the rescheduling of other commitments and the repair of battle damage on some aircraft. Also the rescheduling of aircraft maintenance programmes from peacetime to wartime was still underway. Nevertheless plans began for a massive airstrike when they were ready. The airbase gave China a formidable power projection throughout the South China Sea, equivalent to having its own aircraft carrier, which could cause enormous Allied casualties. Meanwhile, Britain was asked if commandos from the Special Boat Squadron on board HMS Albion could help disable the Chinese defences there.

5,000 kilometres to the east in the Western Pacific, the Chinese Xia class type 092 nuclear-powered submarine was being tracked by the Seawolf class USS Connecticut. The Xia was travelling at 6 knots, 20 metres below the surface. It was more than a month since she had left China. She had only received three instructions and each time she was to maintain her course towards the Eastern Pacific. When the USS Peleliu was attacked, the Xia was more than 2,000 kilometres east of the Marianas Islands and 1,000 kilometres north of the Marshall Islands. Although both island groups were technically independent, they were regarded by the Pentagon as American soil. The closest landfall was Wake Island, an American airbase in the middle of nowhere. This part of the Pacific was an empty and lonely piece of ocean, so remote that the environmental outcry caused by what the commander of the USS Connecticut was about to do soon subsided.

He was 360 metres deep and undetected by the Xia. He released two Mk48 ADCAP torpedoes. After the initiation phase at 55 knots, they increased speed to 70 knots. They took one minute and eighteen seconds to hit the Xia. Almost instantaneously, the hull collapsed from the explosions and as it sank below 300 metres, it was crushed by the pressure, killing all 104 men on board.

The Pentagon statement explained that the nuclear reactor, sealed in its own pressure chamber, was built to withstand the destruction of the submarine. The twelve nuclear warheads could travel hundreds of thousands of metres out of the atmosphere and back again. They were sturdy enough to remain intact on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean without leaking. The Chinese submarine was already within striking distance of American territory. With another four days' sailing, she could have targeted Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with a nuclear missile.

The telephone rang twice before Reece Overhalt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Boeing, picked it up. His PA told him it was Jamie Song on the line from Beijing. Song and Overhalt had been at Harvard together thirty years ago. Both had lived at Elliot House, where their rooms were across the hall from one another. Overhalt had been watching Boeing's share price sag all morning. A big selling order out of Hong Kong had spooked investors in Europe and now the US as well. Overhalt had ordered an immediate inquiry into who had been behind the selling, but he knew the search would probably end with a $2 nominee company in the British Virgin Islands and no one would be any the wiser. He waited as Song's secretary put the call through to the Chinese Foreign Minister.

There was warmth, tempered with a certain wariness, as the two went through the pleasantries.

`How's Betty?' said Song.

`Fine, fine… and Helen? Is she well?' enquired Overhalt, wondering quite what Song was aiming at.

`I'll get straight to the point, Reece,' Song said. `We think it might be helpful in the current circumstances if you paid a visit to Beijing. You are an old friend of China and we think you might be able to help us work through our current problems. You can tell by the way I am talking, openly like that, that this is a serious request. We can guarantee confidentiality; I assure you we would not seek to make propaganda out of you being here.'

Overhalt was nonplussed. At his level in corporate America he was used to meeting Presidents and Prime Ministers, but he was a cautious man; above all he was a company man. As he ruminated Song cut in. `Reece, I know what you must be thinking. Don't answer now. Think about it. Call me, say, in three hours?'

The President was briefing a delegation of state governors when the call from Overhalt's office came in. The President and Overhalt had known each other since they were undergraduates at Harvard. It was at Harvard where they met Jamie Song, who was there attending a post-graduate fellowship in international affairs.

`I see that our old friend has been in contact,' the President said. `I've just been watching a recording of that son-of-a-bitch on the television. He hasn't changed a bit. Smooth and slippery as eel and with a bite to match.'

`Jamie was on the phone to me an hour ago. He came on with the "old friend of China" line and wants me to fly over and see him. In very non-specific terms he hinted at a solution. I can tell you I need this like a hole in the head. Someone is screwing around with my stock price and my investors do not like it. Anyway, what do you think? Can I be of service?'

`Reece, I think it would be a very good idea for you to go to Beijing. Events, I can tell you, are moving very quickly. Between us, I'm not quite sure where they are going to end. But we may need someone like you — trusted by both sides, but in the employ of neither. I want you to go to Beijing. Our Embassy there will extend to you all the help you need.'

During the night, French pilots shot down two more IL-76 refuelling tankers. Ten Su-27s were destroyed in a Vietnamese attack on Hainan Island. A joint force of British, Australian, and New Zealand special units paralysed the defence systems on Terumbi Layang-layang. They infiltrated the inadequate perimeter fence and destroyed the radar equipment before they were discovered making their escape along the runway. Chinese troops engaged them in a firefight, but explosive experts managed to lay charges on seven aircraft. The blasts threw the Chinese troops into confusion, allowing the Allied forces to slip away. The British suffered two wounded and one dead. There were no casualties among the Australian and New Zealanders. The casualties among the Chinese were unknown. The bulk of the Su-27 advanced fighter squadron was destroyed. As the commandos made their escape, the Chinese base was rendered useless by American Hornets with air cover from Tomcats and British Sea Harriers from the Ark Royal. A second raid sank the Luda III class destroyer Zhuhai and two escort vessels which had been patrolling around the base. In all China lost twelve of the more than forty surface vessels which made up its South China Sea task force, as wave after wave of aircraft from three carriers continued their attacks. By dawn, the Chinese military command had ordered all ships to head north to areas where they would have more air cover. The exception was the new Russian-built Sovremenny class frigate, the Vazhny, renamed the Liu Huaqing, which slipped out of the headquarters of the southern fleet. There was thick cloud overhead and it entered the South China Sea undetected by military satellites and spy aircraft.