Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (5 page)

In the distance, just outside Huludao’s urban expanse, and
among neatly rowed crops, a long, single runway stretched.
 
Beside the strip sat a squat, concrete
building shaped like an aircraft carrier hull.
 
Topped by a steel flight deck and superstructure, it served as China’s
carrier flight school, known simply to the rank and file as ‘91-065 Troop.’
 
The faux ship hull housed student pilots and
the Russian and Ukrainian advisors who trained them on flight simulators and in
classrooms.
 
On the ‘dry ships’ flight
deck, sailors worked with mock-ups of aircraft and helicopters,
 
practicing arming, fueling, moving, and
repairing these aircraft.
 
After Peng had
been transferred from the People’s Liberation Army Air Force to the Army Navy
Air Force, this school was where Peng learned carrier operations, and graduated
to lead China’s first naval aviation squadron known as ‘The Garpikes.’
 
Peng lined up his Flying Shark with the
runway, deploying flaps and dropping the landing gear.

◊◊◊◊

People’s Liberation Army Navy Captain Kun Guan served the
Party from deep beneath the sea.
 
Despite
a natural aptitude for nuclear propulsion and subsurface tactics, Captain Kun
had never felt comfortable in submarines.
 
‘Unnatural contraptions,’ he called them, and he cringed with every
creak from the metal constructs.
 
Despite
hailing from China’s political class, Kun’s rapid rise through the ranks of the
People’s Liberation Army Navy was self-accomplished.
 
When the Party sought to expand Chinese
subsurface power, Kun—in command of a destroyer at the time, and a surface
warfare man at heart—had been shunted to submarine school at Qingdao Naval
Base.

Kun’s new career track under the sea began on a
Romeo
-class boat.
 
He was chief officer on the obsolete Soviet
diesel-electric that occasionally flared a nasty habit of choking the crew with
engine fumes.
 
After several patrols and
some high-profile encounters with the American navy, Kun, promoted took command
of
Changzheng 6
, one of China’s new
Shang
-class nuclear attack submarines.
 
This
one is better
, Kun thought of
Changzheng
6
, although he still did not like being hatched into the steel tube.

Kun leaned against the cold steel of
Changzheng 6
’s attack center bulkhead.
 
Kun’s was the sixth hull of the brand-new
Shang
s, all of which were named ‘Changzheng’
after the year-long 8,000 mile Long March of the Red Army retreat from Chiang
Kai Shek’s Nationalists.
 
Designed and
constructed with Russian assistance,
Shang
-class
nuclear attack submarines compared roughly to early flights of 1970s American
Los Angeles
- or Russian
Victor III
-classes.
 
They were generally quiet and heavily armed
with tube-launched torpedoes and missiles.
 
Captain Kun stood straight again and tugged the wrinkles from his
uniform.
 
Used to old analog dials and
gauges, Kun admired the colorful glow of the attack center’s new-fangled
digital screens.
 
With a well-padded
roundish frame, Kun seemed built for the confines of a submarine.
 
It was his brain, however, that revolted

He was perpetually aware that the ocean wanted in.
 
With a muffled pop, the submarine’s alloy
skin adjusted to changing sea pressure.
 
Kun’s
heart beat faster.
 
Training and
willpower were all that kept him from running to a hatch, and he took deep
breaths to collect himself.
 
Even though
the air smelled like the submarine’s air filters, the extra oxygen helped Kun
suppress the sensation that the hull contracted, squeezing him tighter and
tighter.
 
Environmental systems were one area that still needed work
, he thought.
 
His rational mind came back from that dismal
place of fear.
 
Kun dried his nose with a
pocket kerchief.
 
Although he had remained
perfectly still during the anxious episode and projected a well-practiced collected
façade all the while, he did not realize his chief officer had become aware of
his unease.
 
Captain Kun clasped his
hands behind his back and meandered behind the submariners seated at the attack
center terminals.
 
Trained children
, Kun thought as he patted one nervous young man on
the back.
 
Changzheng 6
’s chief officer looked to a screen and cleared his
throat.

“Sir,” the chief officer yelled, “The submarine is in
position: 14.094 degrees north, 143.6572 degrees east.”

◊◊◊◊

The statue of President Abraham Lincoln looked pensively to
the east, his unblinking gaze locked on the National Mall’s hazy distance,
staring at the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument.
 
A gentle breeze danced across the Reflecting
Pool, refreshing Jade and Richard, who shared a sandwich on the steps of the Memorial.

Jade’s university was close by.
 
Richard worked even closer, so the couple
often met for lunch here.
 
They sat on
the cool, white marble, and staked out part of the landing to eat the food Jade
brought: sandwiches from home, or take-out.
 
The meals had become a ritual of political debates, meddling in friends’
affairs, and soaking up the sun.
 
This particular
day was tropics-hot and oppressively humid, and with the Taiwan crisis, Jade
and Richard had become especially grumpy.

“Taiwan is part of China,” Jade again proclaimed.
 
“It’s even part of China’s extended
continental shelf.”

“You’re right.
 
It is
Chinese.
 
Just not authoritarian,
totalitarian Chinese,” Richard replied.
 
Rarely able to hold his tongue, even when he knew it would be best to do
so, he rolled his eyes and took another bite.
 
Probably why I ended up in the
diplomatic corps
, Richard weighed with a private smirk.

Jade huffed, but offered no riposte.

“It’s about political systems, not race,” Richard added, in
hopes of ending this thread of the conversation.
 
Knowing the effort had failed, he quickly took
another bite of his sandwich.

“I hope we liberate the island,” Jade muttered
passive-aggressively, drawing a sharp glare from her lover.

“Don’t you mean invade?” Richard retorted.
 
He turned away, signaling he really did not
want an answer, and looked to a group of schoolchildren that climbed toward the
looming former president.
 
Their children’s
teacher began to read the Memorial’s bronze plaque aloud.
 
He annunciated each word in his ‘best
Lincoln:’ “Four score and seven years ago…”

“You cannot invade what is rightfully yours?” Jade pushed-back
his hanging question.
 
“And, as usual,
you Americans will stick your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“Oh, now I’m American?
 
I thought I was just a lost Chinese.
 
Anyway, the US belongs in the Pacific.
 
We’ve earned the right,” Richard forced.

“The
right
?” she
hissed.

“Stand on any Pacific beach, my darling, and the remains of
our marines are beneath your sandy toes,” Richard replied with growing impatience.
 
He wondered if their relationship would, or
even could survive the so-called ‘Fourth Crisis.’
 
Until now, politics had been a thing of play
between the couple.
 
Suddenly, however, even
though not unexpectedly, the topic had become as confrontational as the
international mood.
 
As much as Richard
respected Jade, he saw her as he does most Chinese: insulated from reality by a
government-controlled machine spewing propaganda under an Orwellian sham passed
off as journalism.
 
Despite living and
studying abroad, Jade had promptly bought a satellite dish to pull in China
Central Tele-Vision and shunned all other sources of news.
 
Richard wondered how an otherwise academic
mind could accept such one-sidedness.
 
He
blamed years of indoctrination, what he termed: ‘slavery of the mind.’
 
He sighed, took his last bite of lunch, and
turned to view the enthusiastic teacher surrounded by a semi-circle of young
students.

The teacher closed his mock Lincoln speech with, “…government
of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Jade and Richard stopped talking, both staring blankly into
the distance, and Richard looked to his watch.
 
Even though he still had time to spare, he announced he had to get back
to the office.
 
Jade grabbed his sleeve
to keep him with her.

“I’m sorry.
 
Do you
hate me?” she asked.
 
Although she
seemingly batted her eyelashes, her eyes reddened and swelled with tears.

“Do I hate you?
 
No.
 
We just need to be careful
with this stuff.
 
You know, agree to
disagree.
 
Otherwise…” he raised an
eyebrow and put an arm around her.

“If there is war, your country will send me home,” she said resentfully,
and swallowed the lump in her throat.

“If yours doesn’t call you back first,” Richard added.
 
He shook his head, wishing his choice of
words had been more compassionate.
 
He
sighed again and hugged Jade.
 
Despite
not really believing it, he continued, “There won’t be any war.”
 
He kissed her and started down the Memorial
steps.
 
Time to get an early jump on his
afternoon of work.

Richard cancelled their dinner date, so he could work late
into the evening.
 
The secretary of state
had to brief the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the origins of the
Taiwan conflict.
 
As specialists at CIA
scrambled to organize, Richard had already established himself as the subject
matter expert.
 
Unknown to most,
Richard’s ethnicity was Hakka, aboriginal Austronesians that had inhabited
Taiwan long before the arrival of the Han Chinese.
 
Like most Hakka, his blood was now mostly
Han, but loyalties and knowledge of the unique island culture remained
undiluted.
 
He finished the report and
headed for the secretary’s office.

Secretary of State Georgiana Pierce stood at the window,
watching a cop ticket a car and a public works employee clearing a storm drain
outside the Old Naval Observatory.
 
Light
from the early-evening street lighting subtly flickered and flooded the office
through rain-spattered bulletproof windows.
 
It added bluish highlights to the roundness of the secretary’s
face.
 
At Secretary Pierce’s wide back,
the office was an eclectic mix of African idols and retro furniture.
 
As the direct descendant of a slave, Pierce’s
traced her family tree back to a man taken from the African port of Benguela to
the American colonial dock auction at Charles Town.

His bill of sale hung on her office’s wall.
 
Dated July 20, 1750, the framed document transferred
ownership of the teenager, from a French ship captain to a local landowner, a
Mr. Pierce.
 
Tattered and yellowed, the
document had taken money, time, and power to acquire.
 
She was proud that, centuries later, the
descendant of this slave now filled one of the world’s most important
positions.
 
While she could never know
it, Secretary Pierce had the same big moist brown eyes as her ancestor.
 
They had the same shape and glaze as the eyes
of that scared boy who stood clapped in irons on the docks of the New
World.
 
Those old eyes could lull as the
secretary’s rapier intellect and wit skewered.
 
Her love of country and American history was matched only by a passion
for Creole cooking, a hobby that had contributed to her girth.
 
As she looked out at the west side of the
capital, Pierce saw Richard reflected in the office window and smiled.
 
He had recently completed a tour of the
Pacific Rim in her company.
 
This meant
he had spent untold hours inside ‘the bubble’ of her political life.
 
He had broken bread on Special Air Mission
aircraft that whisked the secretary and her entourage around the globe where
she walked the balance beam on behalf of the United States.
 
Secretary Pierce wiped the smile from her
face before turning to greet Richard.

Pierce went to a stainless carafe, poured a cup of coffee,
and offered it to Richard.
 
He accepted, and
took the saucer by two hands.
 
He smiled with
the realization that she had come to like him.
 
Sipping the hot, black brew, Richard watched as she poured her own cup and
added cream and sugar before stirring the concoction quietly.
 
Pierce thanked Richard for staying late and for
all his recent work.
 
He blushed and
muttered that he had already forwarded his notes to the Under Secretary for Political
Affairs.
 
She chuckled at his modesty,
and then grew seriously quiet.
 
Richard
squirmed and sipped his coffee.