Trigger Point (12 page)

‘I think it’s too big a statement for your government.’

‘I don’t know. Sound some people out. Unofficially. I’m serious, Simon. Sound some people out in Beijing.’

‘I think also in Beijing we would have opposition.’ Liu laughed again. ‘I think you should sound some people out in Washington.’

‘There’d be opposition there, I grant you.’

‘I would like to see what Dr Rose would say.’

‘There’d be some support as well. You might be surprised.’

‘Not enough. There would not be enough people who would want us to be involved. I think your president is very happy to do it by himself. You had your chance to do it with others. You would not do this now.’

‘Then make us.’ Ellman paused. She hadn’t even thought about this before blurting it out. The idea had just occurred to her. And she had gone way beyond what she should say, even in a personal capacity. But what the hell! She had said it now. May as well take it all the way. ‘Make us an offer we can’t refuse. In public. It wouldn’t be that hard.’

Liu looked at her, then he shook his head, smiling.

Marion sat back. It was depressing when an idea like that couldn’t even make it out of the room. She liked it. Instead of allowing Uganda to divide them, why not use it to unite them? She imagined what it would be like to hear President Knowles and President Zhang announcing that Chinese forces would join American troops in Uganda. It would have a huge impact, coming out of the blue. Like Sadat going to Jerusalem. Like Mandela walking free from Robben Island. A game-changer. It had come to her impulsively, almost as a joke, but it seemed to be the smartest thing she had thought of since the day she started at the UN.

But Liu was right. The way things were, it was in no one’s interest, not in Washington nor in Beijing.

‘How
is
it going in the jungle?’ said Liu.

‘It’s going according to plan.’

‘It seems slow.’

‘There’s a lot of improvement in the humanitarian situation.’

‘I look forward to hearing about that when you make your report back to the Security Council.’

‘You can bet on it.’

‘I thought your president would like to have a big result to help with the elections,’ said Liu with a twinkle in his eye.

Ellman shook her head, smiling. ‘Nice try.’

‘You know we won’t be able to stand by if anything happens in Sudan.’

‘You know we have no intention of doing anything in Sudan. I told you that weeks ago.’

‘Good. Marion, I agree with you, the LRA is an evil thing. Personally, I hope you can get rid of it without any complications between us.’

‘The best way to make sure of that is to do it together.’

Liu politely ignored the invitation to reconsider Marion’s suggestion.

There was a lull. Marion thought about going back to the subject of South Africa but she didn’t think they were going to get any further on that score.

‘What do you think of what’s happening in your markets?’ said Liu.

Marion looked at him.

‘Your stock market. There’s some uncertainty. I’m surprised. I can’t see what has happened.’

‘I can’t either. I guess markets get jittery sometimes.’

‘So you don’t think we need to worry that the mighty United States markets are going to collapse again.’

Marion smiled. ‘I’m not a financial expert, but I don’t think so.’

‘That would be a problem. Last time we had so much of our reserves tied up in your bonds and stocks.’

‘I know.’

‘Now we have even more.’

16

THE CHINESE AMBASSADOR in Washington, Zhu Hongwei, had direct access to President Zhang. It was up to him to decide when to use it. Consequently his report of the meeting with Bob Livingstone and the SEC commissioner, which might have spent a week circulating in the foreign ministry and gone no higher than the foreign minister, was on Zhang’s desk the morning after it happened.

Zhang Yong was a sixty-four-year-old lifelong party bureaucrat who had been minister for internal security when the Chinese recession of 2014 hit the country. Suddenly China’s enormous unresolved tensions – the chronic financial insecurity and alienation of hundreds of millions of urban migrants, the grievances of the countryside – which were previously held in check by economic growth, ignited in flame. Unemployment and bankruptcy fed civil unrest, which spread in some places until it amounted to insurrection and the rule of the party itself was threatened. Tibetans, Uighurs and other repressed minorities, always looking for the opportunity to assert themselves, seized the moment to rise in revolt. As internal security minister, Zhang had cracked down hard, using the internal security forces and bringing in the army ruthlessly to reimpose control. In some central and western areas of the country cities had had to be retaken as if in a war. For a number of months over the summer and fall of 2014 China teetered on the brink of anarchy. The party itself fractured and fought. Out of this turmoil Zhang had risen to power as president while two other men, defense minister Xu Changjiang and head of the army General Fan Keming, emerged in positions of strength with the backing of various parts of the armed forces. Zhang had been unable to dislodge either of them in the years that followed.

In power, Zhang had proved more sophisticated than foreign observers anticipated. Despite his background in the security services, he quickly grasped that it was not military strength that would keep the party in control in the long term, but economic prosperity. He understood that rebuilding the areas that had suffered most in the disturbances could provide a great stimulus to growth, and that recapturing business lost to competitor countries was key to recovery. Parts of China’s gigantic manufacturing capacity in the south and east of the country had been shut down by the disturbances, while other parts were functioning as normal. Brutally repressing any hint of dissent, Zhang moved rapidly to bring all of it back into operation, loosening residency laws to entice rural workers to return to the cities, forcing banks to lend for reconstruction, and offering huge state subsidies – illegal under international law – to attract foreign customers that had taken their business elsewhere. The west wanted to believe – needed to believe – that China was back in business, and didn’t question its methods. The effect was swifter than anyone could have imagined. Within a year Chinese output was back to where it had been before the disturbances. Two years later it was eight per cent higher.

Every decision Zhang made was calculated to strengthen China’s economy. No economist himself, he relied on a group of fiercely loyal technocrats whom he quickly promoted through the finance ministry. The most senior member of this group was the finance minister, Bai Shaochun. Under Zhang’s tutelage he was developing political skills and the president was grooming him as his successor.

Zhang was well aware of the fact that US banks were suffering a fall and was receiving daily reports on the impact on Chinese markets, which so far had been small in scale. But he had no knowledge of individual companies listed in New York. He passed the report from the ambassador in Washington to his closest personal advisor on US affairs, an ex-Shanghainese banker called Qin Jiwei who had spent a number of years working in New York. Qin made some inquiries. That afternoon, in his day villa in the Zhongnanhai, Zhang and Qin met with Foreign Minister Yang, Finance Minister Bai, and Hu Liren, a senior vice-minister of finance who was head of the People’s Investment Corporation, the fund that held twenty-six per cent of Fidelian stock.

As Bob Livingstone anticipated, the note of the meeting that had been sent by Ambassador Zhu interpreted the encounter as an accusation that China was manipulating stock prices in order to influence the outcome of the US midterm elections. Zhang had ordered no such action to be taken. The first thing he wanted to know was whether someone else had done so.

Hu Liren shook his head. ‘We are not doing this, President Zhang.’

‘No one has ordered this?’

Again Hu shook his head. ‘No, President Zhang.’

‘Could you do it?’

‘That is an interesting question, President Zhang.’

‘We have studied scenarios,’ said Bai. ‘It is true that with a concentrated activity we could create significant movements in the market. Our holdings are sufficient in volume and diversity. But this would be against our own interests, since it would diminish the value of our holdings.’

Hu nodded, keeping quiet. Bai could have said more. Their scenarios had shown that if they did choose to use their market power to drive a fall, they could benefit enormously by having sold stocks short before engineering the panic. They could benefit a second time by buying additional stocks at the new lower prices, confident that the market would eventually recover. A fund such as the People’s Investment Corporation operated with a time frame of decades. Against investors whose time horizons were measured in years, or months, or weeks, or even days, that could give them an enormous advantage. And with a fund of half a trillion dollars at Hu’s disposal, the financial gains to be made from exercising this advantage could be staggering.

‘These are only scenarios, President Zhang,’ said Bai.

Zhang nodded. He looked at Hu. ‘So what are you doing with this bank, Vice-Minister?’

‘The president is referring to Fidelian Bank,’ said Qin.

‘We have sold a small amount of our stock recently as the price has fallen. Two per cent of our holding.’

‘Why not more?’

‘If we sold more we would collapse the price. It is not in our interest to do this. Also, we have two seats on the board and therefore we cannot be seen to be selling. We can only sell through other companies that are not directly connected with the PIC.’

‘But you are selling, Vice-Minister. That means you think it is not a good investment.’

‘It has problems, President Zhang. We are aware of this because of our seats on the board. We know certain things the market does not know.’

‘What things?’

‘It needs cash. It must go to the market for money.’

‘Then you have made a bad investment, Vice-Minister,’ said Zhang pointedly.

Hu bowed his head.

‘What will happen when the market finds out about this?’

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Bai. ‘The CEO of the bank wants us to put in the money.’

‘Could we?’

‘Of course.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Vice-Minister Hu led him to believe we would not do it.’

‘So what will happen?’

‘The money must come from somewhere else.’

‘What if there is no one?’

‘The American government will not let that happen,’ said Qin.

‘Is that what they said?’

‘They do not know about it yet. It is an investment bank of a significant size.’ Qin had been in New York in ’08 and was deeply influenced by what he had seen there. ‘They saw the effect ten years ago when they let such a bank collapse and they are scared of seeing that again. A president who allowed such a thing would take a hard blow.’

‘To be technical, President Zhang,’ said Hu, ‘it would not collapse. There is a process for winding up such a bank. This is a new thing that was brought in after the events Minister Qin is describing.’

‘But they will not want that either,’ said Qin. ‘It would be very complicated. If necessary, they will seek other banks to buy this one.’

‘But the price will be very low,’ said Zhang.

‘Not so low if they are scared to wind it up.’

Bai agreed. ‘And for us, there are certain other things we can do. If the price of this bank goes down, the price of other banks will go down too. We can recover our investment by using this fact. We can use this fact to increase our investment.’

Hu glanced at him, staying silent.

‘All of this is normal investment activity,’ continued Bai. ‘The Americans can have no argument with this. Their own institutions will do the same.’

‘Their own institutions do not have the power in the market that we have,’ observed Yang, the foreign minister. ‘Isn’t that true?’

‘That is true,’ said Bai.

‘Perhaps the Americans are asking for our help.’

Zhang looked at him.

‘Perhaps Ambassador Zhu has misinterpreted. Perhaps they are not saying they are blaming us for it, perhaps they are saying, help us stop this decline.’

‘Then
that
would be asking us to manipulate the market,’ said Bai.

‘Yet maybe that is what they are saying.’

‘Ambassador Zhu says they are accusing us,’ said Bai, who had seen Zhu’s note of the Washington conversation.

‘That is Zhu,’ replied Yang darkly. As foreign minister, he was irritated by the relationship the ambassador had with the president and the frequency with which Zhu went over his head. ‘He is like the boy who has stolen a dumpling. Wherever he looks he sees an accusation.’

Zhang looked at the foreign minister coldly.

‘He might be wrong,’ said Yang.

‘Then that is a request to manipulate the market, as Bai says.’

‘Maybe it is a request to understand their situation, President Zhang. They are fearful. There are elections in three weeks.’

‘It is not my responsibility to make sure President Knowles gets what he wants in these elections,’ said Zhang curtly. ‘In Uganda, he is trying to show that America is strong. Better for us that at home he is weak.’

‘That is true. Therefore he suspects that we are hurting the market.’

Qin laughed. ‘Minister Yang, a minute ago you said he is asking us to help!’

Yang shot a glance at him. ‘It could be either.’

‘Why would I give him any help?’ said Zhang. ‘What help does he give us? And now he comes with this accusation.’

‘If there is a collapse in their market,’ said Yang, ‘that will be bad for us.’

‘There will not be a collapse,’ said Bai quickly. He knew that a successful appeal to that fear with the president was certain to win him over.

‘How do you know?’ demanded Yang.

‘There will not be a collapse. The situation is not one of collapse.’

‘Maybe if you do the things to recover your investments it will be,’ said Yang, who understood better than the president that Bai was talking about letting Hu make big bets on stocks falling, which in itself was likely to drive them down.

‘That is ridiculous,’ snapped Bai. ‘You do not understand finance.’

‘You do not understand diplomacy.’

‘Enough!’ said Zhang.

There was silence around him. Zhang considered what he had heard. He was no democrat himself, but he understood the sensitivity of an American president to events taking place within weeks of an election. And yet if his officials told him that the events were not of their making, what complaint could his counterpart have? And what right did he have to make accusations?

‘Should we reply to this message?’ he said eventually.

‘Ambassador Zhu should go back and say the People’s Investment Corporation is acting as an investor seeking value,’ said Bai. ‘It has always acted as an investor seeking value, nothing else. That is enough.’

‘We should say we understand the concern of President Knowles and will act responsibly,’ said Yang.

‘We act as an investor seeking value,’ said Bai. ‘That is what it is to act responsibly.’

‘Then we do not have an argument, do we?’ said Zhang.

Bai and Yang glanced at each other. They certainly did have an argument.

‘He should not think we will help him with this bank,’ said Zhang. ‘When has he helped us? Let him stop the resolution on South Africa.’

‘But if there is a threat of a collapse,’ said Yang, ‘we would help.’

‘There is no threat of a collapse,’ said Bai.