11 The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy

Author:Tom Clancy [Clancy, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Espionage, Ryan; Jack (Fictitious character), Action & Adventure, Political, Political fiction, International relations, Presidents, World politics, Adventure fiction, Adventure stories, Men's Adventure, Presidents - United States
ISBN: 9780425180969
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 2001-07-31T23:00:00+00:00

“What did that capitalist diao ren say?” Zhang asked. Shen told him what Xue had relayed, word-for-word. “And what does he represent?”

“He is personal assistant to the American Treasury Minister. Therefore we think he has the ear of both his minister and the American president,” Shen explained. “He has not taken an active part in the talks, but after every session he speaks privately with Vice Minister Rutledge. Exactly what their relationship is, we do not know for certain, and clearly he is not an experienced diplomat. He talks like an arrogant capitalist, to insult us in so crude a way, but I fear he represents the American position more forthrightly than Rutledge does. I think he gives Rutledge the policy he must follow. Rutledge is an experienced diplomat, and the positions he takes are not his own, obviously. He wants to give us some concessions. I am sure of that, but Washington is dictating his words, and this Gant fellow is probably the conduit to Washington.”

“Then you were right to adjourn the talks. We will give them a chance to reconsider their position. If they think they can dictate to us, then they are mistaken. You canceled the airplane order?”

“Of course, as we agreed last week.”

“Then that will give them something to think about,” Zhang observed smugly.

“If they do not walk out of the talks.”

“They wouldn't dare.” Walk away from the Middle Kingdom? Absurd.

“There is one other thing that Gant man said. He said, not in so many words, that we need them -- their money, that is -- more than they need us. And he is not entirely wrong in that, is he?”

“We do not need their dollars more than we need our sovereignty. Do they really think they can dictate our domestic laws to us?”

“Yes, Zhang, they do. They apply an astounding degree of importance to this incident.”

“Those two policemen ought to be shot for what they did, but we cannot allow the Americans to dictate that sort of thing to us.” The embarrassment of the incident was one thing -- and embarrassing the state was often a capital offense in the People's Republic -- but China had to make such a decision on its own, not at the order of an outsider.

“They call it barbaric,” Shen added.

“Barbaric? They say that to us?”

“You know that Americans have tender sensibilities. We often forget that. And their religious leaders have some influence in their country. Our ambassador in Washington has cabled some warnings to us about this. It would be better if we had some time to let things settle down, and truly it would be better to punish those two policemen just to assuage American sensibilities, but I agree we cannot allow them to dictate domestic policy to us.”

“And this Gant man says his ji is bigger than ours, does he?”

“So Xue tells me. Our file on him says that he's a stock trader, that he's worked closely with Minister Winston for many years. He's a Jew, like

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.