A Line Too Far Australia is Invaded by B. C. Colman

Author:B. C. Colman
Format: epub

Day Twelve

10 a.m.

The International Conference Centre, Canberra

Martini sensed things were finally heading for an angry showdown.

The size of the Chinese delegation to the Australia-Sino Peace and Border Settlement Talks had doubled to six.

The Chinese diplomats had filed in quietly and taken their places across the conference table, their black suits, white shirts and dark-red ties reflecting on its gleaming surface.

They reminded him of a row of constipated penguins.

On the Australian side he sat alone with his Foreign Affairs minder, Mark Roberts. Poor bugger. But he was learning.

Martini believed the new show of force by the Chinese revealed their delegation was under enormous pressure from Beijing. Reinforcements had been sent in to find out what the hell was going on.

The deadline to complete a settlement had been ten days. That had been two days ago. The talks had hit continual brick walls, constructed deliberately and at random by him. He enjoyed feigning bad temper when he had no logical reply to their arguments.

He had filibustered and ducked and weaved until the Chinese were confused and near their wits’ end.

When his reservoir of ideas to sidetrack the talks ran low, he would call for a halt to take advice from the Prime Minister. The Chinese soon learned he rarely went anywhere near The Lodge but decamped in the early afternoons to a nearby wine bar dragging Roberts along.

The Chinese had been conceited knowing they held all four aces in the card game. But their confidence and Oriental inscrutability began cracking badly by the end of the seventh day when there had been little hard progress in reaching an agreement.

Martini had successfully burned up precious time pressing for a demilitarised corridor along the Bruce Highway, the main Queensland route north.

He had argued it could carry badly needed food and other supplies to the northern cities, a concession the Chinese were initially keen to explore. The proposal would also have allowed the Chinese to maintain control of the export ports and mines on either side of the highway.

Beijing had dithered for days, finally insisting there would be no need for the corridor if their delegates got on with the job of signing a formal border agreement.

Today the Chinese had wheeled in their top constipated penguin in Australia, Ambassador Chen — the diplomat who had delivered the original surrender ultimatum to Stone.

He sat pink-faced on the right hand of the official delegation head, Wu Seng. It looked like the Politburo had shoved a red-hot poker up his backside.

He could hardly sit still as the talks began with Wu asking whether Prime Minister Stone had come to a final decision to sign the border agreement following yesterday’s round of talks.

It was Roberts who replied. He gave a theatrical sigh and pushed his upturned hands out on the table.

“He is a very stubborn man,” Roberts said.

Chen’s complexion went from pink to red. Wu frowned and said: “Does he fully understand the situation Australia is in? That it is being offered a generous settlement? Does he want another

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