by Hock G Tjoa
Yu chuckled and said, “It is only a curse when one’s ideal is to live in isolation so splendid that, as the Daoist classics put it, one can hear the dogs bark and the rooster’s crow in a neighboring village without having the least desire to visit that village. I believe that option is now closed to most of us as individuals and to all of us as nations.”
“Is any realignment there necessary or likely without the threat of the nuclear device?”
“What do you think, Mr. Secretary?”
“While we have some experience in this part of the world, our interests no longer predominate. I doubt that anything will happen without the concurrence of the Americans and the Russians.” Cross squirmed, like an honest man forced to be evasive.
The Chinese ambassador’s face appeared grim as he asked, “And India and Iran, not to mention Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China—what about our concurrence?”
The Foreign Secretary started like one stunned by a jury verdict. Has the sun finally set on the Union Jack? Is la mission civilisatrice interred with the bones of missionaries and medics? Do the stars and stripes no longer wave? Is it time for the West to sound taps? Will black, brown, and yellow hands beat time for the next act of World history?
Many media commentators had pilloried Cross for his willingness to entertain the notion geopolitics was no longer a “white man’s club.” He had done much of his thinking as a young man in the nineteen-eighties. At that time, the political establishment was so emphatically to the right as to leave plenty of room in the rest of the political spectrum for young adults still in the mood to search or rebel to find their political identities.
Now he wondered if he had passion enough to persuade his western allies of this truth. He nodded slowly and said, “It looks like we will need your help.”
Without a word, but with an emphatic gesture, Yu brushed off the notion of a new Eastern hegemony. “China does not seek to assume the role that Great Britain held in the nineteenth century and that Russia and America assumed in the twentieth century. China will not be the world’s policeman. A tall tree casts a long shadow, but it would be irrational for the Chinese to seek any kind of hegemony in world politics. This is a role to which we have never aspired. For better or worse, the Middle Kingdom has always been an inward-looking country.”
“I was thinking of something like the Shanghai Cooperation Commission,” said Cross.
“Foreign Secretary, it is my fervent hope that a consensus will emerge there regarding what the Pashtuns wish to do. That would bode well for consensus all around. But on this subject, there will be those who shout, and there will be those who speak too softly. This Great Game, as historians have called it, cannot be played with points scored in accordance with the volume of a player’s demands.”
“If the squeakiest wheel does not get the grease, what will determine the outcome of the game?” Cross asked with puzzlement and worry in his voice. International politics, as played out during the last two centuries, had been dictated by the most powerful country or group of countries and their most demanding allies.
“It may be, it just may be,” said Ambassador Yu, teasing out an argumentative idea, “that this will need the same coin as the Irish desired of the English, as the Israelis and the Palestinians desire of each other.”
“And that is?”
“Mutual respect.” Yu said this quietly, almost speaking to himself.
Cross thought this over for a long while. In the silence between the two men, the grandfather clock in the room ticked loudly. Then the foreign secretary nodded. He could not foresee how that would be achieved, and he felt that Yu shared his inability to anticipate exactly how the process would work. But unless every party felt an equal stake in the outcome, the Great Game in the twenty-first century was doomed. No one could approach the negotiations with a sense of exceptionalism, entitlement, innate superiority or of being the indispensable nation.
“As I recall from the little I have read in Chinese history, the Empire did not always treat the barbarians with such respect.”
The Ambassador nodded and said, “We suffer from the same blindness toward those we consider different from us, both inside and outside our borders. It will undoubtedly come back to haunt us.”
“I foresee a very difficult process, even without mentioning the fact that we have a super-power that poses perhaps an even greater threat than the Pashtuns.”
“I agree. Even if they do not possess their Talisman, the Pashtuns seem to have declared their intention. The eight-hundred-pound gorilla that you refer to, we must hope, will realize that it will contribute most by doing the least in order to achieve a peaceful balance of power in this region. This will be perhaps a task for generations, but we must hope, at the very least, that we live to see it commence.”
As the two men arose from the overstuffed chairs to take leave of each other, the Foreign Secretary huffed and puffed while the Ambassador got up with a lithe and quick movement. Cross grunted, “The meek might or might not inherit the earth, but the obese would certainly lose it.”
“You are far from obese, sir.”
“Too many years of trifle and sticky toffee pudding—I’ll be leaving too large a carbon footprint,” he declared as he smiled and shook the Ambassador’s hand warmly and firmly before they parted.
The Ambassador lifted his face to the sun. It was a brilliant afternoon in London in the early summer as he left the club. It would be warmer in his home city, perhaps dustier too. Ten years ago, they had dust storms such as might have been taken in earlier days as an augury of a change in the Mandate of Heaven. Yu wondered, is this Pashtun action an augury of a shift in the axis of world history?
13: PUSHING THE DESERT BACK
Dust storms in northern China have been recorded for about three thousand years.
Modern science has discovered evidence that these storms go back more than twenty million years. Winds from the north or west would carry fine sand from the desert to the north or the loess plateau to the west of Beijing. Sometimes, they might not blow for a year or two. Sometimes, they would blow more than thirty times a year, usually in April. Roads, even railway tracks, are blocked, and as the dust is particularly fine, breathing is difficult, even dangerous.
The modernization of China since 1960 proceeded mostly without thought for the environment. It had been accomplished by destroying forests for more land to farm on, more wood with which to make furniture, or for fuel, or even because the trees were in the way of “development.” During the generation after the Second World War, the percentage of the country that was classified as desert increased from fifteen to twenty-five.
In the last decade of the twentieth century, and at the beginning of the twenty-first, more thoughtful farmers and agricultural economists have tried to slow this process, hoping eventually to reverse it. They sought expertise from outside the country.
Israel, the country with the most notable success in turning desert to farmland, had been eager to recognize China, but ideological considerations prevailed until the 1980s. During that decade, China became Israel’s most significant Asian trading partner, while it was widely believed that Israel became the main source of sophisticated weaponry to the Middle Kingdom. Very occasionally and discreetly, their diplomats and scientists would meet, though, as might be anticipated, more progress was made in military cooperation and arms sales.
Early in the twenty-first century, China asked for a team to visit and share the latest knowledge about reversing the process of desertification. It was six years ago that a team from Israel had come on such a mission.
“We have a new assignment,” announced the Spymaster upon his return from a meeting of the Committee on Public Safety when the visit was discussed. “A scientific team from Israel will visit our farms to the north and west, and we are to monitor their activity.”
“How many will there be?” asked Hu, not yet promoted to his position as the Administrator.
“There will be three gues
ts. The leader of their team is Avram Meier, a man in his late 40s, a Professor at Tel Aviv University. He will be accompanied by Zvi ben Jochanan, whose role is described as analyst. He is in his 30s, formerly in the Israeli commando corps and now a graduate student at the same university. They are accompanied by a secretary, Layla Weinstein, in her 20s, brought up in a kibbutz in Samaria and freshly out of her military service in the army.”
“I bet the analyst is the spy,” declared Second Brother Ma, an operative who had joined the agency a year after the Spymaster was appointed its chief. Ma was often called “Second Brother” because he was the second son in a family surnamed Ma. Under the one-child policy, this was not common, while in pre-revolutionary times there might even have been those called “number eight son/brother.”
“They could all be from the intelligence agency,” said Wang.
“What is our role?” asked agent Tang. “I mean, we can assume our military installations will have adequate protection from Israeli intelligence. On the other hand, the local police should be well-qualified to protect the visitors, no?”
“This was partly my doing,” confessed the Spymaster. “Assuming that they are all spies, I felt it would be a shame for only our farmers and scientists to meet with them. I thought that a few of us should get some exposure to them as well.”
“They will not be trying to recruit us, will they?” asked agent Hu.
“I very much doubt that, and we will not try to recruit them. But it would be very useful if we could learn to talk to each other, to trust each other in some limited fashion.”
“Ah, backdoor channels.”
“Second Brother has been watching too much western television.” Wang laughed but nodded as he continued, “I want you to be in charge of this mission, Ma, though there will be a week or two during which Agent Hu will be our eyes on them. Tang, I expect you to spend some time with them as well, probably under your cover. Meanwhile, you should all learn to speak the language about turning deserts back into forest or farmland.”
Thus, Second Brother Ma became the constant companion to the Israeli team. He drove them from the airport to their hotel. He met them for breakfast and joined them for dinner. He was often in the offices where they met with economists, agronomists, and others. He was frequently their companion on their field trips to the farms. Usually, there was a local policeman in plain clothes, as well. If the local police or military or the visitors had issues, it was usually Ma who smoothed things over. Withal, he was unobtrusive, accommodating, and companionable. When Ma had to be away, Agent Hu took his place.
In the westernmost province of Xinjiang, the local policeman who took charge of them was a bright young Uyghur named Mutallib. Like many Uyghurs, he also had a Chinese name. He showed more initiative than the police in many other places, and Ma was content to let him take the lead. The Spymaster had told Ma about his hopes for the recruitment of this Uyghur into the intelligence agency.
Ma and Mutallib arranged for a special dinner two weeks before the Mid-Autumn Festival to recognize the end of the Israeli mission. They invited local Han Chinese dignitaries as well as important leaders of the Uyghur community.
They asked for entertainment to be provided by both the Han and Uyghur communities, and as the main attraction, a performance by a geisha. The province had hosted for years a small but steady stream of tourists from Japan making their way to Turpan to visit shrines established when it was the capital of a Buddhist kingdom of Uyghurs before Islam swept in from the west.
“What a nice vacation for me!” said Tang when she received the invitation. “I have never been to Xinjiang.”
“You’ll find the Israelis refreshing also,” said Ma. “I know they are trying very hard to be polite, but they are what my mother would call ‘frank.’”
“How so?”
“When he found out why I am called ‘second brother,’ Zvi told me that the one-child policy would not make sense to Israelis.”
On the night of the celebration, security was tight around the city center where the dinner would take place. Agent Hu appeared, though he did not join the dinner guests. He had come to coordinate and oversee security arrangements with the local police. The caterer, the help, the entertainers, the staff at the city center, the guards at the entrance, as well as those at the gate to the compound had all been vetted by the local police and Agent Hu, who communicated directly by pre-arrangement with the police counter-terrorism unit.
Dinner and entertainment were to be provided in a large square room with entrances through double doors on opposite walls. Those doors would be guarded by the police inside and outside the room. The visitors were seated with their back to one of the walls without doors, with Mutallib seated between Professor Meier and Layla. Second Brother Ma and Agent Tang were seated toward opposite ends of that side of the square. They were thus able to monitor the doors and keep an eye on the entertainers and food-servers.
The evening began with stirring speeches and Chinese song and dance about the importance of preserving forests and grassland set to the tune of popular music. These placated, to some extent, the Han guests who grumbled about the absence of pork from the menu. During this first part of the evening’s entertainment, the Uyghurs listened politely as they paid more attention to the food.
The second hour was given over to selections of the Uyghur muqam epic poetry celebrating Uyghur history. It was set to music that was familiar throughout Central Asia, from the north of India to the east of Iran. The singers and dancers had been assembled from various Uyghur communities in China since local cultural organizations were thin. There was enthusiastic audience participation as the music was familiar but infrequently performed.
Finally, Agent Tang performed as Mudan-san. Spymaster Wang had argued with local bureaucrats that her participation would enable the agency to bring more fire-power to the event. But he had anticipated that the Han Chinese guests would be engaged during the first set while the Uyghurs would be preoccupied with the food, and the reverse would be true for the second set. He hoped that a third set of entertainment, to be provided by Mudan-san, would show how culture could be totally different from both Han and Uyghur, and still be within the pale of the civilized world.
Tang first played several pieces on the shamisen, a stringed instrument with tunes consisting solely of minor thirds and sixths; their mood was somber and introspective. Then, she sang and danced several odori with their small and highly stylized kabuki-like gestures. A few in the audience were totally bored, though some were deeply intrigued by what was clearly a developed cultural form that was neither Han nor Uyghur.
“Danger!” crackled into the earpieces that Tang, Ma, Mutallib, and the local police liaison wore.
Tang noted both servers fumbling with their trays and launched into her counter-move, even as they drew their pistols. She kicked off the high platform shoes of the odori dances and ran to throw herself in front of the professor. As she ran, she reached into her hairpiece. One of the servers lifted his firearm and fired twice. Before he could get off a third shot, Tang had thrown a knife disguised as one of her hair ornaments, and it found his throat. One of the shots hit Tang in the chest while the other struck Mutallib in the head.
The second server was shot by both Second Brother Ma and Zvi, who had aimed at his lower body. He would survive as they intended, and he would be interrogated with prejudice. Professor Meier and Layla were unharmed. Mutallib was dead and Agent Tang unconscious but would survive, courtesy of her bulletproof vest. Zvi joined Agent Hu and Ma to make sure the situation was fully under control and then left them as they escorted the Uyghur guests to their homes, leaving the Chinese dignitaries to the local police.
Hu telephoned the Spymaster who arranged immediately to fly out.
“This is a serious blow,” he said.
“He will be hard to replace,” replied Hu.
Mutallib’s family belonged to a merchant class from Turpan that had a greater tolerance and sympathy
for the Han than did most Uyghurs. Wang would join Second Brother to make the condolence call on the family. They would want him buried within twenty-four hours of his death and would need time to prepare his body before that. The Israelis and Tang insisted on joining Wang and Ma on the condolence call as did Mutallib’s superior officer at the police department.
It was a motley collection of seven that waited by the door of the house where Mutallib’s family lived. They were all dressed in customary Uyghur mourning clothes, flowing black robes with white turbans or scarves and white waistbands made from unhemmed cotton, in accordance with the fashion advice from their local Uyghur liaison. They waited as the wailing rose and fell within the house. Mutallib was well-loved.
There was anger, too, within that house because the Hans, in general, were not well-loved. The father came out to see for himself the four Han Chinese and three foreigners waiting respectfully to enter. He recognized only Mutallib’s boss and so indicated to him that he and his companions could enter. Inside the house, one of the Uyghur community leaders who had been at the dinner whispered to the host, pointing to Agent Tang, that the Han woman had avenged his son while throwing herself in front of a gunman to protect her guests. These acts of vengeance and supreme hospitality were to become much discussed within the family and the community. Agent Tang would soon become a local legend.
A few days later, Spymaster Wang, Second Brother Ma, and Agent Tang met with the Israelis after their official goodbyes and before they left for the airport.
“This meeting would have been much colder, more formal,” said professor Meier. “But death and shared danger have brought warmth and depth of feeling of a kind that we, unfortunately, know too much. We are sorry to find it here as well.”
Wang waved to his guests to sit and said, “We are grateful that you have come to share your knowledge with us. I hope that we can help each other in other ways in the future.” He gestured to his colleagues with a somber face, saying, “We are from the Chinese Intelligence Agency. Please convey to those who sent you—whoever you think appropriate—that we will answer any question you may have about anything, anywhere in the world, provided it does not compromise our own security. We will tell you honestly if we do not know the answer. This is our undertaking if your side will do the same.”
