by T I WADE
Sally looked a bit skeptical and General Allen hastened to reassure her.
“I’ve flown Jerry single-handed and so can you. I’ll authorize you to pick them up once your training is finished and you can get them over to Seymour Johnson at your earliest convenience after the New Year. I’ll issue you special leave papers. Carlos said that you were all heading out for a friendly fly-in over Christmas and you can show them off at the fly-in if you want as long as they don’t get scratched. They have been decommissioned and don’t have official log books anymore.”
Somewhat over her shock at sitting next to a four-star general, Captain Powers acknowledged that she and Captain Watkins would be happy to complete the transfers. And she offered to drop in and introduce herself to Colonel Wilkes once she landed at Hill after their training was completed. General Allen nodded his approval, and told her that she could pick up her flight orders from the Colonel and that he personally would OK the free time over Christmas with their CO. With that, the car rolled up to a stop in front of the building where she needed to debrief from her training run. She got out, saluted, and the car drove off.
Chapter 10
Jiangsu Province - China 2010
The boardroom on the 30th floor at Zedong Electronics was filled with people sitting at the boardroom table again for the first time in many years. The only real difference in the same men sitting around the large boardroom table was their ages. Two were missing—both had died—and two younger men, either their sons or those next-inline from their departments, were in attendance.
A much older Wang Chunqiao, now 83, was still well-dressed in his usual western-style suit made in Seville Row in London and commanded the room on the first day bringing the table up to date since their last major meeting in 1990.
“Our progress really ramped up to complete world dominance in 2004,” he explained to the men from the front of the room, pointing to a large diagram of companies and numbers in U.S. dollars on the large wall behind him.
“It all really started with our friends, the car manufacturers in Japan, allowing us to build their complete management systems here in China starting in 1985, and from then on at our new Japanese company built just outside Tokyo. The next big jump was our winning bid with the American, European, and Korean motor companies—to supply them with our cheap engine-management systems from 1987 forward. We also got the contract to refurbish all Japanese-built systems built after 1983—not many, but it gave us the chance to repair and manage every system in the world, except in France which stayed away from our systems until 1989. They could not resist the price after that, and we offered Renault the first 250,000 systems for their 1990 models at cost.”
“That, gentleman, was our plan in this room 20 years ago, and I will now advance our timeline forward. That difficult discussion with the French car makers cost us a billion U.S. dollars, but after that signing of long-term contracts, we had 98% of the world’s transportation market in our grasp. That was the year we also made a profit for the first time and got the Chinese government off our backs. For the first ten years—1980 to 1990— we invested $130 billion of the government’s money against 10 billion of our own. The third big breakthrough for Zedong Electronics arrived a couple of years later from the United States—actually from both IBM and Hewlett Packard in the mid-1990s—when they accepted our bid to start building the internal workings for their new personal computers, first in 1993 with their domestic market and then in 1995 for their growing international markets. At the same time, we reached our project projections by building software programs as well as the hardware for the software programs. The following year, we got contracts from every computer manufacturer in the world, again except the French and Compaq, who tried to beat us for one year and had no choice but to lower their pricing by using our parts. By 1995, we had repaid 27% of our debt to the government, and our investors were receiving profits for the first time.”
“Microsoft in America begged us to produce software for them, and our most profitable break came in the early 2000s when every company from Samsung and Nokia to Apple negotiated with our shadow companies to build their new and advanced cell phones. Over the last ten years, we have built 300 billion cell phones, PCs, laptops, tablets, and other communication devices here in China and abroad. In the commercial world, we are currently building 81.3% of all new electrical units for sale around the world. But more importantly, 99.87% of the world’s new electronics have one or more of our parts inside the units. Our profits from these contracts are still extremely small—cents on every part or complete unit we sell—but to-date we have paid off 87% of our loans to the government and we expect to have all our debts fully paid off by September 2012. Since 2008, we have been able to increase our profits on Apple iPhones and Dell computer parts from 1.7% to 3.9%, and that massive profit increase has led us to complete solvency with our most current and most dangerous enemy, our forward-thinking Chinese government. That is the end of the Chairman’s report on our commercial business. More information is in the fact sheets in front of you and you have the rest of the day to study them. As usual, no paper leaves this room.”
He took a drink of water from a glass on the podium in front of him and studied his papers for a second.
“Comrades, are there any questions before I allow Comrade Hu Lee to take the podium and bring us up-to-date on the Military Contract Department’s advancement of our products?”
“Have we completed our supply and refurbishment on American and European electronics built between 1982 and 1985, when we only started controlling the world’s new spare parts, Comrade Chairman?” questioned one of the new men Lee Wang would have recognized as the floor cleaner he had met years before. Mo Wang was one of the two new men in attendance, due to the death of his boss.
“Good question, Mo Wang,” replied the Chairman, looking at his papers. An associate ran up to the front of the table to the chairman, bowed, whispered in his ear and handed him a couple more sheets of paper. There were several associates in this meeting sitting in a row of chairs against the wall opposite the large windows. This was where Mo Wang had sat for the first day only at the previous meeting in 1990—his first official meeting as his boss’s assistant. He was now in charge of recruitment and was second-in-line to give his department’s report.
“Reports show that on the commercial operations side, we have refurbished an estimated 93% of the world’s electronic output, of which 79% of the commercial gadgetry has been long outdated and lies in some landfill around the world somewhere. Only in America do people keep their old motor vehicles and I have two conclusions for you.”
The Chairman paused for dramatic effect.
“Conclusion One: Of the motor vehicles built without engine-management systems, 8.2% of those vehicles are still running. We expect that worldwide number to decrease in 2011 to 7.6% and in 2012 to 6.9%. For some stupid reason, the Americans still have 12% of their pre-1980 vehicles in operation and 9% are owned by the British who still drive around in these old machines. The next highest numbers are from third-world countries that are not a threat to our program, and they have 8.9% of these vehicles still operating—mostly in South America, Asia, and Africa.”
“Conclusion Two: Of the remainder of all vehicles built in the 1980s, 87% had engine-management systems. We built 47% of these and have refurbished parts in 98%. We believe that 71% of these machines have been ground up into new vehicles. Of the 23% we missed and were not built with engine-management systems—around six million vehicles—67% are scrapped and only around two million vehicles remain. Of these vehicles, 500,000 or more have been refurbished with one of more of our electronic parts. The balance is insignificant to our program.”
Comrade Wang Chunqiao stopped with the statistics and thanked Comrade Wang for the question. “There are three final success stories, gentlemen, from the commercial side of our business. Footnote One and Two: 97% of all commercial aircraft flying today and 93% of commercial shipping larger than 50 feet
have our electronic parts somewhere in their management systems. Footnote Three: We believe that 99% of all current operating space satellites include electronic parts from Zedong Electronics. There are a couple of outdated American Air Force satellites, one Russian military satellite, and one Chinese military satellite that do not have our parts, but we have heard from our sources in NASA and the U.S. Air Force, from our Russians sources, and from our own government spies, that these will be decommissioned within the next year or so. Those results will give us 100% success in space by the end of 2012—success even beyond my own dreams!” he exclaimed, smiling at the men listening to him.
He returned to his chair amid a standing ovation from all in the room. There was much chatter and conversation between the 16 men around the table. The others sitting by the wall sat upright and were silent. Again the room returned to silence as a bell sounded and a dozen girls entered to refill drinks.
Fifteen minutes later, Hu Lee walked up to the podium and silence reigned. “Chairman Chunqiao, comrades, I give you my report on military advancements since our last meeting in 1990. The world’s military strength has grown 20-fold since the start of our operation to sell electronic parts to the world’s armies. We are lucky compared to the commercial side, in that the world’s major superpowers, including the old Soviet Union, are quick to either sell outdated equipment to countries with less power who are not a risk to our program, or destroy what remains. Military equipment is extremely expensive to run, and outdated equipment is destroyed at a far more rapid rate than commercial equipment in the private sector. Since 1985, when we got our first contracts to supply electronic parts to the United States and Russia after long and extremely secret meetings with their military personnel, we have electronic parts installed in 90.1% of all the world’s military weapons that are fitted with some sort of electronic devise—whether it’s an engine-management system in ground vehicles, rocket-guidance systems, aircraft-management systems in the air, virtually every electronic system at sea, 100% of all the mobile atomic military reactors, and 99% of the commercial atomic reactors worldwide. As Chairman Chunqiao correctly stated—and the Chairman and I have worked together on behalf of our Space Management and Atomic Reactor Departments—100% of the spacecraft in orbit will soon be fitted with several of our systems. We have only had two major breakdowns in our military department, in 1995 and 1999. In 1995, the Russians found that we had been delivering the same parts to the Americans and vice-versa.”
“In 1999, NATO and the Americans found out that all our replacement parts were identical in their electronic equipment. By then, we had made sure that nobody had been making these minor parts in bulk for a decade, and their military departments had no choice but to continue with our programs. There was one very large and powerful company in Delhi, India that had been trying to make their way into the market for several years, but we had our friends in Pakistan terminate five of their seven board members in 1993. The owners sold the company to an American shadow company of ours in 1994. Several other minor companies tried to achieve entry into our market in South Africa in 1994, the United States in 1997, 1998, and 1999, Britain in 1994, and Germany in 1999. We ultimately purchased all of those companies through shadow corporations. The results, gentlemen are as good as we could ever anticipate. I go back to my figure of 91% of the world’s current military weapons. The reason it is 91% is because 2% of those untouched numbers are our own company military here in China, and 7% are the growing Iranian, North Korean, and Pakistani military forces—all Zedong Electronics allies.
Hu Lee stopped for a moment, took a drink from the bottled water on the podium at the head of the table, and resumed his report.
“Let’s look next at the findings on Blue-Water International Strength. Blue-water power is a program we created to show each military’s strength on world coverage and in an attack-mode only, not a defense-mode. China currently ranks second in power, but with our limited ability to reach every corner of the globe with our forces and attack the other countries, we only rank fourth. The strongest military in the world is America, with 57% of the world’s blue-water strength, then Russia with 23%, and then NATO with 21%. We decided to include the separate armed forces of NATO together for the purpose of this report. Our own country is ranked fourth, with only the 4% I previously mentioned, and India is fifth with 2%. This shows that without the futuristic space weaponry we think America and Russia have in their most modern space satellites and the world’s nuclear weapons, China only has only a 4% chance of winning in a world battle for supremacy. Gentlemen China is currently one of weakest in an attack, but the 16 of us at Zedong Electronics are going to change that equation very soon. Thank you.”
Again his speech received a standing ovation and he stayed at the podium waiting for the clapping to die down. “Questions please?” he asked. “I see Comrade Zhi Yun.”
“A great report, Comrade Lee, and I would like to be the first to congratulate you on your success,” replied Zhi Yun, standing to ask the question. “My first question, however, is that your first percentage of all military equipment that has our electronics added was 90.1%, and then you skipped to 91%. What is the difference of 0.9%? Secondly, why has our government not kept up with blue-water power around the world?” He sat down.
“I was hoping that my intellectual comrades would notice my figures, and I knew you, Comrade Yun, would be the first one. As Chairman Chunqiao stated in his report, we must take into account any equipment still in operation before we started our program. Again the Americans and the Europeans collect old equipment. For some reason, the collection of old equipment seems to be a hobby for individuals in these countries. The difference, Comrade Yun, is that 0.5% of all 30-year or older military equipment worldwide is, or could still be, in operational condition. The 0.4% difference relates to known active military equipment, mostly ex-American, in third-world countries, or Russia, and our own weapons held by terrorists, or other forms of mercenary military establishments around the world. These are certainly not a threat to our program. If we take into account the 0.5% of equipment that is either in museums or still active in first-world countries, 20% of the threat—or 0.1% of the old military weapons—are atomic and either based in Russia or America, and the other 0.4% has no blue-water usage and is useable only for defense. It is impossible to gather information on this 0.1% atomic threat to our program, but in my department we believe that all atomic weapons older than 30 years, and especially their control mechanisms in both America and Russia, have been refurbished over time with our more modern electrical components.”
“Is there any way we can be sure, Comrade Lee?” asked the Chairman.
“We have tried to get our personnel into these old control centers, but they have been sealed and are on complete lock down in both countries. Inspections are only done by very high security personnel, if at all. We have received information on nearly all of these older installations over the years and I believe all of them have been decommissioned under the nuclear arms pacts between the two countries. We know of every one of these old rocket installations, and have completed reports on every single one, except one in Kansas and one in Siberia. They are so old—some of the first ever made back in the 1950s—that I believe that the rocket silos are either empty or no longer exist, and the atomic rockets stationed in them have long since been destroyed. Most of those older rockets were terminated in the most recent arms treaty between the two countries and there is even talk of more reductions this year and in 2011.”
Again, Hu Lee stopped for a moment to hydrate—a necessary task with such a long report.
“Now I will answer your second question, Comrade. This time, I express my own ideas and opinions. I believe each one of you have your own ideas on this subject. The main reason our government has not worried about blue-water domination as we have looked at it, is because nobody is ever going to attack China again. It has been many centuries since China was a large offensive power, and we have lost our need to
create and model attack scenarios, and now only look at economics and defense.”
“I believe that the idea of defense only is due to the new government’s thoughts on economical strength versus military strength. As we will soon prove, economical strength can win a war versus a major power, but a direct invasion on its homeland is still an attack scenario, and that is what we have lost in our thinking. Attack is a difficult scenario, because if the country has fire power, we would end up being no stronger than the useless United Nations, who can only talk and hand out sanctions. Unfortunately, and with the changes in the thinking of our leaders, we have gone from a country who really wanted to be a superpower in military strength to a power whose economical strength is more important as a deterrent from attacks on our own soil. Money is now king, not the sword or gun, and a totally false sense of security exists around the world. Please excuse me, Chairman Chunqiao, for saying this, but I beg of you to understand what I’m saying.”
Hu Lee moved from the podium to start pacing in the front of the room as he moved from the rehearsed speech to his own personal beliefs.
“Our old way of thinking, which we started with in this room 30 years ago—the old way of thinking that the sons of communist China grew up with under our great comrade leadership—has become obsolete, and our thoughts and actions are as old as the useless atomic weapons being destroyed, unless we succeed and lead our people into world dominance with our program and let it reach its conclusion.”
