China Attacks

by Chuck DeVore

  “Maybe just to show us that they have modern capabilities too?” the lieutenant was reaching now—the major had blown away her theory.

  The major stroked his chin, “Waste of money. No, I’d say the Chinese are launching a commercial photosat. Wasn’t a Canadian-Israeli joint venture company going to try to launch a commercial photoreconnaissance satellite and then sell the pictures to farmers over the Internet? As I remember it, the French weren’t too happy with the competition for SPOT so they blocked a launch on Ariane. The Russians have had problems at their launch facility recently and we’re backlogged for at least two years at Cape Canaveral. All the same, let’s call the colonel. Fascinating. . .”

  The U.S. Embassy in Beijing had been on the ragged edge for three days now. Every foreign service officer was straining to prevent a wider conflict from breaking out between America and China. The phone call from Beijing’s Foreign Ministry was extremely unwelcome news. About 12 minutes after the launch of the Long March rocket, the Chinese called to tell the Americans that one of their commercial rockets had malfunctioned and was heading on a course that might take it over heavily populated areas of America’s Pacific coastal region.

  No one at the embassy questioned why they would receive the call as opposed to the information going directly to Washington over the Sino-American hotline (a telex rather than a phone). The embassy thanked the Chinese for their consideration and then called Washington with the news.

  Each one of the five payload spheres weighed just under 1,000 pounds. The spheres were slightly flattened on one side and covered with a heat resistant ablative material. The flattened side also sported a small solid rocket motor. Called aeroshells, the spheres’ purpose was to enable the cargo inside to survive a fiery reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

  The Smart Dispenser released the first sphere 100 miles over Alaska’s Unimak Island. A few moments later it released the second. Once clear of the Smart Dispenser each of the spheres’ onboard guidance computers oriented the small vehicles and fired their retro rockets. The two packages began their de-orbit maneuver. In a few more minutes the other three vehicles would begin their sequences too. It was all very precise. The Chinese-adapted American technology worked perfectly.

  All three kids were terrorizing the puppy. Dan bought it a month before he was called up for duty and the little dog, Moxhe, was barking back, joining in the fray. Judy Alexander was ironing clothes and watching MSNBC with half an eye looking for any fresh news about Dan and Taiwan when her neighbor called to tell her about a car chase on TV. Judy reluctantly changed the channel. She hadn’t slept much since Dan’s aircraft was forced down in Taiwan—maybe the local news will take my mind off of Dan for a bit, she thought.

  The chase was about half an hour old when Judy changed the channel. All the local networks were covering the latest Southern California carnival from their news helicopters. Judy didn’t know with whom to be disgusted the most: the networks for constantly catering to mindless visual images that had zero impact on her life, the stupid thugs for endangering the lives of others, or herself for being even partially captivated by the spectacle. The chases always ended the same way. The fleeing suspect was inevitably captured—dead, wounded or in one piece—then the news would proceed to replay the most exciting portions of the chase for the rest of the evening. It all had kind of a predictable regularity about it; just another car chase on an L.A. evening.

  Uncharacteristically, just as the chase was coming to its inevitable climax, the station broke into its special coverage to bring an even more important news flash.

  The government clerk was hurrying to the deli on the corner of West 5th and South Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles for her customary dinner. She normally took an hour for dinner from her evening shift job at the Board of Public Works office, but today was different—she planned on eating in half an hour so she could take off from work early. Her thoughts were divided between the savory anticipation of the lox and bagel she would order and the date she had planned with her boyfriend at the beach in Santa Monica.

  A puff of wind blew the deli’s aroma under her nose. She had almost made it to the deli’s door when a tiny leaflet came fluttering down right in front of her face. Annoyed, she brushed it away, looking around to see who had been so rude as to thrust a leaflet at her. Everyone around her had stopped. Some were looking skyward. She followed their eyes up to the sky. A small blizzard of white leaflets, each about three times larger than the fortune in the cookie she ate last night, was floating down between the buildings. What in the world . . ? Probably some marketing gimmick—boy are they going to get in trouble!

  She grabbed at the next leaflet that came floating down and read the tiny text:

  A Warning to the American imperialists!

  Warning! Warning!

  China is engaged in a patriotic struggle to liberate Taiwan from the remnants of Chiang Kai-Shek’s forces. Do not let your politicians interfere in this just struggle, America! Withdraw your forces from Chinese territory now, before it is too late!

  This message was delivered by China's new and powerful Dong Feng-31 missile to the people of the United States.

  Warning! Warning!

  As she read the leaflet her hand started to tremble. She had forgotten all about food. Instead she looked anxiously up at the sky. The leaflets had all fallen to the ground, and only the gray haze of a Los Angeles summer afternoon greeted her gaze.

  Since moving to Los Angeles from the San Joaquin Valley five years before, she had lived in fear of earthquakes in the Big City. But this was a new and unanticipated threat. She knew from the news that America and China were edging closer to war—but who would have ever believed such a conflict could come home? What if the Chinese started firing other missiles, this time not loaded with leaflets? Having a degree in political science from Cal State Fresno, she vaguely remembered that the Chinese had threatened to do just that several years before in 1996 when Taiwan held its first free elections. Then again when the Taiwanese moved to declare their independence after their last election a few months before. She recalled China’s fury on the evening news for a few days last March—fury that was muted by the ongoing crisis in Indonesia.

  She suddenly decided that she was going to go visit her parents who lived in Fresno half a day’s drive away. She would leave the city tonight if the news confirmed the source of the leaflets as being from China and not from some sick pranksters.

  She remembered an emotional discussion from high school about the horrors of nuclear war—just before her school voted to declare itself a nuclear-free zone. She paused. No!, she said to herself after a second, she would leave now. She had some vacation time coming. She would call her boss from her parents’ house after she arrived and make an excuse for not returning to work.

  Judy stood, steaming iron in hand and mouth agape, watching the television. Leaflets purporting to be from a Chinese rocket had just fluttered over downtown Los Angeles. An unidentified object dangling from a bright orange parachute floated down just west of the Los Angeles Civic Center. As soon as it hit the street it began belching a deep purple smoke, sending pedestrians scurrying in terror. All five news helicopters assigned to the now-forgotten car chase were en-route to the scene. One sharp-eyed chopper pilot saw a small brush fire on the tinder-dry hillside below the HOLLYWOOD sign. The cameraman shot the growing flames as the helicopter swooped by heading for downtown. Just as the “D” started going up in smoke and flames he had to break away to begin to shoot the more alarming (and presumably better rating) image of the purple smoke fuming UFO.

  Remote in hand, Judy clicked through the local stations. All of them were covering the action with growing alarm. She stopped cold at ABC Channel 7. There, coverage featured a picture within a picture with the dateline Everett, Washington. There, as in downtown Los Angeles, a mysterious pod landed and was letting loose with purple smoke. The coverage switched to an ABC reporter on the street in Everett while the L.A. airborne coverage
shrunk to the upper left corner of the screen. The young reporter was almost breathless with her excitement, “I’m here in Everett, Washington, a city just north of Seattle, where a strange and threatening object has parachuted onto a community college football field. About the same time the object appeared thousands of leaflets appeared scattered over several city blocks nearby.” The reporter held the leaflet in front of her face and began to read it. . .

  Judy’s initial thoughts turned towards Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds broadcast, but she grudgingly realized this was reality—reality that might demand action very quickly. “Kids! Get your shoes on, fast. Mommy’s going to get some food and clothes, we’re going for a long ride in the car.”

  The two youngest children shouted in unison, “Hooray!”

  Judy turned away from the screen just as one of ABC’s national anchors broke in to say that the strange pods had been sighted north of Seattle, Washington, west of Portland, Oregon, in San Jose, California, in downtown Los Angeles, and just across the border from San Diego in Tijuana, Mexico.

  Sally, the nine-year-old, had been moody since her father went away on active duty. She’d been watching the news and asked plaintively, “What are we going to do, Mommy?”

  “Get out of town and go to a safe place.”

  * * *

  The Chinese terror rocket had accomplished its mission. In only one hour the entire calculus of the American effort to support Taiwan changed—just as it had changed the previous day when the defiant images of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander’s tank flashed across living room televisions. China correctly predicted that America would not retaliate against an “accidental” commercial rocket launch. Moreover, their war games correctly surmised the U.S. non-response once the rocket was understood to have a politico-military purpose. How could America strike back against a rocket carrying reentry vehicles stuffed with propaganda leaflets and harmless (if theatrical) purple smoke? (Even if the rocket’s Smart Dispenser carrier crashed down on the Hollywood Hills and ignited a brush fire—no one was killed after all.)

  The genius of the Chinese assault was that it struck at the core of the American center of gravity—the people. Once Americans realized they were vulnerable to Chinese attack and that the Chinese meant to take Taiwan, even if it meant nuclear confrontation with America, American support for continuing the fight vanished. Even if the politicians and generals wanted to stay in the fight, they couldn’t. By sending a missile slashing down the West Coast, the Chinese concretely illustrated America’s complete helplessness in the face of nuclear attack. The threat of nuclear annihilation was no longer an abstract concept. America’s will to resist wilted. China would have its way with Taiwan and sometime in the future—maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe five years—China and America would either come to blows or America would acknowledge China’s place as the world’s leading superpower. A superpower far more willing to spill blood to achieve its aims than the tired, worn out, and once-proud nation called America.

  The Chinese knew they had America on the run and now they aimed to ram home their advantage before the wily Americans could think their way out of the box they’d been slammed into. The Vice Premier for Foreign Affairs himself, Mo Waijiao, called Fu Zemin and relayed to him the good news. He instructed Fu to immediately call the Americans to the “negotiating” table and demand the unconditional surrender of U.S. forces on Taiwan. If the Americans agreed, the television footage of the august event would be broadcast all over the world. Within a day Japan, South Korea, Australia and any other nation of a mind to resist China’s rightful demands would be falling all over themselves to make friends with China. China would resume its place as Asia’s hegemon and obedient vassals instead of enemies soon would surround it.

  * * *

  The United States Senate had the House’s declaration of war resolution for all of half an hour when news of the West Coast terror rocket came in. The senior senator from the state of California immediately moved to table the resolution. A somber and uncharacteristically quiet Senate agreed to her motion on a vote of 84 to ten with two voting present. The declaration of war was dead.

  * * *

  Millions of people in Los Angeles—and in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and San Diego where leaflets had fallen as well—came to the same decision at the same time: get away from the targeted urban areas. The news media didn’t make the situation any better. Stunning visual images coupled with grave “experts” predicting the imminent possibility of nuclear war sparked the largest, quickest exodus in the history of humanity.

  In Los Angeles and Orange counties and inland, almost five million people got into three million vehicles and added to the tail end of the usual evening rush hour. Many more would soon follow as they saw images of their neighbors leaving town. The Los Angeles Basin experienced its worst traffic jam ever. Within half an hour gridlock set in with all routes leading out of the area packed with panicking people, listening to their radios and trying to out-smart and out-drive their fellow citizens.

  Judy, her three children, and the family dog left the house in only 15 minutes. Judy packed a few gallons of water, some food, sunscreen, and a pistol (which she knew how to use better than her husband did—the legacy of fear from a nearly successful rape in a college parking lot many years before). Thankfully, the family always kept an earthquake survival kit. That, and Dan’s saved up old MREs that he always brought back from the field, gave the family enough food to last a week. Judy’s gas tank was mercifully full.

  Judy drove east, taking the new toll road out of Tustin over the low-lying mountains that define the border between Orange County and Riverside County. She knew that if she could get out in front of the masses and stay out in front she’d be able to clear the knot of people who would inevitably try to flee the city.

  For almost 15 minutes she made good time. Then the toll road hit the eastbound 91 Freeway. The freeway was choked (actually only slightly worse than for a usual evening rush hour—the freeway was far more congested a few miles to the west). At an average speed of ten miles per hour Judy calculated she’d make the Cajon Pass on the 15 Freeway in about six to seven hours—sometime after midnight. She prayed that’d be quick enough to clear the clot of city dwellers fleeing east from Los Angeles.

  Judy knew not where the other drivers were heading, but she intended to go to Ft. Irwin, some 45 miles northeast of Barstow in the middle of the Mojave Desert. She remembered from a discussion she and Dan had during the last couple of years of the Cold War that Ft. Irwin was to be the rallying point for military personnel and their families in the event of a nuclear war or other catastrophic national emergency. She knew the military installation had other advantages in their present situation as well—it was remote, few people knew about it, and it would be safe from the chaos that would likely result from millions of displaced persons trying to survive in the wilderness.

  29

  Counterattack

  On Saturday, Taiwan’s armed forces were shocked and pummeled into paralysis. On Sunday, reeling from the fast hitting Chinese blows, Taiwan struggled to call up its reserves and assess the situation. They knew PLA forces had already isolated Taipei by Sunday morning and, no doubt, would seek to tighten the ring around their capital. By Monday, the Taiwanese army was beginning to fill out its ranks with reservists and returning active duty soldiers who were finally overcoming their mystifying bout with the flu. Monday’s action was dedicated to mopping up the last of the PLA resistance in Kaohsiung and cordoning off the PLA beachheads in Tainan and Taichung. Taiwan’s light infantry reserve divisions were well suited for this task when reinforced with some artillery. By Monday evening, a rough parity existed around Tainan where the 15th and 16th Light Infantry Divisions (Reserve) had boxed in the Mainlanders. South of Taichung about 80 miles south of Taipei, the Taiwanese 14th Light Division (Reserve) blocked any southward PLA movement while rendering Taichung’s commercial airport and seaport unusable with artillery fire.

  T
he Republic of China navy was reduced to a fraction of its pre-war strength. The ROC air force struggled to achieve even local air superiority for minutes at a time. The ROC high command knew that every day that went by was another day the much larger PLA would get stronger in relation to their own rapidly mobilizing forces. Further, for years Taiwan’s defense plans called for defeating the enemy at the beaches, then throwing him back into the sea with a swift counterattack before China’s numerical superiority could grind the Taiwanese to dust. If there was to be any hope of success (especially now that America appeared to be abandoning its democratic ally) it would have to come within a day or two.

  The army leadership outside of Taipei (communications with the capital was still sporadic due to Chinese radio signal jamming) decided on Tuesday morning to launch a counterattack on Wednesday. The counterattack would have three phases.

  During phase one, the Taiwanese units in the field south of Taipei would halt their retreat and pull themselves into well-defended perimeters, drawing supplies from the ample quantities of bunkered ammunition, fuel, and food. These forces would pound the ports of Keelung and Taichung. They would employ artillery and rocket fire to make Chiang Kai-Shek International unusable. While the PLA could still bring troops and supplies ashore on the beach to the west of CKS airport, the quantities lifted would be far less than if they had full use of Taiwan’s modern transportation facilities. From their battle positions the Taiwanese could also mount a series of aggressive reconnaissance in force actions designed to gain more information about their enemy while keeping him off balance.