by Ha Jin
“Mao’s brain seems wired differently,” Gary said, pouring more beer into his glass. “He still has a young warrior’s mentality, aggressive and ruthless.”
“I have to say he has lots of gumption and charisma.” Thomas spoke in a flat voice. “Mao is fearless and shrewd. Still, sometimes I was befuddled as I was reading him. How the hell could he say ‘There is endless joy in fighting heaven, there is endless joy in fighting earth, and there is endless joy in fighting man,’ as if he were a god of warfare? It’s beyond me.”
“He’s being celebrated as a deity there,” Gary said. “A septuagenarian war god, my ass. For me, Mao is China’s biggest problem.”
“Why’s that?”
“His ego is so enormous that he can never swallow his pride in the interests of his country and his people. He sees China not as his responsibility but as his property. He doesn’t understand that even though he’s the head of the nation, he’s still no more than its manager, its servant.”
“Can you be more specific about his mistakes or shortcomings?”
“For example, he should have tried every way to retain the Soviets’ aid for China, but he fell out with Khrushchev because he couldn’t eat humble pie. He couldn’t see how poor and underdeveloped China was, and couldn’t sacrifice his personal pride so that the Chinese people could benefit more from the Soviets’ economic help. In retrospect, I would attribute most of China’s recent disasters to Mao’s egotism. He has styled himself as a thinker and is never practical. He’s too romantic to be a sophisticated and responsible leader. Worse yet, he has never kept his hands on small things, different from Stalin, who would oversee minute details in his economic plans. Even for a thinker, Mao’s ideas are quite sloppy, and most of them are derivative.” Gary caught himself and stopped short. Never had he spoken about the supreme leader like this. His loosened tongue disturbed him.
Thomas said, “I can see the difference between Mao and Stalin. Mao sometimes acts like a juvenile, lacking consistency and integrity. But you can also say he’s more like a poet.” Thomas ripped a packet of Sweet’N Low and emptied the powder into his iced tea.
“His poetry is okay,” Gary said. He wondered why Thomas was so fond of the sugar substitute. He wouldn’t touch the sweetener, because Nellie would not allow him, saying it contained too much saccharin.
A soaring saxophone note drew their eyes to the band. A trio of musicians was playing jazz, all swaying their bodies and tapping their feet. The music then went slow, dangling with a tumbling melody. Gary narrowed his eyes, and his facial expression became dreamy.
IT WAS AT THE END OF 1966 when he began to dye his graying hair. His wife thought he was too vain and told him that he actually looked better with salt-and-pepper hair, more respectable and even a bit professorial, but he wouldn’t let his hair be ravaged by the hands of his biological clock. He joked by imitating Mao, “There is endless joy in fighting nature.” He laughed at his own quip, which baffled Nellie. Once she grunted behind his back, “Crazy boob.” Their daughter overheard her, but she too wanted to see her father look younger and more vigorous. She had once run into Gary and Suzie together in his car and found the small woman pretty with an angular face, clear skin, and delicate shoulders. At the sight of Lilian, they stopped talking. Gary waved at his daughter as if inviting her to get into the car, but the girl spun around and sprinted away, the hem of her plaid skirt fluttering. She never told her mother about the encounter. Somehow she couldn’t hate Suzie, perhaps because she could tell that her dad appeared younger and more spirited when he was with her.
With his espionage activities suspended, Gary could relax some. He no longer needed to fuss over the secrecy that had almost become second nature, although he still wouldn’t let Nellie enter his study. There was a plethora of useful intelligence going through his hands nowadays, but he didn’t bother to collect most of it. What was the good of gathering the information if it couldn’t be delivered? So he just let it slip by and picked only the items that might have long-term value.
These years, from 1966 to 1968, with his mission in the doldrums, were the most peaceful period of his life in America. He enjoyed the solitude and had acquired a taste for various kinds of cheese and California wines. He often walked in the parks alone for hours on end, carrying a twisted cane to keep away wild animals, especially snakes. His family life was uneventful despite Nellie’s knowledge of Suzie. His wife realized that psychologically he might need a woman from his native land. As long as Suzie didn’t pose a threat to their marriage, Nellie wasn’t going to make a big fuss about the affair. Many years later, when her daughter asked her why she had turned a blind eye to her father’s keeping a mistress, Nellie said, “Maybe that floozy could give him something I couldn’t. I felt sorry for your dad. He was such a lonesome soul that he might’ve needed to find some comfort elsewhere. In spite of everything, I loved him.”
Early in the winter of 1968, Gary came across a report sent over by Taipei, which stated that the Soviets had recently deployed more than thirty mechanized divisions in Mongolia besides those already in Siberia, perhaps with the intention to attack China. It was known that the two countries had border disputes, but never had Gary expected that their small-unit skirmishes would escalate into a confrontation of such a scale. He had no doubt about the validity of the information. Taiwan’s intelligence service had a monitoring station in Mongolia, designed to follow the military activities inside China, but on the sly the listening post also kept an ear on the Soviet army’s movements. And Taipei would routinely pass the information to the Americans. Gary was uncertain if China knew about all the Russian divisions and missile brigades placed along its northern border. He grew restless, being unable to send out the intelligence.
Then, in March 1969, military clashes broke out between the Soviets and the Chinese on the Wusuli River. In the two small battles, the Chinese troops got the upper hand even though they were not as well equipped and didn’t use tanks. They’d been better prepared and ambushed the Russian soldiers who went in armored vehicles onto Zhenbao Island in the frozen river. The border fights galvanized the world. In China large public demonstrations against the Soviet chauvinists took place in many cities, while in the United States politicians and experts appeared on the radio, a few on TV, speculating about whether the two Communist countries might go to war. Most people in the West were glad to see the widening gulf between the two Red powers. For weeks Gary had been thinking about the possibility of a war, tormented by it. Everything inside China seemed a mystery now. The country was surely in disarray, yet it had been quite aggressive in confronting the superior Soviet army. Why would Mao authorize such a move? Didn’t he understand that the Soviets might invade China just as they had occupied Czechoslovakia the previous summer? Was China ready for a war that might cripple, if not destroy, a good part of the country? Didn’t Mao dread the Russians’ thousands of nuclear warheads?
The information Gary had seen suggested a dire prospect. If war broke out, there’d be little hope that China could win. Perhaps there had been some domestic troubles that compelled Mao to externalize the tension by provoking the border clashes. Still, this could get out of hand. If only Gary had a way to make his Chinese superiors see the danger lying ahead and avoid acting rashly. If only he could meet Bingwen again. Gary talked to Suzie about the possibility of war between China and the Soviet Union. “Mao is a crazy warmonger,” she said. She now hated the chairman, though she used to have mixed feelings about him and had even regarded him as the founder of the new China. To her mind, Mao was addlepated and should have retired long ago. The longer he stayed in power, the more harm would befall the country.
Gary just echoed Suzie’s sentiments, unable to confide his true worries to her—that he’d lost contact with China and all the valuable intelligence he’d accumulated was becoming useless. On the other hand, he was by now accustomed to his isolation, which gave him an ease of mind that he had never experienced before. His life was growing mo
re peaceful, and most of his old anxiety and fear were gone. He slept better and no longer felt like he was being shadowed when he walked alone. What’s more, he’d begun to be fond of this place, where he had a secure, decent job and a comfortable home with a little flower garden. If he were a regular immigrant, he’d have felt like a success, like those who would brag to the people back in their native lands that they had made it in America.
In late July 1969 came the Apollo moon landing, a feat that astounded the world. Gary was riveted to the TV watching the astronauts, each carrying a bulky backpack and bounding in their white suits on the face of the moon. They also gathered around their vehicle and equipment as if working underwater. Gary took pride in this country (he wrote in his diary on July 20, 1969: “Truly a great feat!”) and was happy to see the U.S. flag planted up there. Now this historic event was unfolding before the eyes of the world to demonstrate the U.S. supremacy in space technology. In the back of Gary’s mind lurked the hope that the moon landing might shake the Chinese leaders back to their senses and make them see how far behind their country had fallen.
On an early August afternoon, the postman delivered a bulky box to the super’s office of our building. Henry had gone swimming at a fitness center, so I scrawled my signature on the scanner. Evidently it was something Henry had purchased from New Jersey, but usually he’d tell me before he placed an order.
That evening I asked him about the package, and he said, “Oh, that’s something I bought for Ben.”
“What is it?”
“We’ll see.” His eyes twinkled with a smile. He slit the sealing tape with a brass key and opened the flaps. Inside were foam peanuts, and he stirred them with his hand and fished out five blue boxes, each the size of half a brick.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Microchips.”
I opened a box and took out a square chip, about two inches across and topped with a miniature cooling fan. My heart began to sink, and I asked Henry, “Are they expensive?”
“You bet. More than five hundred bucks apiece.”
“Why did Ben want you to buy them?”
“He said because he had a Chinese last name, some salespeople often screwed up his orders and once in a while his purchases never arrived. If I could buy stuff for him, he’d pay me double price for everything I bought. So I thought it was a good opportunity to make some money. See these five little rascals? I paid twenty-seven hundred bucks for them and can get a one hundred percent profit.”
“This doesn’t sit well with me.”
“C’mon, Lilian dear, don’t be such a party pooper. Anybody can buy microchips. In actuality I think Ben’s doing me a favor, letting me pull in a couple of bucks.”
That night I surfed the Internet to find out what these chips were for. I spent about three hours online but couldn’t figure it out exactly. Yet I came across several articles about Chinese nationals living in the States charged for shipping banned microchips to China. Some of the chips belonged to the category of embargoed technology because they could be used on aircraft and missiles. I was alarmed, though uncertain if Ben had been acquiring them for the Chinese military. I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance that this was illegal.
I talked to Henry about it again the following day and mentioned that some Chinese nationals had recently pleaded guilty to shipping banned microchips to China—two men had been sentenced to seven and five years in prison. “Please, Lilian,” Henry said. “You’re paranoid, still under the shadow of your father’s case. First, if the chips I bought are banned technology, how can someone like me purchase them without any restriction? Second, it’s not like I got hundreds of them. I ordered only five. There’s nothing illegal in this.”
I didn’t know how to counter him. His reasoning sounded cogent, yet I couldn’t feel at ease about this. I called Ben the next evening, and Sonya picked up. She sounded cheerful, her voice giggly. She had just moved in with Ben, and their relationship seemed to be going strong.
“Ben, Aunt Lilian’s on the line,” she trilled.
After a few words with him, I asked point-blank about Henry’s purchase. “Please level with me, Ben,” I said. “Is it illegal to do that?”
“No, anyone can buy Intel chips like those. For that matter, they’re already obsolete. The manufacturer doesn’t produce them anymore.”
“Then why did you get Henry involved?”
“It’s just easier for him to buy them directly. Besides, I want Uncle Henry to make some money. It’s easy cash for him, don’t you think?”
“So you can make a lot of profit acquiring microchips?”
“Yes, usually about three hundred percent. I give Uncle Henry a third of what I get.”
“Thank you. But who are the ultimate buyers of the chips?”
“Some Chinese companies.”
“Why do they pay three times more than the listing price?”
“Because they cannot acquire them by themselves.”
“Does this mean the chips are embargoed?”
“In principle, yes.”
“What do you mean by ‘in principle’?”
“It’s a long story. Ever since the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, the U.S. has banned lots of technology from export to China. Some microchips are on the embargo list. But the problem is that many Chinese companies and labs have been using equipment made by American manufacturers, so some new chips are needed to replace the broken ones. This has nothing to do with cutting-edge technology. It is a matter of maintaining what the United States has already sold to China. The users of the machines can’t buy any of the banned chips directly, so our company’s service fills the need.”
“I hope you’re telling me the truth, Ben.”
“Why should I lie to you? You’re the only family I have on this side of the planet. You’re my aunt by blood.”
“Aren’t some of the chips used on missiles and jet fighters?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Clearly it’s illegal to ship those to China. If the FBI finds this out, you might do jail time.”
“Look, how many rich people are making money legally in this country, or in any country? It’s not like I’m sending the chips back in large quantities. I sell only two or three at a time. The truth is, the chips are available elsewhere if not from the States.”
Still unconvinced, I said, “Ben, you must stop doing anything illegal. In this country you have to keep your nose clean if you want to live a good, peaceful life.”
“Okay, I hear you.”
“I’m going to mail you some articles on your grandfather. You should read them carefully and see how he messed up his life here. Don’t be a blind patriot like Gary.”
“Thanks very much. Do send them along. I can’t wait to know more about my granddad.”
Should I mail him all the thirty-odd pieces in my file? I wondered. I decided not to. Instead, I Xeroxed seven major articles on Gary’s case published in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Before stuffing them in an envelope, I looked through them again. My eye caught a passage I had underlined: “By Shang’s own confession, he received cash for every delivery of intelligence, though at the moment it remains unclear how much he has actually been paid. According to a CIA officer, who spoke under anonymity, Shang had expensive taste and was a big spender. To date, the CIA has refused to comment and only insists that it has been participating in the investigation actively.” I turned to another article, which said: “The Chinese have a different way of conducting espionage. They are extremely patient, and their secret agents tend to remain dormant for many years before they become active. Undoubtedly Shang was a master mole, a key source of intelligence for the Chinese. His spying activities have severely breached our national security, although at the moment it’s impossible to assess the enormity of the damage.”
I didn’t want to give Ben the complete coverage of the story, figuring that some of the more devastating details should be disclosed to him step by step.
I FedExed him the seven articles the next morning.
1969–1970
On August 28, 1969, The Washington Star published a frightening piece of news. A front-page article stated that the Soviet Union, tired of the border clashes with the Chinese, had been planning massive air strikes on China’s nuclear installations. The Soviets had been sounding out the leaders of various countries on their reactions if it took such an extreme step. Although printed in the metro evening paper, whose reputation had in recent years fallen close to that of tabloids, the news unsettled the public. Gary had no doubt about the credibility of the report and was more interested in the motive behind such a publication. Even the U.S. State Department had been interviewed about the Soviets’ air-raid plan, though its spokesman said this might be just “a rumor.”
The news seemed to have been released through the usual channels, but some people in the DC intelligence community suspected that the report might be a maneuver by the White House—although there’d been discussions about destroying the Chinese nuclear arsenal in academic circles, this was the first time the topic had been broached publicly. The intelligence analysts surmised that by making this story appear in the media, the U.S. government might have been signaling and even making small overtures to the Chinese. In contrast, some others felt that the Russians might have a hand in this report, taking advantage of the U.S. media to put more pressure on China, because word of the story would surely get to Beijing and might help restrain Mao and his comrades. There were other speculations as well. Yet some military analysts dismissed the report as mere gossip, insisting that if the Russians had intended to bomb China’s nuclear facilities, they’d have been quiet about it.
