The dongfeng deception, p.2
The Dongfeng Deception, page 2
Having acquired a taste for international discourse during his student days in the US, Zhang was determined to travel widely, appreciating travel-built knowledge and valuable overseas alliances. It had become his personal mantra that one should ‘know one’s enemies well and keep them close’. It annoyed him, however, that NATO counterparts still treated Chinese staff officers as junior members of their celebrated international military elite.
Obsessed with the fading glory of their British, Prussian, French, and American military traditions, the West seemed ignorant of, or simply unable to acknowledge, China’s own, extraordinary military tradition. They failed to understand the timeless nature of that tradition or how deeply it ran in the Chinese military psyche. In Zhang Ming Wei’s view, that was a major tactical blunder on their part; one that could be exploited to China’s advantage.
In medieval times, China’s military had no peer. Indeed, cavalry, canon, gunpowder, and missiles were all Chinese inventions. Since the 1700’s, however, Chinese military genius had lost its currency and, by the middle of the 20th Century, been forgotten. It had finally been devalued by the Imperial Palace’s humiliating defeat at the hands of British expeditionary forces during the Boxer Rebellion and further diminished by Mao’s revolutionary long march, with its under-equipped and poorly-trained peasant-soldiers, trudging up mountains with mules. Finally, it had been dismissed as irrelevant during China’s Cultural Revolution, which saw all intellectuals, technocrats and those who dared to question authority, banished to remote work camps.
In truth, it was only in relatively recent history that European powers had developed a cogent military science. They had done so when Portugal had finally evolved a technology for casting cannon barrels which didn’t explode and when a rampaging Napoleon had forced Europeans to join forces, think tactically and drastically improve their weapons, mobility and efficiency.
In their scramble to do so, European Generals had revisited the war tactics of the Romans and the ancient military genius of China’s legendary General Sun Tzu, articulated in his ‘Art of War’ manuscripts. These had then become a sort of manifesto for contemporary military teaching and China’s military genius had thus silently informed all western military thinking and logic.
A brilliant strategist and philosopher, China’s great General had identified three principles which underpinned all warfare and which a very contemporary US General, Norman Schwarzkopf, had later conceded he relied upon in his storming subjugation of Iraq; Sun Tzu’s principles of ‘deception, speed and obliteration of the weak link’ had become Schwarzkopf’s ‘Shock and Awe’.
It was Sun Tzu who, reflecting upon the tactics of Genghis Khan, had first identified guerrilla warfare, years before it was used by the Sikhs, by Mao (to harass the Kuomintang), by south American rebels and by the Viet Cong. Sun Tzu had said… “A military leader must be serene. He must be inscrutable. He must use diplomacy to enter the mind of his adversary, he must understand his enemy’s unfathomable plans and he must live to fight another day.”
General Zhang Ming Wei seemed to have each of these immutable principles etched into his very psyche and to wear them as a cloak in his daily interaction with others. Indeed, that was what made people around him so nervous. His inscrutability, which he used as a personal foil to disguise the shrewd intellect which was always at work inside his head, working like the feet of a duck below the calm waters of a pond, portraying serenity on the surface while he analysed and planned every decision in furious detail.
On this occasion, he was visiting Nanning to inspect the aging missile facility personally, having received unsatisfactory reports about its state of repair, its military relevance and the extent of recent flooding in its subterranean silos. That was the trouble with ‘below-ground’ systems. They were always flooding. Paradoxically, the enemy’s ICBMs were all highly susceptible to flooding, but only because they were deployed in nuclear submarines, running silently beneath vast oceans. Western submarines were clearly superior. They did not leak! They ran silent, they were mobile and almost impossible to interdict.
When it was first introduced, the Dongfeng Missile system had been housed in another of China’s great, but little-known construction wonders; its so-called ‘Underground Great Wall’. General Zhang understood the proud history of this iconic project, but he understood its modern limitations even better. During the cold war, this labyrinth of inter-connecting tunnels had been meant to serve as a nuclear fall-out shelter for troops and to protect China’s military arsenal. Later, the tunnel system had been adapted to accommodate missile silos, in a deployment chain stretching over two thousand miles, from Kashgar, on the north-western border with Kyrgyzstan, to Nanning on the border with Vietnam.
Now all that was about to change. In the brilliant young General’s view, China’s underground system was now a white elephant. Those defences had long since become sitting ducks and an embarrassing tribute to China’s military obsolescence. Modern surveillance technology, anti-missile defence technology, bunker-busting armaments and other advances now meant that each silo had long since been carefully targeted by opposing military forces.
‘Launch signatures’ had been programmed to ensure immediate detection, retaliation and interdiction of any ICBMs launched from China’s static silos.
This inspection was, therefore, a precursor to a bold decision by the young General to shut the whole system down permanently in favour of a more contemporary, mobile system, using aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. Indeed, while the west was coming to grips with China’s economic miracle, it failed to notice that China, under the leadership of General Zhang, was working a military miracle that might eclipse its economic achievements.
Upon entering the complex, the General found a fawning Colonel Liu waiting on the elevated gantry leading across the silo complex to the map room. Colonel Liu bowed his head low, like the court Mandarins of old, to emphasise respect. Then he snapped to attention, smiling obsequiously as he directed the General to precede him down the corridor. They entered the map room, which served as a sort of a board room, but with glass walls on two sides providing a commanding view into the labyrinthine cave containing the tall, gleaming Dongfeng VII ballistic missile. The Dongfeng rose, proud and erect, from its central launch pad. It looked innocent enough, but it carried the lethal sting of a billion vipers in its conical nose. There, a 3,000 kg 5-megaton nuclear payload lay inert, like a sleeping dragon, waiting for its master to press a button which would summon it to life and allow it to belch its fire.
A nest of service corridors radiated out from the central chamber surrounding the launch pad. These ran off at various levels, providing access for a miscellany of support personnel servicing the missile. Vulnerable to the explosive blast of a launch, these service corridors could be closed off during the launch phase by activating huge, hydraulic fire doors.
‘Welcome to Nanning Missile Complex, General Zhang,’ the beaming Colonel continued. ‘I am very proud to show you my wonderful complex and to explain how it works. I regard this complex as the teeth of the tiger, which make our great People’s Republic invincible. But first, may I offer you and your staff some tea?’ asked Liu.
General Zhang walked slowly to the head of the table, strategically positioning himself at the most commanding seat in the room. Then he removed his cap and sat, as a chairman might at a board meeting. When he was seated, the minions around him descended upon the other seats, vying for a position close to the General. Even the small banality of the seating arrangements had been turned to military advantage by Zhang, affording him, as the head of the table, an opportunity to outflank those in his presence. He accepted a steaming tribute of green tea, took a careful sip and set it back down. Then he raised his head regally and directed a steely gaze at the Colonel.
‘I wish I could agree with you, Colonel Liu, but only two possibilities exist. You are either totally ignorant of the current technological superiority of Western forces arrayed against us, or you are an imbecile; a pig-ignorant man lacking the wit to see how out-of-date your glorious missile silos have become.’
The General’s words descended upon the unsuspecting Colonel like a thunder clap, leaving him wide-eyed and completely emasculated by their brutal logic.
‘But General,’ Liu stammered, ‘we have invested a fortune in this system and it has been at the forefront of our deterrence, for as long as I can remember.’
‘That is my point. These silos are almost as old as you, Colonel Liu. Like you, they have lost all of their menace and sting. They are tired, anachronistic and an embarrassment. The US forces and NATO have long since identified each and every one of our missile silos, provided an around the clock satellite surveillance of silo hatches, and programmed a launch signal, activating interdiction of each missile before it is more than 800 kilometres downrange.
‘You will continue to man this facility, because it represents a huge, sunk investment and because I intend to use it to confuse our enemies, when I deploy new warheads on a more diverse, mobile front. That information is confidential, but you will kindly continue to mouth your asinine assurance that our underground silo network is our principal deterrence. I will choose my time, when I have completed my work on a new, more potent system, to ensure the west comes to know and appreciate it. Then we will see where China stands in the international constellation of military power,’ he said.
With that, the General stood, turned and marched out of the map room in the direction he had come from. The Colonel and his minions scurried after him, feeling diminished by his powerful logic and in awe of his incisiveness. As his career developed, those traits would come to define the General, attracting wider attention and grudging respect from a growing audience of military observers around the world and from China’s National People’s Congress.
Treasury Gardens – Melbourne, Australia
A tall blonde, wearing black leotards and a baseball cap, rounded the final corner of the jogging path and huffed her way up the rise towards her accommodation. Birds flittered though patches of mottled light, seeking a flight path through lofty boughs, as shafts of morning sun penetrated the ancient oak canopy. The combination of mottled light and morning bird song lent a bucolic atmosphere to this quiet, botanical sanctuary in the middle of the Melbourne CBD, giving a lie to the frenetic honking of car horns and clanking of trams which played out, just over the rise, in Collins Street.
Dr Maggie King slowed and cocked her wrist to inspect the jogging monitor strapped to it, a metaphor for the order which ruled the fastidious academic’s life. Satisfied that she had completed the eight-kilometre distance she had set herself, to ensure a high aerobic heart rate and keep her in excellent shape, she sprinted up the final rise. Her legs quickly resumed their former rhythm, pumping in sync with the sounds of Vivaldi’s L’estro violin concerto, which rose majestically from her iPhone and resonated through earplugs into her beautiful brain. The whole was orchestrated, as a conductor might orchestrate a concert with his baton, by the rhythmic bobbing of her blonde ponytail.
Arriving at the ramp leading into her serviced apartment complex, she came to a halt, planted her legs apart, placed her hands on her hips, and sucked in deeply, allowing her heart rate to slow and her body to luxuriate in the oxygen-rich afterglow which always followed her run. Having regained her breath, she strolled into the sleepy Lobby of her building, retrieved the morning papers from the concierge, and disappeared up the stairway. At the top, she entered a light-filled studio apartment, took in its view over the beautiful parkland below, and charged the coffee machine in the kitchen alcove with fresh coffee grinds. It could gurgle away and percolate while she showered, sending its reassuring coffee vapours through the small suite of rooms and beckoning her back to a lazy breakfast.
Today was special. She was a long way from New Jersey and her beloved Princeton University, where she directed the Master’s program at the school of Political Science. She had briefly traded those familiar surrounds for a short sabbatical in Australia, at the invitation of the Institute of International Affairs. She would spend this day in her hotel suite, finalising a vote of thanks for the annual Sir Zelman Cohen Oration, which she had been invited by the Institute to deliver. The oration was a major event in the nation’s political calendar. Important eyes would be upon her, giving her a unique opportunity to broaden her intellectual authority in front of a powerful, Asian constituency. She would have to choose her words carefully, but then, she always did.
The oration was always delivered by a senior statesman or academic, one whose celebrity extended beyond national boundaries. It always explored a controversial area of public policy, ensuring that it attracted wide media coverage, and it was always attended by an audience of international political, academic and business leaders, who were deeply interested in the insights it would offer about the region’s political and economic future.
Tonight’s oration would be delivered by no less a luminary than the world-renowned historian, Professor Julian Blainey, an eccentric genius and entertaining speaker, who would doubtless deliver a ‘tour de force’ on the subject of China’s rapid economic and military emergence. His address would explore the impact of China’s ascendancy upon the USA and, by extension, upon the nations ringing the rapidly changing Asia-Pacific basin.
Dr King was delighted to be delivering the vote of thanks to this august assembly. She had been asked to take extra time, to include her own observations, as a respected academic assessing the evolving new order from the objective distance of her American University campus. That privilege had rarely been given, as it would dilute the impact of the main speaker’s address. However, Maggie King had made China a special focus of her academic life. She had studied and now spoke fluent Mandarin and had, for some time, been cautioning successive US Administrations that they would need to reshape their relationships with the sleeping dragon, whose rapid emergence would radically alter the world all Americans lived in. Her early pronouncements on China had proven accurate, prescient and ahead of the general discourse, so she had rapidly become globally recognised as an expert on US-East Asian Affairs, even advising foreign governments on areas of foreign policy sensitivity. The Chinese, too, respected her for her measured analysis and had acknowledged her as a Lao Pengyou (old friend).
After showering, the attractive academic emerged from the bathroom in bare feet, faded jeans and a loose-fitting sweater and padded into the lounge area, winding a towel around her wet hair as she went. A delicate neck and flawless complexion complemented her large, liquid eyes and sensuous mouth. These traits, together, served to heighten her femininity and natural beauty, a beauty which needed no make-up or artifice of any kind to achieve a stunning effect.
She poured a steaming tribute of coffee into a mug and plonked down onto a large sofa, where a sheaf of scribbled notes had been strewn the night before. She always began this way, scribbling bullet-points to build a skeleton around which she would construct the body of her address. She adjusted her spectacles, shuffled her notes together and began reviewing them:
“How will a new Asian Superpower change our world? — Rebalancing relations with the US against the rise of China”
• Professor Blainey has provided a valuable roadmap, but we must also hear the voices of other, Asian politicians, academics and professionals to understand how China’s emergence plays out across the Asian social and political divide. The world will want a peaceful transition and one unified, regional voice, which distils unity from a chorus of self-interested nations.
• While the western alliance countries have experienced serious economic problems, China should not write them off or see them as a waning political force. Militarily, the US remains light years ahead of China. Its economic resilience is legendary and I am certain it will regain its more usual role as a global economic powerhouse.
• As China explodes onto the world stage, lesser Asian states will each recalibrate their relationships with China and the US, searching for a secure balance of interests. The chemistry of the region will be changed forever and Asia’s feet will learn to march to a different set of geo-political drums.
• The assertion that the 21st Century belongs to Asia fails to value the roles America and Europe will continue to play. Australia might be right about China’s rapid emergence, but it should not put all of its political eggs in one basket. If Asia does become the new locomotive of the global economy, and if you are to maximise your local advantage, you will need to shrug off the clichés of your colonial past and replace them with the language of a new, Asian-oriented diplomacy. Above all, show the US and China that you have an independent foreign policy mindset, based upon common political and economic interests, which can accommodate both China and the USA.
• An obsessive focus upon China could cloud the urgent need for a balancing strategy towards India, which is an important player in the policy mix. India’s emergence will surely draw ASEAN eyes westward, across the Indian Ocean, transcending a short-sighted, myopic focus upon the South China Sea.
• In the newly emerging Asia, Australia, with its hybrid mix of eastern and western cultures and European system of law and justice, can be an ideal arbitrator of issues across the geo-political divide, providing neutral but careful leadership and bridging the gap between the east and the west.
• It is said that one must look to the past for lessons about the future, so when I was preparing for this oration, I did some research. I was dismayed to learn some inconvenient truths about my own country. Research into the relative hegemony of the two super powers, the US and China, reveals that America has invaded, been at war with or had major disputes with most of its allies, at some point in its comparatively brief history. America’s penchant for breaching the sovereignty of other nations has been unmatched, except perhaps by Japan. China emerges as the world’s most pacific nation, having preferred diplomatic solutions to military intervention for most of its history.
