Mike Maden - Drone Command

The secretary of state nodded in agreement.

Wheeler added, “And if we don’t act quickly and decisively, the Japanese will start their own war, dragging us into it anyway.”

Lane addressed the whole room. “In other words, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

“That’s about the shape of it,” the chairman said. “A Texas longhorn — size dilemma.”

“So my options really are war on Chinese terms or war on our terms. Push the George Washington into harm’s way and see if the Chinese strike — or launch a massive preemptive cruise-missile strike without cause to protect our carrier from a missile that may or may not actually exist?”

“And then there’s the North Koreans and their MIRV missile testing,” Garza said, grinning. “Who knows what those batshit crazies will do.”

Lane tented his hands, calculating.

“Your decision, Mr. President?” the chairman finally asked.

Lane wasn’t exactly sure. He’d already cast his lot with Pearce and Myers. With nothing but two bad choices in front of him, they were his only hope of avoiding either. But if they failed, it looked like World War III was all but certain.

He prayed they wouldn’t. But they needed time.

Time he didn’t have.

Helmeted Chinese riot police stood shoulder to shoulder against the screaming crowd, eyes burning against the tear gas blowing in their faces from the shifting winds. The front ranks clung desperately to their wire-mesh shields that had gaps between the steel rods just large enough for fingers to grasp — a distinct design flaw now made apparent as rioters seized the mesh and pulled on the tops of the shields like mountain climbers. A few succeeded in leaping over and stepping onto shields held aloft like a roof.

The police were under orders to not open fire with their weapons, but they swung their batons with abandon, trying to break the fingers clawing through the mesh or busting the ankles of the men overhead.

More than two thousand Chinese nationalist protestors shouted and surged at the wavering green police line. Black smoke choked the air as two overturned Toyota sedans burned and dozens of small fires crackled with piles of Japanese flags.

A sea of Chairman Mao posters and red and gold PRC flags hovered over the rioters’ heads. A thick, bald-headed man with Chinese flags painted on his face shouted in a megaphone. “For the love of our homeland! War with Japan! War against the invaders!”

The grim Japanese ambassador stood in the second-floor window watching the riot, a secure cell phone pressed against his ear as he gave a live description to his boss, the foreign minister back in Tokyo. He also confirmed similar riots in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Japanese restaurants, department stores, and manufacturing facilities were looted; Japanese citizens were harassed on the streets and even assaulted. Japanese-brand televisions, computers, and appliances were being smashed in stores and on the sidewalks.

Two embassy staffers standing next to the ambassador shot official videos with Canon video cameras while other frightened staffers shot home videos on their cell phones.

The ambassador and foreign minister both agreed. The real danger wasn’t the rioting. The Chinese government would never allow spontaneous protests to erupt on the streets. Tiananmen Square was proof of that.

Vice Chairman Feng watched the riots unfolding on his television. He lit a cigarette.

He had to give the MSS its due credit. The bumblers had nearly killed the Japanese activists on the dive boat two days ago. He’d seen the video footage shot by the Japanese and posted on the Internet. His explicit orders were to simply scare off the Japanese civilians, not beat them into comas.

But at least the MSS handled the controlled rioting at home well enough. State security had worked tirelessly over the last forty-eight hours to fan the flames of Chinese national outrage. Marathon television broadcasts of old newsreel footage, elderly victim interviews, and state-sponsored feature films depicting the Rape of Nanking, the invasion of Manchuria, and other Japanese wartime atrocities in China and elsewhere in Asia blanketed the airwaves. MSS social-networking agents overwhelmed the Internet, flooding blogs, websites, and the Chinese version of Twitter, Weibo, with virulent anti-Japanese propaganda and calls for vengeance even as they bullied, blocked, or secretly arrested citizens who dared suggest calm, reason, and peace.

The MSS social-networking campaign worked flawlessly. They convincingly portrayed the Chinese fishing trawler as the victim of a Japanese assault, and the old slogans about the Diaoyu Islands being stolen Chinese territory were on the lips of half a billion people. Chinese newscasts repeated the most recent public opinion poll: 57 percent said that war with Japan in the next few years was inevitable. Of those, 79 percent said that it was both necessary and good.

The polls were unsurprising. The Communist Chinese government had spent the last six decades demonizing Japan and its vicious assault on the Chinese mainland before and during World War II. In addition, every Japanese success in the postwar period was depicted as being at the expense of the Chinese people even as Japanese contributions to Chinese development in the post-Mao years were ignored. The ongoing narrative of China’s victimhood by the entire world, especially by the West and particularly Japan, was constantly promoted throughout the Chinese education system. It was a shrewd calculation by the Party leadership. The greater China’s humiliation at the hands of foreigners, the greater the victory — and hence legitimacy — of the Party as it restored China’s fortunes and sacred honor to their previous glory. They freely taught the ancient Chinese concept of tianxia , the idea that China was the center of the world, the highest civilization according to the Mandate of Heaven, and that everything and everyone under heaven owed obeisance to the greatest of all human societies.

It wasn’t terribly difficult for the MSS to tease the smoldering public hatred of Japan into a roaring fire. The trick was not letting it burn out of control. The prospect of a billion angry citizens rising up was even more worrisome than the prospect of war with Japan or even the United States. MSS operatives were at the scene of each of the riots, carefully and quietly directing events, even restraining the most overzealous. The local police departments had been warned not to fire on any Chinese citizens under penalty of extreme sanction. This wasn’t a humanitarian concern. The last thing Feng wanted was for the crazed monster of a public riot to suddenly turn on the authority of the state. Nearly thirty years later, the government was still living down the nightmare of Tiananmen Square. The Chinese people and their innate desire for freedom was still the greatest threat that Feng and the ruling class most feared.

Feng stabbed out the cigarette in his ashtray. Now the Japanese will know how serious he is about the Diaoyus. They might resent the loss of the islands and their revenues, but now they’ll fear opposing China even more.

You seem distracted tonight,” Prime Minister Ito said.

Myers was. A splitting headache. But worse, she couldn’t stop thinking about President Lane’s urgent text. The Pentagon meeting didn’t provide any new answers. She told Pearce, of course. No one else. Time was running out.