Robert Sawyer: Wake

He cast his mind back to 1989. The government had tried its best then to maintain social order, but rabble rousers outside China had made a difficult situation much worse by inundating the country with faxes of wildly inaccurate news reports, including New York Times articles and transcripts of CNN broadcasts.

The Party recognized that there might someday be a similar circumstance during which protecting its citizens from an onslaught of outsider propaganda would be necessary, and so the Changcheng Strategy had been devised. Going far beyond the Golden Shield Project, which had been in effect for years, Changcheng had never yet been fully implemented, but surely it was called for now. He would address the nation in appropriate terms about the crisis in Shanxi, and he would not allow his words to be immediately gainsaid by outsiders. He could not risk the citizenry responding violently or in a panic.

The door to his office opened. He turned and saw his secretary — beautiful, young, perfect — walking the long distance toward him holding a thick sheaf of papers bound in black covers. “Here you are, sir. And Minister Zhang is on the phone now with Dr. Quan Li. He will be here shortly.”

She placed the document on the desk and withdrew. He looked once more at the placid water, then walked back to his desk and sat down. The cover of the document was marked in stark white characters “Eyes Only,” “Restricted,” and “If You Are Not Sure You Are Authorized to Read This, You Are Not.” He opened it and scanned the table of contents: “Fixed-Line Telephony,” “Cellular Phones,” “The Special Problem of Facsimile Machines,” “Shortwave Radio,” “Satellite Communications — Uplink and Downlink,” “Electronic Mail, the Internet, and the World Wide Web,” “Maintaining Essential Services During Implementation,” and so on.

He turned the page to the Executive Summary; the paper was heavy, stiff. “As required by their conditions of license, all telephony providers in China — whether fixed-line or mobile — maintain a system-wide ability in software to immediately block calls going outside China’s borders and/or to reject incoming calls from foreign countries…” “Similar filtering capabilities are available for all governmental and commercial satellite relay stations…”

“The World Wide Web presents a particular challenge, because of its decentralized nature; however, almost all Internet traffic between China and the rest of the world goes through just seven fiber-optic trunk lines, at three points, so…”

He leaned back in his leather chair and shook his head. The name “World Wide Web” was offensive to him, for it touted a globalist, integrated view antithetical to his country’s great traditions.

The office door opened again and in came Zhang Bo, the Minister of Communications. He was Han, in his mid-fifties, short and squat, and had a small mustache, which, like the hair on his head, was dark brown utterly devoid of gray. He wore a navy blue business suit and a light blue tie.

“We are going to deal decisively with Shanxi,” said the president.

Zhang’s thin eyebrows climbed his forehead, and the president saw his head bob as he swallowed. “Dr. Quan told me what he’d recommended. But surely you won’t—” The minister stopped, frozen by the president’s gaze.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, Your Excellency. I’m simply concerned. The world will … note this.”

“Doubtless. Which is why we shall invoke the Changcheng Strategy.”

The minister’s eyes went wide. “That is a drastic step, Your Excellency.”

“But a necessary one. Are you prepared to implement it?”

Minister Zhang moved a finger back and forth along his mustache as he considered. “Well, telephony is no problem — we’ve done rotating tests of that for years now, during the night; the cutoffs work just fine. The same with satellite communications. As for the Internet, we studied what happened with the seabed earthquake of late 2006, and what happened in Burma in September 2007 when the junta there cut off all net access. And we looked at what happened in January 2008 when the severing of two undersea cables in the Mediterranean cut off Internet services to large parts of the Middle East. And in early 2008, of course, many of the procedures were tested here as we dealt with the Tibet situation.” He paused. “Now, yes, any attempt to shut down the Web within China would be difficult; thousands of ISPs would have to be blocked. But Changcheng calls only for cutting the Chinese part of the Web off from the rest of the world, and the appropriate infrastructure is in place for that. I don’t anticipate any problems.” Another pause. “But, if I may, how long do you intend to have Changcheng in effect?”

“Several days; perhaps a week.”

“You’re worried about word reaching the foreign press?”

“No. I’m worried about word coming back from them to our people.”

“Ah, yes. They will misconstrue what you’re intending to do in Shanxi, Excellency.”

“Doubtless,” the president said, “but it will ultimately blow over. Fundamentally, the rest of the world doesn’t care what happens to the Chinese people, least of all to our poorest citizens. They have always turned a blind eye to what happens within our borders, so long as they can shop cheaply at their Wal-Marts. They will move on to other things soon enough.”

“Tian—” Zhang stopped himself, the allusion that was never made by others in these contexts stillborn on his lips.

But the president nodded. “That was different; those were students. Our actions there were the same as those of the Americans at Kent State and a hundred other places. The Westerners saw themselves in what we did, and it was their own self-loathing they transferred to us. But rural peasants? There is no connection. There may be vitriol for a short time, but it will die down because they will realize that our actions have helped make them — the Westerners — safe. Meanwhile, we will present a more palatable story to our people; I will leave preparing that in your capable hands. But if word does get out during the most sensitive period, when the incident is fresh, I don’t want a distorted Western view of it being reflected back into this country.”

Zhang nodded. “Very well. Still, the Changcheng Strategy will have its own repercussions.”

“Yes,” said the President. “I know. I’m sure the Minister of Finance will complain about the economic impact; he will urge me to make the interruption as short as possible.”

Zhang tilted his head. “Well, even during it, Chinese individuals will still be able to call and email other Chinese; Chinese consumers will still be able to buy online from Chinese merchants; Chinese television signals will still be relayed by satellites. Life will go on.” A pause. “But, yes, there will be needs for international electronic cash transfers — the Americans servicing their debts to us, for instance. We can keep certain key channels open, of course, but nonetheless a short interruption is doubtless best.”

The president swiveled his chair, his back now to Zhang, and he looked out the other window, at the slanted roofs of the Forbidden City, the silver sky shimmering overhead.

His country’s rapidly increasing prosperity had been a joy to behold, and it was, he knew, thanks to his policies. In a few more decades, peasant villages like the ones in question would be gone anyway; China would be the richest country in the world. Yes, there would always be foreign trade but by the end of this century there would be no more “developing world,” no cheap labor here — or anywhere else — for foreigners to use. Raising the level of prosperity in the People’s Republic meant that China would eventually be able to go back to what it had always been, back to the roots of its strength: an isolated nation with purity of thought and purpose. This would simply be a small taste of that, an appetizer for things to come.