Drone Command

“The Americans will withdraw from our waters the first time we threaten to take out one of their aircraft carriers. The East China Sea will be completely ours again, and rightfully so,” the old missile general said. His green digital camouflage battle-dress uniform didn’t accommodate the fistfuls of medals he’d earned over the years, though none in wars, of course. His last general’s star was earned the new way — with cold, hard cash transferred to one of Feng’s offshore accounts.

“The new gas and oil reserves we’ve found there will be ours as well,” Feng said.

“Yes, those too. Most necessary,” the general said. “For the future of our country, of course. There’s untold wealth in those waters, is there not?”

Feng saw the hope washing over the old general’s rheumy eyes. He’d seen it many times before.

“Yes. Untold wealth.”

Vice Chairman Feng had risen through the ranks of the state oil ministry before joining the state-owned company, China National Petroleum Corporation, the largest energy company in China. Many of his relatives worked for CNPC as well and had amassed great fortunes from their endeavors. Feng had left CNPC several years ago to fulfill his political ambitions, but he kept his hand in the family business and an eye on all things gas and oil related.

“Of course,” Feng added, “that wealth will be shared among the people in the most equitable means possible.”

General Chen’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, of course.” Feng couldn’t have said it any plainer. The general was already calculating the potential amount of his share.

Feng understood that the general and his cronies were as greedy as the capitalists they derided, and leveraged it to his advantage. Admiral Ji, on the other hand, was a notable exception — utterly incorruptible. And like most true patriots, Ji was deeply resented by pragmatists like General Chen. No matter. Today’s deal cemented the uncomfortable alliance between the three of them, the last piece of Feng’s elaborate puzzle.

The general laughed. “Those American bastards will run like scalded dogs when the Wu-14 smashes one of their carriers!”

Feng nodded outwardly, but he didn’t share the general’s enthusiasm for war. Wars were inherently unpredictable, and unpredictability was bad for business. Better never to fight them, if possible.

“I thought the supreme art of war was to subdue the enemy without fighting,” Feng said, quoting China’s most famous military strategist, Sun Tzu.

“The Americans don’t believe the Wu-14 is fully operational. We may have to use it against them to prove it works.” The general sneered. “It would serve them right.”

“They don’t believe the Wu-14 works because their hypersonic program is a failure.” Feng resented the arrogant Americans as much as General Chen did.

“They forget that we invented the rocket!” Chen’s eyes bulged. “Maybe it’s time we showed them we know how to use them, too.”

“I hope it never comes to that,” Feng said. An actual shooting war with the Americans would be a disaster. Everything Feng hoped to accomplish wouldn’t require one. Just the threat of a fully operational Wu-14 would be enough to knock the Americans back on their heels.

“Merely a conjecture,” Chen said.

“Admiral Ji is waiting for my phone call. Is there any reason I shouldn’t make it?”

The old general smiled, but not from happiness. His obsequious grin was a practiced defense against apex predators like Feng, spots on a lizard hiding in the shadow of a falcon.

“The transfer of the Wu-14 to Admiral Ji and the PLAN has caused great concern among many of my colleagues in the Second Artillery Corps. They fear President Sun may transfer all of our missiles to PLAN control. But then again, they fear many other things about President Sun, as you well know.”

“As well they should,” Feng said. He was sympathetic to the military’s plight and was, in fact, their staunch defender. President Sun’s New Direction policy had embarked on a program to slash China’s defense budget and cut its conventional forces in half, all in the name of economic development. In reality, President Sun and the Party feared a military coup, and rightly so. Having abandoned Communist ideology in favor of capitalist development, the Party resorted to jingoistic nationalism and expansive military budgets to bolster its credibility, but in so doing created a dangerous new political force among the nationalistic officer corps, Admiral Ji chief among them.

The Party also feared a popular uprising from below, fueled by decades of corrosive political corruption and gross income inequality. The New Direction promised sweeping anticorruption reforms to restore legitimacy in the eyes of the people.