Ultimatum (35 page)

Now he was waiting for the call, which was scheduled for eight thirty a.m., eight thirty p.m. in Beijing. Olsen and Ball had arrived an hour earlier to brief him, and Eales came to sit in on the call along with Oliver Wu, who was going to interpret and take notes. They agreed on what the president would say. Then they waited, watching coverage of Whitefish on the screen.

Toward the end of the siege, most of the group had surrendered. Resistance folded after Dare died. Looking at the weapons in that basement, Benton wouldn’t like to think what would have happened if Dare hadn’t died when he did.

“I heard one of his own guys shot him,” said Alan Ball.

“First sensible thing any of them did in two months,” muttered Olsen.

“We ought to get some of their guys on camera saying there were no wanton killings. I’ll talk to Katzenberger.” Eales glanced at the president. “Jodie’s going to set up a press call for you with Katzenberger and Erin. Let’s make sure you get some of the glory.”

Benton nodded.

They had to wait a little longer. Finally the call came through.

Joe Benton waited for President Wen to come on the line.

“President Wen,” he said in an upbeat tone. “I’m glad we are able to talk. I hope you’re well.”

Wen returned the pleasantry in Mandarin. Wu translated. “President Benton, it’s a shame we have not been able to meet.”

Wen hoped that they would meet soon. In fact, he hoped they would meet in Beijing soon after the G9 summit in India.

Benton said he hoped they could meet as soon as the conditions were right, which was the line he had agreed with Olsen and Ball. Then, as they had planned, he went on to say directly that he was disappointed U.S. companies hadn’t won any of the contracts that had been awarded by the Chinese authorities a couple of weeks back.

“I regret,…” translated Wu, “I have no influence over commercial decisions, President Benton . . . These were commercial decisions that were made by the responsible authorities ... You too do not interfere in commercial decisions. We should cooperate as much as we can within the limits of our power.”

Olsen rolled his eyes.

“I would like to send my secretary of commerce to meet with your trade ministers,” said Benton.

“Certainly ... He would be welcome...United States ministers are always welcome.”

“We need to cooperate as much as we can.”

Wen agreed. He asked what else President Benton had in mind.

Benton said he would be open to any proposals President Wen wished to present.

There was a hush in the Oval Office.

Wen didn’t speak.

“President Wen,” said Benton, “together we can make great progress for both our countries. If we do this carefully, and with good faith, there can also be stability. That is the prize we can have, progress with stability. History will judge us kindly if this is what we achieve. But this requires us to agree, and to act. We must act now. Now is the moment.”

There was silence on the line again. Then Benton heard Wen’s voice start up in Mandarin.

“To seize a moment in history…This requires good faith.”

“I agree.”

“Before proposals must come. . . trust between the leaders. Then there can be proposals. Then the moment in history can be seized.” There was a pause. “Trust comes from knowing the other ... A telephone is good, but face-to-face is better.”

“Face-to-face is good when there is something to agree on,” said Benton.

As his translator interpreted the response, Wen laughed.

“Let us agree generally,” said Wu, translating Wen’s response, “and agree on specifics later.”

“President Wen, time is short. We need to be bold in the levels of emissions cuts we propose. If we can find a way of getting twenty to twenty-five percent in cuts, then we can really get somewhere.” Benton paused, listening for Wen’s response. He avoided looking at the others in the Oval Office. In giving specific numbers, Benton had gone further than agreed or even discussed. “President Wen, this is necessary for both our countries. We need to agree on the kind of magnitude, the ballpark, and then our people can get down to details.”

Wen’s voice started up in Mandarin. A second later Wu translated. “First we should agree generally.”

“Yes. Exactly. If you and I can agree generally right now on the magnitude of the cuts, then that pushes everything ahead. That’s what we need. Can we agree that our people should be working on mutual cuts in the range of twenty to twenty-five percent?”

Benton waited tensely for Wen’s response.

“I heard that the difficult situation in your... in Montana was resolved with little bloodshed today.”

Benton frowned at the jump in subject. “Yes.”

“I am glad.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your saying that. It was a difficult time, but our forces did a fine job and I’m proud of them. But to come back to—”

“We sometimes have difficulties as well. Sometimes we also are called upon to act inside our own country.”

Benton didn’t reply to that. “President Wen, I want to come back to what I was saying. Can we agree on what we should be doing?”

“Of course. First we must meet face-to-face, then comes trust. I met President Gartner a number of times.”

Benton didn’t know what to say in response. He glanced at Larry Olsen. Olsen shook his head emphatically. He cut his hand crisply through the air. This wasn’t going anywhere. Wen wasn’t going to be drawn. Anything else Benton said would just create a hostage for the future.

Benton tried again. Wen wouldn’t be drawn.

“We must talk more often,” said Benton eventually.

“I agree,” said President Wen.

“This is very useful.”

“Yes.”

There was silence in the Oval Office after Benton put down the phone.

“Have you ever heard such crap?” exploded Olsen. “Comparing our action at Whitefish to some of their dirty internal repression?”

“He didn’t necessarily mean that,” said Ball.

“He damn well did. You watch, that’ll come back at us. Next time we say something about their repression, they’ll start yelling about Whitefish.”

“You don’t give them credit for anything.”

“Don’t I? Well, we’re not getting any proposals from them, that’s for sure. Wen’s just going to sit.”

“We should go meet him,” said Ball.

“Yeah, right.”

There was silence again.

Joe Benton was frowning, staring at the phone. He felt somewhat troubled now for having said as much as he had. Suddenly, as he spoke to his Chinese counterpart, it had occurred to him that he could cut through everything by throwing out the numbers. Yet it had had no effect. The other leader was obviously willing to sit back and wait. Now Benton wondered whether he had made a mistake. He had revealed something, and the other man hadn’t, and that didn’t feel right.

Or maybe it wasn’t so bad. The numbers weren’t a secret. At some point, Wen had to know them.

And yet, it did feel unbalanced.

Benton looked up at the others. “I don’t think that did any harm, right? I don’t think that set us back.”

~ * ~

Monday, March 28

Oval Office, The White House

Oliver Wu thought it was unlikely that President Wen himself sanctioned the leak to the press.

“It makes you lose too much face, Mr. President. The contracts, that’s one thing. Only we know what the connection is. It’s a strong public act, but it gives you room to back down privately. It’s different if you have to back down from something in public, that’s when you lose face. At this stage, I don’t think Wen would want that to happen. It would make you harder for him to deal with later, if he wants to, because you’ll lack credibility. Making your opponent lose face is always a two-edged sword. Wen would be very sensitive to all of this. Losing face is probably a more powerful weapon in his mind than it is in yours.”

Benton smiled ruefully. “I don’t know about that.”

“Also, the Chinese press has barely mentioned it since the leak happened. That’s another important indicator. If Wen was really using this to make you lose face, it would be everywhere.”

Jackie Rubin wasn’t sure they needed to be thinking only about Wen. “Someone else over there could have leaked it, couldn’t they?”

“True, but what would they have had to gain?” said Wu. “If it’s someone else in the upper echelons of the party, then this isn’t about us. It’s about them and their position in the party. That’s not to say they wouldn’t use it, because they would. But I’ve gone through all the likely instigators—Ding, Zhai, Xuan, Ma, Li, even Chou—and I don’t see what it does to build anyone’s position. If someone in the Standing Committee had come out and said there’s no risk of anything, then, yes, it makes sense to plant that question in a news conference with the president, for example, to discredit him. But no one’s said that, at least not publicly. There’s no context for this. Without context, without some kind of relationship to the ground on which power is being struggled for, a leak has no value.”

“What if it’s designed to create context?” said Eales. “It might be a first step. Next thing they might leak that we’ve been meeting with Chen.”

“Then they’d be attacking Wen.”

“That’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. But this is a very roundabout way of doing it. I’d expect to see more context first. I could also be wrong on the first count. Maybe Wen does want the president to lose face. That’s possible for reasons we don’t understand. I’m not ruling it out. I just don’t see it as being high on the list of probabilities, and there was nothing in the conversation with Wen that even hinted at it.”

“So what are we saying?” said the president. “The leak didn’t come from the Chinese side?”

“I think what Oliver’s saying,” said Larry Olsen, “is that it’s probably not Wen, and if it’s not Wen, and yet if it did come from within the party, and yet without any context, it’s a reflection of an internal tension that’s too subtle for us to see right now. So we should come back to what we need to decide today, which is what we do now.”

Benton agreed. What he wanted out of this meeting was a conclusion, even if only a preliminary one, about what should be done next.

“Go ahead, Larry,” he said.

Olsen glanced at him. Benton knew what was in that look. Inevitably, there was a residue left from his accusation about the leak.

“Go ahead,” said Benton again.

“There’s a number of things. First, we haven’t done anything since those contracts were given away. That’s almost three weeks ago now. Second, this thing comes out about Miami going underwater, and we don’t say anything except that we support the Kyoto process and a multilateral approach. Third, Mr. President, you talk to Wen and he won’t engage on anything but setting up a meeting. I think he thinks you’re backing down.”

“Or that we’re going to start using a more conventional approach,” said Alan Ball pointedly.

“That’s not how they’ll be looking at it. They think we’re beat. That’s what they’ll be saying to themselves.”

“Thank you, Larry,” said the president. “You’ve made yourself clear. Dr. Wu?”