Free Jack Ryan 11 - Bear And The Dragon by Tom Clancy

weren't so much allies as blood brothers, but in others they were less than mere associates, and Ryan had trouble figuring out the logic by which the French changed their minds. Well, the President thought, that's what I have a State Department for... “So, you think the PRC is building up its military again?”
    “Big time, but not so much their navy, which makes our friends in Taiwan feel a little better.”
    That had been one of President Ryan's foreign-policy initiatives after concluding hostilities with the defunct United Islamic Republic, now restored to the separate nations of Iran and Iraq, which were at least at peace with each other. The real reasons for the recognition of Taiwan had never been made known to the public. It looked pretty clear to Ryan and his Secretary of State, Scott Adler, that the People's Republic of China had played a role in the Second Persian Gulf War, and probably in the preceding conflict with Japan, as well. Exactly why? Well, some in CIA thought that China lusted after the mineral riches in eastern Siberia -- this was suggested by intercepts and other access to the electronic mail of the Japanese industrialists who'd twisted their nation's path into a not-quite-open clash with America. They'd referred to Siberia as the “Northern Resource Area,” harkening back to when an earlier generation of Japanese strategists had called South Asia the “Southern Resource Area.” That had been part of another conflict, one known to history as the Second World War. In any case, the complicity of the PRC with America's enemies had merited a countermove, Ryan and Adler had agreed, and besides, the Republic of China on Taiwan was a democracy, with government officials elected by the people of that nation island -- and that was something America was supposed to respect.
    “You know, it would be better if they started working their navy and threatening Taiwan. We are in a better position to forestall that than -- ”
    “You really think so?” SecTreas asked, cutting his President off.
    “The Russians do,” Jack confirmed.
    “Then why are the Russians selling the Chinese so much hardware?” Winston demanded. “That doesn't make sense!”
    “George, there is no rule demanding that the world has to make sense.” That was one of Ryan's favorite aphorisms. “That's one of the things you learn in the intelligence business. In 1938, guess who was Germany's number one trading partner?”
    SecTreas saw that sandbag coming before it struck. “France?”
    “You got it.” Ryan nodded. “Then, in '40 and '41, they did a lot of trade with the Russians. That didn't work out so well either, did it?”
    “And everyone always told me that trade was a moderating influence,” the Secretary observed.
    “Maybe it is among people, but remember that governments don't have principles so much as interests -- at least the primitive ones, the ones who haven't figured it all out yet...”
    “Like the PRC?”
    It was Ryan's turn to nod. “Yeah, George, like those little bastards in Beijing. They rule a nation of a billion people, but they do it as though they were the new coming of Caligula. Nobody ever told them that they have a positive duty to look after the interests of the people they rule -- well, maybe that's not true,” Ryan allowed, feeling a little generous. “They have this big, perfect theoretical model, promulgated by Karl Marx, refined by Lenin, then applied in their country by a pudgy sexual pervert named Mao.”
    “Oh? Pervert?”
    “Yeah.” Ryan looked up. “We had the data over at Langley. Mao liked virgins, the younger the better. Maybe he liked to see the fear in their cute little virginal eyes -- that's what one of our pshrink consultants thought, kinda like rape, not so much sex as power. Well, I guess it could have been worse -- at least they were girls,” Jack observed rather dryly, “and their culture is historically a little more liberal than ours on that sort of thing.” A