he takes a cautious line.”
“This is hard for me to understand, Ming. How do they select their members? How do the ‘princes’ choose the new ‘prince’?”
“Oh, there are party members who have distinguished themselves ideologically, or sometimes from work in the field. Minister Qian, for example, used to be chief of railroad construction, and was promoted for that reason, but mainly they are picked for political reasons.”
“And Fang?”
“My minister is an old comrade. His father was one of Mao’s faithful lieutenants, and Fang has always been politically reliable, but in recent years he has taken note of the new industries and seen how well they function, and he admires some of the people who operate them. He even has some into his office from time to time for tea and talk.”
So, the old pervert is a progressive here? Nomuri wondered. Well, the bar for that was pretty low in China. You didn’t have to jump real high, but that put him in advance of the ones who dug a trench under it, didn’t it?
“Ah, so the people have no voice at all, do they?”
Ming laughed at that. “Only at party meetings, and there you guard your voice.”
“Are you a member?”
“Oh, yes. I go to meetings once a month. I sit in the back. I nod when others nod, and applaud when they applaud, and I pretend to listen. Others probably listen better. It is not a small thing to be a party member, but my membership is because of my job at the ministry. I am here because they needed my language and computer skills—and besides, the ministers like to have young women under them,” she added.
“You’re never on top of him, eh?”
“He prefers the ordinary position, but it is hard on his arms.” Ming giggled.
Ryan was glad to see that he was brushing enough. The dentist told him to floss, as he always did, and Ryan nodded, as he always did, and he’d never bought floss in his life and wasn’t going to start now. But at least he’d undergone nothing more invasive than a couple of X rays, for which, of course, he’d gotten the lead apron. On the whole, it had been ninety minutes torn off the front of his day. Back in the Oval Office, he had the latest SORGE, which was good enough for a whispered “damn.” He lifted the phone for Mary Pat at Langley.
“They’re dense,” Ryan observed.
“Well, they sure as hell don’t know high finance. Even I know better than this.”
“TRADER has to see this. Put him on the SORGE list,” POTUS ordered.
“With your day-to-day approval only,” the DDO hedged. “Maybe he has a need-to-know on economics, but nothing else, okay?”
“Okay, for now,” Jack agreed. But George was coming along nicely on strategic matters, and might turn into a good policy adviser. He understood high-stress psychology better than most, and that was the name of the game. Jack broke the connection and had Ellen Sumter call the SecTreas over from across the street.
So, what else do they worry about?” Chester asked.
“They’re concerned that some of the workers and peasants are not as happy as they should be. You know about the riots they had in the coal region.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, the miners rioted last year. The PLA went in to settle things down. Several hundred people were shot, and three thousand arrested.” She shrugged while putting her bra back on. “There is unrest, but that is nothing especially new. The army keeps control of things in the outlying regions. That’s why they spend so much money, to keep the army reliable. The generals run the PLA’s economic empire—all the factories and things—and they’re good at keeping a lid on things. The ordinary soldiers are just workers and peasants, but the officers are all party members, and they are reliable, or so the Politburo thinks. It’s probably true,” Ming concluded. She hadn’t seen her minister worry all that much about it. Power in the People’s Republic decidedly grew from the barrel of a gun, and the Politburo owned all the guns. That made things simple, didn’t it?
For his part, Nomuri had just learned things he’d never thought about before. He might want to make his own report on this stuff. Ming probably knew a lot of things that didn’t go out as SONGBIRD material, and he’d be remiss not to send that to Langley, too.
It’s like a five-year-old in a gun store,” Secretary Winston observed. ”These people have no business making economic decisions for a city