And he was part of it. What happened would be his fault as much as anyone’s.
Lying in bed, listening to the all-night swish of tyres on the road outside, he asked himself what more he could do, from his place in the grid, to prevent the Korean crisis turning into a global catastrophe. He had to make sure that Ting, and his mother, and Ting’s mother, and his father, did not die in a storm of bombs and flying debris and falling masonry and lethal radiation.
That thought kept him awake a long time.
Now, closing the car door and pulling up the hood of his coat, he saw two people standing at the water’s edge with their backs to him, looking over the cold grey lake. He recognized the figure of his father, Chang Jianjun, wrapped in a black overcoat, looking like a squat statue except that he was smoking. The man with him was probably his long-time pal General Huang, braving the cold in his uniform tunic, too tough to wear a woolly scarf. The old guard is here, Kai thought.
He approached them, but they did not hear his footsteps, probably because of the wind, and he heard Huang say: ‘If the Americans want war, we will give it to them.’
‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,’ Kai said. ‘Sun Tzu said that.’
Huang was getting angry. ‘I don’t need a lesson in the philosophy of Sun Tzu from a whippersnapper like you.’
Another car drew up and the young National Defence Minister, Kong Zhao, got out. Kai was glad to see an ally. Kong took a red skiing jacket from the trunk of his car and shrugged it on. Seeing the three of them at the waterside, he said: ‘Why aren’t we going in?’
Jianjun answered: ‘The president wants to walk. He thinks he needs the exercise.’ Jianjun’s tone was mildly disrespectful. Some of these old military types thought that exercise was a young people’s fad.
President Chen came out of the palace warmly dressed with gloves and a knitted cap. He was followed by an aide and a guard. He immediately set off at a brisk walk. The others joined him, Jianjun throwing away his cigarette. They headed around the lake clockwise.
The president began formally. ‘Chang Jianjun, as vice-chairman of the National Security Commission, what is your assessment of the war in Korea?’
‘The south is winning,’ Jianjun said without hesitation. ‘They have more weapons, and their missiles are more accurate.’ He spoke in the clipped manner of an army briefing, just the facts, one, two and three, no frills.
Chen said: ‘How long can North Korea hold out?’
‘They will run out of missiles in a few days at most.’
‘But we are resupplying them.’
‘As fast as we can. Undoubtedly, the Americans are doing the same for the south. But neither of us can keep this up indefinitely.’
‘So what will happen?’
‘The south may invade.’
The president turned to Kai. ‘With American help?’
Kai said: ‘The White House will not send American troops into the north. But they will not need to. The South Korean army can win without them.’
Jianjun said: ‘And then the whole of Korea will be ruled by the regime in Seoul – which means by the United States.’
Kai was not sure the last part was true anymore, but this was not the time to have that argument.
Chen said: ‘Recommendations for action?’
Jianjun was emphatic. ‘We have to intervene. It’s the only way to prevent Korea becoming an American colony – on our doorstep.’
Intervention was what Kai was afraid of. But before he could say so, Kong Zhao spoke. ‘I disagree,’ Kong said, not waiting for the president to ask him.
Jianjun looked angry at being contradicted.
‘Go ahead, Kong,’ said Chen mildly. ‘Tell us why.’
Kong ran a hand through his already messy hairstyle. ‘If we intervene, we give the Americans the right to do the same.’ He spoke in the reasonable tones of a philosophical discussion, in sharp contrast to Jianjun’s bullets of fact. ‘The important question is not how to save North Korea. It’s how to prevent war with the US.’
General Huang shook his head vigorously in negation. ‘The Americans don’t want war with us any more than we do,’ he asserted. ‘As long as our forces do not cross the border into South Korea, they will stay put.’
‘You don’t know that.’ Kong shrugged. ‘No one knows for sure what the US will do. I’m asking whether we can take the risk of a superpower war.’
‘Life is risk,’ Huang growled.