George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 112

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“Why do you always start a world war diplomatically whenever you go abroad for diplomatic negotiations? Do you have a secret hobby of tormenting the leaders of other countries?”

‘Honestly, I can’t say I don’t have one at all.’

Of course, these words would never come out of his mouth, but there was no other way to explain his behavior.

“Fortunately, we managed to slip by this time, but the media won’t always be on your side, Mr. President.”

Since it was indeed true, Bush had no way to refute it and ended up changing the subject. Was he, the president of a country, being lectured like a student being scolded by a teacher?

‘Why is the weather so nice today of all days?’

“I’m getting used to your eccentricities and feel like I’m going crazy too, so please don’t do anything crazy this time.”

What was the point of saying it a hundred times when the person receiving the advice was letting it go in one ear and out the other? The chief of staff simply decided to give up. Those types usually only realized things after experiencing them firsthand. The experience he had accumulated over his life was not just for show. However, the reason he kept nagging him even though he knew this was because giving advice was a duty that the chief of staff should naturally perform.

Originally, the chief of staff was the type to silently follow orders, but watching from the side, he couldn’t bear to just stand by, so he ended up giving advice on every little thing. And the reason he could keep criticizing him like this was probably because Bush himself had somewhat induced this situation from the start.

“First of all, there are two urgent matters that need to be resolved.”

He took out two documents from the neatly stacked pile of reports.

“These are documents from Korea and China.”

“Korea is understandable, but China?”

He understood Korea’s situation with the light-water reactor and North Korea’s opening and development, but he had no idea about China. There were countless things he could guess, but there were too many to even begin to speculate.

China was truly in a turbulent era. It was on the verge of splitting apart again after being united. Who knew what form the resulting ruptures would take?

For all he knew, it could be a default, a renegotiation of Qing Dynasty bonds, a protest against the aircraft carrier fleet incident, or a warning not to mess with North Korea, which would be completely ignored.

‘Or maybe it’s a comprehensive gift set with all the things they’ve wanted to say all this time.’

Of course, he didn’t intend to listen very carefully, and if they went too far, he was willing to show them a miraculous joint training exercise involving the Korean, North Korean, and American armies.

‘Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good idea for something I just came up with on the spot?’

So Bush decided to actually try it soon. There was no reason why it couldn’t work. It would completely erase China’s influence in North Korea, and the United States could perfectly seize hegemony in East Asia.

‘So, let’s see. What’s this about?’

However, the contents of the diplomatic document were quite different from what Bush had expected. He couldn’t even understand it properly, no matter how many times he read it.

“This is, like, an invitation?”

“It seems China wants you to visit, Mr. President.”

‘Isn’t the Communist Party Chairman probably Li Keqiang right now?’

It hadn’t been long since Jiang Zemin was replaced by Hu Jintao, but it was changing again, so the details were quite confusing. It was understandable since the national leader had changed three times in less than a year. More than anything, Bush was feeling complicated because people he remembered as being quite capable were collapsing like this.

However, that didn’t mean Bush had any intention of following the history he remembered. China in 2019 was Big Brother itself. The Communist Party painted the concept of credit according to its taste, evaluated people, divided them into classes, and castrated the freedom of the people with a Great Wall made of data scraps.

“It’s obviously not just for friendly purposes. What do they want?”

From the start, it was strange to invite the president of a country for friendly purposes. Especially if that person was the president of the world’s only superpower. In any case, he wasn’t planning on moving lightly unless it was a significant matter.

‘But I seem to be moving quite lightly for that.’

But what could he do? If he could solve it by moving, he had to move.

“Honestly, I have no idea. Are they trying to assassinate you or something?”

The chief of staff also seemed puzzled.

‘Well, if he knew even this, he wouldn’t be the chief of staff, he’d be the president.’

Bush also didn’t have much of an idea, but if he were to guess based on flimsy logic and insufficient circumstantial evidence, it was probably because the current chairman was ‘Li Keqiang.’

This man liked to embrace rather than fight, so he probably wanted to resolve relations with the United States through diplomatic dialogue. After all, wouldn’t China be at a disadvantage if they communicated with wallets or fists instead of words? Even if Li Keqiang wasn’t in the chairman’s seat, he would have wanted to resolve it with gentlemanly words.

However, was Bush the kind of person who would do as he was asked just because someone begged him to?

“What are you going to do?”

“Let’s put it on hold for now.”

Bush decided to postpone the visit until China lost its composure and patience and its judgment became clouded. For all he knew, he might be assassinated as the chief of staff said. He had heard through intelligence that the Communist Party’s public authority was decreasing day by day. Public authority itself was weakening to the point where it couldn’t reach certain areas, and warlords were rising, taking advantage of the weakened central government.

In short, something needed to fill the void of public authority, and that was the military, another form of public authority. However, although this military was the party’s military, it wasn’t necessarily a military that flowed according to the party’s will. Would warlords be called warlords for no reason? They would immediately protest if the party ordered them to do something they didn’t think was right. Furthermore, each province was gradually increasing its autonomy, so it was truly the calm before the storm.

“What about Korea?”

“It’s about the light-water reactor. And there’s also something about inter-Korean joint projects.”

‘I guessed that right.’

“There are projects ranging from the Kyeong [railway], heavy industries, cultural projects, and support for North Korea.”

If that was all, it would have been an unremarkable document, but what the chief of staff said was only a summary of the contents, and in reality, it was closer to a large business proposal of 230 pages. It was in the form of reporting that they wanted to do this and that because the situation was like this.

The reason why a diplomatic document was so thick was that there had been quite a few concrete forms and ideas from the past. Just looking at the railway project, they had investigated everything from the Gyeongui Line [Seoul-Sinuiju Line] to the Donghae Line [East Sea Line], how much budget would be allocated, and what benefits the railway would bring. They had even planned out what effects each station would have with the creation of the inter-Korean railway.

Furthermore, the document didn’t only contain stories related to the modernization of North Korean railways. Just looking at what was visible, there was the redevelopment of Sinuiju, the inter-Korean joint DMZ [Demilitarized Zone] preservation committee, the reorganization of the Eurasian road, electricity, water, agricultural modernization, etc. Therefore, 230 pages could be said to be a small amount.

Imagining how many talented people in Korea had been sacrificed for this one document made him shudder.

‘Well, there’s someone right next to me who’s being sacrificed in real-time because of my actions.’

The president stared blankly at the chief of staff, but soon stopped, thinking it was nothing new.

“There are no changes in ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], and India is 탈러시아 중인가 [moving away from Russia].”

India was gradually replacing its weapons with American-made ones. Above all, rumors were circulating that they were giving up on their 병신 같은 [worthless] domestic rifle, the INSAS [Indian Small Arms System], which was exponentially boosting the morale of the Indian army. In reality, the Indian Ministry of Defense considered the INSAS to be a symbol of national pride, but they couldn’t just stand by and watch its bizarre and crude performance, so they were planning to push it into reserve duty and replace the standard rifle with the American-made M4.

Well, considering that they would have been armed with all sorts of miscellaneous rifles like the T91 and TAT21 if it wasn’t for the M4, this might have been better for India.

“And tell them to give up on that 빌어먹을 [damned] Arjun tank too.”

“Even so, I don’t think they’ll give up on the tank.”

“Ah, well. You’ll change your mind a lot when you find out what kind of tank the Arjun tank is.”

The development period was similar to the K-1 tank, and it ate up twenty times more budget than allocated, and thanks to all sorts of problems that kept popping up, they only rolled out prototypes until 2007 before they could mass-produce it in 2009. They somehow managed to deploy it to the front lines at the regimental level, but it seemed that the Indian Ministry of Defense had painfully realized that the Arjun tank was quite 머저리 [foolish], so they threw away all the improvement plans and ordered the Russian-made T-90MS.

“Safety is more important than pride. Come to think of it, India was a relatively big 손 [customer] of the Russian defense industry, so they must be quite 속이 쓰리겠구먼 [feeling the pain]?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

On the other hand, the American defense industry was experiencing its biggest boom since World War II. It was only natural since orders were 끊이질 않으니 [never-ending]. ASEAN was eagerly ordering F-15s, and countries with some pocket money were thinking of changing their standard rifles.

In the case of Singapore, they had the SAR-21, a bullpup-style assault rifle adopted just three years ago, but they seemed to be trying to show at least minimal sincerity, so they ordered Amalie-type rifles. Vietnam was the last to resist the American wave sweeping through Southeast Asia, and the reason why Vietnam was resisting was obvious. They won the war, but lost in the economy. What could be more humiliating than this?

“There’s nothing special about Japan.”

It was only natural. From the start, it was strange for anything to happen in Japan. However, Japan sent enthusiastic 러브콜 [love calls] for North Korean development, and since the United States’ East Asian hegemony stably changes when Korea and Japan are friendly, this could be said to be a pretty good thing. However, the fact that they were only trying to put a spoon on a 다된 밥상 [ready-made table/meal] didn’t look good.

‘Well, the Korean government will take care of this.’

“What about the Middle East and Europe?”

Bush waited for the next document to come, but when the document didn’t come up on the desk even after 10 seconds, he looked at the chief of staff, who had a slightly embarrassed expression.

“Mr. President?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s lunchtime.”

Ah, that’s important.