George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 287

George W. Bush’s Great America – Episode 286

< Episode 286 >

While Bush was praying that nothing would happen, in Iraq, the so-called Elan Squad, tired of waiting, blew up another weapons depot.

The unusual event that Bush was so eager to avoid was brewing in China, which was quietly gathering its strength.

“Under no circumstances should protests be allowed.”

Perhaps discontent was already simmering. Dissatisfaction with foreigners and the constant oppression from within the system had weakened some cities, causing cracks to appear. It might sound vague, but that was the reality.

Like a spectrum, opinions varied widely, and public sentiment was turbulent, but there was common ground. Decisively, what spurred them to raise their voices was the opinion of those who effectively governed the cities.

To summarize, the common sentiment was:

“America is the reason China is failing! Let’s drive America out!”

It hadn’t yet reached the point of overthrowing the government. The problem was the sheer number of ‘people’ who had gathered. This instilled a sense of crisis in the Communist Party beyond imagination. There had always been boycotts of American companies and brands, and even incidents of store destruction, but this was unprecedented.

This triggered a wave of xenophobia at almost a national level, and most of the non-conservative young people jumped on the bandwagon.

When it was confirmed that the public security forces were outnumbered, a laughable situation arose where they requested military assistance.

In a situation where China’s biggest problem, the warlord issue [regional military leaders maintaining independent control], was not properly resolved, it wasn’t at a fatal level, but it was no longer something to laugh about.

If the warlord issue could be resolved, even if a civil war broke out, it would likely end as a short conflict with one side claiming to be the legitimate government.

However, if the warlord issue remained severe and a civil war broke out, it would split into at least the Sixteen Kingdoms period [a chaotic period in Chinese history], if not the Three Kingdoms period [another period of disunity], and it would have to relinquish the land it had been forcibly holding onto. For example, Tibet and Mongolia.

“Let’s drive out America. It sounds good. It sounds really good. It’s very tempting. But we can’t achieve that with protests.”

For the Party, this was a terrible situation. Even though it was out of necessity, having to suppress patriots with force made them feel like a traitorous regime. Well, in this kind of situation, even non-existent patriotism would suddenly emerge.

The daily wage was so meager that it was hard to make ends meet, and all they gave at mealtime was low-quality mantou [steamed buns] that was hard to chew and swallow, with a few vegetable scraps in the soup, but it was still a job.

But that job disappeared overnight. Construction was halted, and when they resentfully asked why, unlike the usual kicking and telling them to do as they were told, they were given the reason for the dismissal with a somber expression. Apparently, the country had incurred a huge debt, so most of the planned construction had been halted.

Still, a construction site wasn’t the only job available, and they were quite surprised by the unprecedented attitude, so they turned away easily, but lo and behold, it was the same everywhere they went. There were no more new construction sites, factories were closing, and they were reducing staff rather than hiring new ones. Only then did they realize that something was seriously wrong with the country.

And the culprit was America! Furthermore, it was the responsibility of the missing former chairman. But since there was no way to find the latter, they ended up blaming the former, who was clearly visible. They didn’t think anything would change, but it was a march they started in the hope that the government would be shocked and create at least one job.

They knew that these protests were illegal, but they assumed that they wouldn’t use tear gas or beatings on starving people. If not, they were destined to starve to death on the streets anyway.

There had been similar incidents in the past, but they weren’t marches, and they ended at the individual level. They didn’t even last a month. But this time it was different. Most of the urban workers had lost their jobs and had nothing to do, and there were those who sponsored them. Among those sponsors were those who had close relationships with the Party or openly boasted of deep ties with the Party.

Most of them wanted to liquidate all relations with the United States, whether they ignored the Qing Dynasty debt [historical debt owed by China] that they didn’t even acknowledge, saying they couldn’t pay it anymore, or whether they really dug up the roots and paid it off. Anyway, they wanted the government to fall in some way.

China was a typical country where power was more powerful than money. This was somewhat similar in other countries, but other countries at least paid attention to capitalists or voters, but China didn’t. No matter how great an entrepreneur was, the moment they fell out of favor with the Party, they would suddenly disappear, and the final destination would be the human body mystery exhibition [a controversial exhibition of preserved human bodies].

The things they called ‘cooperation’ were all difficult. This was because the Party became increasingly dependent on companies a year ago, which made the dissatisfaction even stronger.

Those who were always treated favorably and never felt inferior in other countries had no reason to like the situation where the relationship between the powerful and the subordinate remained the same despite their advantageous situation. The result of judging that it was time to shift the weight of power was this protest.

“Protests can never happen in our country!”

Rarely, Li Keqiang shouted at the top of his lungs with a flushed face. He was gentle, but the system must never be shaken. Li Keqiang might be gentle, but he was never a pushover. He was just frustrated because there was no way to solve the problem.

If even the capital that was barely supporting China disappeared, it would regress by another 10 years. The Party’s former policy of helping anyone become rich was, to be exact, helping the Party become rich.

Rich people who were obedient to the Party and did not resist. But as the Party’s power weakened, they were trying to break free from control.

The Party could not pay attention to or respond to these workers one by one. No, it was more accurate to say that even if they paid attention, there was nothing they could do. It wasn’t difficult to suppress those ungrateful things.

All they had to do was send the public security forces and the military, arm them with rubber bullets, and advance. Then they would collapse on their own. Unless they had a proper ideal or a center of gravity, they were just like the soil and sand swept down by the momentum of a rock rolling down from the top of a mountain.

To be blunt, most of the processions that took place in various places would scatter like sand if they only set up free meal centers.

Even so, the cause was ultimately the lack of jobs. From the country’s point of view, it didn’t really matter if they suddenly disappeared because they didn’t have a family register. In other words, they were ghost humans who were not considered citizens.

Problems might arise later, but by the time such problems arose, that many workers would come up from the countryside again. China’s biggest advantage was that the population was so overflowing that it was even difficult to measure.

“Suppress them immediately! Immediately!”

As Li Keqiang had predicted, as soon as the military was deployed, the protesters really disintegrated like wet tissue paper. Their whereabouts became unknown, but at least they would not be able to stand up to the Party again in recent times.

The problem was that this finally caused a creaking noise in the authority of the Chinese Communist Party, which outwardly looked magnificent and solid but was actually full of loopholes.

It was around this time that Bush’s statement that he would deploy one more aircraft carrier strike group in East Asia overlapped.

“Long live anti-Americanism! Long live the People’s Republic of China! Get out, you foreigners!”

The protest, which should have scattered like sand, suddenly grew bigger and bigger as if it had been doused with gasoline. The slogan of a traitorous regime had not yet come out, but it was only a matter of time.

Whether by coincidence or necessity, Li Keqiang and Bush were thinking the same thing at this moment.

“This is troublesome.”

That’s right. It’s troublesome. He was trying to unite the Chinese people through foreign powers to prevent the toilet from cracking, but he never imagined that it would cause an even bigger crack.

‘But I can’t back down now. The budget has already been allocated.’

As the Chief of Staff had said before, the backlash was severe, but it was an unusually fast pace because he couldn’t let the already created aircraft carrier strike group play around in the country. Moreover, things were unusual in China, and at least China was the country with the largest labor market at this point.

This would never change for eternity. Recently, there have been movements to replace it with Indian and Southeast Asian manpower, but this also has its limits. As the Party’s original plan fell through, the price of labor was drastically lowered, and manpower was being sold off at almost throwaway prices.

The foreign currency earned in that way was being used to plug holes here and there, but that was it. If China tried to do anything more than that, it would be struggling due to lack of money.

‘And that was the most ideal situation.’

He had no intention of destroying China. He could have been satisfied if it was just lagging behind a little, but it seemed that it was an impossible wish. He thought it would just struggle if it didn’t have money, but when it started to twist and struggle to solve that, it was a perfect example of what they meant by a chain reaction.

“Mr. President, the aircraft carrier strike group has safely arrived in the Gulf with a special gift. Shall we start the gift offensive?”

More Aegis ships were deployed than a typical aircraft carrier strike group, and Tomahawk missiles were loaded inside. And 2,000 MQ-9 Reaper drones, an advanced version of the MQ-1 Predator, were ready to fly to Iraq.

“What did the EU say?”

The message sent by the United States was nothing special. It was just to remove the air defense network in some areas with massive firepower for a moment and help with air support. This was for the peace of the Middle East, and they would not demand any interests in the post-war negotiations.

They would really not demand any interests in any form after the war in the future, but anyway, that’s what came out externally, so it was not easy for the EU to refuse.

“It seems they have given up their pride. There is only a message of ‘Please take care of us.'”

“At least hundreds of millions of dollars in budget will be blown away by every word I utter from now on.”

Perhaps it would be billions, but at least no one would die. The coastline had already been occupied, and there was no navy in western Iraq.

In addition, the MQ-9 was not originally intended to be used in this way, but considering the stealth-type drones that would be deployed soon, this was a necessary war.

“Begin.”

With Bush’s one word, hundreds, perhaps hundreds of billions, began to fly in the skies of western Iraq.