George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 83

“Explain to me in detail how this happened.”

The only answer the aides could give to Hu Jintao’s words was silence. Of course, they couldn’t actually say, “Well?” so they all shut their mouths, hoping to avoid getting burned.

‘From the start, setting quotas was the problem. Chairman Hu Jintao is getting stranger and stranger.’

The gold quota system wasn’t entirely Hu Jintao’s idea, but it existed because of his tacit approval. Remembering this, it was a roundabout way of passively criticizing Hu Jintao in the end. But let’s be clear that Hu Jintao is by no means unintelligent.

Even if he seems incompetent, the position of a Chinese Communist Party member, especially one rising to his level, is one that can only be reached through the scrutiny of the party elders and a demonstration of merit. Therefore, the position of President means that he is considered among the most outstanding people among these 1.3 billion Chinese citizens.

Rather, it was admirable, even praiseworthy, that he was maintaining his sanity while enduring the pressure from leading a nation seemingly headed for disaster and the stress from a future that could change at any moment.

“Do you think it makes sense that 25,000 tons has been reduced to 500 tons? Not 15,000 tons, not even 1,500 tons?”

Of course, there was no one to praise him openly.

‘Why did so much gather in such a strange state!’

It wasn’t just a matter of coating iron lumps with gold to almost the level of plating. There were also cases where insignificant scrap iron was added to the gold, resulting in terrible purity. The problem wasn’t just that either. In the reprocessing of melting all kinds of gold bars and ornaments, the purity dropped significantly.

This was partly due to China’s technological limitations, but more than that, it was because there were so many strange materials mixed in – enough to represent nearly every element on the periodic table – that the factory’s processing speed couldn’t keep up.

For now, you might think that getting even 500 tons is better than nothing, but it was a very meager figure considering the vastness of the country and its needs.

‘I can’t just fire them.’

Because those who led this initiative were members of the Communist Youth League [a youth movement of the People’s Republic of China for people aged fourteen to twenty-eight]. Hu Jintao was a prominent figure, a leader within the Communist Youth League, and the failure of the League was, in a way, a reflection of his own failure. Acknowledging this would also mean admitting that his policies were flawed.

Thus, Hu Jintao, having reached the difficult conclusion that he could change the quota even if he couldn’t eliminate the problem entirely, said this:

“It is not right to assign quotas to regions. It is right for those who already possess gold to contribute, based on the principle of ‘allowing some to get rich first’ [a slogan popularized by Deng Xiaoping, implying that wealth should be spread gradually].”

The words were verbose, but the purpose was clear: a signal for them to hand over the gold voluntarily before he directly shook them down. In fact, as soon as this was said, some overzealous Communist Youth League members began going around smashing things and seizing assets.

From the start, the truly wealthy had public security officials, essentially bodyguards sent by the Party, standing next to them, solemnly guarding them, so it didn’t matter. But the rich people with weaker connections to the Party hired Private Military Companies (PMCs) in response.

The PMC wasn’t anything grand, but rather a request to a private security company, a minimum measure to protect their personal safety, and it worked to some extent.

No matter how enthusiastic the Communist Youth League members were, they weren’t willing to get shot. And since it was still a relatively mild movement, they would threaten with words but not resort to physical violence. Thus, the innocent middle class, who lacked these protections, were caught in the crossfire.

“W-What on earth is going on!”

After finishing work and entering their homes, it was common to find their houses, though old, that had always embraced them warmly, completely devastated. It was common to see everything that could be turned into money disappear. If it were just thieves, they could report it to the public security, but these looters were leaving notes on the front door saying ‘Communist Youth League visited,’ like phantom thieves.

What was even more absurd was that after the Communist Youth League had looted in this manner, they would issue a ‘Communist Youth League check’ and leave it on the table or dressing table, promising that the League would return the property after the national crisis was over.

The form and format of the checks varied wildly, and there were even checks handwritten on Post-it notes. And of course, there was not a single notarization or responsible person listed on these checks. If you had to pick someone, the person who came up with this idea first would be the owner, but even who that person was remained unclear.

Anyway, these things happened frequently, and of course, no one could distinguish this from ordinary theft. To be precise, it’s not that what the Communist Youth League was doing was indistinguishable from theft, but rather that even if a thief broke in and used the same method, it would be impossible to tell whether it was the Communist Youth League or a real thief.

When they reported it to the public security, the public security treated them as non-citizens, beat the victims instead, and even detained them. So naturally, all kinds of crime prevention products saw a massive surge in sales. Three thick locks on the front door were basic, and five simple locks made a total of eight, making it impossible to enter without destroying the front door.

Cases of welding the windows shut or adding wooden planks to the windows were not uncommon. There were even cases where they removed the glass and poured concrete over the place where the window would be. The houses that didn’t do this were either already uninhabited or had already been looted so thoroughly that all that was left to be looted was furniture.

This kind of city scene was enough to drive residents and tourists crazy just by looking at it.

The only places where public power was properly functioning were Hong Kong and Macau. Hong Kong was given special attention because it was a financial hub for all of Asia beyond China, and Macau had no business that was not connected to the Party.

“No! No! Somebody Help Me!”

“What the FUCK!”

Western tourists who traveled to China for travel or casinos in this situation could face disaster. Being beaten and robbed of everything from clothes to passports was common, and in severe cases, they would be beaten to death without even making it to the hospital.

“Damn it! My eyes! They took my eyes! Aaaaargh!!!”

Originally, China was a giant human body mystery exhibition where you could experience the magic of having several organs disappear when you woke up [referencing the black market organ trade], but now it was happening openly to foreigners as well.

These were the things that happened in the relatively better Macau and Hong Kong. If you went to the mainland, there were openly rampant robbers on the streets in addition to this. Even if you asked the public security for help, the robbers were often henchmen of the Communist Youth League members, so the public security, who were not very kind to foreigners to begin with, would just hush it up.

Of course, the Party wasn’t stupid either, so they were clearly aware that foreign capital was gradually leaving China. That’s why they strengthened the security of cities like Hong Kong, where foreign capital was concentrated, several times over.

Still, if it’s a place where people live, they couldn’t stop them from plastering cement on the windows. One thing was certain: the people living in the country called China were gradually going crazy.

“This is the current trend report of China.”

The chief of staff finished his explanation.

“China’s condition is more serious than I imagined.”

Bush was flipping through a newspaper that was filled with news of the Winter Olympics and advertisements from various large corporations aiming for the Olympic special, and for the first time in a while, there was little news about himself. It was good that the news about him was decreasing, but it was a little disappointing to see his fame decreasing like a bubble.

Even though he knew it was normal for it to decrease, Bush was a person too, so he felt strangely complicated seeing his fame decrease like a bubble.

“What are you going to do? Frankly, I don’t think China will buy our silver while risking the fate of the nation.”

The newspaper Bush was looking at folded with a thud. The only problem was that the thud was not just once or twice, but in a row.

“…What are you doing?”

In a very short time, Bush was holding a paper airplane, which was the most basic of origami.

“1 million dollar paper airplane complete! How awesome is it?”

“Yes? How is that 1 million dollars?”

It was a shabby paper airplane folded from an ordinary newspaper no matter how you looked at it. Of course, it was a bit much to just call it ordinary, as the edges were sharp, but still, a paper airplane was a paper airplane.

“Look again. It’s really worth a million dollars.”

If he had his way, he would have gone on strike, saying, ‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ but he miraculously demonstrated his professional spirit and decided to reconsider while dreaming of a beautiful life after retirement. And the conclusion that came out was.

“It’s a well-made paper airplane.”

“That’s right. Who made it?”

“Is the article written inside worth a million dollars?”

There was a noticeable article on the wing. It was very small compared to other articles, but it was information that the chief of staff also knew. Because he was so harassed, he could be said to be quite knowledgeable about this information. However, he didn’t know why it was worth a million dollars. Moreover, he didn’t know whether it was a million dollars as an idiom or whether it really had a value of a million dollars.

The content of the article was as follows:

「Chinese companies are withdrawing their overseas investments one after another.」

‘It was probably around this time that China began to infiltrate the global film and game industries with capital in earnest.’

Bush wanted to completely eliminate China’s influence in the world. Of course, China now was so weakened that it couldn’t even carry out the Belt and Road Initiative [a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 70 countries and international organizations], which was the most basic strategy for overseas expansion, but who knows. Where is the guarantee that a cornered rat can’t kill a cat?

“So we need to dig a hole and set a mousetrap to lure out the rat.”

“Yes?”

The silver they were buying up now was just one of the many mousetraps.

“We need to massively support the film and game industries. The 21st century is the age of media.”

It always was, but in short, it meant that he would seize the world in every way. Bush wanted the United States to be at least one generation ahead in military, cultural, scientific, and diplomatic terms. They had already achieved half of it in military and scientific terms, and they were dominating the UN in diplomacy, and they were achieving it to some extent culturally, but these were like shaky stone towers that could collapse at any time.

It was not enough to say that they were really one generation ahead.

The United States that Bush was trying to create was the only true superpower in the world.

“Okay, the million-dollar one is taking off!”

The paper airplane that Bush threw flew and flew.

“Ah!”

It finally hit the bald head of Vice President Dick Cheney, who had overcome his heart condition.