136 Collapse (24)

Although this was an important meeting deciding China's future fate, or at least the People's Party's future fate, the People's Party only convened a Politburo meeting. And this meeting was confidential. People's Party members who could open their eyes to look at the world were also a minority. The remaining comrades were certainly extremely staunch revolutionary comrades, but counting on them to propose reasonable opinions on foreign affairs was really not a realistic idea.

Chen Ke straightforwardly told the comrades about the current diplomatic predicament. "We are now pursuing three goals. First, we don't want to bear debts. Second, we want to liberate all of China and recover the strategic wings of Korea and Annam. Third, by joining the Entente Powers, we want to intervene in the post-war international mainstream order system. These three strategic goals actually have fierce conflicts. The first two are both against the Entente Powers, or rather infringe upon the current interest system of Britain and France. Since we have already infringed upon the strategic interests of Britain and France, then on the third point, we absolutely cannot think that Britain and France will agree so readily. So, this requires trade-offs, and this requires waiting for opportunities."

A part of the comrades in the Politburo could truly understand the situation Chen Ke explained, while another part had a somewhat narrow entry point. "China's interests inherently belong to China. On what basis do Britain and France think those are theirs?"

Chen Ke had also thought this way before. He explained: "We of the People's Party talk about materialism. The first point of materialism is that we must acknowledge the existence of facts. Yes, China's interests should inherently belong to China, but the current fact is that a considerable part of China's sovereignty and China's interests are not in China's hands, but controlled by Britain and France. For Britain and France, why should they give up the interests already in their hands?"

"If they don't give them up, we'll beat them!" This was a quite common attitude within the People's Party.

"Of course we can beat them; this is inevitable. But after intensifying the contradiction to this degree, how do we complete the third goal—joining the Entente Powers to seek to join the future international mainstream politics? If we firmly believe that we can endure the blockade, endure foreign military threats and even military invasion, then of course we can go our own way. But I personally always believe that when the situation hasn't reached an unmanageable point, we should still not make such a choice."

When Chen Ke was young, he wasn't so satisfied with matters like not recovering Hong Kong after World War II, and the Party even trying to maintain normal relations with Europe and America before crossing the Yangtze River. With the PLA's strength at that time, why did the Party make such a soft gesture? Chen Ke felt the Party had "illusions about imperialism."

Now that Chen Ke faced such a situation, he himself understood that the Party's choice at that time was not wrong. Grandpa Mao, as a grand strategist, and the strategic goals he and the Party leadership pursued during the War of Liberation, were actually the strategic goals Chen Ke was now unknowingly pursuing.

Although history proved that pursuing three strategic goals simultaneously failed after World War II, the People's Party now faced a situation very similar to the end of the War of Liberation. A powerful challenger appeared in the old international strategy. After World War II, the Soviet Union, after being isolated and suppressed for a long time, finally obtained its own status through World War II. Chen Ke was facing the rise of the United States as an important force. Although the United States became the leader of European and American capitalist countries after World War II, this did not mean that the United States during the World War I period did not represent the relatively advanced forces of the same era. At least compared to the colonialism of Britain and France, the United States was much more advanced.

But the struggle between the United States and Britain/France was not like the struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. After World War II, the Soviet Union wanted to thoroughly overthrow, or more accurately, violently overthrow the old European and American system. The attitude of the United States towards Britain and France after World War I was to replace their world leadership position.

What Chen Ke had to do now was to let the comrades understand the world situation first, and then everyone discuss what China should do together. The difficulty of this process was no less than commanding comrades to engage in a war.

Difficult as it was, no matter how difficult the things that should be done were, they had to be done. So the Politburo of the People's Party held meetings for two consecutive days. One core issue during this period was whether the United States would choose the Entente Powers or the Central Powers.

"Even if the Central Powers' navy can't win, doesn't the United States have the Great White Fleet?" After Chen Ke's earnest explanation, the content of the People's Party's discussion finally evolved to a relatively high-grade level.

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the strength of the United States expanded rapidly, catching up with the old imperialist powers Britain and France, becoming the richest and most powerful industrial country in the world. On March 4, 1905, Theodore Roosevelt was re-elected as President of the United States. In his inaugural address, he shouted: "The United States has become a great country. This fact compels us that in our dealings with other nations of the world, our actions must be befitting this great nation of America..." As a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt had always had a special fondness for the navy. After entering the White House, under Roosevelt's persistence and active efforts, in 1907, the battleships of the US Navy reached 20. These warships formed two powerful fleets: one was the Atlantic Fleet, mainly composed of 8 battleships and some small warships; the other was the Pacific Fleet, with 3 battleships as the main force. At the same time, the United States also retained a small-scale fleet in Asia to perform missions in China's inland rivers. In terms of strength, the US Navy at this time ranked only after the British Royal Navy and the German Navy, ranking third in the world. The powerful US Navy laid a solid foundation for the later formation of the "Great White Fleet."

In 1905, Japan won a complete victory in the war against Russia, further expanding its influence in the Far East and the Pacific region. Japan's aggressive expansion momentum in the aforementioned regions seriously threatened the interests of the United States. At this time, the main force of the US Navy was mostly concentrated in the Atlantic, and the fleet strength deployed in Asia was very weak, unable to contend with Japan at all. So the always bold and assertive Roosevelt had to adopt a policy of concession to avoid open conflict with Japan in Asia.

However, with the formation of the confrontation between the United States and Japan in the Pacific region, the hostile emotions of both sides became more and more serious. In 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education in California announced a segregation policy for all Japanese students. When the news reached Japan, the Japanese public regarded it as a great humiliation and immediately set off fierce anti-American demonstrations, slanderously attacking Americans. The Japanese government also strongly demanded that the US government explain this. Japanese public opinion even clamored: "The whole world knows that the poorly equipped US Army and Navy are no match for our highly combat-effective Army and Navy." Japan's "Mainichi Shimbun" roared: "When our great navy admirals appear on the other side of the Pacific, it will be easy to break America's stubborn dream... Why don't we insist on sending warships?" Seeing that the conflict between the two sides was on the verge of breaking out, Roosevelt immediately personally persuaded the San Francisco Board of Education to revoke the aforementioned anti-Japanese regulations, and the situation was alleviated.

Facing Japan's challenge, Roosevelt had been distressed over whether to go to war. If he rashly attacked Japan, would the navy he painstakingly built repeat the disaster of the Russian fleet in 1905—being annihilated by the Japanese navy after circling half the globe? How to find a way to satisfy both sides, showing his strength to the arrogant Japanese while avoiding war? After much thought, Roosevelt finally decided: send a huge fleet to circle the globe to show Japan and other countries the powerful strength of the US Navy.

A year later, a fleet composed of 16 elite battleships of the US Navy and 7 small torpedo boats (predecessors of destroyers), with 14,000 officers and soldiers, appeared on the east coast of the United States. To make the entire fleet more conspicuous, Roosevelt specially ordered all ships to be painted in a magnificent white with a festive meaning, so the world called it the "Great White Fleet."

Quite a few comrades of the People's Party had heard of the name of this "Great White Fleet" and knew that this fleet made the world feel the industrial strength of the United States. In the assumption of many comrades, if the United States chose the Central Powers, then with this Great White Fleet and the Central Powers' fleet pincering the Entente Powers' fleet from two sides, there should be a considerable chance of winning.

Through Chen Ke's narration, as well as the intelligence collected by the People's Party in the United States, viewed comprehensively, the US Great White Fleet could add trouble to the British fleet, but simply couldn't change the current situation. This had to make many comrades feel surprised.

"If the United States builds ships with all its strength, given their industrial capacity, it's not impossible to defeat the British fleet." Someone put forward such a view.

Chen Ke asked loudly: "Spending huge strength just to obtain a possibility. Now, just by accumulating strength, they can get a share of the pie after the war. Why would the United States choose the former? The decline of Britain is an inevitable process. The United States only needs to wait for the opportunity when Britain declines to take a step forward, so why force their head out risking the result of possible failure?"

The comrades were not fools. Instead of talking about the United States now, it was better to say they were discussing the long-term strategy of the People's Party. Obviously, Chen Ke also hoped to follow the path of the United States and choose a better entry point in the future.

Seeing no one continued to speak, Propaganda Minister Zhang Yu simply spoke up. "Then let's make a ranking order for the three goals proposed by Chairman Chen. Which is the highest priority, which is secondary, and which is last. Looking at it now, wanting to achieve them simultaneously is indeed difficult. We must make certain trade-offs."

This trade-off was very easy. Recovering China's sovereignty and seizing the strategic wings of Korea and Annam was naturally the unshakeable primary goal. Regarding this primary goal, the Politburo even unanimously agreed that even if they were besieged by enemies after World War I, this strategic goal must be realized.

Ranked behind, most comrades agreed to join the Entente Powers. Although this goal might force China to accept the possibility of paying considerable wealth to Britain and France, and even very likely destroy the goal ranked third, "which is not repaying odious debts."

After voting, many comrades, sighing because they would likely lose money, determined the strategic ranking order: recover sovereignty, join the Entente Powers, don't pay money for nothing.

After confirming this, Chen Ke summoned the US representative. "We agree in principle to the request proposed by the US side, but the signing of this agreement must be next year."

The US representative showed no surprise at all. As far as the intelligence he obtained was concerned, Chen Ke was a very firm person, and playing little tricks like playing hard to get was useless. Chen Ke and the People's Party he led didn't buy that. Unlike the Manchu Qing and Beiyang, the People's Party never counted on any foreign charity. Similarly, the People's Party would also deal with foreign countries extremely rationally.

So the US representative had to play a trick on a very high level. He smiled and said: "It seems your side has a very high evaluation of your own combat effectiveness."

"I wonder what kind of evaluation the US side has of our combat effectiveness?" Chen Ke also smiled. Although he had an impulse in his heart, Chen Ke simply didn't mention the content hidden beneath his superficial language. If the United States wanted to sign this agreement with China, the People's Party naturally wouldn't let the United States only harvest benefits. When the United States made requests to Britain as China's spokesperson, Britain would have to acknowledge the "fait accompli" at that time.

Just as Chen Ke repeatedly explained to the Politburo comrades, "In terms of national sovereignty and interests, it is impossible for us to make any concessions."

The US representative certainly knew the things hidden in Chen Ke's words. Before coming to China, the US side had also made judgments on what choice the People's Party would make. Seeing that Chen Ke showed no sign of weakness at all, it meant Chen Ke simply didn't mention any plan to stop right now. The US representative pondered for a moment and finally asked: "I wonder what view your side holds on the concessions exactly?"

"Except for the rights possessed by diplomats as common internationally, our People's Party will absolutely not recognize any extraterritoriality on Chinese land, nor will we allow foreign troops to be stationed in China," Chen Ke replied unceremoniously.

Just as the US representative's face looked somewhat ugly, Chen Ke continued: "However, we mentioned to the British side before that we agree to maintain the status quo. That is to say, in the absence of extraterritoriality, on the basis that foreign legitimate merchants and corporate investors abide by Chinese laws, we protect their rights to invest, reside, and operate legitimately in China."

The US representative frowned and thought for a while. "That is to say, you would agree to the continued existence of concessions?"

"It's definitely impossible for concessions to continue to exist, but foreigners currently living in concessions can still continue to live, continue to do business, and continue to live in the concessions. Of course, things like police stations must be abolished, and those whatever police must get the hell out!" Chen Ke gave the answer.

The US representative didn't say anything more after listening. Regardless of whether he really agreed or supported it, at least on the matter of concessions, Chen Ke gave a clear answer for the first time.

"By the way, we will soon march into Tianjin. Eliminate the Beiyang remnants and liberate Tianjin. In this regard, we do not wish to have any conflict based on misunderstanding with the United States." Chen Ke informed the US representative of the People's Party's latest movement.