Containing China: A contemporary historical novel

By Christian Filostrat

In the early 21st century, China under the aegis of a communist party is expanding dramatically. Thomas Bremanger is late acknowledging China's exponential rise. When he gets to it, he is terrified; but he's at a station looking at the caboose of an already departed train. Expansions such as China's lead to geopolitical aspirations and inevitably create uncircumventable gravitational pulls. Like the impervious pitiless sun, supremacy radiates everywhere. Nations adapt to such ascendancies, not vice versa. The U.S. was in that ascendant position immediately after WWII and the rest of the 20th century. Now, Chinese industries are consuming half of the world's strategic materials, rare earth, aluminum, zinc, nickel, steel and copper. In the Congo they have a lock on the production of cobalt and a monopoly in cobalt sulfate used in the making of batteries. Chinese products are more valued than European ones. Everyone envies China. If it were democratic, Bremanger wouldn't be alarmed. But it's communist, a single party authoritarian state, perforce repressive. Opposing a country as divided against itself as the U.S. is, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has an open path to hegemony. The prospect of global dominance by a communist state sickens Bremanger. Too much to bear too is the risk that the West will undertake to appease China and allow the CCP to swallow Taiwan. The United States mustn't acclimate itself to this domination but contain it as it did the Soviet Union. Bremanger's dread isn't a chimera; and with anguished lucidity, he rages against the eventuality and swears to do all to neutralize it.

But his dread isn't just pointed at the CCP's ascendancy. The rise of the lumpenproletariat as a transcendent power in America, and the Republican Party's capitalizing on and leveraging that power has crippled the U.S. America is shackled by its attributes and exigencies.

Historically America's white society's dispossessed. Marx and Engels entitled the class the Lumpenproletariat - the dispossessed of European society. One feature differentiates the American lumpenproletariat from its European counterpart, however. Marx's lumpenproletariat had interest in nothing and was apolitical. Lenin reviled it for that. The American lumpenproletariat on the other hand, knowing it is the "trash" of white society, has one inalienable preoccupation - racism. Bereft of cognitive or critical evaluation racism is the American lumpenproletariat's means of dealing with the bleak reality of class. Racism empowers it to leapfrog the bottom rung of the social ladder on which no one wants to stand willingly. Whatever else racism is to the American lumpenproletariat, it is primarily the defining feature of its identity. Homegrown it is more dangerous than any outside threat. As long as the American lumpenproletariat is the Republican Party's bread and butter, the U.S. is handicapped against the CCP. But Bremanger is determined to use the imminence of the communist peril against the menace of the lumpenproletariat and its Republican Party. In effect use them against each other to overcome both.

The communists and the peril of the Republican Party's leveraging the American lumpenproletariat is a two-part account. Bremanger starts with the communists. They're rising at a rate and a level never experienced before. Unless enacted directly no strategy can contain them.

Containing China is the first part in the case study of what Thomas Bremanger attempts against these 21st century's existential threats. Distinct from the containment of the Soviets, Bremanger must use stealth at a most unexpected strategic location to achieve the containment of the CCP. Part two, The American Lumpenproletariat and its Republican Party, follows. It is the duology's more tormented segment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PIERRE KROFT LEGACY PUBLISHERS
• Release date: Aug 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201330156

Christian Filostrat

I didn't always work as a full-time writer. I traveled the world as a semi-US diplomat for more than two decades, allowing me him to collect experiences and stories to write about when I no longer wore scratchy suits and blue-colored ties and sat down at a keyboard. I connected with the African narrative, and of all the stories I heard around the world, the ones about European colonialism and what it wrought in Africa captivated me the most. So I gathered stories about the arrival of Europeans, their outlook, policies, and attitudes before and after European women arrived on the continent, and the impact everything European had on the African people. After the Soviet Union fell apart, I worked at our embassy in Bucharest, Romania. One of my responsibilities was to obtain Holocaust-related documents from the Ministry of the Interior and the State Security for the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I once came across a letter to the State Security from wartime president/dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu about a farmer named David. A paper clip was used to secure David's picture to the letter. He was a poor farmer dressed in rags. Why would Romania's dictator write to inquire about a single farmer's transportation status? What I write is heavily influenced by those files from the Romanian Ministry of the Interior's archives.

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Prologue

The bedside phone rang. It was 2:20 AM.

In his sleep, Thomas Bremanger, recognized Ode Frankel’s ring. Ode Frankel was the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

The customary courtesy was to mumble an apology when awakening the president. He didn’t sleep much and appreciated the few hours he managed in the early morning hours. Instead, he heard, the pope is dead. So worked up was Ode Frankel that before the president said hello, she announced the details of what was happening at the Vatican: The Camerlengo is now running the church, she began as if in a race against a clock. He has notified the Master of Liturgical Celebration, the Secretary and the Chancellor of the Apostolic Camera and they’re meeting under Michelangelo’s dome in St. Peter’s Basilica to say mass among themselves. They will then proceed out of the basilica to the Vatican’s Bronze Doors with a detachment of Swiss guards in tow. Once inside, they will take the elevator to his Holiness’ apartments. Only those who witness them together will know that the pope is dead; more so because the Camerlengo will be holding a small silver mallet at his side . . . At that point, the president decided to interrupt . . . but changed his mind.

The time Ode Frankel was detailing events at the Vatican was enabling the president to reflect a final time that the passing of this pope was the opportunity he had been looking for in regard to China. You’re proceeding with phase one, then? he said. It’s all set sir, Ode Frankel answered. Bremanger noted the eagerness in her voice. 

He then reassigned his mind to the immediate needs of the American asset who had served as his Holiness’ gatekeeper for the past two years. While Ode Frankel itemized Vatican rituals, he visualized the asset in a corner between two Swiss guards outside of the papal apartments, at this moment, forlorn and in all probability wondering what would become of her now that the pope had deserted her.

The wind was clamoring in the trees. Leaves from the old oaks flapped against the bulletproof windows. Thomas Bremanger eavesdropped for a while; thinking about Mother Mariama, the American intelligence recruit and the pope’s housekeeper. The pope had elevated her to his sentry position against members of the Curia. While the old pope lived, the Camerlengo or anybody else could not gain admittance to the papal presence even in emergencies without her approval. She was the pope’s safeguard against intrusion; the guardian to the myth of grand aloofness he insisted should mark his reign.

While keeping her handlers in Washington informed of what was happening to and around the pope, Mother Mariama did his Holiness’s biddings and as much as she anticipated retribution from the spurned men of the Curia, the president also knew that she was now cringing in that Vatican corner like a chastised dog.

The Curia men called her la Vergogna – the shame.  Throwing Mother Mariama out of the Vatican was the first item on the to-do-list of the men who had groveled to this Lithuanian housekeeper. She deserves rescue, the president’s mind noted. Rome’s station chief should send someone to the bronze doors to offer her asylum – her service had been invaluable. 

Her service had been invaluable because Mother Miriama lived to follow orders. Although not a sycophant, she was as born to follow orders as a bird is born to fly. The pope’s secretary and the Rome station chief noted that quality when she arrived in Rome, an asylum seeker from Lithuania.

Thomas Bremanger ambled to the window attracted by the commotion outside.

Chapter One

Many Peace Corps volunteers associate their service to embracing the lifestyle of the people they serve. Some forget to take their chloroquine tablets, for example, and are at risk of contracting Malaria. Going native is costly and commands constant attention from regional directors. Lessening risks to the volunteers is a priority, requiring inspection tours far beyond simple country stopovers. Regional directors can never be tourists passing through airports.

The flip side of these inspection tours when Thomas Bremanger was director was the opportunities to observe what was becoming of Africa. If he had seen one Chinese operation at a stopover, he saw two – in Zambia three – on his next visit.

Bremanger saw the stadiums, and the national theaters constructed during the Mao years. He saw that the Chinese had graduated to building roads and short railroads. Often these railroads were adjacent to copper and other mines. On each trip, he saw that the mines were growing in significance and number.

Bremanger marveled at how single-minded the Chinese were. More impressive for being matter of fact about their expansion.  Devoid of any kind of passion. That single mindedness had lifted their economy above that of Japan, and suddenly they were becoming the first economy in the world with a millennial-momentum wind in their sail unlike any the world had ever seen. According to a Pew report, only in South Korea, Japan and the United States did more people consider America the world’s leading economic power. Implicit was that in a short while China would surpass the dysfunctional United States.

Economic dominance leads to geopolitical ambition and by the time Bremanger noticed the Chinese enough to be terrified, he was at a station looking at the caboose of a departed train. He appreciated that such dominance per force created uncircumventable gravitational pulls. Like the impervious sun, that dominance radiated every where. Nations defer to such powers; not the other way around. The US was in that dominant position immediately after WWII. Now, Chinese industries were consuming half of the world’s strategic materials, rare earth, aluminum, zinc, nickel, steel, copper and steel. In the Congo they had a lock on the production of cobalt and a monopoly in cobalt sulfate used in the making of batteries. Everyone envied China. If it were democratic, Bremanger wouldn’t be so alarmed. But with a country as divided against itself as the U.S. was, communist China had a clear path to dominance. The prospect of global dominance by a communist state sickened him. This wasn’t a chimera; and with anguished lucidity, he felt bound to rage against the eventuality and swear to halt it.

The Chinese sought discretion, but their enterprises were now too loud and expansive for anonymity. Walls were a short-term solution. Bremanger spotted one around a cobalt-mining site in Kolwezi, Congo. In any case, the Chinese were too big to care anymore. In fact, they were becoming eager to flaunt their power and wealth. They just adopted the African adage,  Elephants don’t limp when walking on thorns and continued to broaden their reach.

A couple of years of continuous tours and questions led Bremanger to dig deeper. What he fathomed led to the dread that the extraction of strategic minerals on such a scale couldn’t but be detrimental to America’s national interest and security. Central Africa alone had so much metal in its soil airplane instruments haywired during flyovers.

Bremanger exposed China’s systematic acquisition of this raw strategic material, revealing that African strong men were giving China blank checks to despoil their states in return for supporting their dictatorships. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe was but a minor example. DRC Joseph Kabila and Mobutu before him were more important and more mysterious. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Zambia’s Edgar Lungu and Cameroon’s Paul Biya had no qualm proclaiming their gratitude and allegiance to China.

So incessantly did Bremanger repeat it’s China! that an annoyed Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya learned in the classics compared him to Cato Sr, who in second century BC Rome never ended a speech without intoning the axiom, it’s Carthage! Bremanger, upon learning of the comparison, replied, it’s China now! He wrote papers about what China’s influence in Africa and the acquisition of its strategic natural resources met to the West’s national security and interests. Like Cato, no one paid attention. China was where all eyes were turned. Then too, the Chinese were adept at rejecting accusations, and being in a rush to acquire what their industries needed, raced against a self-imposed timer. Other than admire China’s efficiency, Africa was too awe struck to do anything else. China had become not just the new superpower but also the wonderpower with a magic wand. Africans believed that by paying allegiance to China, the Chinese would use their magic wand to frighten Africa’s deficiencies away.

Crucial too was the pattern of comparing the United States with China. Bremanger couldn’t ask about China without a defensive riposte that included, America is worse.

Chapter Two

When Bremanger became CIA director (D/CIA), he secured the policymaking position that enabled him to react appropriately to the Chinese activities he had witnessed in Africa during his Peace Corps years.  Armed with that agenda, he arrived at the agency in Langley, Virginia sprinting. He was a brass band where only whispers are permitted. 

In the morning of his first day at Langley, even before making the new director’s customary courtesy calls to the various directorates, he appointed an advisory board to monitor China – The China Advisory Board. And to reflect the importance of this board, he assigned the Chief Operating Officer of the agency, COO Ode Frankel, to head it. Ode Frankel could later say, I’ve been into the Bremanger zeitgeist regarding China since his first day in the DCI’s office. 

Ode Frankel was one of those rare multifaceted movers. Because she was an easy character to live with, people took the lazy way out when trying to explain who she was, her magnetism, by simply saying, it’s all in her personality and innate breeding. She was tall and slender; invariably wore pantsuits, preferably beige colored with long jackets. She was famous at the agency for her keen intellect and devotion to her operations – an intelligence operative of purpose and passion. There was no question as to what got her up every morning.

She was born in Boston, where her father was a dentist. Unmarried, she was now fifty-one; yellow-green eyed, her looks were striking. Her live-in partner was an assistant professor of law at Georgetown University seventeen years her junior.

She had attended the preparatory schools that led to Yale University where she earned a doctorate in political science with focus on Brazil and Latin America. She had then studied at Oxford University under a Rhodes scholarship.

Ode Frankel referred to herself as a consciousness snob, and she luxuriated in the appreciation that both identity and thoughts found expression in self-awareness. That snobbery and the fierce determination to be on the stage where only a select few have spoken roles defined her. Nevertheless, there was a winning facet to her adamant zeal to change the world. Being freed from the confines of gender; and grateful, she gave herself unconditionally to the unique opportunity Thomas Bremanger had given her to participate in this ultimate game of international politics.

COO Ode Frankel appointed an executive committee of eight with six alternate members. Five more specialists joined a year later. They never changed, and for security reasons no member was ever assigned overseas while The China Advisory Board was operational. The members came to be known humorously as the Bremanger Wise Eight, regardless of their number, indicating their distinctive position within the agency. It kept that name even after Bremanger had gone to the State Department as the secretary of state and beyond.

Bremanger came to brief them personally the second day of their deliberation.

The board members welcomed a tall, silver haired man with decisive eyes. To make his eyes welcoming, Bremanger tried to impose humor upon them. Instead, the eyes marked him as a man of focus, the kind of man who worked hard at finding what he wanted and as hard to keep it. 

Decisive, he seemed to be always advancing. Unaffected in manner and a bit reserved, he appeared utterly without guile; and the board members sensed they could trust him. In their research about the new director when it was announced, they also learned that in other positions he had showed that he didn’t take himself too seriously. One said that he was authentic but didn’t explain what that meant. The other members took it to mean that unlike so many political appointees if he didn’t know something he didn’t pretend that he did. He asked questions. There was no question, however, that he was a man of inimitable personality – a big personality for a big job at a big time. They saw him in the White House.

For thirty minutes, Bremanger told the members the story of his life. He knew they had researched him thoroughly – there was very little they didn’t know about him. And it was not his habit to talk about himself. But he wanted them to accept that befitting the task in front of them, they were an elite. The spirit behind this appeal wouldn’t be denied. 

This board wasn’t constituted for the purpose of countering China, he then told them in a gravelly but well-modulated engaging voice charged with persuasion. "It was constituted to collect data on everything Chinese, to advise the president as knowledgeably as possible on everything Chinese. It’s a safeguard initiative. Safeguard in the sense of defense.

"A communist party leads China. The mighty CPP.  Of course it’s authoritarian and of course inimical to transparency and civil liberties, not just political liberties. Repression is a communist state’s calling card. The United States and its allies should never assume that political liberties will improve in China's future. Democracy is to the CPP what sunshine is to Dracula. Western leaders must not let communism or fascism get