In the early 21st century, China under the aegis of a communist party is expending dramatically. Such expansion leads to geopolitical ambition; and by the time Thomas Bremanger notices the Chinese enough to be terrified, he is at a station looking at the caboose of a departed train. He appreciates that such expansions perforce create uncircumventable gravitational pulls. Like the impervious pitiless sun, ascendancy radiates universally. Nations adapt to such powers; not the other way around. The US was in that ascendant position immediately after WWII. 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. Everyone envies China.
If it were democratic, Bremanger wouldn’t be alarmed. But it’s communist, perforce repressive. Opposing a country as divided against itself as the U.S. is, communist China has an open path to supremacy. The fickle American lumpenproletariat may even roll out the red carpet for them. The prospect of global dominance by a communist state revolts him. Too much to bear too is that the communists will soon be allowed to swallow Taiwan
The United States mustn’t acclimate itself to such a threat but contain it as it did the 20th century’s Soviet Union. This isn’t a chimera; and with anguished lucidity, Bremanger feels bound to rage against the eventuality, and he swears to do all in his power to block it.
This is a case study of what Thomas Bremanger does against the eventuality at a most unexpected strategic location. Unlike the containment of the Soviets, he doesn’t use confrontation but stealth to achieve his Chinese end.
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