Having many relatives that lived through the times, and having talked to them ... talk of a Hitler-Stalin alliance before it was actually announced would have absolutely PEGGED the unlikely meter. It was absolutely unexpected and not something anyone was concerned about at the time. Yet, as we have stated, it happened.
Also, I do not believe we can draw too many conclusions about the Red Chinese. They are experts at distraction and deception ... it's in their blood.
But agan, the novel is fictional and as such you might call these things literary license ... or not. It's up to you.
Thanks for the feedback.
Regards.
Which worries me. American decision-makers are somewhat well-read in history and culture, but mostly Western (and the level of historical/cultural illiteracy is much higher today than a generation ago).
So, yes, there is room for worry. We have no real idea what's going inside China, and much of China's visible behavior is NOT the behavior of a confident nation, secure in its sense of its own future. It's the behavior of a nation trying to keep the wheels from coming off one day at a time. There's a good book out called The Coming Collapse of China, and it lays out a fairly strong case that China may not be overly interested in WTO membership--because membership would require that they open their books for inspection, and that means that the world will find out just how bad the current situation really is.