[h1]China[/h1]
[h2]Beijing[/h2]

	“All representatives to the Congressional floor.” a voice said over the intercoms, scratchy and distorted, “Debate on congressional bill...” the voice trailed on. The speaker neither enthusiastic or dead. But carried on the dull winds of procedure it simply did what it was to do, to convey information through the offices.

	Already seated in the observation gallery Xhu Mang sat leaning to the side, bored and disinterested as the chambers began to fill. Really, it had begun to fill a minute ago and now the late comers would be making their way into the chambers. Here as observation from the Politburo the minister had no particular reason to feel excited and he expected only normal procedure to move ahead on the floor. It would be, as decided before a routine parliamentary deceleration of war as far as he was concerned.

	“What do you think these water brains will come to?” asked an attendant.

	Xhu Mang shrugged, “Something, that's for certain.”

	The attendant - a small narrow browed man – look askance at him, “Comrade, you're on Politburo. I'm sure you'd know.”

	“Tsai Tang hasn't been nearly as attentive to this as he could. So the temperature hasn't been taken nearly as well as we'd think.” Xhu Mang said, scratching his round chin. He stopped to rub at the side of his face. Down below the floor was filling in and the many desks were being filled with their respective representatives. It wasn't nearly as full as it could be, that Xhu Mang could tell. Some of the congressmen had already left the city, the present legislative term was drawing to a close and this had come in as one of the last acts of congress.

	“That said,” Xhu Mang said, picking up his head, “I hear the Committee of Foreign Affairs and the International Committee are throwing their weight behind it. They might sway the others.”

	“So they may. But I'm getting thirsty. You want anything?” the attendant asked.

	Xhu Mang waved his hand dismissively to his secretary, and he scuttled off. It was not as hard for him to leave as it was for the Congressmen to enter, the viewing gallery was rarely ever filled to near capacity and it had been several years since it had even done that. Beijing had conducted itself with low drama since and only a handful of politically curious old men stepped in to watch the public display of otherwise backroom discussion take place.

	Surely at this point the suggestion itself, among memos and military briefs had been circulated. He had been shown a copy of the circulating material from Xiaogang Wen himself. The pressure to debate the bill had been thrown off with Politburo's own recommendations earlier, and being tied in with proposals to change the official Chinese foreign policy stance it had set back what had been hoped to be an earlier debate to the future. Wen knew this would complicate what would otherwise be a rubber stamp ordeal. But Tsai Tang had signed off on Wen's suggestion the two are partnered together, as one validates the other.

	And on thought of the devil, he stepped out to take his space at the podium. The secretary of the congress looked tall and lean in his freshly pressed black suit. He looked up briefly at the gallery and scanned them, and seeing Xhu gave him the slightest of perfunctory bows. Xhu returned the favor with a nod of his head.

	After this brief exchange the secretary turned his attention to the congressional floor. “The floor is open to Congressional Resolution 7-7-1960 with Politburo Resolution Clarification of International Protocol v2....” Xiogang Wen went on to outline congressional rules of engagement and opened the floor to preliminary questions and adjustments. It was a dull period of common practice and Xhu dozed off, nearly falling asleep as he shut his eyes for a minute. By the time he opened them his assistant was back with two glasses of water and the functional ceremony of debate had passed.

	“Congress opens to recognize the Comrade from Taiyuan.”

	There was a ruffling on the floor as someone rose from their desk. Whoever was rising was obscured by the deck Xhu sat on, but soon came into view. With long confident steps, the middle-aged figure of Zhang Shu took the head of Congress. His thinning hair looking more combed over than usual. Leaning into the microphone he spoke with a dry businesslike tone, “For centuries, the Russian Empire has threatened China's northern frontier. For a hundred years the Russians had played puppet master across China's north. For the greater part of the last half of the last century, and for the better part of this the Russians lorded over our Manchuria and Mongolia as a puppet master. It is understandable than enmity is felt among us to the Russian state. And I know in the hearts of all of us here that we burn with an internal happiness to the dissolution of one of our great adversaries and dangers to our national prosperity!” his voice rose on the last line, and was answered with a smattering of understanding applause from the quiet congressional hall.

	“But, this ambivalence for the north, this blase attitude towards the north sets us as a people against the Revolutionary values of our people! Have we overturned our shackles and melted down our chains to produce the swords and hammers that cemented our own liberation from the likes of monarchs and capitalists to sit idly as people very much like ourselves cry out for freedom? I should think not comrades, for as we liberated Tibet and Mongolia from the reactionary struggles under theocracy and feudalism we struck at a notion that we can well go forward. But why have we not? Why have we stopped at Mongolia. Is it only because as comrade Mo Shun said, 'That Monolia is China, Siberia is not?'

	“No, I think it's because we did not have the energy then. And we have the energy now! On behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee with the support of the Committee of the Military and other advisers that now is the time! Now is the moment we have the might to throw against Russia and bring to it safety, liberty, and order. That the burdens of warlords and reactionary government be lifted from the shoulders of honest Russians, to lend them the assistance like we have so warmly received by foreign martyrs from all over, least of all from the Russian proletariat themselves.

	“Comrades, join me in international solidarity. Let us do our duty, and set out to free a people suppressed and liberate! We are the hands that turn the pages of history. Right here, right now! We might for once put barbarism behind all of humanity and bring an enlightened age of peace to the world! But we can not achieve this in emptiness. It is only in right moral action. As we consider here today, I hope it is for the best.”

	With that, Zhang Shu stepped back from the microphone and bowed. There was a polite smattering of applause during which immediately a Congressman stood at his desk and boomed over the din: “If it is the Russian people who call for assistance, who do you bring as evidence to this cry? Is it a real man? Or is it a ghost you've seen only in a wet dream of glory and conquest?”

	Mild laughter replaced the applause and Zhang Shu could only smile as if unaffected. “I have sources through the Russian diasporatic community who sought shelter here in China. I am answering to call of comrade Dmytro Radek who has taken up his people's cause in China.”

	“And are they happy in China?” the congressman asked

	“They are very homesick.” Shu responded.

	“Then let them arm themselves, and liberate their own country. I find China's involvement in this matter questionable, comrade. Let them organize as an army, let us provide them the arms and training. It is their fight, not ours.”

	The chamber murmured in discussion before someone else rose, “In response to the comrade,” a younger man said, leveling a finger in the direction of the other, “I am doubtful whether a few thousand men, assembled into an army, can actually turn the tide of a war such as in Russia. They might have an effect. But what is a few villages in all of Siberia compared to the whole nation? How might they raise the proletariat to defeat the eastern Cossacks? The Japanese?”

	Louder murmuring of approval wove through the hall. At that the other speaker turned to Xiaogang Wen and asked for permission to speak. He was granted it and Zhang Shu went back to his desk.

	The newer speaker covered much of the same ground as Shu. Mang Xhu leaned back in his chair and rubbed at the side of his face. Taking a sip from his water. For his part, Xhu's secretary at least pretended to care for the congressional debate.

	As he finished, the young speaker was responded to by his share of applause and heckles. Another exchange took place, and someone else managed to take the stage. Mang Xhu knew the speaker as one of the Unionist activists, an anarchist. He was an old man with a long sage like beard. “I feel I must call to question this insistence that our influence and authority be exercised on the global stage through force of arms.” he said sternly into the microphone. He was quickly followed by a battery of applause from the ultra-left. “Principally, the act of violence is to force the will of another on a other. For once group to force another group to behave, to be, or to exist in a way the acting group to be. And it is disquieting to hear from our own ranks the obsession to act in violence against another group in such a way as has been spoken of. We act no differently here as the bourgeoisie in Europe and America. Is this not the words and actions of imperialists?

	“No comrades, this is not us. And while we beat about demanding change we act as coercive and negatively to freedom of other people's as the English, the Japanese, and the Russians do towards us. As a Revolutionary force we should not seek to perpetuate the cycle of oppression that exists in the world, but to break this cycle of violence and oppression in this world. We should act on others as they have on us as the state-sponsored intervention of the imperialists on our communities. The mobilization of our army in offense and not in defense is a hypocrisy against us!” the far-left cheered and applauded, working themselves up to be larger than they were and in the hopes of convincing not only by rhetoric but the impression of girth.

	“I call for a commitment to the better. Not to say that no action should be done. But for the right action to be done. So: the people of a nation cry out for freedom and liberty? Shall they not be provided? Of course they shall. But not at the end of a rifle in the hands of another. This is state-sanctioned violence, and on all accounts we should be made to be non-committal to this. Let the proletariat and the working classes and all oppressed peoples of the world liberate themselves. We do not seek to liberate a people in our own way. If power is held in the hands of the people, then it is their right to obtain that in the way that is customary to themselves!

	“We should no beholden ourselves to thousands of years of mistakes. By all means, lend assistance to the suppressed peoples of the world. But let the mainspring of Revolution be from the people themselves, and not from us.”

	He stepped back and bowed. Stepped off of the stage he did not even give time for anyone to ask questions or offer short rebuttals and he shut off his own debate then. Mang Xhu snickered sardonically under his breath as the old man sat down. “Not eager to answer to reality.” Xhu said, leaning into his attendant. He nodded in agreement.

	Never the less, argument erupted as someone rose and declared the argument full of water. It was like wise answered in the old man's defense by another who said to the other he should be fried like squid. A shouting match erupted, and from the shadows the sergeants at arms appeared briefly to form a line between the two least something break out. But the argument was called to an end as Xiaogang Wen called in order. Another speaker stepped up, and proceedings continued.

	At a point the entire ordeal turned from grandstanding to discussing the finer points of the proposal. A general outline for military action was laid out and discussed, involving possible points of entry into the country, assuring the Congress that the presence of Japan is considered, and proposed rules of engagement. Public negotiations were initiated over technicalities in the rules as it applies to technicalities elsewhere, and it was moved along.

	Mang Xhu felt he could have been better off napping. But of the few people in the gallery he knew he would be caught easily for having dozed off. He could look displeased with being there, even slightly bored. It wasn't abnormal in the end. But what would be embarrassing is a representative – an outside witness – for the Politburo taking a nap during discussion of legislature they wanted passed.

	After several hours, Congress was let out for recess and finally Mang Xhu and his companion could safely stand and move about. They both agreed to walk off their drowsiness in the hall as the congressional theater was filled with the loud din of echoing conversation and moving chairs.

	Out in the hall they walked back and forth passed the windows. It was raining outside, Beijing was covered in a thick blanket of gray rain-cloud as droplets of silvery rain splattered on the window. “What do you think?” Mang Xhu asked his secretary.

	“I think they're rather loud.” he answered.

	“The Unionists?” Xhu asked

	“Yes.”

	“They're always a clap of thunder.” Xhu stated.

	The two stood looking out the windows until Congress was called back in session. Beleaguered, they followed the call and retook their seat. The few old men who had been scattered in the gallery had themselves disappeared. Only an obvious journalist in the far corner remained, idly scratching away in her note pad.

	And again, Xiaogang Wen brought the Congress back into session. After some probing motions from his top bench it was conceded voting would transpire. After only a few minutes Congress was disbanded to vote and the two witnesses and guardian of at least half the debated legislation wandered about in wait.

	It was after forty-five minutes the decision came back. And in the combined legislature a three-quarters majority was called. Congress had declared war, and all that was left was Hou Tsai Tang's signature of approval. Mang Xhu could already feel the wheels of action move, and soon the army would be moving ahead into the Russian frontier.