Kera is a antique dealer in
Chinese artifacts. As she got larger and
larger and more respected in the industry she was in need of a bodyguard. Unfortunately, work got in the way of her social
life so she couldn’t really think of anyone she would trust with her life. The closest person was her cousin Fanis, whom
she hired and paid for military style training for the sole purpose of
protecting her. Now Fanis and Kera
travelled the world dealing in art.
Although they are based out of London, they are always on
the road and today they’re in Beijing.
Kera is meeting with one of the oligarchs that run China. Technically President Xi is the head of the
government but there are several powerful men in China that influence the
country. The Chinese success has been
largely because this oligarchy could get along but after the tariffs by
President Trump in the United States, now the oligarchy was split between those
who favored lowering the value of the Yuan in retaliation to make the price the
same to Americans and those that thought that reducing the purchasing power of
their citizens in retaliation was wrong.
This struggle weakened China. The
person that Kera is meeting with is of the opinion that they shouldn’t devalue
the Yuan. Kera is fluent in Mandarin and
is carrying on the conversation trying to aid him to not vilify the oligarchs
on the other side. After all, if China
falls, Kera’s business is severely hurt because her clients are mostly Chinese
in various countries in the world.
Fanis doesn’t speak Mandarin so is basically just
daydreaming. Not many people in Beijing
speak any languages other than Mandarin so he keeps to himself. This is why he is actually surprised when
someone approaches him and says, “You American?” in English.
“Yes, I am”
“You like Trump?”
Fanis knows that this question can get him in trouble in
literally every country in the world but he is militarily trained so he knows
how to defend himself. He says
confidently, “Yes I do”
“You see rally in Florida”
“In Orlando, yes”
“That’s where Disney is right?”
“I’m impressed but yes that is where Disneyworld is?”
“Disney no like Trump”
“No, Disney doesn’t like Trump, that’s a true statement.”
“So why have event there?
Nobody come”
“Actually 100,000 people RSVP’s to go to the event but
the stadium could only hold 20,000. Some
actually stayed in tents for two days to try to get tickets”
“100,000 people a lot for America?”
Fanis forgot where he was. Beijing was so overpopulated that 100,000
people at an event didn’t seem too impressive.
He said, “Yes, if you look at the other side, Biden, he only got like 600
people.”
“We have more than that in one subway car…not even train
but car”
“I know, I’ve seen.
You guys have police shoving people into the trains to make sure you fit
as many people as absolutely physically possible to fit. In America though, we have more space than in
China.”
“So, if Trump get 100,000 and other guy get 600, Trump
going to win by a lot?”
“I wouldn’t say that.
A lot can happen in a year and three months. We got a lot of time so it’s not over.”
“What did he talk about?”
“A lot of things.
He wants America to be about Americans.
He spent five minutes attacking Hillary and Obama for illegally spying
on him. I know spying happens all the time
here in China but we’re not supposed to do it in America.”
“He already beat them right?”
“He beat Hillary not Obama.”
“So why attack them?”
“The guy who’s winning on the other side was with
Obama. If you attack Obama, you attack
him.”
“That makes sense.
I hope Trump loses.”
“I’m sure you do, he’s the only one that fights back
against China.”
“Yea, we used to be together on everything now we fight
over what to do about him.”
“I think that’s what he wants.”
“Yea, I don’t blame him.
He should care more about his country than China but he’s bad for
China.”
“He’s not supposed to be good for China just like
President Xi isn’t supposed to be good for America”
“Yea, I agree.
Nice talking to you.”
“Likewise”
Kera came out and Fanis was happy to leave. Instead, Kera said, “Can you come in here for
a second?”
Fanis was generally confused. He didn’t know Mandarin and tried to stay
ignorant of Kera’s affairs like why an antique dealer is meeting with an
oligarch. Kera, however, liked to give
him a taste of it knowing that he wouldn’t probe so she could let him in only
on what she wanted. Kera said, “I’ll
translate for you two. Since you’re an economist, I want you to provide your
input. He doesn’t want to devalue the
currency but he doesn’t know what else to do.
Just talk and see what he says.”
Fanis turned to the oligarch and paused sporadically to
let Kera translate and said, “Look, I’m generally against tariffs but the
President is concerned with China’s rule that any companies here have to hand
over their intellectual property.
Privacy is very big to Americans and the president understands
that. I agree with you that punishing
the one billion people that live here is wrong and that is what devaluing your
currency will do. The people who live
here and bank her won’t be able to travel or do as much because you basically
give all of them a pay cut.”
“They don’t like money as much as Americans”
“They don’t dislike it.
I know they’re communist so the people are expendable but if you devalue
the currency, you basically put a tariff on China to buy from everywhere in the
world. Now, even if you try to buy from
other countries, it’s like they have a tariff because Chinese have to pay more
Yuan to get the same products.”
“Why don’t Americans complain that they have to pay more
to get Chinese stuff?”
“They do but Trump sells it that their privacy is at
stake so they’re okay to sacrifice a little bit and they can get everything
from other places; it just costs a little more.”
“Do you think my strategy will work? We devalue currency, Americans still buy from
us.”
“Well yea because it costs the same for us but you
destroy your economy and your citizens in the process. If you want to be a world power then it’s a
bad idea because now other countries won’t keep Yuan in reserve and they’re
going to want to hold dollars again. You
help strengthen America, which makes it easier for us to do what we’re doing
because now our money is worth more so every American is better off with the
tariffs and China is worse off.”
“What solution would you propose?”
“Meet with Trump.
He’s a deal maker. You need to
compromise. You know what he wants: you
to stop the rule of stealing intellectual property from American companies that
come here and let him know what you want to continue to provide products to
America.”
“We can wait him out”
“We’ll win.
Americans consume 51% of the goods in the world. China needs America more than America needs
China.”
“You think Trump wants to talk?”
“I know Trump wants to talk. That’s what he does. He negotiates. He loves negotiating. Have President Xi talk to him.”
“I thank you for your input”
“I hope I was able to help.”
The trip wasn’t just getting advice from an American
sympathetic to China. Kera got some
artifacts that she could sell in London as well and they were being shipped
back. On the plane back to Heathrow,
Kera was looking at her phone and said, “Oh you’re favorite congresswoman is at
it again”
“AOC?”
Kera giggled, “Yup”
“What did she say now?”
“Compared the border facilities to concentration camps.”
“She really is retarded isn’t she?”
“Well, at least she knows that in World War II we rounded
up Japanese and put them in internment camps.”
“Does she know that a Democrat did that? Actually THE Democrat president FDR that they
revere so much so that kind of makes our point.”
“I don’t think she does because the next tweet is quotes
from FDR that are praising him.”
“So she contradicted herself. She praises the guy who did what she
condemns.”
“Yea, looks like it.”
“Even abstractly, comparing a detainment facility that
you can leave whenever you want where they feed you, give you baby formula and
you’re awaiting a trial to a forced labor camp is just absolutely ridiculous”
“Well, if they leave, they have to go back to the country
they fled”
“Did those in concentration camps get that choice? I mean they gassed and killed them.”
“Well, there were other concentration camps then just the
NAZI’s”
“No no no Kera, she said ‘never again’ that references
the holocaust survivors of the NAZI concentration camps but even if it was any
concentration camp. No concentration
camp in the history of the world was awaiting a trial. No concentration camp in the history of the
world could the inmates leave and return to their previous homes if they wanted
to. No other concentration camps changed
diapers and fed and cared for them as well as the ICE detainment centers.”
“Trump opened Fort Sill to house them. That was originally opened as a Japanese
internment camp under FDR”
“Obama used Fort Sill to house child illegal immigrants
in 2014”
“No, they just re-opened it from WWII”
“False, that’s a lie, it was never closed.”
“How do you know?”
Fanis pulled up an article from Reuters on 6/9/14
entitled, “US to open 3rd military base to illegal child immigrants”
and stated, “Read for yourself about a time when you could actually call people
who entered our country illegally, ‘illegals’”
Kera’s shoulders slumped and she responded, “We’re not
talking about Obama, we’re talking about Trump”
“I know, ‘what abouts’ expose your hypocrisy so you don’t
like it.”
“What about how Trump won’t pay local law enforcement in
the towns he does a rally in?
“The President comes with an entire entourage of Secret
Service and staff members. They eat food
in their restaurants, stay in their hotels and spend money in their city. That
more than helps with the extra work in law enforcement.”
“Still Trump should pay them.”
“No president does.
It’s not even on the President; it’s on the secret service. The Secret Service doesn’t have the budget to
do it every time the President travels.
The President travels a lot.”
“Trump is losing in the polls”
“He was losing in all the polls, including exit polls, in
2016, look how that turned out. 2018
they weren’t much better. Especially in
Florida where they had the Democrats sweeping the Senate and the Governor’s
race and they lost both. “
“Trump won on unlikely voters so you can’t say that polls
are bad, it was just an anomaly”
“So how do you explain them being so wrong in 2018? That was a more normal election.
“I don’t know. I
thought the polls were a little better in the midterms.”
“That’s because you didn’t follow them that closely.”
“Whatever, I don’t really remember. We’ll just see what happens in 2020.”
“Yes we will”
Fanis called a contact he had that worked in the White
House and Kera spoke to her
contacts in the Chinese government. Kera
said to Fanis, “Okay, President XI is willing to meet but he wants to meet in
China”
Fanis relayed the message to his contact and came back
with, “President Trump refuses to do it in China but he’ll do it in any other
country”
“President Xi wants a win so he wants it closer to him
than America”
“So, why not do it at the G20 conference in Japan”
“Chinese and Japanese aren’t really friends.”
“I know that but it’s not like America is a huge ally of
Japan either. I mean if we do it in
Europe, America has more influence. This
is much closer to China than America.
It’s what he wanted.”
Kera called a spokesman for President XI and he agreed to
meet with Trump in Japan. They hung up
the phone and Kera and Fanis stared at each other. Fanis exclaimed, “Did we just get the
presidents of two countries to sit down and negotiate”
Kera smiled and said, “See, what I do isn’t sketchy. It’s just having friends in high places plus
I speak Mandarin and am a westerner so there’s not many people that can do what
I do. I’m still your little innocent
cousin.”
Kera was three years younger than Fanis so he always
looked at her as a little cousin. Fanis
retorted, “Interesting that you felt the need to mention all that. I didn’t bring that up. Almost as if you’re trying to convince me of
something.”
All Kera did was give him a wry smile. They were back home in London and they
relaxed after their act of diplomacy that neither the country they currently
reside, the country they were born and raised in nor the country Kera did most
of her business with would ever credit them with.
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