DEDICATION “harmony” for Lorraine, for my brothers Oliver and Max, and for the memory of Lizzie Hicks EPIGRAPH To fight and win a hundred battles is not supreme excellence; the greatest General avoids war and overcomes his adversary without fighting. THIRD SECTION, SUN TZU’S THE ART OF WAR, C. SIXTH CENTURY BC CONTENTS Dedication Epigraph 1 Even a Beast like a Thousand-Pound Ox Must Lower Its Head to Drink 2 A Tree May Grow to a Thousand Feet, but the Leaves Still Return to Their Roots 3 When the Horse Has Reached the Edge of the Cliff, It’s Too Late to Draw on the Reins 4 Up in the Sky There Is Paradise, but Down on the Earth We Have Hangzhou 5 The First Chinese Rule: How Can We Go So Far as to Change the Regulations of the Celestial Empire at the Request of One Man? 6 Sacrifice the Plum Tree in Order to Save the Peach 7 The Second Chinese Rule: The Long-Divided Shall Unite; the Long-United Shall Divide 8 Learn from the Past; Seek Truth from Facts 9 The Flowers on a Liverwort May Be as Small as a Grain of Rice, but They Still Want to Blossom Like a Peony 10 The Third Chinese Rule: The Art of War Is of Vital Importance for the State and Should on No Account Be Neglected 11 When Master Jiang Hangs Out His Hook, It’s the Willing Fish That Gets Caught 12 Kill with Borrowed Knife 13 The Fourth Chinese Rule: Cross the River by Feeling for the Stones 14 Who Could Say It Was Gain or Loss When the Old Man Lost His Horse? 15 The Fifth Chinese Rule: Know Yourself and Know the Other and You’ll Survive a Hundred Battles Bibliography Author’s Note About the Author Also by Tim Clissold Credits Copyright About the Publisher A Chinese Chop The events that I describe in the main narrative of this book actually happened, but this is a story of an adventure, rather than an exposé of any particular individual or company, so I have changed the names of some of the companies and the characters that appear. The main events described in the story took place between 2005 and 2012. 1 EVEN A BEAST LIKE A THOUSAND- POUND OX MUST LOWER ITS HEAD TO DRINK Traditional peasant saying: Even the most capable must sometimes ask for help. I almost didn’t answer the call. I had been gazing absentmindedly out at the hills and the purple splash of heather as the train sped south toward York. But the car was almost empty so I took out the phone and clicked on the button. A voice confirmed my name and asked abruptly if I could go to China. Glancing around me, I whispered, “I can’t really take a call right now. I’m in the quiet coach, you see.” “Well, you’d better call me back right away. Didn’t you get my messages?” said the voice with a snort. And then the line cut out. London was still a couple of hours away, so I waited awhile as the stone towers on the minster receded into the distance. The landscape leveled out around York and, farther south, a network of canals stretched out in straight lines toward the horizon; lock gates and brick guardhouses passed by the window. Along the old toll paths, the willows tossed about in the wind, casting long, rolling shadows in the late summer sun. I wandered down to the end of the car and, leaning against the doorway, clicked on the number. The voice that answered immediately launched into a story. “Okay, so we’ve got this deal in China,” she said, “and we need your help urgently. There’s this big factory in Zhejiang—you’ve been to Zhejiang of course but maybe not to Quzhou.” “Er, yeah, I think I’ve been to Quzhou.” Another snort. “I doubt it, this must be a different Quzhou. It’s miles from anywhere, stuck right out in the middle of the outback, a couple of six-packs from Hangzhou.” “Yeah, that’s the one,” I said, noticing an Australian accent. “Really?” She paused for a moment, but quickly resumed the story. “Anyway,” she said, “we signed up to buy truckloads of carbon from a chemical factory down there and now it looks like the whole thing’s gone belly-up. We found some lawyers in Beijing who said that you’d help us.” “Lawyers?” I asked. “Haven’t they briefed you yet?” asked the voice. “They promised they’d call you. Now the Chinese partner wants to change everything.” The voice groaned, apparently addressing itself. “This is the biggest deal that’s ever been done by private investors,” she said, shooting her attention back to me. “We’ve got fifteen million tons of carbon hanging by a thread, and now they want to change the whole deal!” “Carbon?” I said, glancing sideways through the window and deciding it was time to end the call. “Look, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know anything about the chemical industry. You must have got the wrong lawyers.” “Not that type of carbon.” “Catalysts or something is it? Look, fifteen million tons of carbon sounds like a hell of a lot to be moving around in China.” “What?” “You got transport organized?” I asked. “The railways can be a nightmare,” I said. “You know they’ve still got steam engines running out there?” “Not that kind of carbon!” said the voice again, shifting markedly upward in pitch. “Credits! Not the black stuff!” There was a sigh and a mumbled comment I didn’t quite catch above the clatter of the tracks. “Oh,” I said. “Right.” “Let’s just back up here for a minute,” she said. “We have a deal to buy carbon credits from a chemical factory in Quzhou. They make stuff used in fridges and air conditioners, right?” “Oh, yeah? So where does the carbon come in then?” I continued skeptically.