Empire of the Ring

“You’ve shaken up the Department of State. The assistant secretary of state for European affairs must’ve been extremely surprised if he had to spend hours convincing you.”

“What is there to convince? We just played chess together for a while, Chief.”

“Do you think I don’t have ears?”

“I practiced the words, ‘leave when people still clap for you.’ According to the regulations, we can stay at the guesthouse for two days. If we stayed there for three days, we’ve stayed there more than enough. We left on our own so that the house could be used by VIPs from other countries.”

“The Duke of the Kazakh royal family cares too much for America. How thoughtful.”

“Of course I do. It’s where you are.”

“Jeez, you’re just so good at lying.”

“I have to leave the U.S. soon, but I’m afraid I’m going back empty-handed.”

“Why empty hands? You’re taking a lot from us.”

“If I was going to pay for it, I didn’t even have to come here.”

“Are you saying that because you’re paying a full price? Of course, not. Lockheed does not cut prices for our government either. But it’s weird that the company decided to give discounts for Kazakhstan only. How on earth did you make that happen?”

“Just remember that there are a lot of people helping me in the U.S. besides you, Chief.”

“That’s good to hear. I don’t have anything to worry about anymore.”

Michael said so, but his face was very bright. It was because Youngho’s visit to the U.S. saved his face in the U.S. government. And Youngho was also lighthearted because he achieved his purpose roughly.

“But by the way, the Uyghur situation has gotten worse. I think you should be prepared…”

“Are you talking about the large-scale refugee situation?”

“Yes. We don’t know how many tens of thousands of people may escape Xinjiang Uyghur, but you should be prepared tightly. We’ll prepare and send relief goods in advance.”

“It’s a shame that we only have to accept Uyghurs escaping but cannot pressure China with this.”

“We can’t help it because it’s possible to get blamed to involve in domestic affairs. Don’t you dare move for a while, either.”

“Can’t we impose sanctions on the UN level?”

“I don’t mean to be ignorant of Kazakhstan’s position in this, but don’t take a reckless action. If Kazakhstan started a war with China, allies of Kazakhstan will be dragged into that too.”

“I want to pressure China even if I have to do so.”

The purpose of Youngho’s visit to the U.S. had been achieved to a certain extent, and so Youngho had no more reasons to stay any longer. However, U.S. lukewarm attitude toward the Uyghur crisis was disturbing, but he could not ask the U.S. to raise a single voice with Kazakhstan against China. The U.S. was also in no position to act recklessly because of its relations to China.

It had been clashing with China with the Far East Asian issues, so it was overlooking the Uyghur problem on purpose.

Through this experience, Youngho learned that alliance was no use if there was no value or power to take advantage in the relationship. In that case, Kazakhstan was a blessed place since it had a geopolitical importance that everyone coveted.

He also learned that bravado in the international community could be a great weapon sometimes. Because the Kazakh royal family was thought to have great wealth, it was easy to have to deal with Lockheed, which was a U.S. fighter jet company. Because of Youngho’s title and wealth, the company offered a small discount as well as buying jets on credit.

The U.S. government and politicians also played a big role in this, but Kazakhstan’s underground resources were also tempting to Lockheed.

Crucially, because Youngho said that he would pay with U.S. government bonds, Lockheed did not say a word about it. It was more than 3 billion dollars for 30 jets that Youngho ordered and paying it with the U.S. government bonds meant that the royal family had enormous wealth.

***

Youngho, after hurriedly returning to Kazakhstan, had to come up with plans to receive Uyghur refugees as a priority.

Due to the Uyghur crisis, refugees would inevitably crowd into Kazakhstan one day, so there was a need for measures for it in advance.

“Michael said that if the Uyghur situation is prolonged, there will be large-scale refugee immigration. I think we should prepare a camp in advance.”

“Is there a possibility that the U.S. had done a behind-the-scenes deal with China? How does he know it so well about what’s going to happen in the future when our intelligence agents haven’t even noticed it?”

“Jong-il, you’re a very suspicious person, too. The U.S. has experience in Syria and Iraq. Isn’t it natural for people to become refugees when there is a bloody rampage in the event of a war or a shooting?”

“I can’t trust America any more. The U.S. always thinks of its national interests first. Maybe the U.S. is trying to overlook the Xinjiang Uyghur situation in exchange for resolving the situation in Far East Asia with China.”

What Park Jong-il said was not totally absurd.

This was because Xinjiang Uyghur was China’s domestic affair, but Far East Asia was an affair of U.S. ally countries such as Korea and Japan. Since those countries had many economic exchanges, it could affect the U.S. economy as well.

“Where should be the site for the refugee camp?”

“I think we’ll set up about three places on the northeastern border of Almaty, and we’ll have one in Kyrgyzstan as well.”

“Will they also come to Kyrgyzstan through the rough path?”

“There’s a road connected with China, I bet they will come through it”

“It’s June now, and the weather is tolerable. People can live in tents, but we’ll have to build camp buildings for the winter.”

“We don’t know how many will be coming, so how should we know how many buildings are needed?”

“It could be from a few tens of thousands to a few hundreds of thousands. We need room for tens of thousands of people first.”

“That’s too vague.”

“We’ll continue to use the facilities once they’re built. More people will come after hearing that we have camp buildings available here. Don’t you think?”

“You’re right. Man, I want to go to Xinjiang Uyghur myself and make a mess, but it drives me crazy that I can’t.”

“What’s wrong with you? Are you feeling too fidgety?”

“Heck yeah, I wish I was just a minor soldier. Then I’ll be free to go there.”

“I know, it’s a shame. By the way, if we use the secret route, we can evacuate more Uyghurs…”

“What if Chinese spies sneaked in among the refugees and found the road that had been hidden for hundreds of years? We can never open that route to common Uyghurs except in special cases.”

“I don’t know if the Chinese will let the Uyghurs go easily.”

The secret route had been allowing Youngho to feed and arm the Uyghurs independence fighters easily. The route also allowed intelligence agents and royal commandos to infiltrate in the region easily. The Chinese authorities still did not know where the weapons and supplies used by the Uyghur independence fighters were coming from.

“They’ll overlook old and weak people escaping from the region, but I’m not sure about young people.”

“So, I’m telling you. We should bring only the pre-selected ones to the secret route. It’s almost impossible to do anti-government activities in Xinjiang Uyghur now.”

“What? They didn’t put a surveillance camera on the whole Uyghur area except for big cities. People can roam around freely in other regions, can’t they?”

“Not really. They don’t have surveillance cameras, but the security check is insane. Everyone and every vehicle are being inspected. Our agents reported that they were inspected six times in 50 kilometers. Can you imagine?”

Jong-il was saying that if it was difficult for Xinjiang Uyghur to be freed from China anyway, at least selected Uyghurs should be rescued.

***

A plan to build a camp to accommodate the people was laid out roughly.

The camp would have basic facilities for living, such as places to sleep, cafeterias, and restrooms. Central Asia was relatively dry, so even in summer, it was cool in the shade, so air conditioning was not necessary.

The problem was the coming winter.

Even if several heaters were installed in large barracks, it would not stand the extreme cold, but it would be wasteful to use expensive heat-trapping materials for so many refugees.

When Youngho was thinking about how to set the standard for the camp, the relief supplies that Michael promised arrived from the U.S.

Michael sent him large tents, blankets, mattresses, etc. for the refugee camp. It was an overwhelming amount of supplies that new storage buildings would be needed to store them in the refugee camps.

“What the hell was he thinking?”

“What’s wrong? Your Highness.”

“This is the first installment. And they’re going to send us four more times now, which would be the amount that we can use for the next few decades.”

“They must have expected quite a huge number of refugees in Kazakhstan. If we get all of the installments, we’ll have supplies enough for at least a hundred thousand people.”

“I’ve estimated it to be several tens of thousands, but this is breathtaking.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to build too many barracks since we have sturdy tents.”

“I’m afraid people won’t be able to endure the cold winter with a tent alone. Instead, we’ll have to make decent common restrooms and cafeterias. Individual cooking will be a problem. Most of the refugee camps suffer from hygiene problems.”

“Why don’t you replace it with knockdown buildings? It’s simple to install and to tear down.”

“Are you talking about the sandwich panel?”

“Yes. It’s light and has a lot of heat resistance. It’s also easy to build. We can build a single building in a week.”

Eriksson said that a sandwich panel house could be used many times since it could be built fast and it was light and durable.

“I don’t know if there’s a production plant in Kazakhstan.”

“I’m sure we’ll find it. Also, you can make one if you don’t have it, right? It is not a high-level technology. If you build a few factories in different locations, you could supply cheap and light construction materials to common people in the country.”

In Korea, such cheap construction materials were only used for warehouse buildings and shabby factories, but those were hard to find in Kazakhstan. Since the building could be built in a short period of time, there was nothing to worry about even if many refugees were gathered as long as materials were secured.