The RAND Corporation headquarters building in Santa Monica, California, was built at a time when the think tank had little or no prestige. It seems that the founders knew at that time that this think tank, with a strong official political and military background, would show its own grandeur in the future.

Rodney, vice president of Grumman? Spruul walked into the RAND Corporation building with his secretary. As one of the giants of the U.S. military industry, Grumman has established a good customer relationship with RAND and has a lot of cooperation.

One of the directors of the RAND Corporation, Boyce? Gasir warmly invited the Grumman executive into a secret conference room. Because the RAND Corporation often conducts research and reports on sensitive content, the company itself has a lot of confidential content, in fact, more than half of their research results will not be published publicly, but directly into some government departments and large companies, becoming a reference for their decision-making.

"Welcome, Mr. Vice President, I wonder if there is anything I can do for you today?" Garsir smiled and said, "Big corporations and some foundations with a purpose are all big financiers of Rand, especially companies like Grumman. They often have a lot of business or political decisions to make, and in order to rationalize these decisions and generate the greatest returns, a detailed and accurate research report is often a necessity for them.

And for example, to do a project on a specific topic, large companies are willing to spend millions of dollars on hundreds or even dozens of pages of printer paper. One example of the RAND Corporation that Chinese know the most is the Korean War. At that time, the United States believed that China, which was poor and backward, had ended its long history of aggression and civil war, and that it was impossible for its national strength and determination to send troops to Korea. However, when the RAND Corporation was first established a few years ago, it made a strategic judgment that "China will send troops to North Korea". The RAND Corporation had hoped to sell the report to the U.S. government for $2 million, but the U.S. government dismissed it. Eventually, the RAND Corporation's ideas were confirmed, and the think tank eventually became famous, eventually growing into one of the most visible think tanks in the world.

"We have a project that we need to entrust to your company, and it's a public project, and we need it urgently, and the price is easy to say," Spruul said. ”

"So what kind of project is this?"

Spruul replied: "We need a think tank to conduct an argument to enlist China as a helper to counterbalance the Soviet Union from the East." ”

Garsil had a slightly stunned expression on his face, he only meant that Grumman wanted to do something like a business service or enterprise diagnosis at first, after all, Grumman's life was not too good now, but he didn't expect Grumman to want such a thing.

"What are your company's plans for doing such a study?"

Spruul is not afraid to tell Rand the inside story, in fact, they themselves have access to information and intelligence, "The Chinese have thrown an olive branch to our company, hoping to buy our F-14 fighter jets, and they have successfully operated the Iranian side, and will exchange some kind of light fighter of their own production for all the Tomcats in Iran's hands." And they will also work with our company on the F-14 improvement project to buy more Tomcats. ”

Garsir immediately understood that the export of F-14s was almost the biggest concern of Grumman, and now there was a country that came to the door to buy F-14s, and the quantity could be quite large, and it was impossible not to let Grumman, who was struggling to survive, hope to seize this opportunity.

"So, Mr. Vice President, do you want us to make this study that is a favorable conclusion for your arms sales this time?" This kind of thing is not uncommon, and in order to lobby Congress and the government, and even the general public, many companies will use such authoritative think tanks and scholars to express some opinions in their favor.

Keland's own face is also wanted, and if they find that the manufacturer is bragging and lying after doing this research, it will be their own signboard that is broken.

Garsir hesitated, and when Spruul saw it, he immediately said: "We don't expect the RAND Corporation to choose a position, but just make a fairly neutral judgment." Describe what conditions China has that deserve our attention and can be used by us, and show that China has gradually moved closer to us in the West, and gradually carried out economic and trade cooperation in our model, and so on. Then you can list the important role that the combination of China and the United States can play in defending the United States if we maintain our strategic advantage. As for the judgment of feasibility, it can be put aside. ”

Gasier understood, "So this is a lobbying open study. ”

"That's right, we don't ask the RAND Corporation to make this proposal to the government, but we must exaggerate the necessity and great benefits of Sino-US military cooperation as much as possible."

Garsil nodded, absolute credibility and morality do not exist in American society, everything is valuable, not to mention that if it is just an evaluation, the RAND Corporation will not suffer too much loss.

He thought for a moment and said: "I remember that there are indeed scholars in the company who are conducting research in this area, but we think that the Chinese side will maintain a relatively large degree of independence, first, it is impossible to allow our troops to be stationed, and second, it will not completely stand on the opposite side of the Soviet Union, because that would be too dangerous for them." Of course, now that Sino-US relations are warming up sharply and the strength of the Soviet Union is also declining, if we build a stronger China to a certain extent, the pressure on our European allies will be relatively reduced. ”

The pen in his hand turned, and he pondered: "I heard that today's unofficial delegation of China has expressed to the federal government that it wants to greatly open up the Chinese market to our business, which is a good signal, and we can also make a fuss in this regard." Our experts do not believe that a country that ultimately relies on a market economy will stick to the authoritarian Communist Party model. In other words, we actually have the opportunity to transform this country into the model of the Republic of China regime a few decades ago. Oh, and the current Republic of China is nesting in Taiwan. ”

Spruul shook his head and said: "We don't care about these things, we don't care if China will fade red, now everyone can see that this huge country has the potential to develop into a strong country, but now it is too backward, especially armaments, of course we don't need to make it a country that can threaten the interests of the United States, but a certain amount of armament is beneficial." ”

Garsir blinked and teased, "After all, it's a country with more than three million troops, isn't it?" ”

He then added: "We'll have the board do an assessment, but it shouldn't be a big problem." If possible, we try to make this report available to the public within a week. I think Grumman must have started to put his mind to the Diet as well. ”

Spruul said: "It's okay to say that there are some people in the government who don't know the times and don't want to see the tomcats painted with red stars, hehe, in fact, it's also an interesting thing to think about." ”

Gasir chimed in: "Yes, even if they sell it to Chinese Tomcats, can they still fly this kind of fighter across the Pacific Ocean?" It is clear that the Chinese are interested in the Tomcat's ability to fight over-the-horizon air combat, and in the face of the huge supersonic bomber fleet of the Soviet Union in the Far East, China is still quite afraid, so they want to get the powerful F-14 fighters. ”

Spruul said: "The person in charge of the military industry for the CPC revealed to us that the Chinese have also mastered their own medium and long-range air-to-air missiles, and to say that in the face of the Soviet fleet, there should be a fight, but they are so keen on Tomcats that people don't understand." ”

Garsil complimented: "What is there to understand, what kind of advanced fighters can the Chinese build, it is estimated that they have just met the standard, and the Tomcat is definitely a powerful fighter that they can't imagine, since they can't build it themselves, they naturally want to seek Grumman's help." I guess the Chinese must also want to get the production line through a large number of orders, well, if this is the case, with China's little foreign exchange reserves, almost smashing the pot and selling iron will have to engage in this project. ”

Spruul said: "China is already planning to open up its economy, and they also have their own advantages, once the economy takes off, it is estimated that there is hope to surpass Japan, but our company hopes to think long-term." Since McDonnell Douglas can transfer production lines to Japan, we at Grumman can't do anything. ”

"China and Japan are still different, Japan is an ally after all, and to put it mildly, our vassal state, the Seventh Fleet is stationed in Yokosuka, and Japan can't afford to make any waves. But China is different, and if China succeeds, it will probably be much more terrifying than Japan. Historically, China has led East Asia for a much longer period of time than Japan has been crazy, and this country also has a history of hegemony, so it is not surprising that some people will be worried, and I am afraid that this arms sales case will need to operate for a while, and the cost may be quite large. ”

"Our company thinks it's worth it, China is strong, they have the money to buy more armaments from us, and if that's the case, I'm sure someone on the board of directors might make a suggestion to open a branch in China," Spruul said. ”

Garsir joked: "Sure enough, there are evil capitalists, where there is profit, chase wherever they go." ”

For a while, the two of them laughed in the small conference room.

Within the first week of Qi Yiming's arrival in the United States, a total of six retired American generals and well-known scholars expressed their desire for the further improvement of Sino-US relations and the desire to win over China and arm China against the Soviet Union in major newspapers and television talk shows.