The Bear and the Dragon
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| The Bear and the Dragon | |
 First edition cover |
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| Author | Tom Clancy |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ryanverse |
| Genre(s) | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | G.P. Putnam's Sons |
| Publication date | 2000 |
| Pages | 1028 pp (hardback edition) & 1152 pp (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-14563-X (hardback edition) & ISBN 0-425-18096-4 (paperback edition) |
| Preceded by | Rainbow Six |
| Followed by | Red Rabbit |
The Bear and the Dragon is a political thriller novel by Tom Clancy featuring Jack Ryan. It was published in 2000.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
In the book Jack Ryan is President of the United States. After Russia discovers oil fields the size of the Persian Gulf in Siberia and gold deposits just as big, it looks as if the struggling Russian economy is on the road to recovery. China decides to speed up its plan to attack Siberia which had originally been delayed after the defeat of Japan in the book "Debt of Honor".
[edit] Plot summary
A roving CNN news team captures the murder in China of Renato Cardinal di Milo, the Papal Nuncio to Beijing, and a Chinese Baptist minister, Yu Fa An. They attempted to stop Chinese authorities from performing a forced late-term abortion on a member of Yu's congregation. As a result, the world boycotts trade with the PRC. With its economy struggling due to recent military expansions, China decides to hasten its planned invasion of Siberia to access the abundant newly discovered oil and gold fields, attempting to murder the Russian President and his top ranking advisor in the process.
In an attempt to dissuade China from invading Russia, Ryan persuades NATO to admit Russia, and personally promises assistance to Russia's President Grushavoy. China invades despite international assistance pledged to Russia. Russia opposes this and eventually wins through help from the United States Army, Air Force and NATO allies, in the process completely annihilating two Chinese Shock-Army formations and severely damaging two others. The U.S. Navy attack the Chinese mainland coastal defenses, and destroys much of the Chinese navy's aging fleet while it lies in port. Ryan decides to broadcast CNN's coverage of the war, plus direct feeds from U.S. reconnaissance drones, over a CIA web site to counter propaganda that is being spread by the Chinese government about the situation of the war; despite what his advisors say. This decision becomes important later on as events develop.
As the war turns against China, Beijing's increasingly desperate leaders decide to ready their ICBMs for a potential launch. A joint NATO-Russian special operations force (including Rainbow), led by John Clark, is dispatched to destroy the ICBMs. The force destroys all but two missiles, one being shot down by an Apache during launch; the remaining one being targeted at Washington, D.C.. Ryan's family is evacuated, but he decides at the last minute to stay behind on board a Navy ship docked in Washington that has an experimental anti-missile system. Ryan watches as the ship successfully destroys the ICBM just before it was set to explode over Washington.
Meanwhile, CNN's coverage of the near-destruction of Washington has been broadcast on the CIA website and has been seen by several thousand Chinese citizens who have been following the war. Late at night, a group of students, who have become enraged over the Chinese leadership's handling of the war after watching the CIA website, march through Tiananmen Square and successfully invade a Politburo meeting, leading to the fall of the government. A reformist Politburo member, Fang Gan, takes over and arrests the men behind the invasion, Premier Xu Kun Piao, Minister Zhang Han San and Marshal Luo Cong. Fang also orders an immediate withdrawal of Chinese forces from Siberia, and then an open discussion with student leaders that starts China's transition to democracy.
[edit] Literary significance & criticism
The Bear and the Dragon, for a number of reasons, was one of Clancy's most poorly received novels by critics to date.[citation needed] The extensive passages of politics and the length of the book did not appeal to some of Clancy's traditional readers. In addition, continuity is an issue, with Clancy spelling Minister Zhang's name as both "Han San" and "Han Sen." Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (formerly the First Chief Directorate of the KGB) is referred to as the SVR, RVS, and SRV, seemingly interchangeably.
Military enthusiasts pointed to several major inaccuracies concerning the military technology used by the Chinese and Russian forces. A major mistake was to portray computerized documents written in Chinese texts as being composed of picture files - that was never the case.[citation needed]
[edit] Allusions/references from other works
- Over several episodes in the fifth series of the British sitcom My Family, the main character Ben Harper reads The Bear and the Dragon, and eventually starts a book club exclusively discussing that book.[citation needed]
[edit] External links
- The Bear and the Dragon at: Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Clancy, Tom (2000). The Bear and the Dragon, 1st ed., G.P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-14563-X.
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