While that is happening in the Taklamakan Desert, President Lao is in Beijing completing a much shorter trip. His motorcade—touting China’s game-changing summit with the US—is coming to the end of its parade route. That kilometers-long event is only the beginning of the day’s festivities. In a few hours, CNN will broadcast a documentary from inside the Hall of Purple Light. Whether intended or not, that glowing production will showcase the new geopolitical reality. China’s Communist juggernaut, after years of trying, has finally surpassed America and become the planet’s leading superpower.

All that changes in two blinks of an eye. China’s disaffected minorities—Xinjiang’s Young Turks and Tibet’s Fighting Monks—rock the country. Caught up in the violence, Brannigan’s love affair meets a tragic end, and the Reds and rebels engage in an escalating cycle of provocations and reprisals. In the midst of the turmoil, Brannigan returns to China for a hush-hush assignment at Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric facility. It is there that he overcomes his demons and finds lasting happiness. Everything in his life is coming up aces.

Until the unthinkable happens.