The Top Gear War was mostly a western matter, and China provided little input into the situation at hand. However, whilst the West had a handy distraction from the abject chaos of the collapsing economy, China had no such respite. Jiang was raked over the coals for weeks, if not months, as the economy failed to get any better. Pressured by the people, Jiang had allowed for the banks to reopen, but with the condition that customers could only withdraw a certain number of yuan per day until the economic crisis had passed. China's economic downturn had ravaged the markets across Asia, and many people found themselves without homes, jobs and means of living. The throes of a national recall were begin to precipitate across China, but nobody could agree on the terms in which he would be removed from office.
To Jiang's benefit, the economy improved slightly in the winter of 2015, as the Chinese Central Treasury did a number of course-correction measures to improve the financial state of the economy. However, it did little to stem the tide, and the economy's brief swelling soon fell back over by the early months of 2016. In order to stimulate the economy, Jiang revived a number of 'national labour board' ideas proposed under prior Chairmen, and submitted it to the Central Committee for consideration. His bills passed, but their effect was negligible, if nothing more than to provide for the construction of highways, railways and power lines into rural areas that had none. Jiang found himself slowly encircled without allies, and as the unstable peace resumed some form of normality for the
hopefully last time, his leadership was shattered by a revelation across the Pacific.
James Hill lost. He'd lost the Presidency despite his victory in the Top Gear War, and despite his best efforts to keep the economy afloat. He had his electoral ass handed to him not even by the Republican candidate, Governor
Brant Stacey of New York. No, for the first time in American history, a third-party had taken the White House.
Lee Randall Hawking of the
Patriotic Movement was named President-Elect in a horrendous upset that shocked the world. President Hill's attempt to hold the White House was damaged by the emergence of an large bloc of voters whom abstained to vote for Hill, or, out of frustration over economic stagnation, had gone for Hawking or a number of third-party 'unknown' candidates, like local independents or regional independents.
President-Elect Lee Randall Hawking, America's first Populist president.
The election of
Lee Hawking damaged the American economy's recovery, and sent it back into another minor spiral. It had recovered by early December 2016, but his campaign promises to 'toughen up on China and the Soviet Union', and to 'rebuild our friendship with Europe, whom fought by us in World War II', and to, 'end the hand-outs to foreign countries' had scared almost everyone whom wasn't Bruxelles, which was, to most people's imagination, grinning ear-to-ear and throwing celebrations in the halls of power. However, President Hawking had an enemy immediately out of the gate.
Koharu Toyama, the precocious Congresswoman from Florida.
Congresswoman Toyama, 2016
She did not wait long before pouncing on the President-Elect for his 'irresponsible dereliction of American duty towards our allies', and vowed to 'fight every measure, every proposal he had in Congress until he gives up this charade of stripping American freedoms in the name of his European paymasters'. Hawking's election sent fears straight through China's political spine, and made the Central Committee all the more restless at the idea of the weak and addled Jiang squaring off against this
crypto-fascist American president, the first unfriendly one to darken the White House in several decades.
As a result, in December 2016, a large group of Chinese politicians submitted a
Vote of No Confidence against Chairman Jiang. The vote was horrendously one-sided, and he was unanimously evicted from power on a de facto basis. De jure, he was still Chairman, and would be in this gray position until January 2017, when his Deputy would take office, replacing him. Disgraced, he departed the Central Committee hall that day, and returned to his home, where he lived a life of political exile, his short time as China's most powerful man, at an end.
On January 1, 2017,
Wen Jiabao took office as Chairman of the People's Republic of China. An economist by trade, and a man whom had the skill to help China's economic woes, but not the power, now had that power. He vowed to rebuild China's wailing economy, and pledged tough responses to the American aggression, should it arise. However, he spoke that he 'hoped the Americans do not allow this man to ruin a generation or two of friendship. We need each other, now more than ever.'
As the sun rose on 2017, and as Hawking took the stage in D.C. to be inaugurated, the world was silent, and awaiting the promised dawn from this recession.