Sometimes the Dragon Wins

Chin Zhonghua Renmin Gonghehuo, the Peoples Republic of China, achieves an economic triumph with its "Great Leap Upward," the successful late 21st century deployment of a "space elevator" rising from an equatorial mountain peak in Borneo to an enormous microgravity production satellite in geosynchronous orbit, and beyond to a spacecraft inertial launch and retrieval complex that permits commercial products assembled in Luna to be transported to Earth at negligible cost. UN Intelligence Agency Field Officer Rodolfo "Rudy" Cateel is blackmailed into performing a "mission impossible" designed to penetrate the satellite's closely guarded secrets, then temporarily sabotage elevator operations. Cateel becomes embroiled in a subtle plot hatched by China's counterintelligence director, who is frightened to think economic overkill might result in a thermonuclear holocaust instigated by the Western powers. Elevator repair and rework are mandatory, yet the scheme to create an artificial hiatus in service so that China can "save face" by not arbitrarily shutting down operations goes awry when a double-agent is instructed to do away with Cateel, then perform totally destructive sabotage. The fast-paced action takes place in Tokyo, California, Borneo and out into space when the reader is taken for a ride on the space elevator.