The Bear and the Dragon: Difference between revisions
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* [[Idiot Plot]]: Every major antagonistic Chinese character were forced to superglue an [[Idiot Ball]] to their hands so the plot could work.
** For starters, a key hook of the plot is that they have no internal internet security at all, which, given how much IRL Communist China has poured money into that area, means the Chinese Communists are much dumber by default than they ever were in the real world, which is crucial to the plot because the data that the Americans get that allows them to stay one step ahead of the Chinese hinges on this bit of stupidity.
*** Remember that the world's first Internet anonymizer/blocklist evader service, Triangle Boy, was originally invented and set up by the CIA for the specific purpose of allowing Chinese citizens to look at uncensored websites by sneaking around the Great Firewall. A plot that posits tens of thousands of educated Chinese citizens with Internet access and the ability to read unfiltered Western news media is nowhere near as unrealistic as you might think.
* [[Karma Houdini]]: Cliff Rutledge, the assistant secretary of state, tried to help Ed Kealty sabotage Jack Ryan as President during ''[[Executive Orders]]'' and was never discovered for his role in doing so, a fact Rutledge notes with internal glee. [[Irony]] does strike regardless, as he's forced to enter trade negotiations with the Chinese in which he argues positions Ryan himself wants to argue, and even though he wants to grant the Chinese some concessions, even he admits he kinda enjoys taking a position contrarian to his own views, even though he still doesn't like Ryan personally. {{spoiler|Since we never hear of him again when Kealty finally gets to be President in later books, it seems he lost this trope, as his gambits to help Kealty came to nothing}}.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: The Chinese Politburo has two. The most sane of them all is the Finance Minister, who is not beloved by anyone because he's the resident source of common sense who realizes the war schemes the Politburo is engaging in is insanely risky at best, and makes it clear that if they fail, they are even more screwed, but since he's a mere candidate member of the Politburo, no one listens to him. Fang Gan, who has full voting rights, is a closet reformist who is sympathetic to the common sense arguments but is wary of ending his political career by disagreeing too strongly with his colleagues, Zhang Han San in particular. {{spoiler|By the end of the story he finally attains a spine and takes over while imprisoning his lunatic colleagues, but by this point the damage has already been done}}.
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