Journey to the Republic of Taeyoung: Chapter 2
David Jackson Taylor's Assault on the Establishment
Speculative Fiction on a Dystopian Not-so-distant Future
Michael
I’d been waiting to get inside the auditorium for over an hour. What the hell’s the point of a graduation ceremony?, I thought. I didn’t want to attend the School of Foreign Service, anyway, and now I still can’t work in the Foreign Service.
I had finally moved towards the front of the line. A woman in a niqab handed her ID card to the gruff, bearded man who was checking--like a TSA agent for school events.
“I’m sorry, Miss, you cannot enter,” he said. “No illegals allowed.”
“But I have a student visa!”
“Not as of today, you don’t.”
Two guys in black hoodies grabbed her. Other students surrounded her and started shouting and filming. But they couldn’t do anything. The DIS (Department of Internal Security) had a permanent presence on our campus grounds as with every other campus in the country.
The ceremony was monotonous. Secretary of State Nora Boomer gave a bland speech about how we should all do our part to serve the nation and help assimilate Canada into the union. They cut the size of the State Department by 80%, eliminated entire agencies dealing with public diplomacy, foreign policy, safeguarding food and drugs, and now they tell us to do our part working for a government that won’t hire anyone?
“Well, son, now you’re a Georgetown grad. How does it feel?” Dad asked afterwards.
“Same as before the ceremony.”
“Son, I know you don’t like the Taylor administration. Or Secretary Boomer. But what she said has some value. Mom and I served through five presidents. Three Democrats. Two Republicans. Presidents change, but the values of the U.S.A.C. remain the same.”
“Do they?”
“There’s your cynicism again. You’re never going to get far in the government with that attitude.”
“Have you signed up for the Foreign Service exam?” Mom asked.
She was a Johns Hopkins SAIS grad. Dad always ribbed her for coming from the School of Spies. The two had met in Baghdad while serving there during the war, married in Kabul, and given birth to me in Islamabad. I’d had a colorful childhood growing up the midst of Mongolian grasslands, the islands of the Philippines, and, most especially, the bustling, 21st-century cities of China and Korea, cyberpunk Chongqing, carnal Shanghai, insouciant Busan.
“You know they closed the consulates in virtually every city except capital cities. They aren’t even holding the next Foreign Service officers’ tests until next year.”
“You’ll just have to be patient.”
Or I could go back to being a travel vlogger. I’d been making decent enough money vagabonding across Asia and streaming videos on YouTube. But Dad was disappointed in me. I could hear it in his voice. He thought living in hostels, drinking cheap beer, and exploring the down and dirty alleyways of the Orient was low and self-indulgent. I was starting to feel burned out, too, so when Dad offered to pay for my graduate school--if I studied IR--it was an easy-enough choice.
“What about that place you’ve been interning? You said they were thinking about offering you a paid job? Do that for a year or two as you wait for something better to open up?”
“Yeah. Henry, the director of the Korea office, really likes me. I have an interview tomorrow. It sounds like it’s a formality.”
At the Center for U.S.A.C.-Asia Policy Research, I enjoyed the work as far as work goes. I got to use my Korean language skills to dig into documents and pull out insights missed by typical journalists.
But what I liked most of all was also planning events, bringing scholars, foreign leaders, and activists in to share. I was particularly proud of having organized an event in which North Korean refugees had spoken about the mistreatment they faced in their land of birth and how they wished to prevent others from suffering the same. It had gotten tougher with the visa restrictions to bring speakers into the country, but we had speakers appear virtually.
“I’d like to have you stay after you graduate,” Henry had told me. “You’re the only person I can trust to get anything done right around here. What with all the staff turnover, you’d practically be the vice president of the Korea office.”
“I would love to,” I said, grateful that I wouldn’t have to jump into an intense job search. “What does Rick think?”
Rick, the director of the institute, had always seemed cold to me. He disapproved of some of the speakers I tried to invite to events, claiming they were too radical. Rick and I had gotten into disputes when I had tried to invite labor leaders who were unionizing Korean schools, free speech activists who were sending balloons with USB drives to North Korea, and feminists who called out rapists in the Blue House administration. But Henry had always stood behind me.
“Rick trusts me to run Korea. You misunderstand him. He’s just trying to keep the organization afloat.”
Keep the organization afloat.
Funding had been a problem for a lot of organizations ever since the IRS started cracking down on non-profits that did not “fulfill their obligation to the great nation.”
“You guys have the funding, don’t you?”
“I have enough to in my department for one person, and I want you. You have my word.”
***
I walked into the office of the Center for U.S.A.C.-Asia Policy Research. Boxes were piled up in the lobby. Chairs were overturned. The place had been in a state of disarray for a months, but it was looking worse each time I visited.
I stepped into the meeting room. Rick was already seated.
“Welcome, Michael. Please take a seat.”
I sat across from him. It was just me, Rick, and the portrait of President David Jackson Taylor they had hung up next to the map of the Great, Beautiful Union of America and Canada. I still found it weird seeing Taylor’s face up on the wall. Rick had had his official White House portrait hung on June 14, 2025--Flag Day and also, coincidentally, Taylor’s birthday (it was the one holiday he didn’t want to change)--and claimed it was simply the Center’s policy to always hang the president’s portrait. But they hadn’t done it for President John Braxton or anyone who had come before him.
“I know you’ve been interning with us for the past couple of years. Let me get your resume out. You got your undergrad in journalism. Spent a couple years producing videos abroad. A think tank can always use a video producer. And you volunteered with that group Henry founded--Freedom in North Korea. Right, right.”
“Where’s Henry?” I asked.
“Henry is, uh, pursuing other opportunities.”
Did they fire Henry? I didn’t want to work there if I was going to be working directly under Rick. But, then again, where else could I work? I hadn’t made an effort to look. Henry had made me think the interview was all but a formality.
Few other think tanks were hiring.
A lot of my classmates had spent the previous year feverishly wiping their resumes and changing their beliefs to try to get a job at one of the few well-funded institutions, like the Project 2125 Institute and the Fatherland Foundation. Not me. I couldn’t have even done so if I had tried. Having been born abroad, I would have been deemed insufficiently loyal. Having lived in China and studied at local schools, made local friends, I would have been called a communist.
So my best option--and only option--was to hope I could win over Rick.
“I wish him well. I would still like to work here and help advance your vision.”
“Very good. Henry said you were highly effective, and your resume and academic records are impressive. But...”
There’s that word. But.
“...you took classes with Professor Lin C.M., right?”
“Yes. He was my macroeconomics professor.”
“He’s the one advocating for resistance against the Chinese occupying Taiwan, isn’t he?”
“I believe so. He didn’t talk about it in class, or anything.”
“You see, Henry, I’m just trying to stay ahead of any potentiality. China policy goes back and forth so quickly. If a big deal ever was to be made...”
Taylor would sell out the Taiwanese in a heartbeat. But then my previous years spent living in the PRC would be all right, wouldn’t they?
“Why would it change anything for me or this center?” I asked.
“We like to stay attuned to the DC consensus.”
By “we,” Rick meant “me.” He would be spinning with vertigo if he tried to keep up with the ever-changing policies emanating from the Taylor administration. But dammit, if I didn’t want that job at that moment. I thought I could go for the ride for a couple rotations before jumping off that merry-go round for something better.
“I haven’t done a whole lot of writing about Taiwan and China,” I pointed out.
“That’s true. You’ve mostly focused on Korea. That’s just the problem.”
“What is the problem? I can branch out if you need me to.”
“Michael, you are obviously passionate and well-informed about policy and culture in the Korea region. I--we--never doubted that. What we have concerns about are the views you have expressed in your Korean writings.”
“Such as?”
“For one thing, your view that North Korea cannot be a trusted negotiation partner.”
“Isn’t that the same view the fellows here have been expressing for years?”
“Former fellows,” Rick clarified.
“Has Henry been fired?”
“Henry was not fired.”
“Then, where is he? Maybe I can join him in the new opportunity he’s working on?”
“You might end up joining him if you aren’t careful.”
“What is it!? Has Henry been arrested?!”
“Henry has not been arrested. He’s safe. Er, I don’t know if he’s safe. That is beyond me at this point.”
“What are you saying?”
“Michael, by now I guess you can tell I am not going to be hiring you. I just wanted to do the civil thing and tell you in person. I also wanted to tell you--”
“Good. I don’t want to work for you, and I don’t want to work in this town. It’s all the same with everyone here.”
“It’s not what you think.”
I had not expected Rick to be on the defensive. He seemed like he was always in charge in the office. Weak in front of politicians and donors? Easy to believe. But in front of a former intern whose job prospects were in his hands? By then my job prospects were up in flames, anyway, so I didn’t care.
“I’m not going to pretend to change my views for someone who throws his colleagues under the bus just because you’re scared of what the present administration is thinking at the present time.”
“As you may have heard, the Taylor administration is feeling out the possibility of negotiating with Kim Jong-un.”
“Just like he did the first time around. It won’t produce any results this time, either.”
“It’s different. With the midterms coming up...”
“They want to make a bullshit deal, and you want to help them?”
“No, no, it’s just. It’s a lot more serious. I have my sources on the inside. I’ve been tipped off. And I warned Henry. They’ve been negotiating behind closed doors. Taylor is going to land in Pyeongyang next week. This is all off-the-record, but I think you need to hear it, too. But first, he’s going to sign an executive order. It could be as early as tomorrow. That will recognize it as the official Americanadian policy to support a ‘pro-peace agenda’ on the Korean Peninsula.”
“And that’s why Henry’s been fired? Because it goes against Taylor’s policy?!!”
“I warned him to get the hell out of here before the feds come looking!”
Rick’s calm DC robot demeanor broke for once.
“I don’t know what you think of me or my relationship with Henry, but I respected him. I loved working with him. Not just working with him, I loved him as a brother. I can say that. I don’t want what happened to others to happen to him. I mean, shit, it’s a lot tougher keeping a think tank running than you might think.”
They were silent for a moment, and Rick continued.
“Look, I’ve been working in this town for over three decades. It’s been that long, really. I didn’t get here and stay here by being an idiot, nor by being a lackey, as you might think. I can excuse you for thinking that way about industry professionals. It’s how I thought when I was young. Younger than you are now, I might add, though. I think a couple of steps ahead.
“As soon as the administration changes its mind of comes down on the side of ‘peace,’ on the side of North Korea, then that means anyone who holds alternative viewpoints is going to be ‘undermining U.S.A.C. foreign policy objectives.’ That means they are enemies of the state. We’ve already seen it happen with other disciplines and other regions.”
“That mean’s they’re unemployable,” I added.
“Worse. They’re criminals. They’re advocating for a terrorist group.”
“A terrorist group?”
“Since President Taylor’s been talking to Kim Jong-un over Signal app, Kim has been telling him that North Korean dissidents are terrorists. Apparently Kim has been quite persuasive. You know how Taylor gets when he talks to dictators. Word is that the State Department is going to add North Korean refugee groups to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”
“That’s bullshit!”
I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Not after everything else Taylor had done. Not after all the other allies he had turned his back on. But despite all that, it still stung when it was my interest of concern that was the one being targeted.
“It may well be. I’m just the messenger. I’m telling you, you’ve got to be more careful. Try to foresee future shifts. The East Asian Studies community in DC is about to become a lot more uptight than it already is. If you want to get hired somewhere in DC, you best be careful. Make sure there aren’t any photos of you at any Freedom in North Korea events floating around. We’ve already removed your articles from our website. I can’t give you any advice beyond that.”
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