The Relativity Series: Golden Shield (Part 1)
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. You can stream the entire L.A. TheatreWorks catalog of plays. Find out more at streaming.latw.org. L.A. TheatreWorks presents Golden Shield by Ann Chooley, Felicia King. Directed by Annalise Erickson.

Starring Seamus Dever, Fong Du, Greg Gurman, Belinda Gosby, Angela Lin, Marty Ma, Ian Song, Josh Stamberg, Jan Wong, Joanne Wally, and Jennifer Jung.

Golden Shield is part of L.A. TheatreWorks' Relativity Series of science-themed plays. Lead funding for the Relativity Series is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, bridging science and the arts in the modern world.

American lawyer Julie Chen files a class-action lawsuit involving a multinational technology corporation and the Chinese government's internet firewall known as Golden Shield. When she hires her strong-minded sister Eva as her translator, what compromises will they make in order to win? And can they put aside their past differences to speak the same language?

And now, Golden Shield by Anchuli Felicia King, produced by L.A. Theatre Works. The most difficult, the most difficult, I guess it would be the proverbs. I generally opt for a literal translation, stone to stone, and let the hearer extrapolate. Well, take something like, every rose has its thorns. That's pretty universal.

But for something culturally entrenched or by some degrees removed, that's a little trickier. An example? 三个河上没水河。 Three monks have no water to drink. Any thoughts? Right. It doesn't work so well. So what do I do with that? I can try to find an English equivalent if one exists. But of course, I risk making false parallels and wittingly engaging in an act of linguistic imperialism.

Or I can really spell it out. Here is the monks, here is the water, here is what that all means. But you do lose some of the beauty of the original. It'll be much the same with this job, I suspect. I tend to employ a kind of hybrid approach. A bit of one-to-one, a bit of analogy, context where you need it.

A word of warning, though things can get muddy once we really get going. I always tell my client, give your mind time to adjust. It can be disorienting hearing multiple voices at once. Just settle into it. Trust that your mind is a machine. Eventually, it'll find a focal point. Having said that, it is essential that you concentrate.

Owner's systems.

Because they assume that the layman, and don't be offended, but that's you and me, simply can't understand what it is they do, what they build. When I say call me back, you...

You have to call me back. I'm busy, Bowman. I'm busy. Someone's suing us? That's not what this case is about. Yes, I've been trying to... Who's suing us? Eight Chinese dissidents. This is about right and wrong. What? Eight Chinese... I heard you fucking what? You don't need to understand jargon to understand that. What does that mean exactly, the law of nations? Then what are you? What did you do?

I can't survive without you. Eight Chinese dissidents are suing us for criminal collusion with the Chinese government. How? What? In China? In Texas. How? It has to do with... It's about pirates. Having said that, I have some legal jargon to get out of the way.

Owner's systems?

And to explain that, I'm going to tell you about a piece of legislation called the Alien Tort Statute. Washington, D.C., 2012. It's about pirates. I'm aware of the... I mean, I've never even heard of this thing. You know why I've never heard of it? Because it's from the Judiciary Act of 1789, wherein this statute was included, I'm informed, by the best and brightest legal historians, as a means for dealing with pirates. Pirates. As in, yarrr.

Is that your pirate? Maybe. Why? What's your pirate? Ahoy. You're a disgrace to the legal profession. You said yar. Jules, I just don't want to be that firm. I hear you. I don't want to just jump on some fad legal loophole because every other schmuck on the human rights beat is doing it. It's not a fad. God knows your little humanitarian hobby is taking up enough billable hours. Well, I...

I'm sorry. Doing my civic duty isn't proving to be a particularly profitable venture. That's not what I... Don't put words in my mouth, Jules. I just mean that the last thing we can afford right now is some kind of academic exercise. It's not... And whether or not a district judge will uphold an 18th century statute. A statute which, I'll remind you, was not intended for a modern court of law but for marauding gangs of vitamin C deficient pirates. It's not an academic exercise.

Look, Capade v. Emanuel tried in Florida last month under the ATS. ATS, Alien Tort Statute. 22 million in damages. Jules, that case was about a Liberian dictator wiping his ass with the Geneva Convention. You want to use this thing? You gotta have something that's flagrantly violating the law of nations. Okay, what about an oppressive government...

that casually engages in torture, censorship, and ethnic genocide. Well, which government are we talking about here? About 17 are coming to mind. Oh.

Jules, not the China thing. I know it's not much to be going on. No, no, I'm sorry. Just because your comrade at that Australian NGO... Amanda is not my comrade, okay? I don't have comrades. ...has you all hot and bothered about some leaked document. It's an internal onus document that explicitly shows... It's a bullet point. But... A bullet point. You don't mount a case around a bullet point. Rich, think of the precedent!

If we could get some dissidents willing to sign off as plaintiffs, we'd get a class action going. Whoa, now we're talking about a class action. We'd have foreign citizens suing a multinational corporation in a U.S. district court. Doesn't that get you going just a little? Come on, it's the white whale of international humanitarian law. Which district? I was thinking Dallas. Dallas?

Why Dallas? Onus Incorporated in Texas. Plus, you pass the bar in Dallas. You don't need me. Do it yourself, Prohawk VJ. Yeah, but then you wouldn't be my co-counsel. You don't want me to co-counsel. Wait, you want me to co-counsel? It'd be a landmark case, Rich. I don't have a problem with the humanitarian stuff, Jules. It's good for the firm.

But if you're thinking about a class action here, that's a three-, four-year timeline and a hell of a lot of resources. It can't just be a gesture. It has to be, you know, viable. Profitable. I hear you. Give me a month. I'll dig around, see if it's viable. Two weeks. And if you have to fly over there, out of your own pocket. Out of my own pocket. Hey, how's your Mandarin these days? Shot to shit. Why? You know any decent translators? I mean...

Rich, that's a terrible idea. Hey, that's not a terrible idea. DC, 2012. So it's like... You don't have to. No, but I want to, so... Okay. Okay, so it's like a foreign citizen, or I guess citizens, plural, can file in a U.S. district court, but only, or specifically, if it's a lawsuit. Well, no, in torts. Doesn't that... No, but a tort means a lawsuit.

Right? Torts is a whole branch of... Evie, you really don't have to understand the case. But I... Because I'm not asking you to... And in violation of the law of nations. Evie? What does that mean exactly, the law of nations? Well, there's some debate about... That's why it's sort of a loophole. I told you, right? It's kind of funny. It was actually... What it was intended for was a way of dealing with pirates. Yarr. It just doesn't seem like much to be going on.

Right. And if the only evidence is this bullet point... Actually, Evie, I didn't come for your legal opinion. Okay, I'm a lawyer. I can form my own legal opinion. Fuck. Okay. So can you do it, or... You are aware this is D.C.? Like, translators aren't few and far between.

What, does it offend you that I came to you with this? I just, like, don't need a bailout. That's not what this is. Like, I'm okay. I am not okay. It's not... It's not a bailout, okay? I gotta have someone I trust over there. We'll be dealing with some sensitive shit. Some anti-CCP shit. Chinese Communist Party. I just don't want you to think, like, because the last time we... No, I'm not... Funerals are weird, dude. I'm not... I mean...

Water under the bridge. An idiom that generally refers to events that have happened in the past and are consequently no longer a source of concern. However, in this case, it means something like, I'm still mad at you, but let's not talk about it. Just, you're being fucking weird. What is it, Evie? Did I offend you? I just, you kept up with the language and I didn't, so that's all. That's all!

I'm in a position, like I said, I have some new evidence, and Richard's supporting me in this. I mean, he's not exactly supporting me, but you'd get per diem and shit. I don't know if I can, timeline-wise. Timeline-wise? What does that mean, timeline-wise? With my, you know, I, like, applied to programs. Oh, uh... What? I mean, it's...

We've had this conversation. What? It wasn't programs. You submitted a half-hearted application to Georgetown. I might get in. I admire your optimism. Roughly, you spent three years at Berkeley getting wasted. There is no way you're getting into Georgetown. Yeah, so I gotta go. What? You can't take a joke. Come on, Evie. That wasn't... You can't just... Lighten the fuck up, dude. Dude, it was a joke. You can't just...

You can't just be a dick and call it farce. Can't take a joke, Evie. Shit. This is a tired argument. So? So what are you doing, then? As in? As in, like, regular human survival shit. Do you have some kind of, I don't know, revenue stream? I'm freelancing. Translating isn't the only thing you can do within Asia Studies major. I regret my choices, and I'm essentially unemployable. So what, you're temping? What are you, being fucking coy? What? I don't want to talk about it. I'm not talking about it. The fuck?

Okay. Okay.

Strictly. Evie! There is some debate as to whether or not Eva's profession is in fact legal. Are you... This is not the venue... Because... For this discussion. Because I can't cover you under attorney-client privilege if it's... I know this is somewhat impossible for you to believe, but I can take care of myself. I have been taking care of myself, you know, for some time now. I am a person who functions independently...

But I... Will you, like, trust that I'm not broken for just once in your fucking life? Can you trust that? I don't think you're broken. Yeah. Yeah, you do. But it's fine. It's Beijing, Evie. It's just, being there, it'll be so... I know. And so soon after mom... I know. Just don't write it off, okay? I... I would like to do this for you, okay? What's it say? What? The bullet point. What's it say? Okay.

Dallas, 2015. Could you state your name and occupation for the record? Marshall McLaren. I'm the president of China Operations at Onus Systems. Thank you, Mr. McLaren. Could you tell us when you had your first consultancy with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security? In 2004. And then your contract was renewed in 2006? Yeah. And when did you go public? Our IPO was, yeah, the year before that, 2005. Okay.

You opened at a market value of, let's see here, $27 billion. Pretty cheap, actually. $45 a share. And these days, that number is closer to what? Look, I'm not a market guy, Ms. Chen. You know, I'm in management, but I got into this as an engineer, so... Okay, then.

What were you consulting on in 2004? ISP efficiency and border and internal AS topologies in greater China. That's a lot of acronyms, Mr. McLaren. Not for my line of business. Okay. Let's start with ISP. What's that? Internet service providers. Okay, so ISP efficiency. You were trying to make the internet faster. More efficient, sure. And did you?

Uh, did we increase network efficiency? Yes. I'm proud to say we did that by around 400%. Congratulations. Thanks. Could you be a little more specific about what you mean when you say efficiency? No. Okay. What aspect or aspects of the Chinese internet were you trying to make more efficient? Well, that's the thing about networks, Ms. Chen. It's all somewhat interconnected.

Beijing, 2006. Oh, the thing with the fucking food, right? I am begging you not to get into this. No, because if every fucking night we have to sit down to a round table with eight ministers, this is the 21st... What are we? The fucking Yakuza is what I'm saying. I need my fucking laptop. Now they're giving us this shit. Oh, yeah.

No one is giving us shit. Oh, they are, Larry. They're giving us shit. It's polite Chinese shit, but it's shit nonetheless. And what I'm saying is, is if we could have a meeting, one meeting, in an office, in an office with desks, I don't need another fucking five pots of steamed whatever or a fucking egg that's been fermented for a hundred years in a silk basket at the foothills of Mountain Fing Fong Fang. They're actually, they're quite good, the century eggs.

Sentry eggs are a Chinese delicacy. Rotten eggs, Larry. They're not literally fermented for a sentry. They are hundred-year-old rotten eggs.

It's traditional. Traditions die, Larry. Traditions, they just, I'm not saying they aren't nice and quaint, but traditions, sometimes they need to die. And this food thing, this is a thing that needs to die. Look, the next generation, the millennial Chinese, you don't see them doing this shit, do you? You don't see Samsung China having fucking dumpling meetings because the world, this one that we presently occupy...

Oh, sure.

Now you want to work. Whoa, hey, you're the one. No, that was, you just caught me off guard. I'm not procrastinating here. I'm frustrated. Sorry. No, you're, you're right. I'm always right, Larry. So this, uh, the, the comprehensive exhibition on Chinese information system, system. I thought it was rude to correct. They not got plurals in Mandarin? They don't. Okay. So what kind of demonstration are we talking about here? I, um, the description is a bit confusing.

Vague. Make efficient and consciously implement system for targeting obscene and harmful materials. Oh, lovely euphemism for porn. I think it's a bit of a mistranslation. It's not. Make efficient? In Mandarin, the goal of the action is often inbuilt in the verb. Jesus. Actually, it's been suggested by linguists that this reflects two completely different patterns of thought.

The Mandarin speaker thinks circularly in a loop, while the English speaker thinks linearly in a line. That's not strictly relevant. Larry...

What happens when the world's biggest flow of data, the packets of 1.3 billion users, goes through a single filtering system? Uh, it's Shad? Through one chokehold to the World Wide Web, Larry, what happens? Things get stuck. Things that aren't supposed to get stuck, get stuck. And things that aren't supposed to get through, get through. What else?

They slow? That's right, Larry. It's slow as shit. Because trying to sift through the online traffic of the world's largest fucking population is a pretty fucking inefficient process. It is in fact a necessarily inefficient... Larry. You're having a... Yeah, I am. I am, Larry. Larry! What if it wasn't a single filtering system? You lost me. Why did I hire you? I'm the only guy who'll put up with you. I'm ignoring that. Larry...

What if we decentralized the firewall? So, wait, you're... The chokehold is at the border, he is, right? But what if the filtering wasn't just happening at the national level?

Think about it. Three-tier structure, right? Local, provincial, national. You've got IDS devices at the local router level. You've got provincial ISPs doing their own shit. So by the time you get to the border AS, the packet's already been through, what, 12, 13 different checkpoints. More IP blocking, more DNS hijacking, and you unclog the whole fucking system. And yes, I will accept my Nobel Prize now.

I don't know. Marsh. Why? Because their hardware won't cut it? Yeah, that crossed my mind. But here's the fucking kicker, Larry. We build the routers. Not just the routers. I'm talking the whole architecture. Data centers, switches, access points. We don't just sell them an idea, Larry. We can sell them the fucking gear to do it. Marsh. I mean...

That's kind of a different ballgame. We're in IT. Larry, don't do sport metaphors. You're talking about giving them a lot more... A lot more what? You know, mileage. Yeah, it's a faster topology. That's the point. That's not what they... That's the point, Larry. But you're not just talking about, like, filtering out content from the rest of the world. That's... You're talking about internal monitoring at every level. Yeah. I mean, that's the way they're headed. They're just doing it inefficiently. We can make it efficient. Anyway...

You're talking about a huge overhaul, building them new infrastructure? I mean, jeez, we're supposed to be consulting on... Larry, need I remind you here, we're building up to the fucking Olympics. What? I'm saying... Here, you want to talk about ball games? That's the ball game, Larry. The fucking Beijing Olympics. You heard about that little eight-figure ball game? All were contractually obligated to... It's called the Golden Shield Project. 金盾工程

They're just talking about blocking porn, for Christ's sakes. You don't need a total overhaul to... But it's not called the No Porn Project, is it, Larry? It's called the Golden Shield Project. That's a pretty fucking superlative name for a no porn project, wouldn't you say, Larry? Almost like they're aiming at something a little more grandiose. And when you see the Pharaoh drawing up the plans for the fucking pyramids, it's probably a good time to get into the brick business. Marsh...

All I'm saying is maybe we just give the client what they're actually asking for. Like, I'm just saying, you know, if all they're talking about right now, if all they're willing to talk to us about is filtering out some porn, maybe we just deliver some basic ways of, like, filtering out some porn. That's all I'm saying. You know what I dream of, Larry? Marsh. No, no, let me finish. It's a really, it's a breathtaking dream. Larry, you're going to want to hear this dream, Larry. I dream of a man.

I dream of meeting with a man. There are websites for that. Let me finish. This man is from state. No, better yet, defense. And this man comes up to me and he says to me in simple, glorious American English, Mr. McLaren, we'd like you to build the most efficient national network topology the world has ever seen. And if you choose to take on this monumental task, says the man from defense...

In addition to our eternal gratitude, we're going to give you a ton of space. We're going to give you a round-the-clock team of guys. We're going to dedicate maximal resources to this endeavor because it is at the very top of our list. It is our number one national security priority. And you know where this meeting happens, Larry. No. Me neither. But it sure as shit ain't a fucking dumpling house.

Dallas, 2015. Mr. McLaren, back in 2006, were you aware of the existence of an online forum known as Zhuangzi? You'd have to be pretty clueless to work in China in my line of business and not know about Zhuangzi. I'm not clueless. Could you answer the question? Yeah, I knew about Zhuangzi. What did you know about it? I knew it was an underground...

Sort of online community forum. People voicing their dissatisfaction with the government. Frequented by dissidents. Not that I don't have a stance on... I'm just using the terminology. Of course. That's just... That's a fact. They're deemed by... To be dissidents. Of course. Your contract with the ministry was renewed in 2006? As I've said. Why did your geographical total increase? Sorry? Sorry?

In 2005, you reported that China made up 11% of your gross revenue. In 2006, that number jumps to a whopping 64%. Why'd you make more money in China in 2006? I guess they liked us.

Beijing, 2006. Fucking weasels. Marsh. Now they want a fucking office meeting? The fucking weasels. I know. It looks bad. Wine and dine us for 15 fucking months on the day after we submit our fucking proposal. Suddenly it's fucking crumbling office brutalism in the fucking outskirts. It could be circumstantial. I mean, I don't know. Maybe they ran out of the food budget. You ever been dumped, Larry? I don't know. I've been dumped. I've been dumped a couple of times. That surprise you? Every time I got dumped, Larry, you know where the bitch took me?

To a neutral zone. That's what's happening here, Larry. This is a Dear John letter. This is a... It's not you, it's me and my latent daddy trauma. I'm just saying, let's not get ahead of ourselves, it could be unrelated. Oh, get your head out of your fucking ass, Larry. I'll tell you exactly what is going on here.

We delivered a fucking weak-ass fucking parcelist filter for motherfucking porn. On your fucking instruction, I might add. And now, okay, we're getting dumped. We're going to lose the consultancy to some goddamn Chinese monkeys who can adequately copy my fucking IP. There was no guarantee that they would... It's our fucking IP, Larry. It's ours. That's interesting. What is? Well, a second ago, you were all, my IP this, my IP that, and now you're saying our IP. It's just interesting. It's an...

interesting thing I observed. What is this, Larry? Is this an attempt at... at passive aggression? Is my outsized ego hampering your... You can get fucked, Larry. You told me to withhold my revolutionary fucking schematic and you're the one getting butthurt? You can get fucked, Larry. You can get brutally sodomized. You can get ass-fucked with a rusted fucking... Minister Gao, so good to see you. And, uh...

Don't mind me. I'm just a translator. Thank you for the wonderful dinner. I'm still full. The minister says the restaurant you will eat at next time is even better. More culinary delights.

What the minister actually said was better than tray eggs, but given Marshall's aversion to them, I thought this was more appropriate. See if you can get anything out of this fucking weasel. Don't translate that. Come on. This is a good moment to mention that there are two kinds of translators. What, like she knows the word weasel? Those who believe in normative ethics. Go on, ask her. And those who don't. Ask her if she knows the word weasel. I, for one, am something of a...

Chaotic neutral. That is why I'm about to inform the minister that these men are conspiring to extract information from her. Not at all. The minister invites you to take a seat. Thank you.

We tread carefully. We are currently witnessing something I call philological parallelism. Don't show our hand. They're saying the same thing. We're ready. They're ready. She's ready. We're ready. First, we would like to say we are very impressed with your work so far.

The Ministry feels that the comprehensive exhibition on targeting harmful and obscene materials in Chinese information system was a great success.

Our purpose for calling this meeting today is to discuss the possibility of contract extension between the Ministry of Public Security and Onus Systems. That's it. That's the Dear John. Don't translate that. It's the Dear John, Larry. It doesn't sound like a Dear John. It sounds like an offer on the table. We wouldn't be here if there was a genuine offer, Larry. We'd be eating fucking dim sum, signing the dotted line.

They've sent a mid-level bureaucrat to keep us haggling over the fine print for a couple of months so they can get us to do some unpaid labor, training their guys to implement our fucking schematics, and then they're going to dump us. That is completely paranoid. No, no. We tried it your way. The only thing these people understand is a good deal. Time to sell them something. Respectfully, uh, Minister, we weren't entirely happy with the outcome of the exhibition. Marsh. Translate that.

What are you doing? We feel the limited scope of this consultation has limited us in terms of our ability to address some of the more global issues with your system. Oh, my. She thinks he's insolent. What sort of issues? We believe that efficiency is a much larger issue than we were able to fully address with our parcel-less system for...

They never mentioned it.

This is the first time she's hearing any of this. Perhaps there is some confusion on the part of your company about the goals of the scientific development policy. The Ministry seeks to increase efficiency through the refinement and modernization of our existing system. We value your expertise, but we're not soliciting an American version of the Chinese Internet. Respectfully, Minister, that's the thing. I'm having some difficulty working under the auspices of a development policy I've been given next to no information about. Harsh.

If there was some transparency around your goals for this project, for Golden Shield, other than, you know, to make efficient, then maybe we could provide some actionable solutions. This isn't going well. I'll just say he wants to know the goals. She's asked me to put up the slide. The primary goals of the Golden Shield project are as follows. Increase China's digital security.

to target superstitious, pornographic, violent and other harmful information, to combat internet crime by terrorist organizations like Zhuangzi and other hostile actors.

She says they're happy to make this document available to your board before you continue with these meetings. Thank you for all of this. We will definitely pass this document on. Are you happy they're sharing their Orwellian goals? She's stalling. Don't translate that. Of course.

I translated it. Look, Minister, I'm going to level with you. You want a heavy-duty firewall. That's a fact. Right now, it's real slow. That's the second fact. Now, here's the third fact. During the Olympics, it's going to get a hell of a lot slower. And what I'm saying is, eventually, you're going to have to confront the fact that the problem with the system is the system itself.

So, to solve that problem, you have to change the system.

We do not believe our internet needs to be changed. Thank you for offering your professional opinion and for this productive discussion. Wait, okay, tell her, that was the wrong... We're not proposing to change the system, okay? Would you translate that? I'm not trying to change anything. It is my professional opinion, having reviewed the latencies in your national AS topology, that what we can help you to do, that what it is you frankly need to do, is to decentralize your firewall.

A note about the word "decentralize". There are two ways I can translate "decentralize" into Mandarin. The first, "fēn sàn", means something like "disperse, scatter". The second, "xà fàng", "closer to decentralize", is unfortunately, like many Mandarin verbs, it has multiple meanings: "to let go", "put aside",

do away with now another translator in attempt to preserve marshall's phraseology might here tell the minister that marshall intends to disperse or worse do away with the national firewall this would derail the meeting happily

I'm not that translator. You see, I don't just understand the literalities of Marshall's proposal. I see the whole loop. Marshall McLaren is proposing an ingenious three-tiered firewall, one that will exponentially increase the government's ability to filter and inspect the online activities of their citizenry. It will come to be called the Great Firewall and finding ways to climb it will become a national pastime.

In other words, Marshall is talking about an increase in control, an increase in efficiency effected through decentralization but not resulting in it. So all I have to do is change one little word. I turn to the minister and I say, He wants to centralize the firewall. Because in this case, paradoxically,

Centralize is the more efficient translation. The ministry would be interested in reviewing such a proposal. They would? They would. Now, to be honest, we don't have an extensive paper trail of Onus' dealings with the ministry for the simple reason that these dealings were mostly conducted in China.

But a document we do have access to, our Exhibit A, is a leaked ONUS document. And specifically, I'm going to direct your attention to the third bullet point that features in that document. A bullet point that reads as follows. To combat internet crime by terrorist organizations like Zhuangzi and other hostile actors.

Beijing, 2012. Can I, uh, if I ask you a question, can you be, like, really honest? That's sort of my default. Is this, like, are you actually trying to win this case, or is it, like, a symbolic gesture? Um, fuck you. Hey, that's an honest question. It's not loaded. The two aren't mutually exclusive, you know? Because, like, I'm no expert. You're really not. You can probably guess, but, uh, roughly, you're stupid. Forget it.

Hey, now, Evie... No, no, I can be your ventriloquist dummy for a week. It's what I signed up for, so... No, fuck. It's my bad, dude. My brand of humor is... I can be a little... Mercenary? I was gonna say zesty. Hey, it's really different, right? What?

This area, it's like Singapore or something. Oh, yeah. Gentrified. Definitely. And like all this nightlife, I don't remember like bars. In full fairness, we were... Yeah, no, sure. That's not the sort of thing you notice as a kid. And I suspect the absence of someone screaming her head off at us. Yeah, that probably contributes to the different atmosphere. I feel this is the point to interject with some context.

Julie and Eva spent their childhood primarily in suburban DC, but took yearly trips back to Beijing to visit their extended family. When Julie left for college, Eva, being the younger sibling, was still in middle school. During this time, the family moved back to Beijing where Eva completed her schooling. Hence, Eva's fluency in Mandarin and Julie's comparative illiteracy. The woman they're currently referring to is their mother, who was, by her own metrics, an excellent parent.

by all other accounts, a violently unstable petty tyrant. She is the source of Eva's suicidal ideation and dysmorphia as well as Julie's overwhelming emotional paralysis.

We won't speak of the father because, of course, they never did. So, who are we meeting tomorrow? Amanda. She's like the NGO point person on this. She's the one that found the document. And she's helping us, like, recruit people to be plaintiffs? I'm not recruiting, Evie. I'm offering people representation. Okay. And Wednesday? Wednesday, we train to Yingcheng. To meet him? Right. And he's the... In the wheelchair. Yeah. I hate this fucking country.

What do you do for money? Does it matter? No. Okay, then. Unless it's morally compromised. Is there a legal definition for morally compromised? Julie, you sort of don't have the right to that information. Since when? I'm getting room service. You want anything? My sister back? Well, you're getting a sandwich.

Paula Aalto, 2006. We're fine. See? He was right to bring it to me, Marshall. I'm your chief legal officer. We're fine? I mean, it's not ideal. It's decidedly unideal. But this bullet point, Zhuangzi and other hostile actors, the fact that they showed us this, they're targeting dissidents. Doesn't that, like, open us up to anything? Like, accusations of anything? Yeah.

By whom? Like, I don't know. The UN? You mean the ICC? International Criminal Court. I don't know. The tribunal responsible for prosecuting individuals guilty of war crimes? Crimes against humanity and genocide? Yes. Have you committed any genocides lately? I don't think so. You're fine. Okay, but... Larry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret about international law.

The only effectual branch of international arbitration, the only practicable branch, is the one I specialize in, corporate law. This means...

that the mechanisms of international arbitration have been built to serve corporate interests. In other words, there are several mechanisms by which we as a multinational can take someone to trial. There are essentially none that allow anybody to prosecute us. So what I'm telling you is, we're fine. I could kiss you. That would be wildly inappropriate, and I would sue you. No, you wouldn't. No.

I'd miss your winning personality. But we're fine? No. Regarding this question of the board... No. Nope. We have to, Marsh. No. No fucking way. No board. We have to, right, Jane? Gentlemen, please. As your CLO, this is my suggestion. What you'll do is you'll call a board meeting and you'll bring the board this document, this PowerPoint.

But why? Because, Marshal, you've just told a bunch of Chinese bureaucrats that you'd show the board this document, and it's generally a good idea to keep the promises you've made to Chinese bureaucrats. It's a fair point, Bowman. Thank you. However, as your C.L.O., I also recommend you bury it in a stack of paperwork. How long's the contract? Around 300 pages. Perfect. Stick it in the appendix.

And this is the most important part. Larry. Yeah? After the meeting... Yeah? It'd be unfortunate if that document didn't make its way into your records. Huh? Oh, like Shredham? As your CLO, I would never tell you to destroy material evidence related to a contract. I'm just saying, if due to a clerical error, that particular appendix were to go astray, well...

That would be a shame. Wait, so am I shredding them? Yeah. Absolutely not. No? No, Larry. You're not shredding them. Oh, so I... Definitely don't shred them. Right, but what? For fuck's... Larry, shred every fucking copy.