Chapter 773 - 738: Turning Official

After John and other officials left the Pentagon, Robert and several technical experts stayed behind.

"The Martians’ civilization legacy" is, of course, an uncertain conjecture. David was actually just using it as an example, with no concrete evidence like the M signal existing.

But what the M Office could confirm was that the space technology burst from New Yuan, or the Chinese people, was abnormal.

Perhaps the Chinese did have geniuses, or they genuinely had exceptional luck, but after the ’50s, everyone familiar with cybernetics who had experience managing technological development would notice a problem:

Whether fast or slow, the development of technology is a line—it can be a gentle straight line, or a steep parabola, but it must be continuous, never blank for a while then appearing out of nowhere.

Even the most secretive programs, if traced along their trajectory, could be untangled, and despite minor uncertainties, conclusions could be locked within a certain range.

But XAP was not normal; its technological style had no inheritance, its development did not comply with objective laws; it raced in the opposite direction from what technology should be.

So whether it’s an alien civilization, Martians, Venusians, or some civilization previously existing on Earth unbeknownst to humanity, the M Office could be certain that the origin of the technology was not from Earth.

Old industrial powers like the UK, rising stars like Hans, notable France, and the Union with their superhuman system integration capability—other than America, only these countries could potentially have the predecessors of advanced technology, but all were ruled out one by one.

The remaining answer, no matter how improbable, could only be the truth.

Considering the Chinese people’s knowledge of the Mars landing site, David thus proposed the hypothesis of the "lost Martian civilization," which must be related to Mars in some way.

Robert said, "Our newly launched two satellites will arrive around the same time as theirs, in about a month. We will adjust the orbit then and closely monitor the suspicious areas in the Antarctic."

"Mars is not our top priority right now."

Claire shook her head then narrowed her eyes and said:

"We temporarily lack the capability to interfere with Mars, and I believe the Chinese can’t do much either. Our attention should still be on Earth and the Moon."

"You mean..."

Robert instantly understood. The situation with the alien civilization was still confusing with no breakthrough, but now through the Enterprise, it was basically certain there was an issue with the Chinese.

Claire said, "Where do these unknown technologies come from? They haven’t been to Mars, so it must be somewhere around Earth, and from this perspective, United Mining also has ulterior motives on the Moon."

"Their discovered mine does have rich rare earth resources, but this was only confirmed after a recent nuclear explosion. Before that, they were willing to spend a huge cost despite numerous investments, which may also become one of the suspicions."

After shifting their thinking, the M Office raised a series of questions about New Yuan’s former savage development, none of which could be answered.

If it weren’t for previous impressions, they would even start to wonder if alien civilizations had begun to interfere with Earth.

After Claire’s opinion was clear, and neither David nor the other analysis experts expressed any objections, Robert finally let go of his concerns.

The M Office, thanks to the addition of one elite after another, and strong dialog abilities at the higher levels, was now able to make a significant impact on the Federation.

According to their decision, NACA was to seize the opportunity to open trade with the Chinese, to deepen cooperation as much as possible to probe for information, especially on the Moon, ideally entering into a binding relationship with United Mining.

For this goal, the President had already started to use the "transition period" low taxes and "legal smuggling" to entice lawmakers into passing one compromising proposal after another.

Apart from the military, America’s high-tech enterprises actually didn’t resist much.

Take Pfizer for instance, they only granted a license for a few years, and the licensed produced drugs could only be reimbursed in designated hospitals on the mainland, not to mention that the licensing fees were quite expensive!

Previously, selling imported drugs to the mainland incurred tariffs, and due to the high prices, the market was limited, so of course expanding the market was beneficial and harmless, and more importantly, it broke through the blockade of the Food and Drug Administration.

From cars, medicines, to consumer-grade electronic products, there were quite stringent protective policies in place domestically before the local brands developed, like until now, foreign brands entering the mainland had to form joint ventures, were not allowed to establish their own factories independently, and even the number of partners in joint ventures was limited, with imposing tariffs of more than 100% on imported cars.

This policy in the original timeline had to wait until after 2020, when the domestic new forces rose before being broken, allowing foreign brands to establish their own factories, and the import car tax rate was also lowered significantly.

Of course, pharmaceuticals were the same. Like the honeymoon period of the ’80s, America’s big companies were not congressmen or generals; if there was profit to be made, what couldn’t be sold?

Now giving away some patents or the scarce precision processing resources they lacked was merely a foot in the door. Overall, it wasn’t worth mentioning.

The UK launched the Opium Wars with the rationale that "if every Chinese person’s hem increased by an inch, it would be enough to keep the UK’s textile mills running nonstop till they burst."

A market with a 1.4 billion population and highly industrialized, no company could refuse.

NACA was essentially the same. Before leaving New Yuan, Musk had also been enticed by Lin Ju with a grand vision of the Spaceport, and promised that if the two countries opened trade, he did not rule out including SpaceX within the range of contractors.