 The United States and the other Western powers launch a biological warfare campaign against China, resulting in the total destruction of China's population, the few survivors of the plague being killed out of hand by European and American troops, and China then being colonized by the Western powers.This opens the way to a joyous epoch of "splendid mechanical, intellectual, and art output".In the 1980s, war clouds once more gather between Germany and France, and the story ends with the nations of the world solemnly pledging not to use the same techniques that they had used against China.