Finally, the chapter explores how the new Russian state has attempted to refederate its own multiethnic society following the defederation of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Sung paused to show me some of the notes. They were in issues of five yuan (a Chinese dollar, equal at this time to a little less than one American dollar), one yuan, twenty and ten cent denominations.

The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.

The answer appears on the forty-eighth page of the book.