This an alternative to the scenario laid forth in World War Z, in which the infection begins in China, but the Chinese Government adapts to the realities of the situation in time to survive as a Communist nation, led by Chairwoman Zhou Yingchao. Read, enjoy, and please review. Even if it's total crap, tell me how I can improve! Thank you, dear Comrades!

[Bunker 491, the Command Centre of the People's Republic of China during the Zombie War, dominates the northern slope of the Qamdo Valley with it's imposing concrete exterior fortress. The office of Zhou Yingchao is small and tidy, dominated by the large portrait of Mao Zedong that hangs behind her desk. This office is where she directed China's war against the undead.]

So, please tell me your story.

[She laughs.] The first interview to a foreign source I've given since the war's end, and that's how you start out? [She shakes her head, smiling widely] Be more specific! Where should I start?

Wherever you'd like.

That's not a proper answer! [Still smiling, she takes a puff of a cigarette and gazes above my head, eyes locked on an object behind me. I turn, and above the doorway is a portrait of Zhou Enlai, her adoptive father.] Well, I'll start at the beginning, I suppose. I was born in 1934, to nice parents in Hunan Province, and had a fairly regular childhood, as much as one can when so much war is going on. In 1942, my parents joined the Chinese Communist Party, and both were killed by the Guomindang secret police in 1948. I managed to escape to Communist lines, where Zhou Enlai and Deng Yingchao, two of the best people this world has ever seen, adopted me. I was only 12 years old at the time, and deeply impressionable, so I forsook my earlier name, Guan Mei, and took the names of my adoptive parents. I entered Beijing University in 1954, and studied political science and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist philosophy. I graduated in 1966, at the very beginning of the Cultural Revolution, with a doctorate in political science.

What happened to you during the Cultural Revolution, especially in 1966-1968?

I was a participant! I followed all of Chairman Mao's calls. I "bombarded the headquarters", smashed "monsters and freaks", struggled against "class enemies", and "made revolution" with the best of them! In 1968, when the party cracked down on the Red Guard Movement, I managed to dodge the bullets thanks to my powerful connections with Zhou and "Uncle Mao". In 1969, I volunteered to be "sent down to the countryside", to serve as an example and to avoid the CCRG, [Central Cultural Revolution Group, led by Madam Mao] who wanted my father, mother, and I dead. When my father died, in 1976, I returned to Beijing to mourn alongside my mother, and later to support the pro-Zhou protesters on Tienanmen Square. After Mao died, and the CCRG was arrested as a "counter-revolutionary black gang", Hua Guofeng, Mao's successor, saw to it that I was made mayor of Tianjin in 1977.

How long were you mayor there?

From 1977 to 2004. I disapproved of Deng Xiaoping, but because my father had so earnestly supported him, I did not voice my opposition, and so kept my position. In 2004, I was asked to step down by Hu Jintao. I was seventy years old then, and retirement didn't seem so bad. The party gave me one of my father's old villas in Guangdong Province, and I went there to spend what I thought would be my retirement and final years.

What happened that allowed you to seize power?

Now, now, young man, I did not "seize" power! [She wags her finger in my face sternly, her wrinkled visage squinted in anger and disapproval.] It was given to me by the people of China! In 2011, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao were both killed in an airplane crash, rumored to have been orchestrated by the Americans to cause chaos in China. Well, if that was the intent, it certainly worked. Xi Jinping, that pompous upstart, tried to seize power but was deposed by the State Council. The Central Government was wracked with infighting, the military was waiting in the wings to either swoop in and declare a coup or to support whoever came out on top in the Central Committee. While all this was going on, the people were fed up with a dishonest government that allowed them no voice in the corridors of power! Protests started spontaneously all around the nation, both pro-democratic and pro-Maoist. That was when I came in. I bribed the owner of CCTV-1 and asked for one hour of broadcast time.

This was your famous "Who are we?" broadcast?

Indeed. I need not go into detail here, only to say that was a broadcast that changed history. Once I had the protesters on my side, I built up my own party organization in Guangzhou and demanded that what was left of the Central People's Government hold an election between me and the State Council's continued rule. Fearing a military coup, the State Council conceded. Elections were held January 15th, 2012, and I won spectacularly.

What did you do afterwards?

Reform the whole system, top to bottom! "More democracy, more socialism!" was the slogan, and by the end of 2012, China had the fastest growing living standards and one of the smallest wealth disparities in the world. I purged corruption, brought back "struggle sessions" to frighten pompous mid-level officials...

As well as Mao's Cult of Personality?

Yes, that too. Mao Zedong was the only figure powerful enough to invoke when I was making these massive changes to the system, and China needed something to idealize to remain unified. So I made a big deal of Mao Zedong and the Civil War, the sacrifices of Chinese volunteers in Korea, the Ten Great Constructions... The propaganda was necessary for the task that was ahead of us. I needed to stamp out American-style thinking, for China to survive! Our motherland didn't need individualists with holier-than-thou attitudes, it needed people who would work together to advance the socialist construction!

Part of stamping out the "individualist line" was the discontinuation of the one-child policy?

Yes. Only children are inclined towards individualism, whereas the others learn how to cope with siblings and to co-operate, which is absolutely necessary for the socialist construction to keep advancing.

When did you first learn about the walking plague?

December 22nd, 2012. [I move to ask another question, but she raises her hand, signaling me to stop.] We will continue this interview at another time. [She light another cigarette, and I'm escorted out by her personal secretary]

I thank you, Comrades, for giving this a read. In the next chapter we actually get to the start of the Zombie infection!