Showing Sometimes the Dragon Wins by William Walling

Chin Zhonghua Renmin Gonghehuo, the Peoples Republic of China, achieves a technological triumph with its late 21st century deployment of a "space elevator?" anchored in and rising from an equatorial mountain peak in Borneo. Blackmailed into performing a "suicide" mission to penetrate the space elevator's closely guarded secrets, and temporarily sabotaging operations, UN Intelligence Agent Rodolfo "Rudy" Cateel becomes unwittingly embroiled in a subterfuge hatched by China's counterintelligence director, who is frightened to think economic overkill might result in a thermonuclear holocaust, and is also convinced that simulating an artificial hiatus will allow China to "save face" by shutting down operations. The mission goes awry when a Nipponese double-agent is instructed to do away with Cateel and perform totally destructive sabotage.