The latter recapitulated human history at a hundred times the speed. In cyberspace, after tens of years of a disorganized Stone Age, nations emerged as a matter of course. Virtual nations chiefly stem from two sources. The first is every sort of bulletin-board system aggregated together. The second is massively multiplayer online games. Virtual nations have heads of state and legislatures similar to those of physical nations. They even have online armed forces. Their borders and citizenships are not like those of physical nations. Virtual nations chiefly take belief, virtue, and occupation as their organizing principles. Citizens of every virtual nation are spread all over the world. Virtual nations, with a combined population of over two billion, established a virtual United Nations comparable to the physical one. It’s a huge political entity that overlaps the traditional nations.

The IT Republic is a superpower in the virtual world. Its population is eighty million and still rapidly growing. The country is composed mostly of IT professionals, and makes aggressive political demands. It also has formidable power against the physical world. I don’t know what Liu Wei’s citizenship is. They say that the head of the IT Republic is an ordinary employee of some IT company. Conversely, more than one head of a physical nation has been exposed as an ordinary citizen of a virtual nation.

The chief gives everyone on our team a stern warning. No one can have a second nationality. He allows Liu Wei to go to the president’s office, then he ends the meeting. We haven’t even risen from our seats when Zheng Lili, who had stayed at her desk during the meeting, lets out a head-splitting scream. Something horrible has happened. We rush to turn on the news.

Back at my desk I pull up a news site. A broadcast is streaming on the homepage; the newsreader is in a daze. He announces that the United Nations has voted down Resolution 3617. That was the IT Republic’s request for diplomatic recognition. It had passed the Security Council. In response, the IT Republic has declared war against the physical world. It began attacking the world’s financial systems half an hour ago.

I look at Liu Wei. This seems to have surprised him, too.

The picture changes to that of a large city, a bird’s-eye view of a street of tall buildings, and a traffic jam. People stream out of cars and buildings. It’s like the aftermath of an earthquake. The shot cuts to a large supermarket. A crowd pushes in like the tide. Madly, they scramble for cans and packages of food. Row after row of shelves shake and crash into each other, like sandbars broken up by a tidal wave….

“What’s happening?” I ask, terrified.

“You still don’t understand?” Zheng Lili asks. “There’s no rich or poor anymore. Everyone is penniless. Steal or you won’t eat!”