So I'll admit upfront that this article will be purely some speculation on my part or perhaps more along the lines of what I'd wish would happen. Ever since my youth I have had a fascination with china, it's been one of the fastest growing economies in the last three decades. Has an enormous army and intelligence force to boot. And sooner or later I expect there will be a conflict with China, perhaps over oil perhaps over some very other things like the fact they are still one of the few Communist nations out there. But that is in the real world, I wanted to talk about China in the world of fiction. Or more specifically in the world of Person of Interest.
As it all began last season when a piece or knowledge of the Machine was found in China. Which first of all leaves me with a question I can not answer, as seen in "Reckoning", why did Finch sell knowledge of the Machine to the Chinese? And was it really Finch? The old man seemed to believe so. The only reason I can think of is that Finch was afraid the Machine would eventually be breached and abused by the US Government and did this as additional security measure. Making sure neither side ever would have the advantage over the other. It picked up again a few months ago when in the episode "C.O.D." mention was made that China has a great intelligence agency and that they were operating on American soil. At first glance I never took notice at what was seemingly a throw away mention to add realism since they know about the Machine, but then "Reckoning" came. The older man in the Chinese hospital mentioned Stanton worked for the 'Old Gods' and he worked for the 'New Gods'. The analogy was simple, the United States government represented the 'Old Gods' and the Chinese government the 'New Gods'. When the kicker came and Stanton uploaded some kind of virus in US Intelligence database it became clear to me some kind of incursion was coming from China.
Though I am not certain whether it's a full scale war, which is unlikely, or more along the lines of intelligence operations by Chinese agents. The following episode "One Percent" seemed to hint at the latter, as the Machine itself showed signs of being compromised by the virus. Since the Machine's job is to detect threats to the security of the United States I can only be certain something big is coming.
Thanks for reading and I'd like to hear what you think of my theory!
