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I had this book but lost it after moving house. After the nuclear war the former USA are dominated by Han Chinese. An alien signal comes demanding that the President of the US arrives at their spaceship for negotiations. A village bumpkin is found by the Chinese occupation authorities, made President and sent to the aliens accompanied by a female Party official as a supervisor (and later lover).

It turns out that the aliens, who are like large woodlice, are always helping the weak and oppressed, with the same result: the total destruction of the civilization they are trying to help.

They stumbled upon a lost US space station, where several generations of service men and women have no idea of the outcome of the war and remain fiercely patriotic, and request the aliens help.

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Black Star Rising (1986), by Frederik Pohl?

This review matches nicely:

Once the western powers have annihilated themselves in a nuclear war, India and China divide up the world between them; what's left of the U.S. becomes a Chinese agricultural colony. Then rice-paddy coolie and aspiring scholar Pettyman Castor discovers a severed head in the mud--and the police investigator, lustful Hah Chinese inspector Tsoong Delilah, conceives a passion for him.

During the official enquiry, Castor is given the opportunity to use an advanced computer and information network; astonishingly, he discovers that an alien spaceship is approaching, and demanding to talk to the President of the U.S.! Prodded by Delilah, the Chinese hurriedly name Castor President and send him into space to meet the aliens--where a ""spaceway"" transporter whips Castor instantly off to World, a planet inhabited by mammaloid-insectoid ""erks,"" plus a few thousand jingoistic Americans, descendants of an expedition dispatched just before war broke out.

At this point, though, the narrative loses some momentum and focus among several different points of view. The Americans and their erk allies are a-lather to liberate the U.S. from its Chinese oppressors; Castor goes along with the idea, until he discovers that the erks have made a profession of war--and that none of the many other races ""liberated"" by the erks has survived.


Found by searching this site for [story-identification] aliens Chinese which bought up Looking for the name of this book. China rules the world when aliens make contact, they want to speak to the US president..

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  • Dang, you are fast! I remembered the story, but couldn't remember the author.
    – zeta-band
    Nov 13, 2019 at 21:01

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