Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche was featured on Feb. 25 in a live panel discussion on CGTN’s World Insight program discussing German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s ongoing state visit to China. “I’m for the first time really optimistic about the prospects of German-Chinese relations,” Zepp-LaRouche told program host Tian Wei, “because I think that the pressures that work on the situation—in a certain sense it has all changed dramatically. The fact that there are almost all the top brand names, the CEOs of the top German industry are accompanying Chancellor Merz, I think this is a very promising sign and it reflects that it is in the fundamental interest of German industry to look for long-term cooperation with China, so I’m really optimistic.”
Zepp-LaRouche gave an example of what she called “a new model of cooperation,” in which at the Volkswagen China Technology Company, based in Hefei, China, German and Chinese engineers cooperated to share technologies and develop new e-vehicle models. “China has made incredible progress not only in the car industry but also there with smart driving, with new technologies,” she said. “Rather than using that advantage and driving the German economy more into crisis, China has reached out and offered that Germany could learn from these new breakthroughs, and that way [is] the absolute perfect application of the Chinese method of conflict resolution: Rather than going for confrontation, China always tends to find a higher level where the conflict is resolved. The Global Security, Global Development, Global Civilizational, and especially the Global Governance Initiative, which I think shows the same kind of harmonious development which gives a way out for everybody, and I think that model is really so crucial in a very difficult world today.”
On the issue of finding shared values between the two nations, the Schiller Institute leader referenced the deep cultural and philosophical traditions in both nations, and posited that if the two nations joined hands—as was once proposed by Gottfried Leibniz—they could completely transform the world situation with respect to development: “[I]f the second and third largest economies [China and Germany—ed.] work together, they have unlimited potential. They can do joint ventures to help in the development of the Global South; they can work with the Global Majority. And I think that if that relationship now inspires a new era, I see limitless potentials. I have been very critical of the situation for a long time, but now for the first time, I think that there is a changed environment, where an opportunity can be taken and a miracle—I mean, Germany and China are the two countries that had economic miracles: Germany in the post-War period, China has made the most unprecedented miracle in world history ever, and if these two countries combine their experience, I really think there is a great future ahead.”
