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Zepp-LaRouche on CGTN Dialogue Program – “Democracy Summit” Examined

Dec. 5 (EIRNS)—On Sunday, Dec. 5, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche joined a special hour-long episode of the CGTN program “Dialogue: Ideas Matter,” with host Xu Qinduo to discuss the concept of “democracy.” This is part of an assertive and confident push by China to challenge the absurd “Democracy Summit” hosted at the end of the week by the United States.

Xu put the first question to Helga Zepp-LaRouche: what does democracy mean? Zepp-LaRouche pointed out that democracy wasn’t necessarily considered a good thing by Plato, to whom it was the other side of the coin of tyranny. Beyond the use of the term, it is essential to look at what governments do. Open-minded people considering China’s approach to democracy will recognize that it has advantages not present among the “Western” democracies.

Martin Sieff, with the Global Policy Institute spoke next, emphasizing that there does not exist a single form of democracy in the world. Social democracies, Japan, India, the United States—these are different types of democracies.

Politburo member Huang Kunming appeared next, in the form of a clip from a recent speech. He reminded his audience that the Communist Party of China arose in the pursuit of democracy to replace the old feudal order, and it continues to lead the fight for Chinese democracy. This phrase itself means that people are the rulers, and the purpose of government. And there is no one-size-fits-all approach to democracy. Indeed, having such a view is itself undemocratic. Allow the people of each nation to decide.

The next guest, Dr. Wang Huiyao, a member of the China State Council, discussed what is meant by “whole process people’s democracy.” There is a consultative democracy, whereby suggestions and criticisms from across the country are considered. The selection and election process itself is designed to ensure that the people best able to serve the people take office. The powerful development and social development of China vindicates its approach.

Michele Geraci, of Italy, agreed that the point of government is to achieve results, to provide for the people (unlike a feudal system). He contrasted process-democracy with results-oriented democracy. Which system delivers better results for the people; results that people will be happy with?

Following a clip in which the head of China Media Group asked whether the people of Afghanistan benefitted from American democracy, and whether George Floyd benefitted from democracy, Zepp-LaRouche was asked whether the police reflect the will of the people. She pointed out that the militarization of the police over decades has created problems, and that the people of the United States are extremely polarized. Biden said he’d unify the country. But the only way to bring about a unity is to collaborate on a worthwhile mission, as did the Founders, Lincoln, FDR, and JFK. Afghanistan represents the enormous failure of attempting to impose a model on another country. And the theft and withdrawal of financial and other resources from that nation is a terrible crime.

The Syrian Ambassador to the P.R.C., Imad Moustapha, spoke up to say that the United States is in no position to be the cardinal arbiter of what democracy is, or to declare whether another nation’s system is democratic. The United States is truly a single party state, ruled by the rich, which cynically uses the terms “democracy” and “freedom” to justify its policies.

Must the concept of “democracy” itself be updated to be more relevant to the modern, connected world, asked the host. Michele Geraci compared the cartelized control of social media to the feudal order in which individual rulers could make decisions, rather than a government that is answerable to the general welfare.

Sergey Shakhray, former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, spoke in the form of a video clip, to say that by creating a division line between democracies and autocracies ignores the actual outcomes provided by China and many Western nations. Former Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama also spoke to the need to look for commonalities with other nations, rather than focusing on differences.

Zepp-LaRouche responded that it was absolutely necessary to seek out shared interests. A dialogue of cultures can best proceed by seeking out the best aspects of other countries and cultures. She took on the descent into broadly expressed anti-Americanism that had entered the discussion to point to the powerful historical successes of European culture. The Italian Renaissance was based on the idea of man as a limitlessly perfectible being. The problem in the West is not that we did not have a great tradition, but that we moved away from it to a liberal outlook in which everything is allowed, creating a decadence of culture. “To focus on the common aims of mankind, we must appeal to the best traditions of each culture.” Zepp-LaRouche called for joining together to achieve modern health care in every nation, with a particular focus on Operation Ibn Sina to begin with Afghanistan, which is in such great need, along with such countries as Haiti, Yemen and Syria. Building health infrastructure goes hand in hand with overall development, both requiring and enabling it.

The common aims of mankind should be more clearly defined, and present conditions provide the opportunity for a breakthrough. Contrast the inflation of the trans-Atlantic with the physical economic growth typified by the Belt and Road Initiative. {The full Dialogue can be accessed here.}

The broadcast reflected China’s confident efforts to undermine the “Democracy Summit” and the need for a greater understanding in China of the history of and fights within extended European civilization, including, emphatically, the United States.


Helga Zepp-LaRouche on CGTN Broadcast ‘Dialogue, Ideas Matter’

Dec. 3 (EIRNS)–The following is a transcript, done by EIR, of the Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021 broadcast on CGTN of “Dialogue,” with Helga Zepp-LaRouche as a guest.

XU QINDUO: [recording starts in progress] … achieved over the past eight years, what are the concerns behind it, and how does it embody Green development? To discuss these issues and more for the first part of the program, I’m joined by Shiran Illanperuma, research analyst at Econsult Asia, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute. For the second part of the program, I’ll also be joined by Erik Solheim, president of the Green Belt and Road Institute. That’s our topic; I’m Xu Qinduo.

Welcome to the show, Helga. For starters, how do you evaluate China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the BRI, over the past eight years?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it has changed the world for the better. It is historically the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken in the history of mankind. I think with all the attacks on it recently, there is a very good way of looking at it, and that is to imagine that it would not exist. Just imagine if Xi Jinping would not have announced the New Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road and all these projects would not have been undertaken. The world would be in a much worse situation. You would have much more poverty; the pandemic would still be here. However, the developing countries would not have received a lot of help from China, because it was this civilizational contribution by China to first lift its own population — 850 million people — out of poverty. And then have the economic strength to offer to the developing countries the model and offering them to do likewise by applying the same economic principles. So, I think the world has changed for the better in ways it never has happened in history before, and I think this will be recognized eventually by everybody; including those people who don’t seem to be so happy with the existence of the Belt and Road Initiative, because they will recognize in the coming period, which will be characterized by more upheavals, inflation, even a hyperinflation in the Western liberal system. You will have new waves of the pandemic because these other countries did not manage as well as China to deal with it. And in the end, it will be clear that the cooperation with the Belt and Road Initiative is really the savior of civilization.

XU: Jiran, if you look at the Belt and Road Initiative, in particular for the developing world — more investment, more trade, more connectivity — it is a good thing in particular for developing countries, right?

SHIRAN ILLANPERUMA: Yes, I would definitely agree, especially coming from Sri Lanka, which is situated in the Indian Ocean very strategically close to some of the busiest shipping lines in the world. For example, the Hambantota Port, which was an investment from China, is situated just ten nautical miles off the shipping route. So, building that regional connectivity is really beneficial for Sri Lanka, as well as for its neighbors.

XU: Helga, the China-Laos Railway constructed in the BRI is the first international railway mainly funded and constructed by China, directly connected with the Chinese railway network after the proposal of the BRI in 2013. So, how significant is it to Laos? And how important is it to the BRI?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think this is one of the most exciting projects I know of, because Laos has so far not been a very developed country. And by having a high-speed railway connecting Kunming with first Laos, but then beyond that to Singapore, Thailand. This connects ASEAN with China; it opens up the connectivity for Laos for eventually the entire Belt and Road infrastructure. Also, it’s not just a railway, even so it is very exciting and it will be very high-level technologically. But infrastructure corridors which always develop out of such transport lines open up the potential for the real industrialization of the country. So, I think this is a major breakthrough, and I think given the rather desolate condition of the railway system in the United States and Europe, I think people will go to Laos and Laos can be proud of having such a modern system, which will be a shining example for many other countries around the world.

XU: Shiran, you talked about the Hambantota Port. In 2017, Sri Lanka and China signed this deal with the leasing of Hambantota. Then there were criticisms — mostly from Western media — that Sri Lanka was forced into the deal, afterwards it was lured into a “debt trap” with easy access to Chinese money. What do you make of that criticism?

ILLANPERUMA: I think it’s nonsense, basically. The facts speak for themselves. Unfortunately, this narrative has been forward as you say by the Western media. But not just Western media. It has been picked up locally as well, whether it’s politicized or deliberate misinformation, that’s another topic. But if you just look at the facts, only 10% of Sri Lanka’s debt is to China; 50% is to international sovereign bonds, most of which are held by US banks and financial institutions. We have the same amount of debt to China as we do to Japan or the ADB, but nobody says we have a Japanese of ADB debt trap. So, that’s one thing.

Then, on the other hand, if you look at the facts of the case, Sri Lanka never actually defaulted on the loan that it took for the Hambantota Port. What happened was that in 2017 there was a huge balance of payments crisis, which forced the government to go to the IMF and then later it disinvested from Hambantota Port. But as you said, that was a 99-year lease that was given to a Chinese company, and we got an infusion of US$1 billion for that; something around that amount. That was not used to settle debt or anything like that. It was used to buffer our reserves. So, there was no debt default, there was no debt [ inaudible ] or anything of the sort.

XU: One thing is like a prominent feature of building infrastructure — it’s long-term. And also, it takes a long time to see positive results; usually like you are building a road, when does your return come back? It takes years, right? If you look at this Hambantota Port, experts say, “The Chinese-built Hambantota Port is expected to create 200,000 jobs and contribute $11.8 billion to the Sri Lankan GDP per year.” How do you evaluate the potential of the port?

ILLANPERUMA: As you said, the potential is huge. And it’s not just the port, because the port is kind of a catalyst for a lot of other things. Sri Lanka has traditionally lagged a bit behind in terms of manufacturing. The port has an industrial park adjacent to it which is also operated as part of the port. So far, there has been investments of $300 million into a tire factory; there’s been a plug-and-play electronics manufacturing factory; there have been deals signed for ship building, yacht building specifically. So, there’s a lot of potential to create jobs, and for Sri Lanka to improve its exports. Because of the way it’s situated in Hambantota Port, there is a lot of agricultural land as well as land that can be used for industrial investments. So, the potential is quite huge, and already I can tell you that there are a lot of locals who are employed there in the RO-RO facilities at the Hambantota Port. So, that’s quite a lot of potential for Sri Lanka to improve its exports, its regional connectivity, and tap into global value chains.

XU: There’s a criticism for Chinese, they say there is a lack of transparency and it’s increasing Chinese influence, or even Chinese military influence. So, what’s your response to that, Helga?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The argument that it’s just to increase the military influence is sort of ridiculous, given the fact that the United States has about 1000 bases around the world, and China has a meager one or two. But I think more important is not to just look at the label. I think what’s behind it is an ideological difference. I think this has been expressed most clearly by the head of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, who in his new book, Stakeholder Capitalism, says the famous sentence that “The real problem is overcoming poverty, because that desire to overcome poverty is what causes the climate catastrophe.” So, for these people, real development is the problem, because it supposedly according to their wrong science, damages the planet by causing climate change. Which is obviously completely wrong. What China is doing, look at what happened at the FOCAC meeting where China again for the I don’t know how many times, is forgiving the debt to the least developed countries. That has not been done by the countries of the Paris club likewise. But I think this ideological question that that there is a Malthusian faction who do not want the developing countries to develop. I think that has been left out of the discussion so far, but without recognizing that that is the motive, and it’s in the old tradition of Malthus, of the British Empire. It’s the same philosophy as what was behind the Opium Wars, or what was behind the British policies in India, and Africa for that matter. Nothing has changed in terms of this colonial outlook, which is the idea that the developing countries should stay undeveloped and be just the reservoir for raw materials for the rich countries.

If you look at the behavior during the pandemic right now, where the rich countries were hoarding vaccines, they were not trying to distribute masks and other medical supplies. We have now the result of that in the form of the pandemic spreading with omicron and mutations which are the result that you cannot leave pockets of the world without medical help. Then you get that as a result. So, I think we have reached a point where we need a complete change of the system. I think the model China has offered so far is the best available on the planet.


Italian Endorsements of Schiller Institute’s Operation Ibn Sina

MILAN, Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—Alessia Ruggeri, chairwoman of UPI Italia, an association of small and medium-sized enterprises, and a renowned trade unionist in Sicily, today endorsed Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s proposed “Operation Ibn Sina” for Afghanistan with a press release which was published today in Il Corriere di Sicilia, a daily read in all of Sicily and is expected to be published in the next days in other Southern Italian papers. {Read the article here.} The press release is entitled “Helga Zepp-LaRouche launches Operation Ibn Sina to save the Afghan people” and reads:

“The Committee for the Republic, through its spokeswoman Alessia Ruggeri, endorsed the Ibn Sina initiative of the Schiller Institute. ’I believe that the world is experiencing a quite sad political, economic and social moment, with the complicity of mainstream media. We have to regain the lucidity and ability to intervene in support of a right cause. The Afghan people are paying the price of international geopolitical strategies which deny their inalienable rights guaranteed by the UN Charter.

“ ‘I therefore accept with great honor the invitation of the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites to be a part of it and give a significant European contribution,’ Alessia Ruggeri concludes, thanking Liliana Gorini, chairwoman of Movisol, an Italian political party inspired by Lyndon LaRouche.

“Also the lawyer Roberto Zappia endorses the appeal in support of the Afghan people, first exploited for the affirmation of the territorial and political hegemony of the world powers and subsequently abandoned to the voracity of the finance and to its cynical ruthless logics.”

The press release goes on to quote Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Operation Ibn Sina from the recent Schiller Institute conference and Dr. Joycelyn Elders on the recent activities of the Committee Coincidence of Opposites, particularly in Africa. {See Dr. Elders’ call, Open Letter to Virologists and Medical Experts.}


Major Breakthrough in Sanaa, Yemen: Defying New Wave of Anglo-Saudi Bombardments!

Nov. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—Today, leaders of the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Movement joined other international figures in participating in a conference called to celebrate the “First BRICS Day” in the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, under the auspices of Yemeni Prime Minister of Yemen Abdulaziz Saleh bin Habtour. The conference, held at the Emergency Medical College, had been organized by the Yemeni BRICS Youth Parliament and its Chairman and long-time collaborator with the Schiller Institute, Mr. Fouad Al-Ghaffari, to celebrate Yemen’s commitment to securing full independence and development by working with the BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—and playing a key role as part of the New Silk Road initiated by China.

The event took place as the Saudis were continuing a new wave of bombardment targeting the capital, Sanaa. Yet the Yemeni government considered it so important that the Prime Minister, joined by the Ministers of Vocational Education, Foreign Affairs, and Culture, all participated, joined by Yemeni parliamentarians and other national figures. The Yemeni official news agency Saba News has already published a lively wire report on the event, which conveys the deep commitment of Yemen’s leadership to help end today’s dominance of the Western liberal system, freeing nations to develop. The Prime Minister expressed his thanks to the friends in Russia, China, and the other speakers who sent messages of solidarity from Germany, India, France, Iraq, and the United States of America. (The Saba News item is linked here.)

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, was the first of the 11 international guests whose recorded video message was presented, following the opening remarks by the Dean of the Emergency Medical College. She was introduced as the New Silk Road Lady. She was followed by Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, and Chairman of the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation. Jacques Cheminade was next, representing the Solidarité et Progress, presented as a former French presidential candidate. The Schiller Institute’s Hussein Askary followed with the video presentation on the history of collaboration with the BRICS Youth on the Yemen Reconstruction Plan “Operation Felix” and the LaRouche School of Physical Economics.

There was a high-level Russian representation, with a message from Anatoly Karpov, chess legend and member of Duma. Larisa Zelentsova, the Russian President of the International Alliance of BRICS Strategic Projects (BRICS Alliance) (iabrics.org) sent a video message. A message was also sent by Albert Zhukov, founder of the Golden Chariot Transport Award. Purnima Anand, President of the BRICS International Forum, India, also sent a message.

Two messages were sent from the United States, one by LaRouche movement organizers Marsha and Doug Mallouk, and one by independent candidate for U.S. Senate in New York, Diane Sare.

These speeches and messages were preceded with a ceremony where PM bin Habtour received the BRICS Youth Award and Transport Golden Chariot award. Minister of Foreign Affairs Hisham Sharaf signed the first copy of the new edition of the Yemeni BRICS “Sustainable Development University Curriculum,” which is a compilation by Fouad Al-Ghaffari of projects and works in economics centered around Lyndon LaRouche’s economic method. A chapter is dedicated to what the authors have characterized as “LaRouche’s Five Keys of Progress” which are a reworking of the “Metrics of Progress” from the EIR Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, 2014.” Another chapter is dedicated to the latter special report. A chapter includes a short version of “Operation Felix” for the reconstruction of Yemen from 2018, completed in 2018 as a joint project of the Schiller Institute, BRICS Yemen, and the Yemeni Investment General Authority.

Many references to Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute’s resolutions and calls regarding Yemen are also in the book. A chapter is dedicated to the Arabic LaRouche School of Physical Economics launched by Askary, with links. The 160-page book in Arabic language has a general outline of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. But on every page the LaRouche Five keys are superimposed on the 15 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Following the statements by the foreign VIPs, Al-Ghaffari made a 15-minute presentation on the history and nature of the Yemen BRICS operations since they were founded in December 2014.

The Minister of Vocational Education also made remarks, and the conference was concluded by a statement by Prime Minister bin Habtour.

First reports from the event are that it was a surprise for everyone, due to the high-level of international representation from intellectual and scientific layers. This is a great victory for the people and leadership of Yemen on behalf of all humanity.

And it is a celebration of seven years of hard work and cooperation with the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Movement, which began when Fouad Al-Ghaffari attended EIR’s release of its Special Report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-bridge,” in Washington, D.C., keynoted by Helga Zepp-LaRouche. After meeting with Marsha and Doug Mallouk, he carried the copy of the report he purchased back to Yemen to start this new organization to teach Yemeni youth as well as policy-makers about the LaRouche economic method, the New Silk Road / Belt and Road Initiative, and the BRICS. A few months later, in March 2015, the war of aggression by Saudi Arabia and the UAE was launched with the aid of the U.S. and Britain. Despite this criminal war and subsequent murderous blockade, the BRICS Youth of Yemen continued their studies and mobilization of government agencies.

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Schiller Institute Rep. Injects Necessary Principle Into Dialogue on China Policy

Schiller Institute Representative Injects Necessary Principle Into Dialogue on China Policy

Nov. 18 (EIRNS)—At a Watson Institute conference entitled “Rising Tensions in the Taiwan Straits: Will the Chinese Civil War End with a Bang or a Whimper,” the following exchange occurred between Schiller Institute representative Cloret Ferguson and the two very prominent speakers, Ambassador Chas Freeman and Professor Lyle Goldstein.

Cloret Ferguson: It’s a pleasure to see and hear both of you. My question is, why would we not seek a more Westphalian approach to the question of China and US relations? For instance, the fact that China has elevated more than 850 million of its own population out of dire poverty and has said that they are reaching out to the whole world, to solve the problem of poverty of the whole world in 30 or 40 years, why would we not approach these relationships and take that branch as a means to solve the problem on a much more noble plane? Why would we not accept this as the pathway for relations between China and the US instead of dwelling on the past. We have the biggest military arsenal in the world!

Chas Freeman: The military industrial complex is us. We have a very militarized foreign policy. The first thought when we run into a problem abroad is, sanctions, which is coercive, a form of war, an economic war; then we send in the Marines, or if the Marines aren’t available, the Army or somebody. This is our mentality, and it comes out of our history, I suppose. You are very rational; that is exactly what I think we should be doing, that is, we should accept that there is no military answer that is acceptable to the Taiwan question, either for China, or for us. We need to find a way to take it off the track that it is now on toward a fight. I don’t know about you, but at the moment, Americans have no consensus on what the past means; our founding myths are all being deconstructed, our heroes are being toppled from their pedestals. New heroes are not really being invented that appeal to everyone. We are more divided than ever. We don’t agree on what the present is; we have no common vision of the future. And if you doubt that, look at Washington DC at the present. What Ed said, China has a clear ambition and a strategy for achieving it. We are countering it with fumbling and internal division, and a focus on military uses of force.

Lyle Goldstein: I think this is a very wise question, and for those of you not familiar with 17th- Century European diplomacy, this term, the Westphalian model, is something we really ought to get back to, and I think it is generally studied in international relations classes, but I don’t think it’s known beyond that, but I’m glad you brought it up. I do think it’s absolutely critical to a way forward with China. All it is, is a basic principle, countries can be different, probably should be different, they shouldn’t interfere in each other’s affairs, and this eventually stopped the incredible warring that was going on between various Catholic and Protestant states in Central Europe. It’s very applicable to today, that most diplomats agree with these basic principles, but it seems to me, I’m not sure why this is completely broken down in the modern discourse in international politics. I have a feeling it has something to do with Twitter and journalism and Cable News, and all this, and kind of democracy run amok. I think George Kennan and people like that would certainly favor returning to the old ways, to this understanding that it is quite normal that countries are run in very different ways, and to resist the temptation to constantly be telling other countries how to run their affairs.

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The Significance of The Belt and Road Initiative

The Significance of The Belt and Road Initiative – Zepp-LaRouche contributes to dialogue

Nov. 19 (EIRNS)–On this eighth anniversary of the announcement by China’s President Xi Jinping, of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI,) which he made in Kazakhstan Nov. 19, 2013, calling it then, One Belt, One Road, President Xi spoke at the symposium on the project, discussing in detail its many achievements and continuing intent, functioning as the modern-day Silk Road, for the common good of all.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute President, and long known in China and internationally as the “Silk Road Lady,” for her advocacy of the concept, gave three interviews today, on the occasion of the BRI anniversary. She appeared on CGTN TV, in two interviews, one on Global Business, and another on the Dialogue Weekend program; and she was interviewed on her weekly Schiller Institute webcast, titled, “Most of the World Is Hungry for Change.” See transcript of both interviews here.

Beginning in the early 1990s, she and her husband Lyndon LaRouche, promoted the idea of the “World Land-Bridge,” of development corridors. The latest books they issued on this were two volumes (2014 and 2018) of the “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge,” along with “Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa” (2017.) These presented details, region by region, for world economic development.

In each interview today, she stressed the urgency for Western nations to rethink, and give up geopolitics and neo-colonialism, which have brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, worsening famine and persisting pandemic. Nations have been deliberately kept in poverty. These conditions, and induced strife, have produced mass migrations. She said on her webcast, “We have to have a re-thinking. Germany, the United States, other European countries should stop this geopolitical confrontation and say, ‘We have a pandemic, we have a mass famine, we have a refugee crisis of Biblical dimensions, and we must join hands and build infrastructure, hospitals, schools, industry, agriculture in all these countries…’.” She stated, “Let’s just build infrastructure, let’s build up Africa, this is the natural thing, and the Chinese are doing the natural things, and we should stop bickering about it, because we should take the moral lesson from the Chinese in this respect.”

President Xi Jinping reported that as of August, 2021, 170 nations had, in various ways, cooperated with the BRI. Now today, in terms of combatting the pandemic, 110 of these nations have received some of the 1.7 billion doses of vaccine.

Zepp-LaRouche drew attention in her webcast, to the fact that the same principle is involved in what China calls its “Belt and Road Health Initiative,” and what the Schiller Institute is campaigning for, in calling on nations to collaborate in building a world health system. This means facilities, staff, water, power, food, infrastructure.

We have a moment of special opportunity now. A week ago in Glasgow, COP26 ended as FLOP26. It was a failure for its organizers—the gaggle of royals, banksters, billionaires and the like, who want nations to agree to commit suicide, “to save the planet.” A critical number spoke out against this in Glasgow, and their view was again re-stated yesterday in Abuja, Nigeria, by Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama. He said simply, while standing alongside visiting U.S. Foreign Sec. Antony Blinken at a joint press conference, that Nigeria is “a gas-producing country…and we’re looking to gas to help to address our energy needs.” So, he called on Blinken to do something to stop the international financial institutions from refusing to lend to fossil fuels development. Nigeria has the right to use its resources and develop.

Now it is the time for all humanity to step forward and take the lead. Zepp-LaRouche replied to CGTN reporter Michael Wang’s question about her opinion of the BRI at a time of uncertainties in the world: “I think it is, for sure, the most important strategic initiative on the planet right now. Because—you say, `uncertainties’—these uncertainties show right now in the form of hyperinflationary tendencies—you see the energy prices skyrocketing, food prices, and we may actually head towards a hyperinflationary blowout of the entire system. At such a moment, to have the Belt and Road Initiative, which focuses entirely on the physical side of the economy, can actually become the absolute, important savior for the world economy as a whole. So, I think the existence of the Belt and Road Initiative is the most important initiative on the planet.”

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New Xinhua Video on the BRI Features African & Ibero-American Leaders, Schiller Institute Rep

New Xinhua Video on the BRI Features African & Ibero-American Leaders, Schiller Institute Rep

Nov. 20 (EIRNS)–“Xi Urges Continuous Efforts to Promote High-Quality BRI Development” is the headline of a new Xinhua print and video release, dated 11/20/21, which features short statements from Zimbabwe President Mnangagwa, former Brazilian President Temer, and think tankers including the Schiller Institute’s Richard A. Black on the success of the BRI in uniting over 140 countries and 30 organizations in global manufacturing and development.

In the 10-minute English-language Xinhua video, Black, identified as the Schiller Institute representative at the UN, is shown in a recent video interview describing a unique feature of the BRI: a great economic power, China, has extended its arms worldwide to all nations — including those nations which are poor and are small — and deals with those nations as equals. This is an aspect of a win-win strategy of rapid, mutual economic benefit. (The article with the embedded video is found here.)

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CGTN Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Eighth Anniversary of Belt and Road Initiative

China’s CGTN conducted two interviews with Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the celebration of eight years of the Belt and Road Initiative, one for with the “Dialogue Weekend” program and the second with “Global Business.” Here are the transcripts:

Dialogue Weekend

LI QIUYUAN: Welcome to this edition of Dialogue Weekend: I’m Li Quiyuan.

In the fall of 2013, while on visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled the plan to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, otherwise known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Eight years on, how is the project progressing, and how has it helped all those involved? And what obstacles have been overcome during the construction? To review the last eight years of the BRI, I’m glad to be joined by Prof. John Gong from the University of International Business and Economics; and Miss Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute. Great to see you both.

Why don’t I start with Professor Gong first? Explain to us some context here: Why try to propose this, building this New Silk Road in the very beginning, and also why did the President announce this while travelling abroad? And also, eight years on, eight years into this project, where are we now, as far as its construction?

PROF. JOHN GONG: Hi Qiuyuan, you’re nice to have me here. It’s a long question, but let me first start by saying what the Belt and Road Initiative is not: It is not a geopolitical play, it’s not a geostrategic play, it’s not intended to seek a spread of influence. It’s mostly an economic play. There are several reasons why China started this initiative. I think the broader context is that this is a time when Chinese companies started to expand overseas, started to build a global supply chain, and in this course, Chinese companies quickly started to discover that the markets they’re mostly activating, these are the developing countries, the third world countries, they are handicapped by basic infrastructure for things like railways, port facilities, electricity network, telecom network—all these things are lacking for the Chinese companies to operate properly in these markets. And there’s a mutual benefit in developing these countries’ basic infrastructure. And this is also the time, when there was an access capacity in the basic building materials, mostly useful infrastructure buildouts for things like cement, steel, those things. We’re talking about a time in 2013, 2012.

And I would also mention this is also a time when China’s foreign exchange reserve was at an all-time high, and we would like to see the foreign exchange reserve at close to $4 trillion at the time, mostly sitting in the United States, buying American government’s Treasury bills and bonds.

So all these reasons combined contributed to the very natural evolution to using that money, using that excess capacity, and using the capabilities of Chinese companies of building infrastructure to help those developing countries to develop those projects. And I think this is the broader context: it work for both ways, and it works in particular in a way to benefit the host countries where the Chinese companies are operating, and these infrastructure projects are taking place.

LI: Helga, let me get your take on this: How do you evaluate the progress being made in the past eight years regarding this initiative?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it’s the most impressive infrastructure project in the history of all of mankind. And China for the first time has given the developing countries the chance to overcome poverty and underdevelopment. And if you look at the progress, there is now the China-Laos high-speed rail project, which is fantastic. It will be extended to Thailand, and beyond. And soon, the previously not so developed country, like Laos, will have a high-speed rail system, which Europe and the United States can only dream of!

Then you have the [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] CPEC treaty, the Middle Corridor, all these projects in Central Asia, all these investments in Africa. So I think it has brought in an incredible shift in the strategic situation, by overcoming underdevelopment, for the first time, for all of these countries. So I think, despite all the opposition, I think it’s a great success.

LI: But now after all of China’s investments in Africa, we once again are hearing criticism or accusations of China setting so-called “debt traps” for the countries participating in the BRI. This is the most frequent criticisms we’ve heard about this initiative. Professor Gong, talk to us about it: Beijing has made it clear that this initiative is by no means a debt trap. What has been done by China to support its claim?

GONG: We have to go back to the origin of the so-called “debt trap” theory. I think it originated in India with respect to, in particular, the port project in Sri Lanka. The idea is basically conspiracy theory….

LI: Now, we’ve seen the pandemic COVID-19 causing massive disruptions and damage to economic activities all around the world including the global supply chain, such as thousands of containers sitting on the Los Angeles docks, waiting for truckers and warehouse personnel to transport and deliver goods. It would seem that the world desperately needs an economic boost now, more than ever. But, Helga, do you see the BRI being it, providing great opportunities for corporations, for countries involved? Could they benefit from a smoother and more efficient global trade infrastructure?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, yes. You have already all the countries of Asia, many in Africa, even of Europe—you have Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, the 16+1 East European countries that all are absolutely onboard of the BRI. But I think some of the so-called advanced countries like Germany, they would benefit the most if they would stop thinking in terms of geopolitical prejudices, because, for example, if they would join hands with China right now in the development of Afghanistan, which suffers the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, and urgently needs to be integrated into the Belt and Road Initiative if it wants to ever have stability. So Germany, for example, is very concerned about the refugee crisis, and rather than building a wall around the EU outer borders, which is what the EU is considering right now—like the old Limes in the Roman Empire—I think the European countries, and hopefully also the United States, join hands; and they have a moral obligation because NATO countries were for 20 years in Afghanistan and they left the country in complete shambles. So, to reconstruct Afghanistan—and Haiti, and Syria, and Yemen, and all of these other countries that are in dire condition—if Germany and Europe would help and cooperate with China and the Belt and Road countries to develop Southwest Asia and Africa, there would be no refugee problem.

And I think we need a rethinking of this very, very urgently, because we have a tremendous moment in history. The Western financial system is not in good shape: You have signs of hyperinflation; the supply chain problem, you mentioned. So I think we need a rethinking. And the Schiller Institute is doing a lot of conferences and activities to convince the industrialized countries that it would be in their absolute self-interest to cooperate with the BRI and play a positive role in history.

LI: Helga, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate your perspective.

Professor Gong, a final question on this part to you: Certainly great steps have been made on the BRI over the last eight years, but what lessons can we draw from these experiences? And what challenges has the project faced as it reaches out for wider cooperation?

GONG: Well, let me first supplement your previous question. Helga actually knows my position on this issue. I wrote a paper several years ago, talking about how America can actually benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative. The article’s title is “Make America Great Again—with Chinese Money.”

As a matter of fact, I actually as an opportunity to make a keynote speech at a conference organized by Helga, the Schiller Institute. [Create a New Epoch for Mankind • February 16, 2019, Morristown, NJ]

There could have been greater opportunities between China and the United States to address the infrastructure problems you have just mentioned. You talk about the supply chain hiccups, or these clogs at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, all of these things can be substantially addressed by combining the capabilities of infrastructure buildouts, in China, together with investments in the United States. But unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Now, back to your question about lessons in the past, I think this is a perfect example to show that there are opportunities if China and other countries will just come together and cooperate, and purely think of this from an economic perspective and setting aside all these, you know, these talks about geostrategic, geopolitics lens, not seeing these things through that lens, I think there could be huge opportunities. There are tons of countries out there who indeed benefit from these infrastructure investments. So, I think the biggest lesson is, this is a purely economic play, and there will be mutual benefits deriving from this. And that let’s have both sides going to this in cooperative spirits should generate benefits for both countries.

And as well as the better exchanges, through human to human, people to people exchanges, and also economic benefits as well. So I think that’s the biggest lesson. And United States could have—I emphasize again, could have—benefitted immensely, if we go into this with, as we say, with a cooperative spirit. But unfortunately, it’s not happening.

Global Business

ANCHOR: For more on the Belt and Road Initiative, I want to bring in Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, who’s now in Wiesbaden. Helga, welcome to the program. You know, President Xi Jinping saying the BRI is really about finding the biggest common ground for all, and I think it’s interesting to contrast that with what we hear oftentimes, from the West in terms of only working with like-minded countries. This is about working with all countries, large and small, to find their greatest common denominator.

So, Helga, at a time of such uncertainty, how important do you think is the BRI in terms of growing the economic pie for all?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think it is, for sure, the most important strategic initiative on the planet right now. Because you say “uncertainty,” I mean, these uncertainties show for example, in the form of a hyperinflationary tendency: You see the energy prices skyrocketing, food prices, and we may actually head towards a hyperinflationary blowout of the entire system. And at such a moment, to have the Belt and Road Initiative which focusses entirely on the physical side of the economy, can actually become the absolute important savior for the world economy as a whole. So I think the existence of the Belt and Road Initiative is the most important initiative on the planet.

ANCHOR: And Helga, of course, one big topic that we are all talking about these days, from the public sector to the private sector, is how we can collectively tackle climate change. How do you see the Belt and Road Initiative really promoting sustainable and green development, especially for developing economies, who need more help in terms of making that green transition?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you know, in the Glasgow COP26 summit, it became very clear that behind a lot of this climate policy, is also a Malthusian effort to prevent the developing countries from developing, and that has been expressed very clearly by India, Indonesia, Nigeria, which all did not go along with the program of Glasgow.

So I think China, on the other side, is offering especially cooperation in nuclear energy, which has a very high energy flux-density and therefore, is potentially the energy source for more developed economies. So I think the role of China and the BRI countries which all are going in the direction of promoting nuclear energy, also for the developing countries, are representing a very, very important alternative to the Malthusian policies coming from the financial centers in London and Wall Street.

ANCHOR: Hmm. So we have growing the economic pie for all, energy cooperation, green development, and of course, one other extension. Helga, of the BRI, is the Health Silk Road, and this is China aiding Belt and Road partner countries, by sharing medical knowledge about the coronavirus; last year providing medical aid as well, last year and this year. Help I believe will be a critical part of BRI cooperation going forward. How do you see this element of the Initiative developing, post-pandemic?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it is very clear that China right now is helping many African countries to build vaccine production, so they can develop their own vaccine. I have been saying, since the outbreak of this pandemic, that it will only stop if we build a world health system: That means a modern health system in every single country. Because the idea to only take care of the rich countries with vaccines, and modern hospitals, does not work, because then the poor countries are left behind, and then the virus is mutating, and will come back and hit the entire human population.

So I think we have to have a very big emphasis on a modern health system in every single country: Which means modern hospitals—China has proven you can build a modern hospital in two weeks in Wuhan—but the developing countries need encouragement and help. They need energy, they need clean water, in order to do that. I think the most urgent ones right now are Afghanistan, Haiti, Syria and Yemen: These are the countries that need, urgently, international cooperation to build modern health systems, if they are supposed to survive. I have proposed something called “Operation Ibn Sina” which named after the great universal thinker of the Afghanistan region, from around the 10th century. And that could become the spearhead for a health system in every country in the Islamic world, but also for all the developing countries. And that’s the only way how the pandemic will stop, and future pandemics.

ANCHOR: Yes. And speaking about closing gaps all around in terms of the development gap, closing the energy and green development gap, what about the digital connectivity gap? The digital connectivity benefits provided by the BRI down the road can be absolutely huge, in terms of getting especially emerging and developing economies, really into the digital sphere. The pandemic, we’ve seen, has really accelerated digitization. How do you see the BRI boosting digital connectivity, and really helping to narrow the digital divide between developing economies and advanced economies?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the fact that China was able to deal with the pandemic so much better than almost every other country on the planet has to do with the fact that the health sector is largely digitalized, and contact tracing, smart cities integrated—I think that’s future.

The problem is, the West is opposing that because there is a difference: In China the population for the most part trusts the government, and thinks that these measures are being applied for the common good. In Western Europe, for example, or the United States, there is a deep mistrust between the population and the government, and therefore, there is a lot of opposition. But look at Germany, right now, or many European countries: The pandemic is exploding again. And that is, for sure, they are still using photocopy machines, and very archaic means to trace the pandemic. And if Europe would have the kind of digitalization like China we would be in much better shape.

So I think that is clearly the way to go, and hopefully, people start to rethink and correct a lot of prejudices which do not come from facts, but they come—for example, the U.S. Senate just agreed upon a strategic act, which spent several hundred million dollars every year to counter the so-called “influence” of China! If that money would be spent on building hospitals and building real infrastructure for the benefit of the people, the United States image would gain much more than from these kinds of measures!

So again, I can only hope there will be a rethinking and a lot of the prejudices which have been spread should be put into the garbage pile.

ANCHOR: Yeah, instead of spending trillions of dollars on never-ending wars in foreign lands, I think definitely that money, at least for the United States, can be better put towards working with other countries in terms of boosting development around the world. And of course, that’s what the BRI is about, is really focussing and emphasizing cooperation, especially in the world that we live in today, and our future generations will need that cooperation. We must see that through the BRI. Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Helga. That’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute.


Helga Zepp-LaRouche Interviewed by Daniel Estulin

Nov. 10 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche was interviewed by investigative journalist and author Daniel Estulin, the full 45-minute version of which was posted today here: https://vimeo.com/642101361. What follows is a transcription of the opening exchange.

Daniel Estulin: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us. This is Daniel Estulin and welcome to DanielEstulin.TV. Today we have an amazing guest. It’s an honor, an absolute honor—I’m a huge fan—to have her with us, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Lyndon LaRouche’s wife, a founder of the Schiller Institute and one of the foremost experts in the world on Nicholas of Cusa. Helga, thank you so much for joining us. Good afternoon.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

Estulin: Thank you. I want to start off asking you about your “Wake-Up Call” you just issued. Why the urgency and why now?

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, because I think the world is sitting on a powder keg. If you watch, for example, the tension rising between the United States and China, in particular, but also between the United States and Russia, it’s very clear that the war danger is very acute and very few people are actually warning of it, but the majority of the population has no idea. And people are concerned about energy prices, about not finding an apartment, about all kinds of issues which all have their merit. But most people overlook the fact that we are in a systemic collapse.

Out of that systemic collapse, which goes along with the hyperinflationary blowout of the system, which goes along with the new energy hoax, you know, the gas price hoax—these gas prices could go down immediately if there would be the political will to do so. All of this is the reflection of a systemic collapse. Obviously the overwhelming dynamic is the Great Reset shifting the trillions Green New Deal, trying to direct all investments into green technologies. That is basically based on an image of Man, which regards human beings as parasites, as CO₂ footprints, as just a burden to Mother Nature. And I wanted to counterpose that with an image of Man which, in my view, is in cohesion both with the image of Plato, the image of Christianity, of Judaism, of Islam and real science. Because I think that the human being is differentiated from animals in all other living beings by the power of creative reason. And that creative reason enables Man to again and again make discoveries of physical principles, which you call scientific progress. And when you apply that scientific progress in the production process through technologies, it leads to an increase of the living standard, increase of longevity, increase of population potential. And I think that that particular image of Man as a creative human being is in cohesion with the lawfulness of the universe.

So what I wanted to accomplish—together with Guus Berkhout—we wanted to accomplish is, to, on the one side, basically say all these many concerns should be seen in a larger context. That we are in danger of sleepwalking into a new catastrophe, and counterpose that with the most beautiful conception of the image of Man, which comes from the humanist tradition of European civilization going back to classical Greek, the Italian Renaissance, to Friedrich Schiller, from whom the Schiller Institute is named. And I thought it was important to reduce the very complex world picture to these two fundamental points: the existential danger in which we are, but also the optimism which comes from realizing what human beings are.


Syria Times Publishes Interview With Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Syria Times Publishes Interview With Helga Zepp-LaRouche

May 7 (EIRNS)–The Syria Times on May 7th published an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche with a very nice picture of a smiling Helga.  In replies to three main questions, she was able to explain her reasons for founding the Schiller Institute and the role it had been playing to develop programs for a just, new world economic order and to promote a worldwide renaissance of classical culture based on a dialogue of civilizations. In that context, the Institute has developed policies for various parts of the world, including Southwest Asia. She underlined her husband’s original “Oasis Plan” and the more recent “Phoenix Plan” for rebuilding Syria. She also attacked U.S. Middle East policy since the Bush Administration. She highlighted the upcoming conference on Saturday which would also have a presentation by Dr.. Bouthaini Shaaban from Syria, an adviser to President Assad. The full coverage is here.


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