March 29 (EIRNS)–The Syrian official English-language daily Syria Times published a short review of what it considers the main points of former Virginia state Senator Richard Black’s speech at the Schiller Institute international conference on March 21. The daily then links to the video of the speech. I have asked them to link to the Schiller Institute conference page. The coverage can be found here.
Beijing Welcomes Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s ‘Declaration of China Experts from All Over the World’
March 26 (EIRNS)—The Spokesperson’s Office of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released the statement following today:
The French Schiller Institute statement condemned the recent anti-China movement. Chinese Spokesperson Hua Chunying stated: “It reflects the rational and just voice of insightful people in the international community.”
At the regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 26, a CCTV reporter from the main station asked: “On March 24, the Schiller Institute released on its website a ‘Declaration of China Experts from all Over the World,’ which was jointly signed by 34 dignitaries from 18 countries, including former politicians, diplomats and scholars. The statement condemned the recent international anti-China movement, and called on the West to acknowledge China’s development achievements and splendid culture, have cooperation rather than confrontation with China. What is China’s comment?”
Hua Chunying: “We have taken note of the above-mentioned statement. It represents the rational and just voice of visionary people in the world, condemns and rejects the crazy words and deeds of the western anti-China forces that wantonly attack, smear and even crafted rumors against China in disregard of facts.
“The signatories of the statement have either lived and worked in China, or traveled to China on a regular basis for long stays. They all have first-hand experience and objective observation of China. Many of them have witnessed the remarkable achievement China has scored since reform and opening up. They witnessed the journey where the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese government, with a people-centered approach, led 850 million Chinese people out of extreme poverty. More recently, they have seen how 1.4 billion Chinese people, united as one, defeated the COVID-19 epidemic. Their statement once again proves that seeing is believing.
“As a matter of fact, many foreign friends who have been living in or dealing with China for many years find that the closer they get to China, the more they will see that China in reality is far from, or even completely opposite to the image some Western media and politicians try to portray. I saw a lot of video clips uploaded by foreigners saying that they realized they were fooled by foreign media reports only after arriving in China and seeing the country as it is. China has always been open to the world. We welcome people from across the world to get closer to us and understand China. We hope certain individuals in the west will discard bias, return to rationality, liberate their thinking, seek truth from facts and view China from an objective perspective.”
Spokesperson’s Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Official release of China’s foreign policy
Authoritative interpretation of China’s position and attitude
Schiller Institute’s China Petition in Chinese Media
Mar.25 (EIRNS) — The Schiller Institute petition denouncing the attacks on China signed by 30 leading experts, was reported in the Chinese media. The China Global Television Network, published an article on the petition but did not name the signatories. Then China Central Television republished the CGTN article. This was followed by a report in CCTV on the French Schiller Institute’s French translation of the petition with a summary in Chinese. Below is the CGTN article in full. Also see links at the end.
China experts urge cooperation, not confrontation with China
The West should do better to respond to an offer of cooperation from China rather than seek confrontation, and find a common way to solve the crises challenging all of humanity, according to a declaration published on Tuesday by the Schiller Institute, a political and economic think tank based in Germany.
The declaration, which was signed by over 30 experts, including the institute’s founder and president Helga Zepp LaRouche, denounced what it said was an intensifying international campaign against China.
“For some time, an international anti-China campaign has escalated, where think tanks, mainstream media and strategic reports of all sorts paint a picture of China and its alleged intentions which is simply not true and is extremely dangerous. An enemy image is being projected that in the worst case leads to war,” it said.
All signatories to the declaration have had “direct experience with China, be it that we have lived or worked there, or from repeated travel over longer periods of time.”
Based on their experience and witnesses, they said the Chinese people are “fundamentally more optimistic about the future than the West” after the nation’s successful poverty eradication campaign. And “trust in government is substantially greater,” which is illustrated and strengthened by the effective way China brought COVID-19 under control.
The statement also said that China has been making progress in science and technology as well as innovation, urging the West to “do better to respond to the offer of cooperation, than seeking confrontation.”
Mar. 22 (EIRNS)–An article in the Yemeni News Service Hodhod has a summary of the statement by His Excellency Eng. Hisham Sharaf to the Schiller Institute Conference March 20-21, 2021, “The World at A Crossroad: Two Months into the New Biden Administration”. It mentions the part where he states that Yemen intends to join and work within the framework of the New Silk Road. “Yemen will work its best within the umbrella of the Silk Road to become a successful and active element in the Silk Road Initiative”.
Read the article: “Foreign Minister of Yemen speaks during international conference.”
June 23 (EIRNS)–The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) has posted a link to the invitation for the Schiller Institute’s conference this weekend on its home page, announcing simply “Schiller Institute Conference `For the Common Good of All People, Not Rules Benefiting the Few!’ View it here.
Interviews with Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Jacques Cheminade appeared on a newscast by CCTV-13 reporting on U.S. reactions to the just-concluded National People’s Congress. CCTV journalist Wang Guang reported on the reaction of U.S. think tanks to the ideas presented during the Two Sessions with regard to U.S.-China trade and the Belt and Road Initiative.
The broadcast then shifted to an interview done with Helga at the Morristown Schiller Institute conference. Zepp-LaRouche said:
“I personally think it is the most important strategic initiative, because it is a concept with which you can overcome geopolitics. Geopolitics has been the cause of two wars in the 20th Century, and the idea that you can not have blocs of countries or nations against nations, but that you have what Xi Jinping always calls the ‘community of the shared future of humanity,’ that you put the one humanity first, is a strategic concept which allows you to overcome the divisions which existed in previous centuries.”
This was followed by Cheminade, who said,
“The Chinese way is to a world integration through common development, what President Xi Jinping calls a ‘win-win’ system. So that is a future. The Chinese want a world development. They don’t want to impose their model, but they don’t want the other models to impose upon them.”
Helga’s clip was also aired on CCTV Plus, an English-language CCTV site, on a program entitled “Foreign Experts Applaud Development Concepts.”
Sputnik International published an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, identified as head of the Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity (BüSo) party, warning that if Europe hosts new U.S. missiles it will sign a “suicide pact,” and that the solution to strategic tensions is to expose the real authors of Russiagate. The interview was published in the English (International) and Portuguese-Brazilian editions of Sputnik and picked up by a newswire in Indonesia. The dispatch was headlined: “Europe to Sign Own ‘Suicide Pact’ If Hosts New U.S. Missiles — German Politician.”
“Europe’s possible agreement to host U.S. intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles will be tantamount to signing a ‘suicide pact’ in light of Russia’s declared resolve to target these potential security threats, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the leader of Germany’s Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party, told Sputnik.
“`If Europe were to accept the installation of new U.S. missiles on its territory in this strategic environment, it would sign a suicide pact,’ Zepp-LaRouche said.
“According to the politician, amid somewhat war-mongering rhetoric in the West, Putin `just reintroduced a reality principle and clarity’ with his warnings.
“‘Despite President [Donald] Trump’s stated intention to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia, including that he may have one idea of replacing the INF treaty with a new agreement, Putin has to take into account the contrary intention of the neocons in the Trump administration and the British ‘minister of war,’ Gavin Williamson, who threatens to use ‘hard power’ and also claims that the ‘boundaries between peace and war are becoming blurred,’ she clarified, making a reference to Williamson’s 2019 Munich Security Conference speech. [sic—Williamson’s speech was on Feb. 11 at the Royal United Services Institute—ed.]
“Meanwhile, Europe’s ‘fundamental self-interest,’ Zepp-LaRouche believed, lay in removing sanctions on Russia and re-establishing good relations with Moscow by creating ‘an economic zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the basis of integrating the Belt and Road Initiative, the Eurasian Economic Union and the EU.’
“She went on to note that such cooperation would create ‘a new security architecture’ that should become the basis on which Europe builds its cooperation with the United States.
“When asked to suggest ways to overcome the rifts in the global security environment between Russia and the West, Zepp-LaRouche opined that once the ‘real authors’ of ‘Russiagate’ — the scandal around Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which Russia strongly denies — were revealed, ‘most of the strategic tensions would evaporate.'”
On November 21 Sputnik published a full and strategically “meaty” interview with Harley Schlanger (representing the Schiller Institute as the U.S. Vice Chairman). Headlined “U.S. Must End `Divide and Conquer’ Mindset for Mankind’s Benefit,” the immediate subject of the interview was the U.S. National Defense Strategy Commission report issued on Nov. 13, which declares Russia and China to be aggressive adversaries and “authoritarian competitors.” Schlanger noted the difference between President Donald Trump’s advocacy of peaceful cooperation with Russia and China, and this “outlook of unhinged neo-conservatives and their commitment to geopolitical confrontation, as a means of defending an imperial policy which has failed, and is collapsing in the face of a global rejection of this policy.”
Read the full interview here: U.S. Must End `Divide and Conquer’ Mindset for Mankind’s Benefit
Image credit: Air Force photo by R. Nial Bradshaw
Swedish Schiller Institute Board Member Hussein Askary was recently interviewed by an representative of the “EurAsiaAz” (a non-profit organization focused on cooperation among the Eurasian nations, and a strong supporter of the Belt and Road Initiative). The coverage begins,
“Ice melting in the Arctic has drawn more attention to the Northern Sea Route – a maritime corridor which allows shipping between Europe and Asia considerably faster than through the Suez Canal. NSR’s advantages are lack of pirates and queues, and the new nuclear icebreakers will make the route navigable the whole year. China and countries of Northern Europe are looking at this project with great interest whereas the USA insists that NSR should be open for everyone as an international transport corridor. Hussein Askary, Southwest Asia Coordinator in the Schiller Institute, former Chairman [SIC] of the Swedish branch of the Schiller Institute (2008-2018) has told “Eurasia.Expert” in detail about the development of this project…”
Read the full interview: The competition among the global players in the Arctic is rising – expert
Image credits: Author: Marcusroos; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Icebreaker_Fennica.jpg
Nov. 25—A Schiller Institute team visited Portugal and Spain from Nov. 12-20 to present the new SI report “The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, A Shared Future for Humanity; Vol. II”—the Schiller Institute’s overall strategic vision, and concretely Lyndon LaRouche’s policy solutions to the global crisis. The visit intersected animated policy discussion in both countries preparatory to the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Spain on Nov. 28-29, immediately prior to the G-20 meeting in Buenos Aires, and to Portugal on Dec. 4-5.
Reflecting the activities of the Schiller Institute organizers in Portugal, the Macauhub.com economic website, established by the Macau Special Administrative Region to report on China’s economic and trade ties to Portuguese-speaking countries, on Nov. 19 prominently covered the new SI report under the headline “Iberian Peninsula Can Be `Bridge’ of the Belt and Road Strategy for Africa and Latin America.”
Macauhub reported that, “according to a new study that was recently released,” the “New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge: A Shared Future for Mankind,” the Iberian Peninsula “could become a bridge for the Belt and Road strategy to reach Africa and Latin America, with a `critical point’ in the Portuguese port of Sines, south of Lisbon.” The new report, issued by the Schiller Institute, which “is led by Helga and Lyndon LaRouche,” … details “20 of the most pressing development projects on the agenda for the coming decades,” Macauhub noted.
Pointing to Spain’s and Portugal’s growing interest in the Belt and Road Initiative, it added that, in the last year, the two nations have “been actively working on specific proposals and projects to make this prospect a reality.”
Macauhub quoted more extensively from the report, and explained that the Spanish port of Algeciras, and the Portuguese port of Sines, are two of the “critical points” for the interface between the Silk Road Economic Belt with the Maritime Silk Road “which will extend to the West, across the Atlantic, to Ibero-America, the Caribbean and the United States as well as south toward Africa.” (See, “Iberian Peninsula can be “bridge” of the Belt and Road strategy for Africa and Latin America“)
As for Spain, the Schiller team found in its discussions with people in Valencia, a port city which is being transformed by its role as one of the top Mediterranean ports for the Belt and Road, as well as in Spain’s capital, Madrid, that intense organizing is underway in Spain to link up with the New Silk Road. What was exciting was to find that discussion is going on not only on how Spain’s internal development can benefit through participating in the Belt and Road, but also on the potential for jointly developing Northern Africa, in particular.
The Nov. 20 presentation at Madrid’s Club Siglo XXI by the 82-year-old head of Spain’s Cátedra China think-tank, Marcelo Muñoz exemplified the discussions taking place in Spain preparatory to President Xi’s visit. Muñoz presented the new world order emerging under the Belt and Road Initiative to a packed audience of 150 top Spanish and foreign diplomats (including China’s ambassador to Spain), businessmen, trade unionists, and sinologists. Joining Muñoz on the panel were two former Spanish ambassadors to China. Two representatives of the international Schiller Institute, Dennis and Gretchen Small. were also present in the audience and participated in the Q&A session.
Muñoz gave an extensive, well-documented review of the phenomenal advances of China over recent decades in all areas of domestic and international economics, in which he emphasized China’s commitment to innovation, technological advance, scientific activity, and global cooperation with other nations. The highlight of his remarks was a discussion of how the New Silk Road is creating the new world of the 21st century, which he illustrated with the signature World Land-Bridge map from the
Schiller Institute’s new Special Report (without identifying the source). He highlighted four projects: the Bering Strait tunnel; the Kra Canal; the Darien Gap; and the Gibraltar Strait tunnel –with the latter receiving enthusiastic support in further discussion from the floor.
Concern over the direction of China policy under Trump, and how to ensure no conflict ensues between the US and China, was a major element of the presentations by Muñoz and the other panelists. Spain’s three-time ambassador to China Eugenio Bregolat stated that there are both sane voices in and around the administration and also hawkish ones (mentioning trade advisor Peter Navarro by name). He counterposed the U.S. reaction to China’s development today, to how the United States under John F. Kennedy responded “confidently” to the Sputnik shock, by leap-frogging ahead in science and technology of its own. America should do the same today, Bregolat emphasized, and not try to stop China’s progress.
The last written question chosen to be answered was that of Dennis Small, on the Schiller Institute’s commitment to getting the United States on board with the New Silk Road and how the speakers thought win-win cooperation in that regard would work. The question as read addressed the question of the U.S. role in the New Silk Road, although not mentioning the Schiller Institute.
Both Muñoz and Bregolat agreed that such cooperation is the solution; America should join with confidence. Munoz emphasized the common basis for cooperation which lies in the realm of scientific cooperation, noting that Confucian philosophy is critical to that common endeavor.