The outcome of this tumultuous period of history depends upon the establishment of an agreement among major nations, namely the Four Powers: the United States, Russia, China, and India. Such international economic cooperation is the unique basis for a new security architecture, for peace. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, keynoted the NYC Schiller Institute’s June 9 conference in Manhattan. Zepp-LaRouche was joined by Dmitry Polyanskiy, First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN from the Russian Federation, video greetings from Xu Wenhong, PhD, Deputy Secretary General of Belt and Road Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and LaRouchePAC’s Jason Ross.
Panel Two of the International Schiller Institute conference in NYC, June 9, 2018. Speakers include Dennis Speed, Northeast Coordinator, Schiller Institute — “The LaRouche Method: Seed-Crystal of a New Culture,” James George Jatras, former U.S. Diplomat and former Adviser to Republican Senate Leadership — “The Urgency of a Trump-Putin Summit,” and Richard Black, Virginia State Senator — “The Strategic Importance of Victory, Peace and Development in Syria,” followed by a lively Q&A.
Keynote speaker: Helga Zepp-LaRouche: “The Alternative to a Dark Age and a Third World War”
Dr. Jin Zhongxia, Executive Director for China, IMF; Washington, D.C., United States: “The Fundamentals of East-West Philosophic Relations”
Boris Meshchanov, Counselor, Russian Federation Mission to the UN, New York City, United States: “Russia’s Global Economic Perspective, Post COVID-19”
Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon-General of the United States
Ding Yifan, Deputy Director, Research Institute of World Development, China Development Research Center, China: “A Chinese Perspective on a Post-COVID Paradigm”
Daisuke Kotegawa, former Executive Director for Japan at the IMF; Research Director, The Canon Institute, Japan
Mayor DeWayne Hopkins (fmr); Former Mayor, Muscatine, Iowa; The Mayor’s Muscatine-China Initiative Committee, United States: “A View from the Iowa Farm Belt: the Muscatine-China Cultural Connection”
Question and Answer session
Panel II — 1:30pm EDT
“Why a 1.5 Billion Productive Jobs Program Can End War, Famine, Poverty, and Disease”
Jacques Cheminade, President Solidarité & Progrès, France: “How Food Production Can Unite the World”
Diogène Senny, Founder of the Pan-African League: “Thrive or perish: An Introduction to the Geopolitics of Hunger and Poverty”
Walter Formento, Director, Center for Political and Economic Research, Argentina; “South America on the New Multipolar Road”
Dr. Kirk Meighoo, political economist, broadcaster, and former Senator, Trinidad & Tobago: “The Caribbean’s True Importance in the Making and Re-Making of the Modern Global Economy”
Mark Sweazy, former UAW trade union leader, United States: “Returning the U.S. Work Force to a Culture of Scientific Progress”
Robert L. Baker, Schiller Institute, United States
Mike Callicrate, Board of Directors, Organization for Competitive Markets, Owner Ranch Foods Direct, United States: “Food Unites People Around the Planet”
Alicia Díaz Brown, Citizens Movement for Water, Sonora, Mexico: “Let Us Return to the Best Moments of the U.S.–Mexico Relationship”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute, Germany: Opening Remarks
Keynote: Daniel Burke, Schiller Institute, United States: “If You Sat Where They Sit, What Would You Do?”
Carolina Domínguez Cisneros, Mexico; Sebastián Debernardi, Peru; Andrés Carpintero, Colombia; Daniel Dufreine Arévalo, Mexico: “Getting Back the Great Ideas That Were Stolen From Us”
Franklin Mireri, YouLead Partnerships Coordinator, Tanzania: “The Greatest Want of the World is for True Leaders.”
Sarah Fahim, Student from Morocco Studying in Paris, France
Chérine Sultan, Institut Schiller, Paris, France
Lissie Brobjerg, Schiller Institute, United States: “Are You a Large-Scale Geological Force?”
Areej Atef, Education Committee Vice President of BRICS Youth Parliament, Sana’a, Yemen: “Youth of the World Face Two World Systems: The Old and the New”
On April 21st, the Schiller Institute organized a cultural event in Dresden under the title “A Dialogue of Cultures along the New Silk Road,” with 150 attendees.
Lasting peace, stability and shared well-being should, of course, be at the heart of international relations. But this does not start at the negotiating table of politicians, but in all our hearts. And what could not unite the souls and hearts of our peoples better than the idea of truth, freedom and beauty. Cultural contributions, Music and poetry from different countries and cultures established a new standard of optimism among the audience
This event was a proof, that a qualitatively new world order {is} possible; that we, by seeing our own true self reflected in the beauty of other cultures, find that higher “placement,” from which that persisting nightmare of geopolitics can be overcome, once and forever!
This is the greeting from the Chinese Ambassador to Germany which was read to the audience:
Greetings from his Excellency, the Ambassador Shi of China, to the Schiller Institutes’ “Dialogue of Cultures along the New Silk Road”:
I am really pleased with the fact, that the Schiller Institute conducts a cultural dialogue centered around the implications of the New Silk Road. When the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, presented the historical initiative of the “One Belt, One Road,” it was met with broad approval and support by the international community. During the past several years, the New Silk Road attracted a vast attention globally as an economic and infrastructure program. Yet, it is not only an economic corridor, but a road of a cultural exchange as well.
From a historical viewpoint, the New Silk Road began as a commodities trade route, but its significance reaches far beyond trade and became a major corridor for the communication of the
different cultures of the world. Via the Silk Road, the cultural centers of mankind were able to interact with each other through large distances, and by doing so, the great civilizations like
China, India, Arabia, and Europe learned from one another and respected each other. None of these civilizations at the time lost their independence or space for their own development because of the connectivity through the Silk Road, quite the opposite. The mutual learning enabled the countries to absorb additional knowledge and to gain new potency within their own peculiarities.
In the course of worldwide globalization and digitalization, a transcultural and supra-regional exchange and cooperation became ever more important. China wants to deliberate, build, and
profit from the “One Belt, One Road” initiative in a shared manner with all the countries alongside the New Silk Road. Thus, not only the economies of the countries along the road ought to be developed, but also the cultural exchange between China and the other nations. Until the end of 2017, China already signed more than 300 agreements for cultural exchanges with the governments of the countries along the New Silk Road, and implemented plans to that effect. Multilateral cultural cooperation mechanisms within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as among China and countries of eastern Europe, of Arabic nations, and of the ASEAN states, have already been established. This certainly contributed to the aim of bringing the people alongside the New Silk Road closer together.
It is my hope that the participating experts and artists are able to openly and profoundly exchange their views and thoughts within this dialogue, and I wish you all success.
Helga Zepp-Larouche Participates in the Beijing Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation
‘We are in a phase-change for humankind!’
May 15 — Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the International Schiller Institute, is right in the middle of the action in Beijing during the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. This comes after decades of leadership by Lyndon and Helga LaRouche for just this kind of mobilization for worldwide development. Since the 1990s, and Zepp-LaRouche’s first participation in an international conference in China, where she called for a “Eurasian Land-Bridge,” she has become widely known as the Silk Road Lady.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche on CGTN’s “Dialogue”
Representing the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche spoke on May 14, on the first day of the B&R Forum, on the panel, “Belt and Road for Facilitating Strong, Balanced, Inclusive and Sustainable Global Economy.” She said, “The Belt and Road Initiative has the obvious potential of quickly becoming a World Land Bridge, connecting all continents through infrastructure, such as tunnels, bridges, reinforced by the Maritime Silk Road. As such, it represents a new form of globalization, but not determined by the criteria of profit maximization for the financial sector, but for the harmonious development of all participating countries on the basis of Win-Win cooperation.
“It is therefore important, that one does not look at the BRI from the standpoint of an accountant, who projects his statistical viewpoint of cost-benefit into the future, but that we think about it as a Vision for the Community of a Shared Future. Where do we want humanity as a whole to be in 10, 100, or even in a 1000 years?” Is it not the natural destiny of mankind, as the only creative species known in the universe so far, that we will be building villages on the moon, develop a deeper understanding of the trillions of galaxies in our universe, solve the problem of–’til now–incurable diseases, or solve the problem of energy and raw material security through the develipment of thermonuclear fusion power? By focusing on the common aims of humanity we will be able to overcome geopolitics and establish a higher level of reason for the benefit of all.”
In particular, Zepp-LaRouche addressed the question of the role of the United States, whose delegation in Beijing was led by a special adviser to Pres. Trump. Presenting the most positive, ‘big picture,’ Zepp-LaRouche explained, “Looking at the world land map, the United States is not merely a country surrounded by two oceans and two neighbors, but can be a center part of an infrastructure corridor which connects the southern tip of Ibero-America, through Central and South America, with the Eurasian transport system via a tunnel under the Bering Strait…”
Predictably, the geopolitics crowd, centered in London, is having a fit. The Economist in London today ran a stream of bilge, headlined, “The Economist explains, “What Is China’s Belt and Road Initiative?” They write that businessmen in Central Asia call it the “One Road, One Trap,” because B&R projects are unreliable. And “the Belt and Road Forum has an unfortunate acronymn, BARF,” etc.
But back in reality, not only does the Belt and Road Forum mark the process of potential world economic and scientific lift-off, but there is a vital process underway of deliberation over points of immediate suffering and possible all-out war. President Trump’s envoy in Beijing, Matthew Pottinger, is now in South Korea for consultations over concerns in the region. On Syria, as peace talks start on May 16, called “Geneva 6,” numbers of meetings are set for this week, of Mediterranean leaders who met in Beijing with both Xi and Putin. In Washington, D.C., May 16, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with President Trump. On May 17, in Sochi, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni will meet with Putin. Likewise, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met in Beijing with Xi, Putin, and also with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Today Helga Zepp-LaRouche summed up the great potential–our great challenge–by describing the May 14 opening of the Belt and Road Forum: “Yesterday was a fantastic, historic moment!” She was speaking on China Global Television Network’s “Dialogue with Yang Rui” program, run live, prime time. She exclaimed, “We are in a “phase-change for humankind!”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche on CGTN ‘Dialogue’
May 15, 2017
Helga Zepp-LaRouche is a feature guest in a program “Dialogue” on CGTN, 24-hour English news channel of China Central Television (CCTV), based in Beijing, on the eve of “the Belt and Road Forum” held on May 14 – 15 in China.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I think it’s very important strategic initiative because it’s the only way how you solve all problems–regional, cooperation, underdevelopment, poverty. It’s really a historic mission. I cannot see anything else, not from the United States, for sure, not from Europe and so I’m really optimistic. I think yesterday was a fantastic, historic moment.
Q: But, do you think China is ready?
Zepp-LaRouche: Oh, I think so. First of all, the Chinese economic miracle of the last 30 years has surprised the world. And now through the Belt and Road Initiative, China is offering to export that model of development to other countries. And if you look at the success of the Belt and Road Initiative in the last four years, it is absolutely breathtaking! And I am shocked — every day the Chinese government comes up with a new initiative, which offers a solution to a problem. And it’s just very attractive idea. This is why so many countries want to be part of it. It’s much more attractive to have win-win cooperation in the context of the New Silk Road than to be part of a military alliance, which just gets countries into trouble. So this is why the whole center of power has completely shifted to Asia. And I am convinced that yesterday we experienced the formation of a new world economic order. It was a truly historic moment, and I think most of the participants at the Belt and Road Forum had that profound sense of being in the middle of making history for a new era for civilization. And I am very excited because this is a phase-change of humankind. I think we are on the verge of…
Yang Rui: No wonder President Xi Jinping calls the Belt and Road Initiative the project of the century.
Q: [India says] Hey, the Sino-Pakistani economic corridor will somehow go through the contentious territorial area of India, Kashmir; therefore, they refuse to get involved with the Belt and Road Initiative. The spokesperson of the Indian Foreign Ministry even protested against the idea of the economic corridor between China and its geopolitical rival, Pakistan. What do you think of the rivalry, the geopolitical rivalry that China wants to really keep a distance from?
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, first of all, India has always been the subcontinent and therefore they have a long tradition of geopolitical thinking. But, I think this has been reinforced by the British colonialism, and the British, and formerly the U.S. administration before Trump played on that. They played Pakistan as the state terrorism state, and trying to hype up sentiments in India to further this conflict. And I think the opposite is true. Because of the British division of India into Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, the only way how this can be overcome is increasing the connectivity among all the countries–Nepal, Bangladesh–all these countries want to be integrated. And they call it “connectivity”; they don’t call it the “Silk Road” and they don’t call it “Belt and Road Initiative,” because that’s associated with China. But in substance, all of these countries are urging for more development like that.
Q: What’s interesting is that both sides [China and U.S.] announced their joint projects, the list of projects, simultaneously. Do you think something must have been discussed at the Mar-a-Lago summit in Florida, between Trump and President Xi Jinping? And actually the announcement of this list of mega-projects between the two sides is an indispensable part of what has been agreed upon by the two heads of state?
Zepp-LaRouche: I think so, because President Trump has announced that he wants to have investment in $1 trillion worth of infrastructure in the next ten years. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that $4.5 trillion actually is required, and Chinese experts have said that the United States needs $8 trillion worth of infrastructure. Now China in the past years has shown a tremendous expertise in building fast trains and other projects of infrastructure, and China has also $1.4 trillion in U.S. Treasuries, which we have proposed it invest in an infrastructure bank or national bank in the United States, and then invest in the building of infrastructure. Now that would be a total game change. And if China, in return, would invest in the Chinese market, which is growing because of the growing buying power, you could replace the competition between the United States and China through cooperation. And then they could join hands and have joint investments in third countries, like rebuilding the Middle East, developing of Africa. I think it’s important that you’re not just talking about infrastructure and economics. We are really talking about a new era of civilization, where you replace geopolitics with a completely new set of relations among countries. And if the United States and China could solve this–you know, I have said many times that if President Trump would go for this, he could become one of the greatest Presidents in the history of the United States. And many of his critics don’t think that is possible, but I am absolutely convinced that we are very close to it.
Q: In effect, overseas observers pointed out, it seemed as if [President Xi] was talking to two audiences at the opening ceremony. For the international audience, he promised to export our technology, our ideas about Belt and Road Initiative, to reestablish the world order and to reconsider the idea of globalization internally. He also promised to rejuvenate the nation, to tell a China story through the Belt and Road Initiative…. To the surprise of many who are very skeptical about the economic relationship between Japan and China, two arch-competitors, economically and geopolitically as well, the Japanese government decided to send a senior delegation, which was headed by the head of the ruling party, the LDP, Liberal Democratic Party. And this head of the delegation also handed over a letter from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the host of the Belt and Road Initiative summit. What do you think of the possibility that Japan will seize this opportunity to drastically improve, not only the balance of ties, but also to enjoy the dividends of the Belt and Road Initiative, so that it will not be excluded from rebuilding the world economic order?
Zepp-LaRouche: I think it is very clear that Prime Minister Abe has the intention to do that. I think he sent de facto the number two of the LDP to the summit. I think it has to do with the change in perception that the world is indeed changing. If you look at the rapprochement between Russia and Japan over the last period where Abe has the intention to have a peace treaty during his time in office. There were many visits of Abe to Russia, and vice versa, Putin was in Tokyo, so I think given the fact that China has a very close relationship with Russia, and the offensive policies of the United States, of intervention in foreign wars — with Trump, he has said he doesn’t want to do this anymore, the situation in the South China Sea has completely shifted, it’s no longer such an important hot spot — I think we are on the verge of fixing the world according to completely new rules. And I think it’s really a time for people to rethink and not stick to old geopolitical schemes, which have been in the Cold War, because we are on the verge of a completely new era of civilization, and I think what Abe did, reflects that.
Q: Ironically, the young leader of the D.P.R.K. test fired a missile to coincide with the policy speech by President Xi Jinping at the Opening Ceremony. Yet the elected leader of the R.O.K., Mr. Moon, promised to reconsider the deployment of the THAAD, a missile…. That may have paved the way for an apparent improvement in the relationship, which has been frayed seriously by the THAAD deployment. What do you think of the R.O.K. delegation and in fact, a rumor went around the internet that President Trump called for a boycott of the belt and road summit saying “Hey, why did you invite the D.P.R.K. to attend the summit when the international society, through the UN Security Council imposed yet another economic sanction — which I believe is well underway — what do you think of the concerns, allegedly, the major concerns by the international media?… But I am afraid that those who are very skeptical about China’s intent, may point out, citing President Bush, Jr., that bad behavior should not be rewarded. So this invitation for the D.P.R.K. delegation has been very controversial. I’d like to have your take?
Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think there are some people who are thinking in terms of the old paradigm of geopolitics, and they can just not imagine that a country, especially a large country like China would be motivated by Confucian ideas. And I have studied China for the better part of my life, and I have come to the conclusion that the present government, in particular, is not based on anything other but the Confucian idea of harmony among nations. And some people realize that. For example the Italian Prime Minister Gentiloni who at the Belt and Road Forum, gave a fantastic speech, where he said…
Q: Excuse me, but harmony would become a lost sense, if we do not respect some of the principles, which have a lot to do with national security. The nuclear program of the D.P.R.K. has indeed endangered three northern provinces if any nuclear fallout were to occur! That would be a major threat [crosstalk] to national security.
Zepp-LaRouche: But the new President of South Korea has basically said that he wants to go back to the Sunshine Policy of economic cooperation with the North. North Korea only has nuclear missiles because they were afraid they would have the same fate as Saddam Hussein or Qaddafi. And once the threat is away and we return to the Six Party Talks and the Sunshine Policy, and especially if this is in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, I am absolutely confident that this problem will go away very shortly.
Q. The last question is whether there’s going to be a collision or a clash between Russia’s brainchild of having the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative? Because there have been speculations by the media who say, “Hey, Russia may show its great concern about China’s interference with the internal affairs of its traditional backyard, Central Asia through perhaps the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.” And therefore, they focus on whether there’s going to be inconsistency and discrepancy between Russia’s Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative: What’s your take?
Zepp-LaRouche: You will be happy to hear that President Putin, who was the guest of honor at the Belt and Road Forum, already gave a press conference where he said that not only does Russia support the Belt and Road Initiative, but he will take an active role in promoting it. And if you look at the number of leaders and countries that are now joining, you have a total change in the dynamic– Tsipras from Greece, the Serbian government, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Belarus, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland–all of these countries have said they want to become hubs of the Belt and Road Initiative. So even if the German Economic Minister at the Forum was not so friendly, let’s say, I think Germany will be soon surrounded by countries that want to be part of it, and I think this will tilt the situation. The former Prime Minister of France Raffarin gave a passionate speech why France should be in it, and he was sent by the new President Macron. So I’m absolutely convinced in half a year, the majority of the nations that are still reluctant will recognize that it is in their best interest. Because, for example, Germany should have a fundamental interest in cooperating. I mean, German industry, the Mittlestand, the medium-sized industry, are exactly the complementary kind of economic force that would perfectly work with China. And I think it will come around., I promise.
Yang: Despite the success of Emmanuel Macron, the European Union is indeed in trouble. And President Trump’s idea of prioritizing American interests, putting America first, may also isolate this country from the rest of the world. During this absence, China is said to be ready to assume the leadership. Is China ready? We’ll keep this discussion open. Until next time, goodbye.
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche addressed the conference on Sunday and Monday, both at the Thematic Session on Think Tank Exchanges and at the 5th Global Think Tank Summit.
There has been a breathtaking dynamic of the New Silk Road in the three and a half years since pronounced by President Xi Jinping in 2013. The Belt and Road Initiative has the obvious potential of quickly becoming a World Land Bridge, connecting all continents through infrastructure, such as tunnels, bridges, reinforced by the Maritime Silk Road. As such, it represents a new form of globalization, but not determined by the criteria of profit maximization for the financial sector, but for the harmonious development of all participating countries on the basis of Win-Win cooperation.
It is therefore important, that one does not look at the BRI from the standpoint of an accountant, who projects his statistical viewpoint of cost-benefit into the future, but that we think about it as a Vision for the Community of a Shared Future. Where do we want humanity as a whole to be in 10, 100, or even in a 1000 years? Is it not the natural destiny of mankind, as the only creative species known in the universe so far, that we will be building villages on the moon, develop a deeper understanding of the trillions of galaxies in our universe, solve the problem of till now incurable diseases, or solve the problem of energy and raw material security through the development of thermonuclear fusion power? By focusing on the common aims of humanity we will be able to overcome geopolitics and establish a higher level of reason for the benefit of all.
It is obvious, that the World Land Bridge is ideal for completing the development of the landlocked areas of our planet. The colonization of nearby space will be the obvious next phase of the infrastructural opening up of the natural habitat of man.
Looking at the world land map, the United States is not merely a country surrounded by two oceans and two neighbors, but can be a center part of an infrastructure corridor which connects the southern tip of Ibero America through Central and South America with the Eurasian transport system via a tunnel under the Bering Strait. Since President Xi Jinping made the offer to President Trump for the US to join the Belt and Road Initiative, there is now a practical proposal on the table, where the US can become an integral part of the World Land Bridge. The infrastructure requirements of the US, which are enormous, could be a perfect opportunity to convert all or part of the $1.4 trillion China is holding in US Treasuries into such investments via an infrastructure bank. For example, the US really needs approximately 40,000 miles of fast train lines, if they would want to match the Chinese plan to connect every domestic larger city by fast train by the year 2020.
The US economy would experience a tremendous boost through such a grand scale infrastructure investment, and could in turn export into the fast growing Chinese market, and once competition is replaced by cooperation, the opportunities for joint ventures between the US and China in third countries are enormous.
Since President Trump has declared his intention to reintroduce the American System of Economy of Alexander Hamilton, Henry C. Clay and Abraham Lincoln, and also reintroduce the Glass Steagall legislation of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the possibility of an early establishment of a National Bank and a Credit System in order to channel Chinese holdings into infrastructure investments is near.
While more and more European nations, both outside and within the EU, are recognizing the tremendous potentials of the BRI and express the intention to become a hub for Eurasian cooperation, the EU itself has been reserved, to be diplomatic.
There is however one huge challenge, where the member states of the EU could be convinced to cooperate with the BRI: It is the refugee crisis. The only human way to heal this moral wound of Europe is the active integration of European nations in a Grand Design development plan for all of Africa with the BRI.
The positive new prospect of US-Russia de-escalation and military to military cooperation in Syria, along with the Astana process, now puts stabilization of the entire region in sight. Offers by China to extend the New Silk Road to Southwest Asia already exist.
The New Silk Road must–as the ancient one did–lead to an exchange of the most beautiful expressions of culture of all participating countries in order to succeed. The true meaning of Win-Win cooperation is not just the material benefit of infrastructure and industrial development, but of making the joyful discovery in other cultures of the beauty of their classical music, poetry and painting, and, by knowing them, strengthen our love for mankind as a whole.
In the building of the World Land Bridge all nations will cooperate on studying how to apply the laws of the Noosphere to the establishment of durable forms of self-government. The development of the creative mental powers of all people in all nations, will give all of mankind the sense of unity and purpose which will make our species truly human. When we organize our societies around scientific and artistic discovery, we will perfect our knowledge on how we can continuously advance the process of self-development of mankind, intellectually, morally and aesthetically, and we will find our freedom in necessity–doing our duty with passion!
Quotes of World Leaders from the Belt and Road Forum
Paolo Gentiloni
Italian Prime Minister
‘The Belt and Road Initiative is perhaps the most important infrastructure modernization project underway in the world today… Bringing the Chinese economy closer through this gigantic infrastructural operation is enormously interesting to Italy, not only for our government but also for our universities and public and private businesses.’
António Guterres
United Nations Secretary-General
‘The Belt and Road Initiative and the 2030 Agenda… aim to deepen ‘connectivity’ across countries and regions: connectivity in infrastructure, trade, finance, policies and, perhaps most important of all, among peoples.’
Alicia Barcena
Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
‘The Belt and Road Initiative represents a renewal and a profound commitment with the fundamental values of our global social and economic well-being: interconnection, deeper commercial and investment links, transparency and opening-up, and the need to ensure economic growth goes hand-in-hand with social progress. This is a speech concerning a change of era, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a very innovative proposal, with a panoramic perspective bringing together the objectives of all the countries.’
Hailemariam Desalegn
Ethiopian Prime Minister
‘The Belt and Road Initiative is the largest and non-conflicting economic cooperation of the 21st century.’
Jean-Pierre Raffarin
Special envoy of French President-elect Emmanuel Macron, Former French Prime Minister
‘This forum marks a new and decisive step in the progress of the initiative. To remedy the lack of infrastructure in Asia will require the efforts of all those good will ready to contribute to the region’s prosperity and that of the rest of the world.’
Michelle Bachelet
Chilean President
‘The breadth of the One Belt, One Road, the high level of participation and its strategic dimensions, highlight its capacity to become the biggest economic cooperation project in place today.’
Christine Lagarde
International Monetary Fund Managing Director
‘The Belt and Road Initiative aims to connect economies, communities, and people. It holds great potential to bring benefits in terms of high-quality infrastructure, inclusiveness, and economic cooperation.’
Matthew Pottinger
U.S. National Security Council East Asia Director
‘American companies have much to offer here. U.S. firms can offer the best-value goods and services required over the life of a project. U.S. firms have a long and successful track record in global infrastructure development, and are ready to participate in ‘Belt and Road’ projects.’
‘For those in the less developed community, our greatest task is to raise our aspirations to meet those of the people living in the countries that are still in need of many more investment for development. The Belt and Road Initiative is most remarkable for just the size of the aspiration.’
Milos Zeman
Czech President
‘The One Belt, One Road Initiative is the most significant project in all our modern history. I salute China for this courageous, long-term project.’
Philip Hammond
Special envoy of British Prime Minister Theresa May, Chancellor of the Exchequer
‘It is my belief that Britain, lying at the western end of the Belt and Road, is a natural partner in this endeavor.’
Najib Razak
Malaysian Prime Minister
‘With the vision of shared prosperity and win-win situation, I believe Malaysia and other countries will realize the potential of the Belt and Road Initiative. The initiative as one that can stimulate development among different sectors and industries via better infrastructure, in turn will facilitate world transportation and logistics, so all countries can access to larger markets.’
Roberto Azevedo
World Trade Organization Director-General
‘Infrastructure is essential. A lack of proper transport network was on top of the trade cost list and the One belt, One Road is hugely important in responding to this need.’
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Turkish President
‘This is going to be the kind of initiative that will put an end to terrorism.’
Peter Thomson
President of the UN General Assembly
‘The Belt and Road Initiative brings enormous benefits to all involved and serves as a main driver of the global transformation emerged by the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.’
Nawaz Sharif
Pakistani Prime Minister
‘Let me make it very clear, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, an economic undertaking, is open to all countries in the region.’
Alexis Tsipras
Greek Prime Minister
‘We highly value the importance of this initiative for people-to-people contact, cultural exchanges and tourism, and we see the great opportunities in the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.’
Aleksandar Vucic
Serbian Prime Minister and President-elect
‘Serbia is China’s staunch friend and reliable partner. Serbia has benefited enormously from participating in the Belt and Road forum. Key projects of the Belt and Road Initiative have yielded positive results… Serbia expects to deepen cooperation with China in a host of areas, including the economy and trade, mining, infrastructure, finance, aviation and tourism.’
Brigitte Zypries
Special envoy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Minister of Economic Affairs
‘The Belt and Road Initiative aims to improve infrastructure between Asia and Europe. This will bring the world’s two largest trading partners in Asia and Europe closer.’
Shanghai Daily Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche
June 1, 2017
“I think the Belt and Road initiative signifies a revolutionary move to a new epoch of civilization. The idea of having a win-win cooperation among nations is the first time that a concrete concept has been offered to overcome geopolitics…”
“Belt and Road Enterprise Offers Assistance to All”
The Silk Road spirit followed by the Belt and Road initiative offers pioneering ideas for contemporary international cooperation, the delegates told the People’s Daily upon the arrival of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, agreeing that the proposal will bring benefits to all.
“Is China’s initiative an answer to financial bubble brewing?”
Perhaps, it is wise to learn from history that every time there are solid developmental projects for the good of humankind, the ruling financial oligarchs of this world bank bankroll conflicts and world wars (i.e the British oligarchs and Wall Street like the Rothschilds, Harriman, Prescott Bush, et al funded Hitler initially).
Willing to Turn OBOR into Path for Peace: Xi Jinping
The event was attended by high-level leaders from 29 nations, the United Nations Secretary General, the President of the World Bank (WB), the Director General of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
June 8, 2020 — In response to the horrible crime committed in Minneapolis, we received the following message from Ambassador Jacques Bacamurwanko, former Ambassador of the African nation of Burundi to the U.S.
“I’d love to mention that the protest activists following George Floyd’s heinous killing by the MN police officer need to be told that it’s the same anti-America system that was responsible for the strangulation of Lyndon LaRouche Jr.. Lyn’s neck was literally choked up by the same white supremacist gang that would not want him to exercise his right to vote, to move around or travel abroad freely.
“The good news is, the murderous gang did not manage to stop the flow of LaRouche’s Freedom and ideas far and wide.
“The world would be freer today if Mr. Trump could cause by an historic Presidential Order signed in the Oval Office urging the anti-America gangsters to get their knee off Lyndon LaRouche’s ‘neck.’
“That’s what our insistent plea and global advocacy ‘to exonerate LaRouche’ actually means. If LaRouche were exonerated, mankind would usher in a beautiful era of sustainable dialogue for peace, civil rights and socioeconomic development.”
The world death rate from famine this year could reach 300,000 people a day, unless we mount a food mobilization to stop it. This threat far exceeds the 315,000 death toll so far from COVID-19. We face a hunger pandemic “of biblical proportions,” David Beasley, Director General of the UN World Food Program (WFP) warned the UN Security Council April 21.
At the same time, farmers in the U.S. are mass destroying their meat animals, milk and other food. By September, 10 million hogs may have been put down. Millions of eggs and chickens have been destroyed, and millions of gallons of milk dumped. It is known why farmers are forced to do this, and yet it continues. Farmers themselves are facing ruin. This must stop.
We have to have a crash program to save farmers and agriculture capacity, and to deliver the food to all who need it. With this emergency mobilization, we can launch the replacement of the globalist cartel system which caused the vulnerability to disease and scarcity in the first place. It is a policy failure. There is nothing “natural” about this disaster.
In Africa and South Asia, the desert locust plague is ravaging cropland in a second wave of devastation, when it was known ahead of time, and could have been stopped.
It is a crime against humanity to allow this destruction to continue. Farmers want to produce food. Millions of lives are at stake.
Save Farmers, Stop Food Destruction!
In the United States, butchering capacity, monopolized by a cartel of five multinational commodities firms, has been consolidated into fewer than 300 mega-processing facilities accounting for 80% of the meat, while another other 2,000 facilities provide only 20%, in contrast to 30 years ago, when over 9,000 facilities of all sizes were in operation. Workers at today’s mega-plants are underpaid, work in slave labor-like conditions, and are commonly undocumented and fearful.
The situation is the same in Germany, in Spain, Brazil, and many other producing regions. In Germany in May, large meat-processing facilities were shut in Schleswig Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia, with hundreds of workers down sick, and others quarantined in their squalid barracks. They are low-paid labor from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland. Their situation is the norm everywhere for the global meat cartel.
When COVID-19 swept through the giant U.S. packing plants, thousands of workers were stricken; dozens have died. Plants shut. A Federal order was issued April 27 for them to re-open—under safe protocols—but no Federal intervention was made. No adequate corporate measures have taken place. Dozens of the slaughtering houses remain closed, or are only partially open. The backlog of “stranded” animals—ready for market—numbers in the millions. Farmers have no means to warehouse livestock, and they have received no income support for their losses. Farm country suicides are the highest in the nation. The U.S. stands to lose a quarter or more of its farm and ranch producers in the coming months.
There are severe disruptions to milk and other perishables, the processing and retailing of which are also cartel controlled, and concentrated in the same vulnerable way.
Deploy emergency measures now. In the U.S., this means Federal financial aid immediately to the farmers, and Federal intervention by forces of the Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other agencies, to sanitize and reconfigure all food-processing facilities for safety and maximum throughput. Create proper working conditions and wage levels; organize additional work teams. Locate contingency processing capacity; provide credit and aid for expansion. Locate extra freezer and locker capacity at closed institutions such as schools for expanded storage.
The principle involved is to save all possible food from destruction, and to defend farmers and ranchers everywhere in the world. Get the food to everywhere it is needed. Milk capacity is in crisis. Expand every way to process milk for longer storage and distribution, including cheese, powder, ultrahigh-temperature pasteurized products, as well as to maximize fresh fluid milk. Pay the farmers properly; preserve the herds. There is no “glut” of milk, nor pork, nor grain, nor any other food, as the “markets” talk of supply-and-demand would have you believe.
Deliver Food Aid, Double Agricultural Capacity
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world already had 821 million people who chronically have no reliable daily food, which is now labeled as “food insecurity.” The World Food Program had been providing food aid directly to 100 million people in acute need of food, who would have perished without it. But now, the WFP foresees this number of people in acute need of food, shooting up to 265 million people this year, and possibly many more. Their locations include: 194 million people in 37 nations in Africa; 62 million people in 10 nations in Asia; 33 million people in 6 nations in South America and the Caribbean.
Start a production mobilization. The tonnage of food aid for this number of people, considered just in terms of cereals grains, is 50 million metric tons this year. This is fully 20% of all the grains traded annually on the world market in recent years. The land area required to yield this much grain is the size of Belgium. More food must be produced. The WFP has put out a donations appeal for $12 billion for food aid this year, way above last year’s $8 billion appeal. But even if pledges miraculously come through, will the food be there?
Deploy for the goal to double world food production as soon as possible. Instead of the current annual grains harvest of 2.5-2.7 billion metric tons (bmt), a world harvest of 5 bmt will provide a quality diet for all, support population growth, and enable food reserves for security.
The Schiller Institute had called for this 12 years ago, and had it been achieved by now, there would be no threat of a hunger pandemic today. On May 3, 2008, Schiller Institute founding President Helga Zepp-LaRouche issued a call, that
“it will be fatal for the world as a whole, if we do not succeed immediately, in the coming days and weeks, to declare globalization a failure, and to set everything into motion to double agricultural production capacity in the shortest possible time!”
But the cartel monopoly system has only tightened its control since the 2007-08 financial crisis. The cartel’s lying narrative is that producing abundance means low prices and bankruptcy for farmers, and that cartel global food sourcing serves populations better than national food self-sufficiency. Today’s crisis exposes those lies.
Use every means now to support production of the needed volumes of food for the pandemic and hunger emergency, especially by making calculated use of the Southern Hemisphere harvest, and Northern Spring planting seasons now underway, and their alternating crop cycles ahead.
Stop Africa’s Locust Plague
Deploy all resources to stop the second wave of desert locusts that now extends from East Africa across to India. The crop losses are terrible. In one day, a small swarm can consume the food in a square kilometer of crops—the food 35,000 people would eat in day. At harvest time in June and July is just when the hopper stage of the second swarms of the locust will mature to young adults, capable of vast destruction; 42 million people in ten nations are in the affected zone from Yemen south to Tanzania. The Food and Agriculture Organization has succeeded in helping save 720,000 tons of food in the region, pre-positioned for 5 million people for a year.
Expedite the provision of needed aircraft, chemicals and personnel for aerial spraying, the mainstay for killing the insects. The FAO has appealed for $150 million, but pledges remain under that amount. If not stopped, the locusts will spread westward into the Sahel this summer. Between commercial crop sprayers, drones and military expertise, this scourge can be ended. Allowing it to proceed is genocide.
Declare debt moratoria and cancellation for the whole continent of Africa. No scarce national resources can go to debt payments at this time of need for anti-pandemic and anti-hunger operations.
The next step is credit for launching the development projects to realize the vast agriculture potential of the continent. Africa has half the world’s arable land still remaining to be brought into cultivation and pasture. It will be the farm belt of the whole world.
But the African agro-industrial economy has been deliberately kept down by the City of London/Wall Street monetarist system. The continent went from being 25% dependent on outside imports of staple grains, 30 years ago, to now 40% dependent. The cartels dominate that trade, while profiteering off cheaply produced African food sent to Europe—fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish. The same cartel trade pattern in the Americas ships food to the United States from economies kept poor, and desperately needing food aid, such as Guatemala and Haiti. As of 2019, the first beef from Africa went to Europe, and this year, into the United States. Namibia, 60% import dependent for its basic consumption, is now exporting beef, which capacity belongs for Africa.
Start the great projects. The Transaqua project, a continental priority, will resupply water to the Lake Chad Basin, benefiting the entire Sub-Saharan region, by diverting flow from the Congo River Basin, which will benefit from new transportation, power, agriculture and water management systems. Nuclear power and desalination on the Mediterranean and other littorals will create vast new water supplies. These programs will end the grounds for national conflict over how to use scarce resources.
Sovereign Government Action
Food is a human right. If governments assert sovereignty over food and farming, we will defeat the hunger catastrophe, and open a new era of food sufficiency for all.
Three areas of action: Anti-Trust: First, break up the food and agro-monopolies (chemicals, fertilizer, seeds) and cartels. Invoke national security in the short term, to override cartel practices blocking emergency food measures. Then use full-scale anti-trust laws and executive orders. Every nation has this authority, and most have precedent. Some governments may nationalize food enterprises. Restore nation-serving policies of food reserves, and regionally dispersed food processing, advanced food preservation—including irradiation—and diversified farming. Abandon the World Trade Organization, whose premises are designed to oppose national sovereignty over food.
The world grain trade has come to be dominated by ABCD, the cartel accounting for 90% of all grain traded: ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus. In the course of their consolidation of control, sovereign national grain boards were eliminated; nationally controlled food reserves eliminated; single-crop monoculture became widespread. A world meat cartel of mega-multinationals also dominates in most nations. In the U.S. the five main firms controlling meat processing and marketing are JBS (Brazil-headquartered); Cargill (U.S.A.); Tyson Foods (U.S.A.); National Beef (Marring, based in Brazil); Smithfield (WH Holdings, China). Their standard operating procedures created a disaster.
Take measures to end all other kinds of financialization of food and farming. Stop food commodity speculation on the world’s major exchanges. Stop lenders and trading cartels demanding that poverty-stricken nations export food to earn foreign exchange.
Support family farmers: Secondly, supply emergency income support to farmers. No foreclosures. Declare debt moratoria, and reorganization during this emergency. Indemnify farmers and ranchers for livestock and related losses. Establish a parity-based farm commodity pricing system. Utilize laws already on the books, but ignored under the cartel dominance: in Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); in the U.S., the Commodity Credit Corp. (the CCC from the 1930s), and other models and initiatives.
End the anti-farming “green” rules and harassment, done wrongfully in the name of protecting the environment from climate change. Launch the overdue infrastructure projects on every continent, to provide vast new amounts of water, power and transport, essential to productive agriculture.
Create the required credit through either scaling up one or more of the existing development-oriented multilateral banks with multi-nation membership—e.g., the New Development Bank, or the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), or create a new vehicle in FDR’s tradition of agencies mandated by the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. Today’s epochal crisis makes such a strategy realistic.
A million new farmers on every continent. Organize special means to widely expand the family farm system, especially young farmers and ranchers starting out, through direct grants, tax benefits, ample credit and land availability. Use the spirit of President Abraham Lincoln’s initiatives, e.g. the three-page Homestead Act, which settled farm families throughout the vast Midwest. The ingenuity and mission of family farm members, with the living standard, education and science to go along, are the best guarantees of food security for every nation and worldwide.
Spread the model of the “astronaut farmer,” equipped with global positioning, data keeping, mechanization, and scientific practices. Farmers-as-ambassadors are ready and willing to go and spread space-age agriculture and space-age brotherhood.
International collaboration: Launch the international collaboration to make all this work, to provide the needed food relief in the coming weeks and save millions of lives; and to start the shift to a new paradigm of economic functioning and great power relations. China is already active in Africa with water, power and rail projects in the Belt and Road Initiative, aligned with the African Union’s Agenda-2063 program. Russia is active with Egypt’s nuclear power and desalination plans, and other projects. Add what the United States can do, being the largest food donor in the world, and a new era of strategic cooperation opens.
We call on the leaders of the great powers to initiate collaboration against the hunger pandemic. Include this on the agenda of their earliest possible summit: Presidents Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and others who are willing.
“Give Us This Day, Our Daily Bread” is a universal plea. Let us answer this prayer.
We, the undersigned, support Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s call for global health and economic infrastructure to address the coronavirus pandemic and the conditions of underdevelopment (both economic and scientific) that caused us to be vulnerable to it.
The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world — and the economic effects of the health measures taken to crush it — reveal the inexcusable lack of development of the human species, and demand a global approach to curing, not only the coronavirus presently menacing us, but that underdevelopment that leaves us susceptible to the pandemic’s taking a terrible toll.
When health systems even in developed regions, such as Northern Italy, have been filled beyond capacity, what is the outlook for less developed nations that have an immense shortage of health infrastructure and lack secure access to clean water, sanitation, and nutritious food? How can a person who relies on daily income to support the family remain at home for weeks on end? How can people without clean water practice good hand hygiene? If no ICU beds are available, can doctors save the life of a victim of severe Covid-19 symptoms?
While the acute suffering from the coronavirus claims our attention, what of the 800,000 children under the age of 5 who die from diarrheal diseases every year? How can the health of the hundreds of millions of people currently afflicted with food insecurity be ensured?
We call for a global health infrastructure, in its fullest sense. The world requires more hospitals, new ICU beds, additional ventilators, many more trained physicians, increased manufacturing capacity for PPE, and orders of magnitude more testing equipment than existed at the beginning of this outbreak. But it also needs much more. Poverty, malnutrition, lack of access to improved water and sanitation — these are health issues too. Our shared dignity as members of the human race calls upon us to cooperate in eliminating poverty, through development. The entire world must be made safe from diseases that threaten us all.
Barriers to the cooperation of the United States, China, Russia, and India must be overcome to ensure that the world is never again terrorized by such a threat.
To make all of this possible requires a New Bretton Woods — international agreements on economic development in the model of Franklin Roosevelt’s outlook at the end of World War II, as advanced by the studies and proposals of Lyndon LaRouche.
The world is in a grave crisis which is unlike anything before. The good news is that, given that it is the terrible policies of the past decades that have put us in this situation, it will be impossible to “go back to normal.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called on young people of the world to take leadership at this moment of great change to fight the two deadly viruses now threatening humanity—the coronavirus pandemic and the meltdown of the global financial system. The world must emerge from this crisis with an entirely New Paradigm of peaceful relations among nations, and a new economic system based on cooperation for the progress of all humanity. As is becoming more and more stark with the coronavirus pandemic, an urgent priority will be to build a modern global health system to ensure the right to life of all people on the planet.
This video conference is an opportunity for young people across the world to speak with Helga Zepp-LaRouche and join the fight for this New Paradigm. After opening remarks by Helga, representatives from each nation will give a 2-4 minute report on their organizing, and a Q&A will follow.
Join us and participate in the discussion with Helga Zepp-LaRouche and young people from around the world.
Simultaneous translations into Spanish and French will be available.
The Schiller Institute invites you to join us on Saturday, May 9, 2020 at 2pm EDT for an international 75th year commemoration of the victory over fascism in Europe, commonly known as V-E day. World War II, 1939–1945, occurred at the concluding phase of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s twelve year presidency. FDR’s post-war vision for a world free from what he accurately termed the “18th century methods” of British, French, Belgian, Dutch, and Portuguese colonialism, was one intended to replace that imperial rule with Alexander Hamilton’s American Revolution in the science of physical economy.
The necessity for an international dialogue among nations, and particularly Russia, China, India, and the United States, is immediate. As Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and chairman of the Schiller Institute, said on Saturday, April 25: “I’m greeting all of you who are watching this internet conference from all over the world, and I think you are all aware that the human species right now is confronted with an unprecedented crisis, which not only threatens to cost the lives of many millions of people through illness and hunger, to sweep away many of the institutions which people had taken for granted until now, and to plunge large parts of the world into a new dark age, including culturally—but it can also lead to a thermonuclear war that would potentially wipe out all of humanity.”
The Schiller Institute’s April 25–26 conference, “Mankind’s Existence Now Depends on the Establishment of a New Paradigm!”, attended by 2,500 people, successfully established a vital international “symposium for durable survival.” This discussion process, which has already featured government-level representatives from many nations in dialogue with American farm leaders, physicians, scientists and science students, and activists, must be continuous and uninterrupted.
The United States must be pulled back from the brink of its own induced self-destruction at the hands of the British, which works much as did Othello’s induced self-destruction at the hands of his “trusted ensign,” Iago, in Shakespeare’s play. Consider this exchange between FDR and Winston Churchill in March, 1941, months before the United States entered the war:
CHURCHILL : “You mentioned India.”
FDR: “Yes. I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy…”
WC: “There can be no tampering with the Empire’s economic agreements.”
FDR: “They’re artificial. . .”
WC: “They’re the foundation of our greatness.”
Later that evening, according to Elliott Roosevelt, son of FDR, in his book, “As He Saw It,” Churchill continued:
“Mr. President,” he cried, “I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire. Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite of that”—and his forefinger waved—“in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only hope. . .”
Elliott Roosevelt concludes: “In saying what he did, he was acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck,…and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R. against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck. Or would have been, if Father had lived.”
Now, today, the world would welcome the real America, FDR’s post-war anti-colonial America, the America of World War II veteran Lyndon LaRouche and of the LaRouche “Four Laws.” On May 9, the greatest honor that can be paid to the over 70 million people that died through that war, would be to commit to build an alliance of nations, the Four Powers. Helga Zepp-LaRouche emphasized, “The four main nations of the world—the United States, China, Russia, and India—must now establish a New Bretton Woods system and together with all nations that wish to join, a new paradigm in international cooperation among nations that is guided by the common aims of mankind. The fourth of Lyndon LaRouche’s “Four Laws” defines the qualitatively higher economic platform, the higher level of reason, of the Coincidentia Oppositorum of Nicholas of Cusa, on which the contradictions of geopolitical confrontation will be overcome.”
Let us, therefore, pursue this noble discussion in the shadow of the immortal regiments that wish to see the world for which they fought, and died, finally come to pass.
Bob Baker, Virginia; Schiller Institute agriculture co-coordinator Joe Maxwell, Missouri; former Missouri Lt. Governor, co-founder of Family Farm Action Alliance Tyler Dupy, Kansas; Executive Director of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association Frank Endres; California, member of the National Farmers Organization for 63 years Bill Bullard; Montana, CEO R-CALF USA Jim Benham, Indiana; State Pres. of Indiana Farmers Union, 20 Yr. National Board member, National Farmers Union Mike Callicrate, Kansas; Colorado, Bd of Directors of Organization for Competitive Markets, Owner Ranch Foods Direct
