General

June 8, 2016 – San Francisco Embarcadero Center

The Schiller Institute’s Strategic Seminar in San Franciso on June 8, drew 70 guests and experts to discuss the urgent topic “Will the U.S. Join the New Silk Road? Global Scientific Development or Nuclear War.” That question is to join the One Belt, One Road world infrastructure plan put forward by China, or stick with the collapsing Western economies, whose bankruptcy is fueling the danger of a global nuclear war.

Schiller Institute founder and chair Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed two Tokyo events on Dec. 2, delivering a clear message to 400 Japanese business leaders that the World Land-Bridge is the only way to end the tyranny of war and geopolitics and solve the ongoing Middle East crisis.  In the morning, Ms. Zepp-LaRouche addressed the seventh annual Asia Innovation Forum, attended by 300 young Japanese entrepreneurs and hosted by Nobuyuki Idei, former Chairman and CEO of the Sony Corporation and now the founder and CEO of Quantum Leaps, as well as the founder of the Asia Innovators’ Initiative. Video proceedings of the two events will be available soon. The slides used below are the slide Zepp-LaRouche used in her presentation and are for reference only.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

The sheer number of explosive crises around the globe make previous pre-World War situations look calm by comparison. The recent downing of the Russian fighter jet by Turkey, which qualified American sources say Turkey would never have done without tacit support from the White House, and the subsequent support given by both President Obama and NATO to the Turkish action demonstrate—given the launch-on-warning-readiness of the nuclear arsenals of the US and Russia, with a decision time of mere minutes—how close we are to the present, new Cold War turning into a hot war.

Slide one

The fact that Russia and China correctly regard the US Ballistic Missile System in Eastern Europe, the Prompt Global Strike and Air Sea Battle Doctrines as First Strike Doctrines directed against their nations, has already led to a new arms race. Transatlantic military experts warn, that the situation is more dangerous than during the height of the Cold War, due to the lack of any codes of behavior or reliable “red telephones” between the US and Russia.

Behind this is the overriding dynamic which arises from the insistence of the United States that a unipolar world be maintained, while rising Asia is, by its mere weight, creating a multipolar world. The warnings of experts, such as former US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Martin Dempsey, that the West should not fall into the Thucydides Trap, seem to go unheard.

In addition, the crisis situation in Ukraine, the tensions in the South China Sea, and the satanic degree of barbarism demonstrated by ISIS and Boko Haram underline the mortal danger humanity is facing.

Equally existential, is the prospect of a new crash of the transatlantic financial system, more dramatic than the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, while no coping instruments are left to the central banks.

Are we condemned to continue down this road, when all signs speak to the likelihood that these conflicts will escalate either to global chaos or to a global thermonuclear war and the likely annihilation of the human species? Is the human species too stupid, indifferent or degenerate to abandon policies, even when their failure is overwhelmingly clear?

Slide two

Already in the 15th century, the famous German philosopher Nikolaus von Kues stated that solutions for complex problems cannot be solved with a heterogeneous assortment of partial solutions; rather, one must find a solution on a higher level, on which the contradictions of the lower level are resolved. He called that method of thinking the “Coincidentia Oppositorum,” the thinking of the coincidence of opposites, the idea that the One is of a higher order than the Many. It is that method which must be applied to define a new paradigm in the evolution of the human species. And it is eminently possible to define a new paradigm which represents the true interest of all nations and all groupings.

Generally, the willingness to entertain such new ideas only exists when people realize that the assumptions which have been taken for granted for a long time are suddenly shaken in their foundations. And that is precisely the moment in which we find ourselves, around the globe.

This is most acutely true for Germany, where a qualitatively new debate is taking place about the need to reassess the strategic situation in many circles, guided by a growing perception that continuing the present policies will lead to a full-speed crash against a brick wall.

Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa, the father of modern science.

In particular, the refugee crisis shattered the illusion that the country is an island of stability and wars far away. All of a sudden, there is a public discussion about the root causes of the refugee crisis, which is detonating the unity of the EU: the Anglo-American wars based on lies, the Saudi financing of terrorism, Turkey buying oil from ISIS, etc.

All of this is creating an openness to the necessity of a dramatic change of policy! If terrorism is to be permanently eradicated and the refugee crisis overcome, the operations against ISIS must take into account its decentralized structures in many countries, but military means are not sufficient: what is needed is real development!!!

It is necessary to put a comprehensive reconstruction program for all of Southwest Asia and Africa on the agenda. Only if young people, and there especially the young men, have the perspective of a future, the chance to raise a family, to become scientists, doctors or architects, can the environment for the recruitment of the Jihadists be dried out.

Slide four

Presently, the only realistic perspective to accomplish this goal is the extension of the policy of the New Silk Road into both the Near and Middle East, as well as into Africa. The outline for this is presented in the study “The New Silk Road becomes the World Land-Bridge,” which defines basic preconditions for a global reconstruction program.

Slide five

Much of Southwest Asia has been “bombed back into the stone age” or was already a desert. A comprehensive infrastructure program for the entire region from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf must be put on the agenda. War must be declared against deserts, large amounts of new fresh water be created through the desalination of ocean water with the help of nuclear energy, ionization of moisture in the atmosphere, the creation of new rain patterns through the development of agriculture and reforestation. Infrastructure corridors, with integrated fast train systems, highways, and waterways, have to be built in order to provide conditions for the location of industries and new cities.

All major neighbors of Southwest Asia have a fundamental security interest to participate in such an approach, and therefore must join forces in this project: Russia, because of the tight connection between ISIS and the Chechen terrorist networks as well as the influx of heroin from Afghanistan into Russia; China, because of the connection of ISIS to the Uyghurs; India, since they have a Muslim population of 120 million people and already had Wahhabi-Salafist-sponsored terror attacks in Mumbai and other places. Iran, Egypt, but also Germany, France and Italy, and, clearly, in real terms, also the United States, have a fundamental interest to solve this problem.

Every nation and every region would benefit from the World Land-Bridge:

LaRouche plan for Eurasian Land-Bridge.

1. Japan: For Japan, the participation in great projects of the World Land-Bridge would reconnect to the tradition of the Meiji Restoration of Okubo Toshimichi and Okuma Shigenobu and their policies inspired by Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List: that it is the development of the creativity of human labor and the State development of science and technology which are the source of wealth in society—a tradition that was continued by MITI after the Second World war and by the Mitsubishi Global Infrastructure Fund, which included many of the projects which are part of the World Land-Bridge Program.

One of those projects, the Kra Canal, which will enable the increased flow of goods in the Pacific region, is again on the table. A second Panama canal is being built in Nicaragua by China; the Mekong Delta complex is still urgent; the Transaqua Lake Chad project is presently reactivated by several African countries and a feasibility study is in progress.

Thai proposal for the Kra Canal.

The building of the Bering Strait tunnel has recently gained new up-to-dateness, given the Russian-Chinese collaboration of the “One Belt, One Road” policy and the Eurasian Economic Union, especially for Siberia and the Far East of Russia.

Bering Strait connection proposal.

2. USA: Not only would the US benefit from joining in developing Africa and Southwest Asia, but it is itself in urgent need of a reconstruction program. The New Silk Road approach for the US would mean the construction of a continental fast train system of 50,000 kilometers, (9) new science cities in the South and West of the Rocky Mountains, and various programs for the creation of new weather patterns.

Proposed high-speed rail for US lower 48 states.

3. Ukraine: The collaboration between Europe, the Eurasian Economic Union and the “One Belt, One Road” policy for the construction of infrastructure corridors could reunite Ukraine by having the whole country enjoy an economic miracle instead of the present economic collapse.

4. Europe: All of Europe has a dramatic backlog in infrastructure investment. In Germany alone, it is an estimated 2 trillion Euro. Already in 2012, the Schiller Institute presented a plan for a new economic miracle in Southern Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa, as an alternative to the devastating austerity policy of the Troika.

In light of the escalation of the refugee crisis, this development program as an extension of the New Silk Road would be a complete game changer.

European continent developed under the World Land-Bridge proposal.

5. Africa: Because of the combination of wars and the denial of economic development due to ecologist and monetarist ideologies, much of the continent, as Southwest Asia, resembles hell on earth, not home countries. The announcement and beginning of international cooperation to realize a comprehensive development plan for the continent would send a powerful message of hope to millions of people now on the run from war, terrorism, hunger and epidemics.

The content of Africa connected with high-speed rail, part of the World Land-Bridge proposal, now being constructed by Xi Jinping’s China.

The World Land-Bridge, as concrete basis for a peace order for the 21st Century, however requires a new paradigm of thinking. The supposed legitimacy of geopolitics—the idea that one nation or a group of nations have a self-interest which they can pursue against another group of nations, if necessary by military means -, is, in the age of thermonuclear weapons, obviously outdated—unless one wants to risk the annihilation of the entire human species. The assumption, that it would be possible to “win” a “limited” nuclear war based on a First Strike Doctrine, is ludicrous, and has been refuted by impeccable military analysts and should be prosecuted against according to the Nuremberg Statutes.

Mankind will only be able to survive the present existential crisis if we can make the qualitative jump to defining the common interests of mankind as the point of reference. The question “Where should mankind as a whole be in a 100, in a 1000 years from now, and beyond?” must guide the decision-making. The World Land-Bridge does not only complete the infrastructural development of the landlocked areas of all continents, but it defines the next phase of the evolution of the human species by extending the idea of infrastructure into space.

If, in the best case, an immediate emergency summit of the UN General Assembly, otherwise an early G20 summit or minimally a meeting of some of the most future-oriented leaders of the world, in government positions as well as present and former representatives of the scientific, industrial, diplomatic and cultural community, would put such a World Marshall Plan, a World Land-Bridge as a peace plan for the 21st century on the table, it would suddenly impart a perspective of hope to the world.

The idea of the World Land-Bridge establishes a higher level of reason, where all the historical and ethnic conflicts disappear or are neutralized in the higher geometry. For example, tensions between Japan and China sometimes seem insurmountable; however, in the context of collaboration with India, Russia, and Southeast Asian and European nations for a Peace through Development Plan, the mutual benefits of such a win-win perspective would represent an overwhelming incentive to shape the future, rather than relive the past.

There are obvious differences to the situation of the 30 Years War, but what motivated the various war parties to come to the negotiation table and conclude with the famous Treaty of Westphalia, was the recognition that if this religious war were to continue, there would soon be nobody left to enjoy a victory. The Peace of Westphalia Treaty established for the first time in European history that peace can only be maintained if all foreign policy takes into account “the interest of the other,” and that it can not be based on revenge, but must be based on love. That treaty became the foundation of international law and the basis for the UN charter, and must be applied also to Southwest Asia, contrary to some different opinions.

Unfortunately, the respect for international law has vanished. The highest authority of the UN, the UN Security Council, since the regime change operation against Gaddafi, does not function any more.

International law must, therefore, be developed further. The principle which must be agreed upon, and which must enclose all following aspects, as a preamble, is that of the common aims of mankind—that there can be no legitimate interest of any nation, if it does not coincide with the interest of all of humanity, concerning its present and future existence.

The principles of the UN Charter remain valid, but this preamble must take into account a higher lawfulness, which is called in different cultures variably: in European philosophy, “Natural Law;” in Asian philosophy, “Cosmic Order.” It expresses the idea that mankind as a whole can only survive in the physical universe at large if the political and economic practices on planet Earth are being brought into coherence with the laws governing our universe.

Man is not an animal, condemned to remain in the mode of existence of the past. Mankind has a quality of creativity to discover again and again the deeper principles of our universe, which redefines its character as a species. When Kepler discovered the unifying principle of our solar system, he created the basis for mankind to be a completely different species, no longer bound to earth, but part of the solar system.

When Einstein discovered the theory of general relativity, he created the foundations for mans exploration of space. It is now clear from the earth history that here are defining influences of the changing relationship  of our solar system with the galaxy, effecting cycles of climate change and variations in the evolutionary processes of live. We have yet to discover the unifying principle of our Galaxy, as Kepler had discovered the unifying principle of the solar system.

So what is the meaning of the creativity of the human mind, as being an integral part of the laws of the universe? And where is the future of mankind located? The next phase of the work in space, in the galaxy and beyond, requires the collaboration among top scientists of mayor nations to discover the laws of our universe as a new scientific  frontier, We have to discover powers of mankind, which are complete unknown now, as Helium three on the moon was unknown during Kepler’s time, if mankind is to exist.

There is no closed earth system, but life on earth is defined by the lawfulness of the solar systems interaction with the galaxy, and we still have to discover the unifying principle of all the billions of galaxies. The meaning of live is the advancement of mankind’s ability to master the challenges of discovery the pathway of the necessary next discovery, for mankind’s ability to continue to exist in the millions and billions of years ahead. So far, we have only discovered the shadows of the principle.

It is therefore an existential requirement, to  return to the principles of physical economy and real science and eliminate monetarism. We have to restate the historic knowledge of the theoretical foundations of the different industrial revolutions, which has been almost eliminated from the economics textbooks of western universities.

American economist Henry Carey, Russian economist Sergei Witte, German-American economist Friedrich List and German philospher and statesman, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

But it is a fact that the industrial revolutions in the United States, as well as in Germany, Japan, Russia and, more recently, the Chinese economic miracle, were always based on the principles of the physical economy of Gottfried Leibniz, Friedrich List, the American system of economy of Mathew and Henry C. Carey and Count Witte.

The Meiji Restoration succeeded in rapidly transforming Japan into a major world economic power thanks to the theories of Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List. (Erasmus Smith, a very close collaborator of Lincoln’s economic adviser Henry Carey, was sent by the Ulysses Grant Administration as an official economic adviser to the Meiji Restoration.)

The rapid transformation of Germany from a feudal state into an economic powerhouse, was based entirely on the tradition of Friedrich List and on Bismarck’s encounter with the economic model of Henry C. Carey, mediated among others by Wilhelm von Kardorff, then head of the German industrial association. Germany would have not become an industrial nation, but for Bismarck’s conversion from a follower of free market theories into a protagonist of the protectionist policies of List and Carey.

The Chinese economic miracle of the recent 30 years, especially the policies of the New Silk Road and the alternative banking system, with the AIIB, New Development Bank, Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road Funds, follow the same traditions. The 5th World Congress of China Studies in the Spring 2013 in Shanghai, and the 2014 List conference in Reutlingen made emphatically the point that the German economist is the most popular economic theoretician in China, and not Adam Smith.

List regarded the development of the productive powers of labor and industrial capacities as more important than statistical wealth; he would be an adamant critique of today’s asset driven economies. In the paper he submitted to a contest of the French Academy of Sciences in 1837, he developed a vision for the future role of transport systems, a “space and time economy,” which contains ideas still valid for the World Land-Bridge today.

He saw in the continuous perfection of transport and communication systems the precondition for the progress of humanity, enabling human beings to unfold increasingly all the potentials given to them by nature. The more talents could exchange their ideas and collaborate in all areas, the greater progress would be in all areas of knowledge, and the more science and the arts would be inspired and spread to all sectors and disciplines. Anticipating our present jet age, he said that the easier it would be for human beings to move from place to place, the more they would save time and compress space, the more the development and efficiency of his powers would increase and utilize the material riches of nature for his purposes.

The impact of this characteristic of what he called the “Space and Time Economy” would be demonstrated by the wealth of nations, which would develop an advanced transport and communication system, even if their “natural environment” was unfavorable. The high degree of speed, regularity, and cost-efficiency of transport would facilitate new levels of the development of the mental and material productive forces.

In an almost prophetic forecast, he saw this development orienting towards the uniting of all nations in one humanity, in a “Republic of the planet,” based on the “economy of Mankind.”

The realization of the World Land-Bridge, proceeding from the common aims of mankind, is eminently feasible in the near term. But it must be accompanied by a dialogue between the high phases of the different cultures of the world. For many Asian countries that means Confucius; for India, the Gupta period and Indian Renaissance; for Russia Alexander Pushkin and Vladimir Vernadsky; for Italy, the Italian Renaissance; for Germany, the Classics in music and poetry. Out of knowledge of the other culture, will grow love and admiration. It is only in this way, that the representatives of different cultures can access the basis of their identity as members of the only creative species known in the universe, which, so far, has only reached its childhood, but which can and must become the immortal species.

Realizing this vision requires individuals, today, who are guided by a passionate love for humanity.

Drawing a sharp contrast between the actions of crazed central bankers, and the eco-fascists and regime changers they have funded and unleashed, Helga Zepp LaRouche spoke of the spirit of revolutionary optimism sweeping the globe. The effort to impeach Trump, she said, may very well backfire, as the investigation into the coup, by Attorney General Barr and prosecutor Durham, continues, with meetings in the UK and Italy, to smoke out the real foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. election — which was NOT by Russia!

At the same time, the attempt to use the terroristic rampage by “a virulent and loud minority” to trigger regime change in China will not succeed, as the vast majority of Chinese people are happy, and optimistic about their future, which she observed during her two visits to speak at conferences there this year. The intervention by the final British Governor of Hong Kong, makes clear the British role behind the coup efforts, and the Chinese should demand a full investigation at the U.N. of London’s role.

In contrast, she spoke of the SI conference in New York on October 5, as part of the International Observe the Moon Day, in which she and other speakers spoke of the New Paradigm emerging, with the theme “Mankind as a Galactic Species: The Necessary Alternative to War.” She called on viewers to catch the “healthy disease, Moon Fever” — “Don’t sit on the fence,” she said, the optimism needed to win comes from moving into the “New Frontiers of Knowledge.”

On a lighter note, she referred to the successful ironic, Swiftian intervention at the AOC town meeting by a LaRouchePAC organizer, pointing out that AOC demonstrated that she is “not the smartest cookie on the planet.”

Schiller Institute founder and chair Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed two Tokyo events on Dec. 2, delivering a clear message to 400 Japanese business leaders that the World Land-Bridge is the only way to end the tyranny of war and geopolitics and solve the ongoing Middle East crisis.  In the morning, Ms. Zepp-LaRouche addressed the seventh annual Asia Innovation Forum, attended by 300 young Japanese entrepreneurs and hosted by Nobuyuki Idei, former Chairman and CEO of the Sony Corporation and now the founder and CEO of Quantum Leaps, as well as the founder of the Asia Innovators’ Initiative.

In her comprehensive presentation, Ms. Zepp-LaRouche warned of the global pattern of regional wars that can easily lead to global catastrophe, including a new superpowers conflict, and emphasized that the only way to change the course of events was by fundamentally changing the paradigms of thinking.  She went through a detailed presentation on the World Land-Bridge, identifying the major global projects that can transform the world, citing the Xi Jinping “One Belt, One Road” as the seed of a global renaissance.  After spelling out the immediately available great projects, she developed the idea of mankind as a unique species capable of creating a future through creative discovery.  She developed the American System concepts of Alexander Hamilton, and Henry and Mathew Carey, and detailed how those ideas spread around the globe in the 19th century, creating the modern nations of Germany and Japan, under Bismarck and the Meiji Restoration.

Ms. Zepp-LaRouche was joined on the panel by former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn; former head of the Russian Railroad Corporation and co-founder of the Rhodes Dialogue of Civilizations, Vladimir Yakunin; and Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr., the former Brazilian director of the IMF, who is now a Vice President of the New Development Bank, founded by the BRICS and heaquartered in Shanghai.  The panel was moderated by Daisuke Kotegawa, a former Japanese Ministry of Finance top official who was also Japan’s IMF director at the time of the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

During his presentation, Dr. Yakunin strongly endorsed Ms. Zepp-LaRouche’s World Land-Bridge proposal, noting that Russia’s Eurasian Development Corridors and China’s One Belt, One Road policies were thoroughly compatible and represented the “new paradigm” of thinking that is urgently needed to avoid wars brought on by the dying system of neo-liberalism.  He emphasized that Presidents Putin and Xi were committed to Russian-Chinese cooperation to realize those Eurasian infrastructure links.

In his opening remarks of the panel, Strauss-Kahn detailed the ongoing crisis of the world financial system, and acknowledged that the austerity policies were a failure and had to be replaced by a growth model, while admitting that there is no real support for a viable change in policy from within the dominant world financial institutions today.

In the afternoon, Ms. Zepp-LaRouche addressed a separate event, sponsored by the Canon Institute for Global Studies, which was attended by 100 top executives of the major Japanese industrial corporations and financial institutions, as well as of the Japanese government’s overseas investment agencies and funds. EIR Senior Editor Jeffrey Steinberg also addressed the Canon Institute forum, delivering a detailed picture of the real process of economic and social breakdown of the United States. Ms. Zepp-LaRouche delivered her presentation on the World Land-Bridge as the only way to defeat the geopolitical drive to world war.  Nogueira Batista gave an in-depth report on the progress of the New Development Bank and the plans to begin issuing development loans by April 2016.  He reviewed the history of the launching of the New Development Bank by the BRICS countries in response to the abject failure of the “Washington institutions”—the IMF and the World Bank—to reform in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse.

Video proceedings of the two events will be available soon.

Former Philippine Senator Kit Tatad issued a scathing attack on Obama and fullsome praise of Putin and Xi Jinping in this morning’s Manila Times, the first day of the APEC Summit, quoting directly from the Press Club event featuring Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Senator Mike Gravel on Oct. 27.

The op-ed is titled: “Let President Xi tell us about the new Silk Road,”

“So the Aquino government is determined to splurge ten billion pesos on the APEC Economic Leaders Summit and all its related lower-level meetings. At the same time, private firms are to be bled white by the forced shutdown of their operations and the cancellation of hundreds of international and domestic flights during the main event. Nothing could be more absurd and bizarre, but it could soon turn tragic if most of the summiteers fail to realize that inclusive economic growth, which they saucily long for, won’t happen unless the global casino economy is replaced by a new paradigm.

– A new paradigm –

Indeed, the world needs not just a paste-up job, but a new paradigm. No significant intervention has occurred since Lehman Brothers, with assets of over $600 billion, declared bankruptcy in 2008. None since the most vulnerable European economies began to flounder. None since Iraq and Libya lost their unwanted governments. Bail-outs in Wall Street and bail-ins in Europe saved the big banks but not the small depositors. Since 2008, the too-big-to-fail banks grew bigger by 40-80 percent, and enlarged their derivatives debt contracts to up to $2 quadrillion, said the founder of Schiller Institute Helga Zepp-Larouche in a recent address at the National Press Club in Washington.

There are no more tools in the toolbox of the financial institutions, Zepp-LaRouche said. So chaos could soon break out. For some international players, chaos, more precisely war, is the solution. They have invested so much in stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, including thermonuclear weapons with the capacity to kill the entire human population 20 times over, that they seem obliged to consider using them, regardless of the cost or consequence. But war can only translate into death and destruction [in] our clearly civilizational crisis.

The solution has to be something moral, social, political and economic. Mankind must recover from the global blurring of fundamental moral principles, the clashing political agendas and ambitions of men and nations, and the utter bankruptcy of the global economic system. The overindulgence of our sexual appetites, the unfettered desire by an unaccountable elite to impose their own ethic upon the rest, the resultant divide that sets apart the one percent at the top from the ninety-nine percent at the bottom of the pyramid — not these, but the opposite of these, are the pillars upon which our future civilization should be built.

– Who will teach whom? –

Which nation, and which leader of what nation, will drive home this point? And who has the best credentials to do it?

The United States, according to the renowned social-work educator Paul Adams in a book on social justice with Michael Novak and Elizabeth Shaw, was the first to lift a large majority of its poor (largely immigrants) out of poverty within a generation, and to keep on doing so. The United States was, as it were, the laboratory for how underdeveloped peoples break through the chains of centuries of poverty. It was the first developing nation. No one could argue against this.

– US vis-a-vis China –

But the record has shifted since. In the last seventy years since its founding, the United Nations, according to President Obama, has raised more than a billion poor people to the middle class. But it was former US Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, who has pointed out in a paper he filed before our Supreme Court,that more than half of that number — 600 million, twice the total population of the United States — were Chinese. It happened within a little more than one generation or three decades; by adopting free-market capitalism while remaining communist, China — and not the United Nations — did it. – Poverty in the US – Today in the United States, by Zepp-La Rouches own reckoning, at least seven (7) percent of the population live in extreme poverty; some 21 percent have no access to sufficient food; 95 million have lost their jobs; and 104 million who are eligible cannot find jobs. In Europe, one-third of all the youth are unemployed; in the south of Europe alone, 60 percent are unemployed….

– 60 million refugees – Yet there is a new class of people whose problem is worse than sheer poverty. Many of them drown at the Mediterranean trying to flee the war, hunger, ethnic strife, unemployment in their own countries. These are the refugees….

– Most powerful in history –

But some leaders seem to be more concerned with projecting military might rather than manifesting compassion for the excluded and the marginalized. In his address to the 70th UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015, Obama left the world gobsmacked when he said: “I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”…

As if to make sure that nobody missed this point, the US guided missile destroyer USS Lassen reportedly sailed within 12 nautical miles of one of the China-built land formations in the Spratlys while the Asean defense chiefs were meeting in Kuala Lumpur, together with US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and his Chinese counterpart, Chang Wanquan.

– Putin in contrast –

Addressing the same UN General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin took a different path. He decried the aggressive foreign interference that has resulted in a flagrant destruction of institutions and peoples lifestyle itself. Violence, poverty and social disaster have marred the growth of democracy and progress; “nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life,” Putin said. In the Middle East and North Africa and elsewhere, anarchy areas have been created, which are now filled with extremists and terrorists, he added.

As though in anticipation of the Nov. 13 terrorist attack in Paris, which left over a hundred people dead and more than two hundred wounded, and prompted the Hollande government to declare a state of emergency, Putin proposed the creation of a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism. He promised that under Russia’s chairmanship, the UN Security Council would convene a ministerial meeting to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the threats in the Middle East and seek to coordinate all actions against the Islamic extremists.

He proposed to restore government institutions in Libya, support a new government in Iraq, and provide comprehensive assistance to the legitimate government in Syria. And he asked that the international community now live without dividing lines, build on transparent and jointly formulated rules, including WTO principles stipulating the freedom of trade and investment and open competition, harmonize regional economic projects to promote the integration of integrations.

Finally, he offered a vision of the Eurasian Economic Union interconnecting with Chinas new Silk Road Economic Belt project to create a new development paradigm for the 21st century.

– Xi Jinpings new Silk Road –

The unexplained crash of a Russian passenger plane which killed all 224 passengers at Egypts Sinai Peninsula on Oct. 31 has prevented Putin from coming to Manila. But Chinas President Xi Jinping will be here. He should be encouraged to talk about China’s vision for the world economy. Supported by Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa which, together with itself, constitute the relatively new economic bloc called BRICS, China has defined a 30-year vision to unite the worlds economies through high-speed railroads, roads and other fiber optic communications across the Eurasian land mass of Russia from western China to Europe, extending all the way north into the Scandinavian countries and South into Iran and the Arab countries. Its maritime component seeks to build efficient ports in strategic places to enhance the development of world trade.

The new bloc represents a power center based on economic growth, and above all, on leading-edge technology, including, for now, the exploration of the Moon to bring back to Earth large quantities of helium-3 for the future economy of thermonuclear fusion power.

This could lead to a scientific and technological revolution that would dramatically increase the energy-flux density in production processes on Earth, and in fuels for space travel, thereby hastening the evolution of the human species.

– Ambitious yes, but nothing to fear from –

Among the ambitious projects being lined up by China are a second Panama Canal through Nicaragua, a transcontinental rail connection between Brazil and Peru, the Kra Canal in Thailand, a bridge to connect Malaysia and Indonesia, a system of bridges across the Sunda Strait between Java Sea and the Indian Ocean, etc. These are not small projects, each one of them will require a massive mobilization of manpower, technology, engineering skills, and financial resources.

But anyone who remembers how America opened up its wild frontiers, brought in the railroad to transport people, beasts and goods across that great continent, built ports for its ships, and eventually airports and planes, to connect to the outside world will perhaps recognize in China’s new Silk Road a global expansion of what the hardy American pioneers first successfully put to work as a genuine achievement of man in the great United States.

The world should have nothing to fear from it.

by William Jones

The full 370 page EIR World Land-Bridge report, now in Chinese.

The Genesis of a New Paradigm

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in Beijing, September 2015.

This would be done with a system of high-speed rail lines that would help bring the land-locked and newly independent nations of Central Asia, and vast underpopulated and underdeveloped regions of Central Russia, into the mainstream of international commerce and trade, thereby creating a land corridor for trade and economic development between Europe and Asia. The LaRouches dubbed this “The Eurasian Land-Bridge.”

Discussions with representatives of the Chinese government in the early 1990s led to a conference in Beijing organized under the auspices of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology in 1996, Mrs. LaRouche explained. This conference with leading experts from China and 34 other Eurasian countries, included an address by Mrs. LaRouche devoted to the implementation of this project.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche speaking at a 1996 international symposium in China on the New Eurasian Landbridge.

The concept of the New Silk Road points in the direction of a new paradigm of mankind, Zepp-LaRouche told her audience, and away from the “geopolitics” which caused two world wars in the last century, to replace it with the idea of the common aims of mankind, which is reflected in Xi Jinping’s “win-win policy.” While the “One Belt, One Road” has become the going term for the Chinese project, Mrs. LaRouche underlined the importance of the Silk Road precedent. “We should keep the term the New Silk Road,” she said, “as it clearly expresses this cultural vision of cooperation manifested by the ancient Silk Road.”

She then went into the crisis in the Middle East and the massive flow of refugees into Europe from the war-torn areas created by U.S. policy under Bush and Obama. There is a very recent recognition by many European nations, that there must be a change in policy and the root causes of the refugee crisis must be adressed, she said. It is not enough to fight the Islamic extremists militarily; there must also be a real economic reconstruction of the entire region, which is now completely destroyed by war, to create a future for the young people now being attracted to violent jihad.

“We can extend the Silk Road to the Middle East,” she said, “creating centers of development. We can make the deserts bloom and create new cities. The New Silk Road can become a peace order for the Twenty-First Century,” she said. “If successful, it will create a new age of civilization, and if it fails, we will enter a new dark age.”

Reversing 40 Years of Disaster

EIR‘s Washington Bureau Chief Bill Jones then outlined the tremendous possibilities opened for the world, including the United States, with the implementation of the Silk Road project. He noted how Lyndon LaRouche, in 1975, proposed the creation of an International Development Bank for financing the development of the Third World, and how the Foreign Minister of Guyana Fred Wills, had, in collaboration with LaRouche, issued at the UN General Assembly in 1976 a call for a New World Economic Order and a debt moratorium for the developing nations.

“But there would be no new world economic order nor any debt moratorium,” Jones said. And the world then entered into a new phase of inflationary expansion of the world financial system which now encompasses over $2 quadrillion of accumulated—and unpayable—debt. “President Xi’s project of a land and maritime Silk Road Initiative offers now the possibility of reversing that dangerous trajectory,” Jones said.

EIR’s Bill Jones speaking in Beijing, September 2015.

Jones also noted that, while the U.S. Administration has been less than enthusiastic about the project, there was a growing understanding in the United States, particularly at the state and local levels, which are greatly suffering the effects of the financial crisis, as well as among industrial layers, that what China is doing—and is offering the world—represents a ray of hope in an otherwise disastrous economic situation.

The Appreciation by Experts

These two presentations were followed by comments from eight leading Chinese scholars, who had read the report. Their reaction to the report was absolutely electric. Professor Bao Shixiu, formerly a Professor of Military Strategy at the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, said that bringing together the countries of the region around the New Silk Road initiative in a process of regional development was the task of the day.

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

This is the text of a presentation by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to the 2015 Silk-Road International Academic Conference–How to Establish Silk-Road Studies as an Independent Discipline of Research–in Gyeongju, South Korea, the ancient capital of Korea, on Aug. 21. It was presented by Mike Billington on Helga’s behalf.

Presentation for Panel 7: Future Vision of the Silk Road

When we are talking about the New Silk Road as a vision for the future, we should see it as a synonym not only for a new just economic order, and emphatically as the basis for a peace order for the 21st century, based on completely different economic and scientific principles than the previous system of globalization, but also for a new paradigm concerning the identity of the human species as the only creative species known so far in the universe.

Concerning the first aspect, in respect to the new economic system, tremendous progress has been made with the recent BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization summits. In these meetings the integration of Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt Policy, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) transport system, were agreed upon, which will bring tremendous benefits to all peoples of Eurasia. Together with a new banking system, such as the AIIB, NDB, SCO Bank, SAARC Bank, New Silk Road Fund, Maritime Silk Road Fund, and CRA, all devoted to investments in the real economy and to fight off speculation, a completely new economic and financial order has gotten well underway, which in terms of human and natural resources and potential represent the locomotive of the future world economy.

Slide 1

Both President Putin, as well as President Xi Jinping, have emphasized, that while the BRICS are an organization of its own, they are open to collaboration with all other nations, including the United States, and European and Asian countries, President Xi Jinping has called this an all-inclusive win-win policy, in which all participating nations will enjoy mutual benefits. President Putin has reiterated that openness. The concept of the New Silk Road is therefore the most important strategic initiative, because it is the only available policy on the table to overcome the idea of geopolitics, which was the basis of the two World Wars in the 20th century. The prospect that nations, or a group of nations, would have legitimate geopolitical interests which would pit them against each other, must be replaced with the idea, that there is a higher level of reason, on which historical, ethnic, or other conflicts disappear. Mankind must be defined in this way for the first time in its history by the common aims of the human species.

This is not some vision for the far distant future, but it is the indispensable basis for an immediate intervention into the strategic situation today. Because there is the acute danger of a blowout of the transatlantic financial system, much more dangerous than the collapse of Lehman Brothers and AIG in September 2008, and directly related to that, the danger of the escalation of the confrontation between NATO and Russia and China into what could become a global thermonuclear war.

“Doomsday clock for global market crash strikes one minute to midnight as central banks lose control,” was one headline in the British {Daily Telegraph} on August 18th, being symptomatic of a general recognition among financial analysts that there are today all the markers of the situation before the crash in September 2008, but that the too-big-to-fail banks are an average of 40% larger today, their derivative exposure is around 80% bigger, and the so-called tool box of the central banks is empty, since the interest rates are already at about zero percent and quantitative easing has been going on for many years, without getting the real economy restarted.

It is that pending systemic collapse of the transatlantic financial system, which is the acute basis for the danger, that the West will indeed step into the much discussed Thucydides trap right now, resulting out of the same geopolitical reasons, described by the authors of the geopolical doctrine, Mackinder and Milner, before World War I. That same impulse governs very much those who wishfully call Russia only a regional power, which is ludicrous in light of Russia’s upgraded strategic nuclear capacities, or those who see in the rise of China something which must be contained.

The European Leadership Network, ELN, a thinktank consisting of former European and Russian defense ministers, just issued a stern warning, that the presently ongoing maneuvers of NATO and Russia are making a war in Europe more likely. Russia prepares for a war against NATO, and NATO prepares for a confrontation against Russia, the study writes. Such a war however, would not be limited to Europe, it lies in the nature of nuclear weapons, that once they are used, it will become a global thermonuclear war, which would in all likelihood lead to the annihilation of the human species.

In order to prevent that, it is urgent that the New Silk Road perpective be put even more energetically on the international agenda as a war avoidance policy.

The Schiller Institute presented last year a 370-Page scientific study with the title, {The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land Bridge}, which is the outline for an infrastructural integration of all continents, through a comprehensive system of fast train systems, highways, waterways, tunnels, and bridges as the arteries for deveopment corridors. This comprehensive plan for the reconstuction of the world economy would provide enormous advantages for each participating country, enabling every part of the planet to participate in a “win-win” perspective.

Slide 2

This will be the way to bring to the landlocked areas of the planet the same advantages which previously only characterized areas located at oceans or rivers. This infrastructure will not only be the precondition for the development of industry and agriculture, but especially for the increase of the productivity of the respective populations. As the opening up of previously undeveloped areas progresses, and the industrialization intensifies, the speed and connectivity of transport becomes more important, and therefore the advantages of fast train systems over land become more significant than the cheaper transport by ships. Rather than transporting crude raw materials over many weeks over the oceans, where nothing is happening with them, in industrial centers with a highly differentiated division of labor and complex subsequent processing, time is of the essence.

Slide 3

One big area of the planet, where a solution urgently must be found, is obviously Southwest Asia and large parts of northern and central Africa. These large regions have been almost totally destroyed through wars, which were motivated by lies, and where the so-called war on terrorism has generated more terrorists with each bomb, drone, or killing. If the entire region from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, from Afganistan to the Mediterranean, as well as the just mentioned parts of Africa, which literally have been bombed back to the Stone Age, should cease to be breeding grounds for ever more barbaric forms of terrorism, there must be a real development perspective.

Right now a refugee crisis is errupting from both Southwest Asia as well as Central and North Africa, of a dimension not seen since the end of World War II from Eastern into Western Europe. Then, 12 million people fled. Today according to UN figures, there are 60 million people on the march, most of them being harbored in poor, completely overstretched neighboring countries, with a very large portion trying to somehow get into Europe. There, many of the communities are already overstrained, and in the short term, social explosions and xenophobic backlashes are threatening the stability of the societies.

Especially in light of the recent revelations of the former U.S. DIA director, General Michael Flynn, concerning the emergence of ISIS, it is urgent that a root cause analysis concerning the refugee crisis be conducted. But then a profound cure for the problem has to be offered.

Already, in 2012, we presented, at a conference of the Schiller Institute in Frankfurt, a comprehensive plan for the development of this region as a whole. Only if all big neighbors, namely Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and hopefully some European nations, such as Germany, France, and Italy, and hopefully the United States, agree, together with the BRICS, to extend the New Silk Road development perspective into Southwest Asia and Africa, is there the possibility, that the vision of a better future will convince especially the young men, that it is better to study to become a scientist or engineer and raise a family, rather than joining ever new jihadist groups. The perspective of a higher level of reason, embedded in the concept ot the New Silk Road, the idea of peace thorugh development, is the only way that the deep and bitter hostilities between the different ethnic and religious groupings can be overcome.

Slide 4

What is needed is an integrated development program, including a war against the desert with the development of huge new water sources, infrastructure, industry, agriculture, new smart cities, and science and research centers. If all the countries which are presently threatened by the terrorism emanating from that region, would collaborate in this development, the danger could be overcome. Likewise, rather than upgrading the defenses with Frontex and gun boats against streams of hundreds of thousands and potentially millions of refugees, who are fleeing from war, hunger and disease, taking a 50% risk of death by trying to cross the Mediterenean, would it not make more sense to develop these regions, since people rather like to stay in their home countries, than go into a horribly uncertain future? We have to make up our minds, where that part of the world should be in 50 or a 100 years from now; in a miserable dark age at best, or in modern times with a decent living for everybody.

Slide 5

Due to climate change, caused primarily by solar and gallactic influences on planet Earth, the belt of deserts, ranging from the Atlantic cost of Africa all the way through the Sahara and Sahel, the Arabian peninsula, the Near and Middle East to China, is expanding presently in a similiar fashion as the desert in the Southwest of the United States, and parts of Central and South America. The obvious answer to this problem is the creation of large amounts of fresh water trough a variety of methods, such as desalination of large amounts of ocean water through nuclear energy, continental water diversification and management projects, weather modification, and ionization of atmospheric moisture.

In several countries, atmospheric ionization systems have been successfully used to increase precipitation, and in this way affect the associated weather processes. Successful application of this method, which imitates processes occurring naturally in our solar system and galaxy, has been tested over three decades. With international cooperation concerning the further development of these technologies, the desertification of the mentioned regions of the world could be fought back in a completely new way: by the management of the water resources of the atmosphere!

Slide 6

Joint space research and travel is one of the foremost areas which constitute the future common aims of mankind. It will lead to revolutionary and necessary insights into our Solar System and galaxy. It is existential in order to protect mankind from dangers from space, such as asteroids, meteoroids, and comets, and it will be absolutely essential to define practically limitless new resources, such as for example the mining of Helium 3 on the moon as a fuel for a future fusion economy on Earth. If one considers the enormous progress mankind has made scientifically and technologically, it is obvious that space science is presently still in its very first baby shoes.

At the recent BRICS Youth Summit meeting of youth ministers in Kazan, Russia, on July 8-9, the participants signed a memorandum of understanding, which urged the BRICS member-nations to set up a joint space station, as well as to commit to the creation of a system of research institutions, the development of technology parks, and the organization of exhibitions on research-related subjects, according to a news item issued on the Russian BRICS website. The MOU document said: Working together on a space station for exploring outer space and carrying out manned programs could become a symbol of the new world order based on BRICS values.

While the concept of the New Silk Road becoming the World Land Bridge completes the era of the infrastructural development of the planet Earth, the extension of the New Silk Road into space represents the comprehension of our planet as part of our galaxy and will enable us to understand the galactic processes of which we are a part.

Slide 7

The beauty of our world is, that it has many rich cultures, which have contributed to the universal history of the human species. The ancient Silk Road did not only lead to an exchange of goods, such as silk, porcelain, glass, and spices, but it made possible the exchange of the most advanced technologies of that time, leading to the improvement of the living standard of all participating countries. With that came an exchange of cultures, philosophies, and new ideas, bringing human civilization forward.

The New Silk Road will make it possible that each culture of the planet can contribute its best and most noble expression in the areas of classical music, poetry, the visual arts, philosophy, and science. There will be an exchange of the high phases of each culture and civilization, young and old people will study the Greek classical period, Confucianism, the Gupta period, the Abbasid era, the Andalusian renaisance, the Joseon [or Chosun] period, the golden Italian renaissance, the German classics, to only name a few. By learning to know the best of each other’s culture, a deep understanding and even a love of the other cultures will develop, and in this way prejudices, chauvinism, and backwardness will be replaced by the spirit of a new renaissance, which will build on the knowledge of the old cultures, but will enlarge and enrich that wealth to the creation of new works of art in all fields.

The New Silk Road will open up a completely new paradigm for mankind, one in which that quality which differentiates human beings from all other species, its creative power of reason, will become the normal outlook. What was characteristic in past history only for exceptional individuals, the great discoverers, scientists, composers, and poets, will become the more natural condition for more and more people, especially when each child will have access to a universal education that emphasizes these treasures. This new renaissance will be the demonstration of the theory of the Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky, that in the evolution of the universe, the noösphere will increasingly influence and dominate the biosphere. The human species will develop its identity as the truly creative species.

So, we as humanity have reached the most important crossroads of our entire history. Either we can consciously organize our affairs based on the new paradigm which the New Silk Road represents, and deliberately create a new era in human history, or we may have the same fate as the dinosaurs. I would hope very much, that this conference and the New Silk Road study center will send a powerful message to the world to this effect.

Thank you very much.