Senator Richard Black’s address to the June 18-19 Schiller Institute conference.
I fully support the joint statement (see below) issued in response to the July 14 posting by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation accusing 72 prominent individuals from around the world as supposed promoters of “Russian Propaganda.” The head of the center, at the time the list was released, described these individuals, as well as all those calling for a negotiated solution to the crisis, as “information terrorists” who should be treated as “war criminals”. This is not only a direct security threat to those named individuals, but it also is a threat to free speech and civilized discourse everywhere in the world among those seeking solutions to the world’s crises that do not coincide with the dominant “narratives.”
For that reason, I call on the legislature and other elected representatives of the people in my country to open an investigation of these threats, and of those that are behind them.
Please sign here
Thirty-One Prominent Individuals Denounce Being Targeted as Putin Agents by Ukraine-U.S.-NATO
The following is a joint statement by the initial signers, listed below, in response to the July 14 posting by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation accusing 72 prominent individuals from around the world as promoters of “Russian Propaganda.”
Response to the Ukrainian black-listing
We, the participants in various conferences of the Schiller Institute, and other individuals named in the Ukrainian list, are accused of promoting “Russian propaganda” on a list posted by the “Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation,” which is officially part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, operating under the authority of the President.
In times of war, publishing such a list is tantamount to targeting individuals. It is all the more unacceptable that the list agglomerates the names of many speakers, representing top institutions from around the globe, with diverse opinions, who are involved in a dialogue, searching to arrive at peace in the interest of all.
To assume that such a wide array of speakers are all “Putin agents” and can’t think for themselves, can only be explained by a belief in conspiracy theories, or as mere vulgar propaganda, or both. The key question is whether the listed speakers are promoting viewpoints consonant with the truth.
Normally, this would be up to an audience to decide. But the U.S./NATO efforts to blacklist those that would offer any “alternative narrative” on Ukraine, until now, remains unchallenged.
So, hats off to Ukraine for providing a handy list of speakers who voice different ideas.
Those interested in finding out the truth will now be better able to compare the official story—the “narrative”—with an uncompromised critique, determine which can bear close scrutiny, and decide for themselves which analysis is closer to the truth.
Signers:
1) Ray McGovern: (U.S.), Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA-ret.), founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
2) Kirk Wiebe: (U.S.), Member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), and a former senior analyst with the National Security Agency. He’s also a partner in the prevention of crimes of the intelligence community with Bill Binney.
3) Sam Pitroda: (U.S./India), Innovator, entrepreneur and policy-maker, former advisor to Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
4) Col. Richard H. Black (ret.): (U.S.), Former Marine, former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator
5) Dr. Clifford Kiracofe: (U.S.), Former Senior Staff Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and President, Washington Institute for Peace and Development
6) Geoff Young: (U.S.), Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Congress from Kentucky, CD 6
7) Diane Sare: (U.S.), LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senator from New York
8) David T. Pyne: (U.S.), Deputy Director of National Operations for the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security
9) Alessia Ruggeri: (Italy), Spokeswoman of the Comitato per la Repubblica, trade unionist
10) Lt-Gen Leonardo Tricarico (ret.): (Italy), former Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force
11) Dr. jur. Wolfgang Bittner: (Germany), Author
12) Jan Øberg, PhD: (Sweden), Co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, art photographer, peace and future researcher.
13) Jens Jørgen Nielsen: (Denmark), former Moscow correspondent for the Danish daily newspaper Politiken, author of several books about Russia and Ukraine, a leader of the Russian-Danish Dialogue organization, Associate professor of communication and cultural differences at the Niels Brock Business College in Denmark.
14) Prof. Li Xing, PhD: (Denmark), Professor of Development and International Relations in the Department of Politics and Society, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and researcher at the Research Center on Development and International Relations, at Aalborg University in Denmark.
15) Ulf Sandmark: (Sweden), Chairman of the Schiller Institute in Sweden
16) Jacques Cheminade: (France), President, Solidarité & Progrès, political party in France
17) Dr. George Koo: (U.S.), Retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China Trade and Chairman, Burlingame Foundation
18) Helga Zepp-LaRouche: (Germany), Founder, Schiller Institute
19) Jason Ross: (U.S.), Secretary-Treasurer, The LaRouche Organization and Science Adviser to Lyndon LaRouche)
20) Harley Schlanger: (U.S.) former spokesman for Lyndon H. LaRouche, spokesman for the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Organization
21) Earl Rasmussen: (U.S.) Executive Vice President, Eurasia Center
22) James Jatras: (U.S.), former diplomat, former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadership
23) Pedro Rubio: (Colombia), President, Association of Officials of the General Accounting Office of the Republic
24) Graham Fuller: (U.S.) former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, CIA, 25-year CIA operations officer, author of numerous books
25) Nebojsa Malic: (U.S.) Serbian-American, wrote for Antiwar.com for 15 years, and for RT America until it was closed down in March 2022
26) J. Michael Springmann (US), served in the United States government as a diplomat with the State Department’s Foreign Service, with postings in Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He left federal service and currently practices law in the Washington, DC, area.
27) Mike Robinson (UK), co-editor of “UK Column”
28) Mike Callicrate (US), Kansas; Owner Ranch Foods Direct
29) Tony Magliano (US), internationally Syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist
30) Daniel Estulin (Russia) Author and investigative journalist
31) Jeremy Kuzmarov (U.S.), Journalist and Author of Four Books on U.S. Foreign Policy
32) Dragana Trifković (Serbia), general director of the Center for Strategic Studies
33) Carlos Gallardo Neyra (Peru), President, Christian Democratic Party of Peru
34) Adrián Flores Konja (Peru), Former Dean of the Department of Administrative and Accounting Sciences, and Director of the Post-Graduate Program, National University of San Marcos, Peru
35) Caleb Maupin (U.S.), journalist, founder and director of the Center for Political Innovation
Please sign here
Aug. 3, 2022 (EIRNS)–Leading representatives of industrial, port and rail interests in the northeastern state of Maranhão turned out in force for a three-day seminar July 11-13, sponsored by the state government, on the subject of “Maranhão’s Potential in China’s New Silk Road: Business and Development Opportunities for Brazil.” The central subject was the proposal to transform the Itaqui port complex at the state capital, São Luis, which already handles major grain and metals exports from Maranhão and several surrounding states, into a logistics, distribution and manufacturing center on the Belt and Road. The featured speaker was Paul Tae-Woo Lee, a professor of International Logistics and Maritime Transport at Zhejiang University, who came from China specifically for the seminar. Lee was one of the authors of the 2022 study, “Strategic Locations for Logistics Distribution Centers along the Belt and Road,” which includes the Maranhão port in the potential sites it takes up, and he briefed the seminar at length on the global scope and current status of the BRI.
The key organizer of seminar was the state of Maranhão’s Secretary for Economic Development and Strategic Projects, José Reinaldo Tavares, a civil engineer known for getting things done. He has played a key role for decades in great infrastructure projects aimed at developing Brazil’s poor but resource-rich northeast. He headed SUDENE, the big northeast Brazilian development agency created in 1959 on the model of the TVA; is described as the “author” of the São Francisco Water Transfer project (also modeled on the TVA); and as (federal) Transport Minister under President Sarney, was responsible for the creation of the North-South Railway.
“The Maranhão capital possesses extraordinary conditions for joining [the BRI] because of its road, rail connections and exceptional port conditions. The connection with the North-South Railway, Brazil’s leading cargo transport axis, linking the railroads of the country’s five regions, is an example. In the region called the ‘Northern arc,’ that is, above the 16th parallel, no state has similar transport logistics conditions,” local media emphasized. “Including São Luís in the greatest economic expansion program in the world, that of China, will guarantee tremendous resources for infrastructure, commodity distribution centers, and privileged access to the other countries which make up the project.”
The president of Itaqui Port, Ted Lago, emphasized to the seminar that while the port is already a leading point of cargo shipments to China, by Maranhão becoming a major center on the BRI, South America as a whole can be brought into that global project. He also insisted that Brazil wants its trade relations with China to be more than its shipping commodities; it wants Chinese industries to set up in Maranhão, to add value and generate jobs.
Aug. 1, 2022 (EIRNS)—A former New Zealand Minister, Matthew Robson, who was placed on the Ukraine/NATO hit list has responded with a powerful blast at the attack and a call for the New Zealand government to investigate. Robson is the former New Zealand Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control and Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs.
His full statement reads:
I have been placed on a blacklist by the Ukrainian government, in the company of many prominent scholars and well-known public figures.
I am quite flattered to be in the company of such an eminent list of people with widely varying opinions on the nature of the war in the Ukraine.
But all of them are engaged in the time-honored tradition of scholars and democratic societies of honest and open debate rather than the “group think” demanded by NATO governments.
The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, Section 14, provides the following guarantee:
Freedom of expression: Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which New Zealand and, I presume, the Ukraine are signatories guarantees the same. I am writing to the Prime Minister of New Zealand to ask her to take up with the government of the Ukraine this breach of my right, under both New Zealand and international law, to freely express my opinions, and my being on a list that endangers my safety.
Aug. 1 (EIRNS)—As the organizer and host of the July 26-27 conference in Tashkent, entitled “Afghanistan: Security and Economic Development,” the government of Uzbekistan issued a summary report on some of the major points of discussion which took place there, with an important focus on priority infrastructure projects to enhance regional connectivity.
Published July 27 by The Diplomat, the report emphasizes participants’ understanding that lasting peace will only be achieved through stabilization and recovery of Afghanistan’s economy. It is therefore necessary, it states, “to promote the integration of Afghanistan into interregional economic processes, to promote the implementation of socially significant and infrastructure projects, including the formation of transregional transport, energy and other corridors.”
Among the projects were those put forward by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to advance the construction of the trans-Afghanistan railroad as a means of connecting South Asia via Afghanistan. Other projects include laying the (Uzbekistan to Afghanistan) Surkhan-Pul-i-Khumri power transmission line, the creation of the Termez, Uzbekistan, cargo transport and logistics hub, as well as the transformation of the training center in Termez into an educational cluster for training Afghan personnel.
According to The Diplomat, Uzbekistan is the major promoter of the 573 km Trans-Afghan railroad. First proposed in December 2018, it would extend the Afghan rail network from Mazar-e-Sharif—a regional hub in northern Afghanistan, close to both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan—to Kabul and then to Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, where the railway would cross the border with Pakistan at Torkham and run into Pakistan via Peshawar. Goods will then be offloaded to connect with the Pakistan rail system and from there travel down to the seaports of Karachi, Gwadar, and Qasim.
The railroad would have an estimated capacity of 20 million tons of cargo per annum, and once operational, would cut down travel time from 35 days to 3-5 days from Uzbekistan to Pakistan, The Diplomat reports. There are many challenges to be overcome in building the project, including very difficult geography, security issues, different rail gauges, and not least of which is the $4.8 billion in financing.
Another important project is the Central Asia-South Asia Electricity Transmission and Trade Project (CASA-1000), a $1.2 billion project that would bring 1,300 MW of seasonal power from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because of their hydroelectric power capacity, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have excess electricity to sell. Although the project was put on hold when the Taliban took power, construction has now been resumed with an estimated completion date of 2024. It is financed by a consortium of international financial organizations.
Aug. 1 (EIRNS)—Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi continued on his Central Asian diplomatic tour, which brought him to high level meetings in Uzbekistan July 28-29, including the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting, and then to Kyrgyzstan on July 30, and Tajikistan July 31-Aug. 1, all focused on the growth of both the nations, and Central Asia as a whole.
In Kyrgyzstan, Wang met with Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev in the town of Cholpon-Ata. The Chinese Foreign Ministry readout reported that Wang said “the Chinese side has felt the great importance and ardent expectations by Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan [CKU] railway project, and will jointly advance this important project at a faster pace…. The Chinese side is ready to import more green and quality livestock products from Kyrgyzstan.” Wang said that China and Kyrgyzstan are ready to increase the frequency of direct flights. Kulubaev said he looks forward to accelerating the CKU railway and welcomed Chinese experts’ arrival in Kyrgyzstan to “carry out the survey work.” His country is “ready to work with China to speed up the implementation of key projects such as the new North-South Highway” and the renovation of the municipal roads of Bishkek, the nation’s capital.
Kulubaev attached special importance to China’s pledge to construct in his nation the Luban Workshop, a program China has developed in several nations, in which Chinese engineers and professionals educate host country’s students and labor force in such subjects as industrial robots, cloud computing, high-speed train maintenance, and vocational training.
On July 31, Wang set foot in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he met with President Emomali Rahmon, who noted on his website that China is one of the major trading partners of Tajikistan and its largest investor. Bilateral trade between Tajikistan and China during the first six months of 2022 increased by 82%, compared to the same period last year, and accounted for one-fifth of Tajikistan’s foreign trade.
Some of the groundwork for this trip was worked out at the third China + Central Asia Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan on June 12. The C-5 include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; at the ministerial, Wang outlined a 10-point program, stemming from the Belt and Road, for the region’s development. It is significant that for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia helped to found in 2014, both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are full-time members, and Uzbekistan is an observer.
It is not accidental that both the China and Russian headed organizations seek the agricultural and industrial development of landlocked Central Asia, including Afghanistan, over the Anglo-American looting eyes.
Aug. 1 (EIRNS)—This morning, the Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni, carrying 26,000 tons of corn (maize), left the Ukrainian port of Odessa destined for Tripoli, Lebanon. It is the first ship to leave Odessa under the auspices of the UN/Turkey-brokered deal signed with Ukraine and with Russia on July 22 by which Ukrainian grains will be shipped to world markets. Turkey’s Defense Ministry announced today’s departure, reporting that the Razoni will arrive in Istanbul on Aug. 2 where it will be inspected before passing through the Bosphorus Strait and heading for its destination. It was escorted out of Odessa by Ukrainian ships.
TASS reports that the joint grain export coordination center, based in Istanbul, will use satellites to monitor the passage of ships. According to the Associated Press, there are 16 more dry cargo ships in Odessa in line to ship out under the program. Today’s departure was welcomed by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who said he hoped this would be first of many Ukrainian ships to leave the port carrying urgently needed grains to “bring much-needed stability and relief to global food security especially in the most fragile humanitarian contexts.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed this “very positive” development. “Let’s hope that all the agreements will be implemented from all sides and that the mechanism will work effectively,” TASS reported him as saying.
The following is a joint statement by the initial signers, listed below, in response to the July 14 posting by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation accusing 79 prominent individuals from around the world as promoters of “Russian Propaganda.”
Response to the Ukrainian black-listing
We, the participants in various conferences of the Schiller Institute, and other individuals named in the Ukrainian list, are accused of promoting “Russian propaganda” on a list posted by the “Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation,” which is officially part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, operating under the authority of the President.
In times of war, publishing such a list is tantamount to targeting individuals. It is all the more unacceptable that the list agglomerates the names of many speakers, representing top institutions from around the globe, with diverse opinions, who are involved in a dialogue, searching to arrive at peace in the interest of all.
To assume that such a wide array of speakers are all “Putin agents” and can’t think for themselves, can only be explained by a belief in conspiracy theories, or as mere vulgar propaganda, or both. The key question is whether the listed speakers are promoting viewpoints consonant with the truth.
Normally, this would be up to an audience to decide. But the U.S./NATO efforts to blacklist those that would offer any “alternative narrative” on Ukraine, until now, remains unchallenged.
So, hats off to Ukraine for providing a handy list of speakers who voice different ideas.
Those interested in finding out the truth will now be better able to compare the official story—the “narrative”—with an uncompromised critique, determine which can bear close scrutiny, and decide for themselves which analysis is closer to the truth.
Signers:
1) Ray McGovern: (U.S.), Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA-ret.), founding member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
2) Kirk Wiebe: (U.S.), Member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), and a former senior analyst with the National Security Agency. He’s also a partner in the prevention of crimes of the intelligence community with Bill Binney.
3) Sam Pitroda: (U.S./India), Innovator, entrepreneur and policy-maker, former advisor to Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
4) Col. Richard H. Black (ret.): (U.S.), Former Marine, former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator
5) Dr. Clifford Kiracofe: (U.S.), Former Senior Staff Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and President, Washington Institute for Peace and Development
6) Geoff Young: (U.S.), Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Congress from Kentucky, CD 6
7) Diane Sare: (U.S.), LaRouche independent candidate for U.S. Senator from New York
8) David T. Pyne: (U.S.), Deputy Director of National Operations for the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security
9) Alessia Ruggeri: (Italy), Spokeswoman of the Comitato per la Repubblica, trade unionist
10) Lt-Gen Leonardo Tricarico (ret.): (Italy), former Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force
11) Dr. jur. Wolfgang Bittner: (Germany), Author
12) Jan Øberg, PhD: (Sweden), Co-founder and director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, art photographer, peace and future researcher.
13) Jens Jørgen Nielsen: (Denmark), former Moscow correspondent for the Danish daily newspaper Politiken, author of several books about Russia and Ukraine, a leader of the Russian-Danish Dialogue organization, Associate professor of communication and cultural differences at the Niels Brock Business College in Denmark.
14) Prof. Li Xing, PhD: (Denmark), Professor of Development and International Relations in the Department of Politics and Society, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and researcher at the Research Center on Development and International Relations, at Aalborg University in Denmark.
15) Ulf Sandmark: (Sweden), Chairman of the Schiller Institute in Sweden
16) Jacques Cheminade: (France), President, Solidarité & Progrès, political party in France
17) Dr. George Koo: (U.S.), Retired business consultant specializing in U.S.-China Trade and Chairman, Burlingame Foundation
18) Helga Zepp-LaRouche: (Germany), Founder, Schiller Institute
19) Jason Ross: (U.S.), Secretary-Treasurer, The LaRouche Organization and Science Adviser to Lyndon LaRouche)
20) Harley Schlanger: (U.S.) former spokesman for Lyndon H. LaRouche, spokesman for the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Organization
21) Earl Rasmussen: (U.S.) International Consultant
22) James Jatras: (U.S.), former diplomat, former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadership
23) Pedro Rubio: (Colombia), President, Association of Officials of the General Accounting Office of the Republic
24) Graham Fuller: (U.S.) former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, CIA, 25-year CIA operations officer, author of numerous books
25) Nebojsa Malic: (U.S.) Serbian-American, wrote for Antiwar.com for 15 years, and for RT America until it was closed down in March 2022
26) J. Michael Springmann (US), served in the United States government as a diplomat with the State Department’s Foreign Service, with postings in Germany, India, and Saudi Arabia. He left federal service and currently practices law in the Washington, DC, area.
27) Mike Robinson (UK), co-editor of “UK Column”
28) Mike Callicrate (US), Kansas; Colorado, Bd of Directors of Organization for Competitive Markets, Owner Ranch Foods Direct
29) Tony Magliano (US), internationally Syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist
30) Daniel Estulin (Russia) Author and investigative journalist
31) Jeremy Kuzmarov (U.S.), Journalist and Author of Four Books on U.S. Foreign Policy
32) Dragana Trifković (Serbia), general director of the Center for Strategic Studies
Mike Billington: This is Mike Billington with the Schiller Institute and the Executive Intelligence Review. I’m here today with Ambassador Chas Freeman, an esteemed diplomat and one of the most knowledgeable people regarding Chinese issues in the nation. Do you wish to say anything else about your position?
Amb. Chas Freeman: I’m a retired diplomat and defense official with views that differ from those of the establishment.
Mike Billington: Indeed. Thanks. Well, the great mystery now, as everybody knows, is will she or will she not? Will Nancy Pelosi, who is now in Asia, stop in Taiwan? The itinerary she put out actually does not list Taiwan, but it’s still expected, nonetheless, that she will stop there. As you know, Xi Jinping told Biden in their phone call on Thursday, “Those who play with fire shall perish by it.” And the former Global Times editor Hu Xijin said that if she goes to Taiwan, it would be considered an invasion and that the PLA had the right to confront them or even shoot them down. And yet the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said that the military would protect her if she flies in. What do you expect if she does go?
Amb. Chas Freeman: I think she will go, And I think that has now been confirmed by officials in Taiwan as well as in Washington. The expected date is August 4th, probably flying in from Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. This is an act of extreme irresponsibility on the Speaker’s part. US-China normalization is linked to American respect for One China, a position that Taipei and Beijing traditionally held, from which Taipei has now departed, with enthusiastic support from much of the American political establishment.
I don’t think Hu Xijin speaks for the Chinese government. I don’t think the Chinese government is eager to provoke the United States, as the United States seems eager to provoke China. But any consequence from this will most likely fall on Taiwan. The speakers visit, in other words, instead of enhancing Taiwan’s security, is likely damaging it, threatening it, and leading to an escalation in tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Exactly what the Chinese will do, no one knows. They have many, many options, political, economic and military. It’s clear that the speaker put herself in a position where she could not not go. She equally put Taiwan in a position where it could not not welcome her. And she put the Chinese government in a position where it could not not do something escalatory. The sad reality is that the White House and the military in Washington both see this trip as damaging rather than helpful. But the White House has not had the courage to block Mrs. Pelosi’s travel. So we will see what happens, probably on Thursday.
Mike Billington: This has been true on other issues with President Biden as well. In several calls between President Biden and President Xi Jinping, Biden has assured the Chinese President that the US honors the One China policy, and it will not encourage Taiwan to declare independence. And yet his administration continues to do the opposite. And Chinese leaders have to repeatedly say that if the US followed what Biden said in the phone calls, things would be okay. Who is running policy in the US?
Amb. Chas Freeman: It’s very clear that the President is not speaking forthrightly on this issue. Just as in Israel, where he visited recently, he extolled the virtues of the two state solution, which is now physically impossible due to Israeli actions backed by the United States. In the case of Taiwan, the United States once had a diplomatic agreement with the Chinese on how to handle the issue, but this has been salami sliced away. Now we are left with no way of dealing with the issue other than the military, which is why the US military is preparing to protect the speaker. After all, she is the third in line for the presidency and a very important figure in the Congress, which is supposed to be the dominant branch of government under the American Constitution. The military obviously have a requirement to protect her, even if she does something terminally foolish as she is now doing.
Mike Billington: The Taiwan division at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which I would say is probably the leading government linked think tank for the Chinese, had a meeting in which they said, “Don’t say we didn’t tell you,” and noted that this was what was said before the 1962 border war with India and also before the 1979 incursion into Vietnam, and perhaps they said that before their entry into the Korean War. I’m not sure of that. But can the US ignore the warning this time?
Amb. Chas Freeman: They did say that before the entry into the Korean War. It does not imply immediate action on their part, but it does suggest that we have come to a turning point on this issue, in which the probability of military conflict has been boosted. And Speaker Pelosi will have to take the responsibility for that.
Mike Billington: I think you probably agree the US provoked Russia to the point that they moved into eastern Ukraine. You said in your last interview with us that if Russia moved — this was before February — into Ukraine to defend their compatriots in the Donbas, that China might use that as an opportunity to forcefully reunify China. What level of provocation do you think would drive them to move in militarily now?
Amb. Chas Freeman: I think the issue of Ukraine and the issue of Taiwan do have something in common in that the primary lesson we should take from what has happened in Ukraine is that if you defy the forcefully expressed objections of a great power to your actions, you do so at your peril, and the peril of those who you purport to protect. Russia was provoked into what it did in Ukraine, which does not justify what it did in Ukraine. It was unjustified, but provoked. A similar possibility exists in the case of Taiwan. The Chinese, however, will not be as impetuous as Vladimir Putin was. He sent his troops over the border without having first briefed his generals on his intentions, without preparing the logistical support for the invasion that he mounted, and without addressing the morale of the troops by explaining to them what they were being sent in to do. So that was impetuous, probably a last minute decision after the effort by the Russians to negotiate an understanding on NATO’s enlargement and Ukraine, but failed and was rebuffed by the United States. In the case of Taiwan, the Chinese have had decades, since 1995,1996, when they first began to prepare seriously for military conflict with Taiwan, after the United States breached our agreement with them and allowed the then president in Taipei, Lee Teng-hui, to visit the United States. That was also a congressional initiative opposed by the then Clinton administration, the executive branch. This, too, is a congressional initiative, or at least one by the Speaker. So the danger is that the Chinese will redouble their efforts and make a firm decision to use force against Taiwan. Not that they will use force immediately. They will not do so until they are confident they are ready and can win. Whether the United States stands in their way or not, they assume we will. So that is their planning guidance. This is not a story that began yesterday and it will not end tomorrow.
Mike Billington: You’ve pointed to the 2005 Chinese anti-secession law as defining when Beijing would consider using force to reunify China. One of those conditions is that: “all possibilities of peaceful unification are lost.” Have those conditions been met in your mind?
Amb. Chas Freeman: That’s a judgment for the Chinese to make. Many in Beijing, I think, believe that those conditions have now been met, and that is what makes this moment so very dangerous.
Mike Billington: Clearly Taiwan would be absolutely destroyed in any war between the US and China, regardless of who won, if there was such a thing as winning. Is this not enough to prevent such a disaster, from within Taiwan, not wanting to see that kind of destruction as we see now in Ukraine?
Amb. Chas Freeman: One of the problems that Beijing faces is that having cried wolf so often, having warned Taiwan, so often, its warnings are now heavily discounted. Many people in Taiwan simply refuse to imagine that there could be a resumption of the Chinese civil war. It wasn’t so long ago, however, that there were active air battles in the Taiwan Strait and artillery exchanges between the forces of the mainland and Taiwan. It ended only on January 1, 1979, when the United States and China normalized relations. So the Chinese have a problem — if they don’t do something escalatory, the value of their political military pressure on Taiwan will be diminished. They don’t have much choice, in my view.
Mike Billington: The trade between Taiwan and the mainland is huge. I think it’s almost $200 billion, and there are huge Taiwan investments within the mainland. What voice does the business community have? Certainly they would want to prevent any kind of a provoked military confrontation.
Amb. Chas Freeman: There are almost 3 million Taiwanese living and working on the mainland at any given time, so this is a relationship that is in many ways very intimate, a relationship among Chinese on both sides of the strait. There are many people in Taiwan who do business with the mainland and who have no desire to see that disturbed by the outbreak of conflict. But there are also people in Taiwan who are passionately committed to the idea of self-determination for the island, it’s separation from China, and they happen to be in power. The Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, has an independence plank. Its leader, historically, although she’s very cautious now, was openly committed to independence. The fact that that is the case is what has essentially ended political dialogue across the strait and replaced a gradual process of accommodation with a rise in tensions.
Mike Billington: You recently quoted John Quincy Adams, who said that the American hearts would be any place where the standard of freedom and independence is brought up, but that she “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” It is certainly the case that the anti-China mob in both parties and in the media here are trying to make China out to be a monster. Is China a monster?
Amb. Chas Freeman: I don’t think China is a monster in any respect. It’s been around for 4000 or 5000 years, is really the only example of a pre-modern society that has successfully perpetuated its existence over millennia. On the other hand, China has conditions that are radically different from those that we in the United States understand. It has 14 land borders, sea borders with Japan and South Korea, and with Taiwan, defeated in the unfinished civil war. And, of course, the U.S. Seventh Fleet is off the Chinese shores. The United States is now conducting at least 2 to 3 intrusive patrols along China’s borders daily, which accounts for the fact that the Chinese are reacting in dangerous ways more frequently, in my view. But China also faces other challenges. It has about one third of the arable land of the United States, much less water than we do. It has over four times the population, which it must feed on those meager resources. It’s actually the largest producer of food in the world. Notwithstanding that, it’s very efficient. But it’s always on the edge.
Chinese history is full of instances of mass death through starvation, political upheaval or foreign invasion. So the Chinese attitude toward their government is, they want a can-do government. They want a strong government that will take responsibility for maintaining order and ensuring the well-being of their families. In the United States, we have a margin of error that’s so large, we want a government that does nothing, or as little as possible. “That government is best, which governs least,” said Thomas Jefferson. No Chinese would ever say such a thing. So there is a clash of ideology, of political theory, political culture, which is built into this relationship. I think it is understood in China that the United States has been uniquely blessed with resources, space, separation from the rest of the world by oceans, benign neighbors, only two of them with land borders. And the Chinese are well aware that they share none of these blessings. That causes a lot of misunderstanding between the two countries, and it causes some Americans to see China as anathema.
Mike Billington: The US imposed massive sanctions on Russia, even though they have turned out to be far more damaging to the West really than on Russia. But they have also apparently blinked recently. They did agree to a grain deal between Russia and Ukraine on exporting grain, which began today. They reversed the sanctions on shipments to Kaliningrad. Europe is very divided over the gas policies. And Blinken did place a call to Sergei Lavrov on Friday. Most of the world has not supported the sanctions policy. Do you think the US can be brought to relent and to end the sanctions regime in Russia and elsewhere, and to negotiate with Russia and China?
Amb. Chas Freeman: Judging by other examples, the answer is no. There’s been no give on maximum pressure on North Korea or on Iran, for example. The sanctions have an almost unbroken record of failure to achieve the political results they ostensibly aim at, namely a change in policy. In this case, a change in Russian policy. But they do have a history of enormous collateral damage. At the moment, the sanctions that the West imposed without, I think, adequately considering the collateral damage they might cause, the knock-on effect, is radically restructuring the global energy market in ways that were not intended. It is radically restructuring the global food market in ways that were not intended.
I would make one correction to your question, Mike. The grain deal was brokered by the UN with the help of Turkey. The United States and others were not involved. Russia agreed to it. In fact, Russia had consistently offered a path through the alleged blockade of Ukrainian ports for food shipments. The problem with the food shipments actually began not with the blockade, but with the Ukrainians prudently mining their own harbors to prevent the Russians from entering them. The minute they did that, insurance companies canceled the insurance on ships that were in the harbor or attempting to enter it or leave it, and the trade shut down. So regardless of whether there is or is not, or has or has not, been the alleged Russian blockade, the first thing that has to happen is some measure of demining. I gather that has taken place sufficiently in at least one port to allow a ship to depart. Whether that ship will ever return or not for more grain is, however, an open question. This is a war zone. The ships that were stuck there have no desire to return and get stuck again. There’s no assurance that they wouldn’t be, and it’s inherently dangerous, no matter how good a pilot is, to traverse a minefield. So this is a very tenuous agreement not reached by the West with Russia, but by the UN on behalf of the Global South, brokered by Turkey and agreed to by Ukraine reluctantly.
Mike Billington: Let me ask you about the move for what is proudly called “decoupling” of the US and Chinese economy. What do you think of this, and what will be the effects?
Amb. Chas Freeman: The United States and China both have benefited enormously from globalization, meaning the proliferation of supply chains across international borders. The net result of the decoupling will probably be to slow the growth of both the Chinese and the American economy. Part of the decoupling is a ban on Chinese researchers in labs or at universities working on subjects which the powers-that-be in Washington consider sensitive. That is definitely going to retard progress on key technologies in the United States. If you go into an artificial intelligence, or A.I., lab anywhere in the United States, you’ll find that something like 60% of the workforce there is foreign, about half of them Chinese, the other half largely Indian. The banning of those Chinese researchers just sends them back to China, where the government is investing approximately three times as much as the United States in developing advanced electronic technologies. The only competitors that the Chinese have are Taiwan, of course, which has over 90% of the world’s chip market, and South Korea, which is investing something like six or seven times what the United States is in boosting its semiconductor industry. So the decoupling is basically injurious to everyone, unlikely to do anything other than produce greater competition internationally for the United States, and will probably retard, rather than secure, our international technological primacy.
Mike Billington: The hyperinflationary crisis in the Western financial system, which has been aggravated by the sanctions regime on Russia but was already beginning before that, has really forced almost everybody to recognize that we’re heading into an extremely serious economic crisis throughout the trans-Atlantic. Helga Zepp-LaRouche has issued a call, as we have for decades actually, but at this moment of crisis, for a new Bretton Woods conference, which would include Russia and China, as well as the U.S., to deal with what should be obvious to everyone as a very, very serious crisis in the Western financial system. Do you have any hope or expectation that such a thing could be brought about?
Amb. Chas Freeman: No, I do not. The political conditions for that do not exist. There’s no indication at all that the current administration in Washington understands or practices diplomacy in its traditional sense. We’ve seen that with the breakdown in Ukraine. We’ve seen it with the breakdown over the so-called JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. We’ve seen it with the impasse with North Korea. We’ve seen it with the deterioration in relations with China. I don’t think the political conditions exist.
On the other hand, one of the effects of the sanctions and other fallout from the Ukraine war is the de facto restructuring of the global financial system. Five ASEAN countries have now agreed to direct settlement of purchases through QR codes. Iran and Russia have agreed to, not just swaps, but a similar arrangement for the use of Russian credit cards in Iran, bypassing SWIFT, the Western operated Belgian entity that usually clears global transactions through the dollar. Similarly, the BRICS are in the final stages of devising a transnational currency to replace the dollar for purposes of trade settlement. And of course, they are expanding their membership. So what we’re seeing is an evolution toward bilateral and plurilateral trade settlement mechanisms that avoid the dollar. And it’s very likely that we are on the path to a future in which the dollar will no longer have the near monopoly position it does in trade settlement, but will be merely one of many currencies in which trade is settled.
I want to just add that the issue of what is a reserve currency and what is not is actually derived from the question of what trade can be settled in and what it cannot be. But the two are quite different. People talk about the dollar as a reserve currency, but that sort of misses the point. The real strength of the dollar is backed by Saudi Arabia, which in 1974 agreed to denominate the world energy trade in dollars, something that OPEC has grudgingly followed despite objections from some of its members like Algeria and Iran. As long as the dollar continues to be the unit of account for the energy trade and other commodities, the United States will retain our so-called exorbitant privilege. But the minute the Saudis and others begin to accept currencies other than the dollar in exchange for their commodity production, the dollar will collapse and we will see a massive devaluation of it, comparable to the one that occurred in 1971, when the U.S. went off the gold standard and dollars were no longer exchangeable for gold. This is a process that is occurring, in which a rational response would indeed be some sort of international effort to negotiate a transition. But I don’t see the political basis for that.
Mike Billington: Sergei Glazyev, who’s now one of the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union, and Wang Wen, at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University, have held a series of seminars on this issue, on the question of putting together some alternative currency to the dollar for international trade. Do you have a sense of how that’s moving forward?
Amb. Chas Freeman: I understand it is moving forward, but primarily in the context of the BRICS discussions that I mentioned. The last BRICS summit launched an active effort to implement those ideas. They have not yet been implemented, and indeed the details remain somewhat obscure. But I think there’s no question that there is an active effort underway to accomplish exactly what Wang and his Russian counterpart suggested.
Mike Billington: The Ukrainian Centre on Confronting Disinformation, which is funded by the NATO countries, recently issued a list of 78 prominent international figures whom they described as Russian propaganda agents, and declared them to be “information terrorists” and “war criminals.” Thirty of those 78 had spoken at Schiller Institute conferences, and you also have spoken at Schiller Institute conferences. What are your thoughts on this hit list?
Amb. Chas Freeman: It’s a sign of the times. If you don’t have a serious argument, resort to smearing those who disagree with you. This is detestable. It is a rebuke to the very ideas of free speech that are essential to Western democracy. And it should be condemned.
Mike Billington: As you know very well as a Chinese scholar, the Chinese character for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and for “opportunity.” It is certainly the case that people around the world are recognizing the extreme danger of the strategic crisis heading for war, perhaps nuclear war, and are also feeling the impact of the economic crisis. Do you sense that the citizenry around the world is responding? Are they adequately driven to try to force a change towards sanity?
Amb. Chas Freeman: Just a minor corrective — there are actually two characters to the Chinese word “crisis,” it’s not one. But yes. This is the origin, I presume, of — I think it was Rahm Emanuel’s observation — that one should never fail to make use of a crisis or let it go to waste. I’m sorry to say that I believe the general reaction internationally and certainly in my own country, the United States, is one of despondency and a sense of impotence and frustration as the equivalent of a tragedy in the true Greek sense unfolds. Everyone can see where this is likely to go. The protagonists nonetheless proceed on course. And the chorus is unheeded. So this is a moment in which, indeed, people should be giving voice to their objections to a course of action which unnecessarily risks a war, possibly a nuclear war. And among other things, as you pointed out earlier, the certain destruction of both Taiwan’s democracy and its prosperity. I wish I could say that I see effective, popular response to the dangers we face, but I don’t.
Mike Billington: Thank you. Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to leave for our listeners?
Amb. Chas Freeman: No, I’ve probably already hung myself enough.
Mike Billington: Thank you.
The so-called “Ukrainian Center for countering Disinformation,” which is listed as being part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, has released a list of 78 individuals—the first 30 were all speakers at conferences of the Schiller Institute—whom it accuses of having promoted “Russian propaganda.” While the Center was created in 2021, with the idea of becoming a “vital hub of counter-disinformation strategy and resources not just domestically, but internationally;” it had “been brewing since 2014,” according to a briefing by Andriy Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine for President Zelensky.
That interestingly places it in the immediate context of the Western-backed Maidan Coup, the prehistory for which Victoria Nuland claimed the U.S. had spent $5 billion dollars. So the idea of creating such a hub to control the narrative about the circumstances of that coup, seems to be a continuity of the policy of Nuland, of “Fuck the EU” fame.
The effort to control this narrative has become full of holes however, since another such outfit, namely the U.S. blog called PropOrNot, which was among the first to propagate the story of the Ukrainian Center, was the main loudspeaker for the Russiagate-scandal against President Trump in 2016, which has since been completely discredited as a hoax cooked up by a gang of British intelligence and Clinton campaign operatives.
Otherwise, the poor authors of the Center seem to suffer from the syndrome of belief in conspiracy theories, since they assume that such a wide array of speakers representing top institutions from around the globe are all Putin agents and can’t think for themselves.
— Helga Zepp-LaRouche