Asia (Central & Northern) SI activity

Schiller Institute Interviewed About Arctic Sea Shipping Routes

November 28, 2018by Jason Ross in Asia (Central & Northern) SI activity, Media coverage of our activity, New Silk Road / BRI updates

Swedish Schiller Institute Board Member Hussein Askary was recently interviewed by an representative of the “EurAsiaAz” (a non-profit organization focused on cooperation among the Eurasian nations, and a strong supporter of the Belt and Road Initiative). The coverage begins,

“Ice melting in the Arctic has drawn more attention to the Northern Sea Route – a maritime corridor which allows shipping between Europe and Asia considerably faster than through the Suez Canal. NSR’s advantages are lack of pirates and queues, and the new nuclear icebreakers will make the route navigable the whole year. China and countries of Northern Europe are looking at this project with great interest whereas the USA insists that NSR should be open for everyone as an international transport corridor. Hussein Askary, Southwest Asia Coordinator in the Schiller Institute, former Chairman [SIC] of the Swedish branch of the Schiller Institute (2008-2018) has told “Eurasia.Expert” in detail about the development of this project…”

Read the full interview: The competition among the global players in the Arctic is rising – expert

Image credits: Author: Marcusroos; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Icebreaker_Fennica.jpg

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Addresses Gathering in Moscow on Building the New Paradigm

October 28, 2018by Jason Ross in Helga media coverage or interview, Russia SI activity

The Chairwoman of the international Schiller Institute Helga Zepp-LaRouche presented an overview of the current strategic situation and the perspectives for the future in a speech given in Moscow on Oct. 24 at the 23rd International Academic Conference: “China, Chinese Civilization and the World: Past, Present, and Future”. The event was organized by the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Posing the question as to whether human society is capable of an efficient of self-government, Helga Zepp-LaRouche listed the “multiple crises” plaguing the world today: the imminent crash of the trans-Atlantic financial system, unprecedented polarization inside the United States, false flag operations in Syria, drug epidemics, the global migration crisis, terrorism and Nazism, and the increasing disunity in the EU.

While these challenges may seem unrelated, Zepp-LaRouche said, they must be understood as products of the “old paradigm” of thinking. To solve them, one must be aware of the principles defining the new epoch taking form.

She went to identify two “game changing” topics which create “totally opposite pathways for the future”. First, is the “monumental battle” in the United States to determine whether the coup attempt against President Trump will succeed and he will be driven out of office, or whether the perpetrators of that coup, which aims to prevent him from establishing good relations between the U.S. and Russia, will instead be prosecuted. “If Trump can consolidate his position, despite the many hawkish tones coming from the U.S. now, there does exist the potential that he will be able in the second half of his first term to improve relations with Russia and return to his initial positive attitude towards China.”

The second related issue, Helga Zepp-LaRouche went on, is the need to overcome the “Thucydides Trap,” i.e., the apparent conflict “between the power dominating the world up to now, the U.S., and the rising power, China,” by defining a solution over and beyond the specifics of either of them to address the fundamental interests of all nations and “thus shift the level of thinking to a higher plateau.” To avoid such a “Thucydides trap”, she stressed, the U.S. needs to be integrated into the organization of the new world order.

Such a higher plateau of thinking was defined by Zepp-LaRouche’s husband, Lyndon LaRouche, several years ago, when he proposed that the U.S., Russia, China and India, with the support of others, set up a New Bretton Woods system, that is, an international credit system to finance economic development, emphatically including that of developing nations. “The basic conception for such a new credit and economic system already exists in principle in the Belt and Road policy of President Xi Jinping,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche said. Today, it must be expanded and consolidated to respond to the needs of all mankind as a species, such as becomes evident in the field of space exploration.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Coverage in Russian Satellite News Agency, Calls for Trump and Putin to Meet

April 19, 2018by Jason Ross in Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Russia SI activity

Russian Satellite News Agency, Moscow, April 13th — Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of Schiller Institute in Germany, said in an interview covered by the Russian Satellite News Agency that the sooner the Presidents of the United States and Russia meet, the more opportunity they will have to eliminate the two countries’ conflict threats.

The expert said: “As Trump said on Twitter, the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations is largely the result of actions within the U.S. against him. Special investigations by Mueller and various committees of the country over the past year have found no ‘Russian traces.'”

LaRouche concluded: “The sooner Trump meets with Putin, the more opportunity they have to stop the provocation.”

U.S. President Trump discussed the possibility of holding bilateral meetings with Putin during the telephone conversation on March 20. However, according to the Kremlin, due to the sharp deterioration of relations between the two countries, the issue would not be discussed at the beginning of April.

Message of condolence to the Alexandrov Ensemble and the People of Russia

January 1, 2017by tobi in Cultural renaissance updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, New York City SI activity, Our musical events, Russia SI activity

Founder and President of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche issued the following message:

Message of condolence to the Alexandrov Ensemble and the People of Russia

In the name of the International Schiller Institute, I wish to express our deep condolences for the tragic loss of the the 92 human beings who died in the plane crash on the way to Syria. This accident is all the more a cause for sadness, as the music and patriotic spirit characteristic of the members of the Alexandrov Ensemble would have brought a message of hope to the people of Syria. This is a population victimized by more than five years of the criminal policies of regime change and treated as the pawns in a geopolitical game in complete violation of their sovereignity.

The Alexandrov Ensemble has been an expression of the highest moral values of Russia and, like classical choral singing in general, speaks to the soul and the creative potential of the audience. It is therefore extremely important that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that he is initiating auditions to pick the best talents to fully restore the Alexandrov Chorus.

The training of the singing voice is important for everybody, since a well-placed voice can express the creative intention of the composer and directly speak to the same faculty in the audience. It represents, therefore, an irreplaceable element of the harmonious development of the character. Let me therefore share with you the idea that, in addition to rebuilding the Alexandrov Ensemble, thousands of Alexandrov choruses be established in schools all over Russia to honor the heroic contribution of Russia in the liberation of Syria and, at the same time, broaden the uplifting effect of choral singing to the young generation.

There is a New Paradigm in the process of becoming as exemplified by the integration of the Eurasian Union and the New Silk Road Initiative, establishing a completely new kind of relations among nations. We need a dialogue of the best tradtions of each culture for this New Paradigm to grow into a new era of civilization—the knowledge of the best of another culture will lead to a love for it, and therefore supercede xenophobia and hatred with more noble emotions. In this new era, geopolitics will be overcome forever and the dedication to the common aims of mankind will establish a higher level of reason. It is a reason for consolation for all of us, that the tragic death of the victims of the plane crash contribute with their immortality to the building of that better world.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Chairwoman, International Schiller Institute

Musical Offering to the Alexandrov Ensemble and the People of Russia

Members of the NYC Schiller Institute Community Chorus sing the Russian National Anthem outside the Russian Consulate in New York in honor of the passengers, many of them members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, who died when their plane crashed enroute to Syria, Sunday, December 25, 2016.

Interview by Sputnik with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

April 6, 2017by Motoki Kasai in Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Russia SI activity, World Land-Bridge updates

Listen to the interview on Sputnik >>

April 5, 2017 — This is a transcript of an interview by Sputnik with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, regarding the upcoming summit between Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump:

Q: What will the tone of the meeting be?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Oh, I think it will be actually cordial. The Western media who are usually wrong are trying to reduce this whole question to some geopolitical conflict, but I think both sides have prepared this meeting very well. I think when Secretary of State Tillerson was in Beijing last month to prepare the visit, he said that the U.S.-China relationship in the Trump Administration would be a very positive relationship, built on no confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect, and always searching for a “win-win” solution. And that was exactly the formulation that was used by Xi Jinping in 2012 when he called for building a new type of major country relationship between China and the United States. Now, this was rejected by President Obama at the time. But the fact that Tillerson is now using the exact, same formulations shows a very positive signal. And I think that since China has put the New Silk Road policy on the table — or the Belt and Road Initiative, as it’s called now — since 2013, and has been building this New Silk Road, with the idea that the United States should join it, too, I would not be surprised at all, if something like that would be discussed, to the big surprise of many.

Q: I see. Now, earlier Trump had accused China of raping the U.S. economy. He called the country a currency manipulator, and even threatened to impose high tariffs on Chinese imports, though, with that said, what reaction should we expect from the Chinese leader? What positions will they be taking?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I don’t think that Xi Jinping will react to the campaign tone of the candidate Trump, because now Trump is President. And I think if they put on the table the idea that China would invest in the infrastructure in the United States, Trump himself has announced the need to have a $1 trillion program to reconstruct the American infrastructure. There was recently a conference in Hongkong where Chinese economists estimated that the real requirement is $8 trillion. Now, the way how to reduce the trade deficit is if there would be direct Chinese investment in infrastructure, maybe not immediately, but indirectly; maybe one would have an infrastructure bank, where China could put its investments in, or some solution like that. But I’m convinced that they will absolutely come out of this summit with results beneficial to both countries.

Q: It’s interesting that you talk about a positive solution the trade deficit, that you just mentioned, with China could possibly create a special investment bank, but is there anything else that Trump could do to somehow reduce this trade deficit? Or is there any way that President Trump could somehow improve the relations between the countries, and improve the trade between the countries?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, Trump has recently mentioned several times that he wants to go back to the American System of economy, the system of Alexander Hamilton, of Lincoln, of Henry Clay, and it is actually that system which made the United States great following the War of Independence. And that was a highly protectionist system. Alexander Hamilton created the United States by creating a National Bank, a credit system, and for example, the German economist Friedrich List pointed to the difference between the American System of economy and the British System of economy, meaning that the American System which was created by Hamilton basically says the only source of wealth is the creativity and productivity of the labor force; as compared to the British System which says you have to buy cheap and sell expensive, and control trade, and keep labor costs as little as possible. So, if you actually look at what China has been doing with the Chinese economic miracle of the last 30 years, it is much closer to the philosophy of Alexander Hamilton, than it would be to the system of globalization and so-called “free trade.” Because I think that the Chinese system of free trade is not exactly the same one what the British and the Americans under the Obama and Bush administrations have been thinking about. So, if Trump says, OK globalization led to an outsourcing productive jobs and I want to recreate the American economy, well, that’s the way how to reduce the trade deficit, because the reason why there’s a trade deficit is because many of the products in the last 16 years of the Bush and Obama administration became increasingly less competitive, for example the car industry. The reason why you have more cars imported, from Japan, Korea, Germany, than the other way around, is because these cars are better than American cars. And what America has to do, what President Trump has to do — and I think that’s what he intends to do — is to reconstruct the American economy on the highest productive level. The infrastructure is only the precondition, but then there will be other areas, like in the nuclear fission, but especially the development of fusion technology, space cooperation with other countries, so there are many areas where you can leapfrog into the most productive areas in the economy, and I think that’s what Trump intends to do.

Q: It’s interesting that you talk about that, and I really like that you mention that subject. Unfortunately we’ll have to do that at a different time. Apart from the issue that we’ve already discussed, are there are other issues that will be on the table between the Chinese leader and the U.S. President?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, obviously, the North Korea issue will be very high up on the agenda, given the recent missile tests by North Korea. But there, one has to understand that North Korea is doing this, not because they intend an aggression against South Korea or Japan, or the United States. They are doing it in reaction to the deployment of the THAAD missiles, which both China and Russia have also said are security threats to their own national security; and, North Korea is reacting to the very big maneuvers involving the United States, Japan, and South Korea, which are ongoing right now. So the way to reduce that, and that would be my guess, that they will get an agreement to re-propose the Six-Party talks, to try to find a solution, or even have maybe Five-Party talks, to try to really work out a real solution one could offer to North Korea. But it is my conviction that the only way how this conflict can be solved forever, is to extend the New Silk Road into Korea, have a unification of South and North Korea, and then develop together, the North, obviously, with the sovereignty of North Korea being taken into account; but I think the idea of overcoming the terrible economic hardships and using the high-skilled labor you have in North Korea! People don’t know, that there is actually a highly developed labor force in North Korea. So I think the New Silk Road Belt and Road Initiative, even in the short or medium term, would be the framework with which to solve the North Korea problem forever.

Q: All right. Well on that note I would like to thank you very much for joining me today, Helga. It was a pleasure having you here, and I’d love to have you back in the future.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: OK, thank you.

Interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche — U.S., Europe Need New Silk Road Cooperation More Than Asia Does

June 7, 2016by tobi in Geopolitics updates, Helga media coverage or interview, Russia SI activity

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, called the “Silk Road Lady” in China and the first promoter with Lyndon LaRouche of this policy in Europe, was interviewed by TASS May 31, 2016 on the decision for a new global war or for economic development and cooperation.

TASS: How would you assess the current international cooperation?

Zepp-LaRouche: There are two completely different dynamics on the planet right now. On the one side you have the convergence of President Putin’s very successful military flanks, such as his intervention in Syria, which created the potential for peace, combined with his various diplomatic interventions in Asia, parallel to the Chinese New Silk Road initiatives.

These efforts represent a win-win perspective for over seventy participating countries already.

On the other side there is an extremely dangerous confrontation from the side of the United States, Great Britain, the EU and NATO against Russia and China, which has brought the world to a multiple crisis, more dangerous than at the height of the Cold War.

TASS: In what areas it is more active and where it is not?

Zepp-LaRouche:In the case of Syria the cooperation between Foreign Minister Lavrov and Secretary of State Kerry, as well as the Geneva cooperation between Russia and the U.S., is very positive. However, as long as the United States do not abandon their policy of regime change, the situation remains dangerous. President Putin has proven to be a brilliant strategist.

This allows confidence that the warhawks in NATO will not succeed to lure Russia into a trap, giving them a pretext for a preventive attack.

TASS: What are the issues we need to step up cooperation between the West and Russia? Why?

Zepp-LaRouche: The reality is, that the entire trans-Atlantic sector is bankrupt and about to blow up in a bigger way than in 2008. Japanese Prime Minister Abe, after a very important visit in Russia, made that point at the recent G7 meeting emphatically, but was rebuffed by President Obama, who insisted, that “the recovery is improving”, which is absurd in light of the negative interest rates of the central banks and the debate around “helicopter money”.

Therefore the West needs, more than Asia, the kind of economic cooperation of the One Road One Belt/Eurasian Economic Union cooperation, integrating Eurasia from Vladivostok to Lisbon, but also inviting the U.S. to participate in this perspective. The only way a catastrophe can be avoided, is if we succeed to overcome geopolitics and reach a new paradigm, based on a global development partnership and the common aims of mankind.

TASS: Why, despite the obvious threat of terrorism, cybercrime and other international challenges, does the West so hinder cooperation with Russia?

Zepp-LaRouche: Almost all important conflicts derive from the effort of the Anglo-American empire to maintain an unipolar world, at a point, where it has de facto ceased to exist already. More and more forces in the world realize that they have to make existential decisions, and that the interests of their nations are much better served by stopping sanctions and confrontation against Russia and China.

The fact that Russia and China have created a very strong strategic partnership, with India a third partner, has shifted the strategic balance in the world. More and more countries are seeing it as more beneficial to cooperate for joint development, than to be under the yoke of military confrontation. We are at a branching point in history, and at such moments, what counts is leadership of the kind we have seen from President Putin.

Source: http://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/3325807

Schiller Institut⁠e⁠ in China⁠—Xinjiang Province: China Rejects All Accusations

August 12, 2019by Jason Ross in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Asia (Central & Northern) SI activity, France SI activity, General, New Silk Road / BRI updates

by Christine Bierre, Bierrechristine@gmail.com

Hardly had the breakthroughs of the Xi-Trump meeting occurred at the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan than London and its neo-conservative allies, in and out of the Trump administration, escalated a new flank in the war of nerves against China. Following the demonization of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by London’s neo-con and liberal acolytes in the United States and Europe, the trade-war hype, the Huawei saga, and the Hong Kong mass demo destabilization, in come accusations of mass torture in Xinjiang.

Attacks have been growing in recent months against China’s counter-terrorist offensive in this region, one that has suffered the most from the spillover of terrorism spawned in recent years’ Middle East wars. A Uyghur contingent that had joined ISIS and Al Qaeda in those wars brought that terrorism home to China. Accusations have been made that China has illegally jailed 1-3 million Uyghurs, and is subjecting them to torture, brainwashing and even organ harvesting!

Photo Credit: Adam Ludwiczak

These accusations came to a head on July 10 when a group of 22 nations (18 European nations joined by Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), addressed a letter to Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, noting “disturbing reports of large-scale arbitrary detentions of Uyghurs, and other Muslim and minority communities.” On July 13, however, a group of 37 other countries sent their own letter to the UN authorities, backing China and praising its government for having invited diplomats, think-tanks and media to visit Xinjiang, noting that “what they saw and heard in Xinjiang was in total contradiction with what had been reported by certain Western media.” Among the signers were ten Muslim States!

Foreign Affairs Ministry in Beijing with Wang Lixin Deputy director general at the Department of External Security Affairs and international tour of journalists.

The Chinese government has, in fact, successfully conducted a counter-terror operation and is continuing to organize visits to Xinjiang. Between July 7 and 14, representing the French Schiller Institute’s China desk and as a journalist who writes on strategic and defense questions, this author had the opportunity of participating in one such visit, with a very interesting group of experts. They were representatives from Russia, Italy, France, Poland, Pakistan, Thailand, and New Zealand, including journalists and academic think-tank experts, most of whom had in-depth experience and knowledge of China. Our eight-day “Information Mission” concentrated on China’s policies towards ethnic and religious minorities in general, and on its policies of counter-terrorism in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

China’s Policies Towards Minorities

Our tour started with seminars at the Institute of Tibetology and the Institute of Borderline States, in Beijing. China, with its more than 5,000-year history, is a centralized but multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, home to 56 different ethnic groups, which benefit from having equal rights with the Han majority (92%). China has created 5 autonomous regions and 30 autonomous prefectures, in which minorities are granted some advantages beyond those available to the Han majority, such as favorable quotas to enter schools and greater access to jobs in the public companies as well as an exemption from the “one child only” policy that had been applied to the Han. Religious practices are strongly protected as long as they don’t promote separatist or extremist ideas. The Koran, the Bible and other scriptures are published by the State and are accessible through the internet and available at all libraries. The Muslim religion is practiced in 39,000 mosques in China (25,000 in Xinjiang alone) and requires only certification of the Imams.

Seminar at the Institute of Tibetology in Beijing.

The contribution of ethnic minorities to the particularly rich cultural and religious heritage of China is fully recognized by the State. However, due to the difficulty of reaching out to them in the border lands of China (e.g., Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang) and the daunting challenges of their geography, economic development has lagged, a weakness which the enemies of China have always exploited.

Xinjiang has been part of China ever since the Han dynasty, under the name of “Western territories.” But, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, taking advantage of China’s weakness, the British, the Russians, and the Japanese fought for the control of this area in what was then called the “Great Game.” The ideologies of Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism promoted by the different camps gave birth to a movement in favor of an “Oriental Turkestan.”

Xiahe county at Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Gannan (Gansu).

Some were calling for an independent state on Xinjiang’s territory; others, for an Islamic State extending from Turkey to Xinjiang. The heirs to the British Empire today are following the same policies towards the Uyghurs and Tibetans. Is it a coincidence that the so-called freedom and liberation movements are both financed by the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington and that their main propaganda instrument, Radio Free Asia, was recreated by the U.S. government in 1996 and has been run by it ever since?

What is important in the Chinese counter-terror offensive is that it is based on the recognition that economic development is the key to solving those problems: “We have to eliminate the soil which allows extremist groups to recruit people, and that is poverty,” insisted Xu Jianying of the Institute of China’s Borderlands at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. The counter-terrorist campaign is also based on a clear differentiation between those who have committed major crimes, who are punished severely, and those who have committed minor crimes, who are offered a very positive rehabilitation program if they admit to their crimes and clearly express a desire to change. The Chinese policy aims, says the government, at striking the right balance between “severity” and “leniency.”

Gansu and Xinjiang

Our visit took us to two of the poorest provinces of China today, Gansu and Xinjiang. But thanks to modern road and rail infrastructure such as the Beijing-Urumqi Expressway inaugurated in 2017 and the Lanzhou-Urumqi high-speed train, these provinces are rapidly catching up with the rest of the nation. Both provinces played key roles in the ancient Silk Roads and are strategic to the success of the BRI today.

Gansu has a Tibetan minority and Xinjiang, a large minority of Muslim Uyghurs (45%). In these areas our group saw the ongoing “poverty alleviation” measures that had started with the Western development strategy (1999) and were accelerated by the BRI beginning in 2013. We also witnessed the strong protection given by the State to local cultures and to the practice of religions, and, in Xinjiang in particular, the ongoing massive rehabilitation efforts in this area, which has almost eliminated all terrorist attacks in the last three years, to the great relief of local populations and the Chinese government.

Labrang Buddhist monastery at Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Gannan.

Gansu is a province with great disparities: a very mineral-rich soil, but a mountainous and desert-like geography. The rich Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Gannan (TAR) is an exception to this. We visited this beautiful area, home to some 120 Buddhist temples, and in particular to the Labrang monastery of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. Here, a monk, with a Socratic outlook, having engaged in a 20-year study of philosophy, gave us a tour. “Man is not a beast,” he stressed. “He has access to the light of reason. Man can know truth, but for that he must first know himself!”

We visited a model village in Gaxiu that will replace 95 poorer villages totaling 1,800 inhabitants, as part of the extensive effort to meet the goals set by Xi Jinping of eliminating all extreme poverty by 2021. Five such new villages, equipped with clinics, primary schools, and areas for growing vegetables, have been already built. Twenty-five more will be built by next year. The villages are financed by the government, but built by the people, who become owners of their homes. Richer provinces also contribute 0.1% of their income. Today, in this area, 100% of the population has access to clean water and to 15 years of free education. With the orientation towards industry, ecological investments and tourism, a Tibetan yak herder today can expect to go from a yearly 9,000 Yuan income to 30,000 Yuan.

Model Tibetan village in Gaxiu (Gannan).

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region

On July 12 we headed towards Xinjiang, taking a bus through the mountains on good roads that had gas stations and restroom facilities. First we visited Turpan, then the capital city, Urumqi.

These areas are the supposed site of the alleged massive arrests by the Chinese government. This Western state is strategic to the success of the BRI. It not only represents a sixth of China’s territory and is very rich in raw materials; it is also the door to the Silk Road leading to Europe. Without a peaceful Xinjiang, there will be no Belt and Road Initiative! Xinjiang has a large Uyghur minority and shares borders with eight states (Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir) in which poverty and religious extremism is often endemic. This is the province in China that is most exposed to terrorism.

However, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs official accompanying us stated emphatically: “The Chinese government is not fighting Muslims or Uyghurs; it is fighting terrorism that has spilled over into our country through these borders, from people going back and forth to the wars in the Middle East.” Between 8,000 and 15,000 Uyghurs are reported to have joined ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the explicit aim of pursuing their Holy War against Beijing next.

A large International Exhibit on terrorism in Urumqi demonstrates, with extensive photo and video material, the extent of problem. No less than 14,000 bloody attacks occurred in Xinjiang between 1992 and 2015—suicide bomb attacks, vehicles launched against people in crowded areas, arbitrary knife, machete and axe attacks against ordinary people. The high point of these attacks was the 2009 riots in Urumqi which left 197 dead and more than 1,600 wounded.

A Preventive War Against Terrorism

This is the background to understanding what the Chinese government calls a preventive counter-terrorist policy. First, the decision was taken to improve the living standards of the local population, through development of infrastructure. And it works! Infrastructure has boosted tourism in the ancient city of Turpan, from 8 to 10 million visitors between 2016 and 2017 and up to 6 million in just the first six months of 2019.

In a White Paper on Xinjiang published on March 2019, the Chinese government lists the efforts it is conducting to “ensure and improve public well-being” in this area. Among those efforts are plans to transfer 100,000 jobs to southern Xinjiang (2018-2020); creating 1,400,000 new industrial jobs; free universal health checkups; health insurances for 15 serious illnesses; improving the social security system; and increasing allowances granted to impoverished populations.

While those having committed major crimes undergo “severe punishment,” those having committed minor crimes and having confessed, repented, and shown willingness to reintegrate into society, are treated with “leniency” and offered a full rehabilitation package.

Those who accept reintegration are then recruited to vocational centers where they undergo a well thought-out strategy of rehabilitation that can go from several months to several years. The first phase is the mastering of spoken and written Mandarin, along with their own languages, to be able to integrate in the society; then civic education given by legal experts, which educates people on China’s standards of criminal law.

Trainees then can choose among different vocational activities they want to learn in order to improve their chances to get gainful employment. The choices offered depend on the job potentialities of the local market. Options range from hairdressing, to garment production, medical first aid, tourism, and factory work. According to the White Paper, these rehabilitation centers for minor delinquents adopt “a boarding school management system,” in which “students can have home visits on a regular basis and can ask for leave to attend to personal matters. When the trainees meet the proper trade assessment standards, they get completion certificates and are assisted in getting jobs.”

Visiting Vocational Centers

When we arrived in Turpan, it was over 103 degrees Fahrenheit, which is normal in its 100-day summer season! We first visited the Gaochang District vocational education and training center that has a capacity of 600 students.

The counter-terror policies were clearly carefully thought out. Xinjiang is well known for its beautiful folklore. What better way to counter the Wahhabite ideology, which rejects progress and social activities, than with beautiful music and dance? We were invited to watch a dance performance by a highly professional group, with projected images of local realities and of modern China in the background.

Beautiful Folk dance and projected images, Gaochang District vocational and training
center (Turpan).

We then visited the vocational classes. One group was reading out loud in Mandarin a text composed by the class, focusing on local values. Later we spent some time in the civic education classes, before moving to vocational classes in learning how to use sewing machines, how to apply first aid, and a class training tourist guides. We then witnessed a group receiving art lessons: ten people were learning figure drawing and the use of watercolors in one room; another group was practicing calligraphy, copying and translating between Chinese and Uyghur; others were singing in a chorus accompanied by instrumental musicians.

Dancing at Gaochang District vocational and training center (Turpan).

There were many young people in those groups, especially young women. In the artistic classes, there was a form of playfulness and freedom, which is the key to reorienting people towards productive ideas of society, and contributing to social harmony, rather than criminal behavior. The environment we saw in those classes is coherent with the Chinese government’s stated policy of creating not only a functioning Xinjiang, but also a “beautiful Xinjiang.” Through these efforts and others, we saw a productive cross-cultural approach, bringing together different ethnic groups and the Han, coherent with the national orientation of China as a multi-ethnic unity, without trying to eliminate or marginalize minorities.

Urumqi

At Urumqi, we visited a cross-cultural center, created in 2001, working on the same principle. People of different ethnic groups are brought together to practice dancing, choral singing, cooking or other activities in order to better know each other. Here also, the environment was free and playful.

Our last stop in Urumqi was the White Mosque where the Imam reported the participation of 200 to 300 people in services every day; 1,000 to 2,000 on Fridays, and up to 5,000 during Ramadan. Parallel to the ongoing crackdown on terrorists in the area, the government has improved the material conditions in these mosques—providing water, electricity, flush toilets, radio and television facilities, libraries, and fans and air conditioning.

Urumqi International Bazaar crowded on Sunday.

We visited the museum and public areas, confirming what other witnesses have reported, that the security situation has vastly improved in Xinjiang. The police presence and checkpoints, which were very visible last year, have disappeared. We were able to walk around the large, beautiful central park, which was thick with probably as many as 10,000 people enjoying themselves in the environs. The last stop was shopping at the bustling Grand International Bazaar.

China Denounces ‘Double Standards’

In such information missions, often the fear is that the country visited might restrict your access, displaying select showcase locations. The composition of our group was very helpful in addressing this concern, many having long experience in China and the regions of China that we were visiting. The group included Russian scholars from the Far East Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who have visited the province and working closely with Chinese institutes on the Xinjiang minorities, for more than 15 years; a former Pakistani Air Force officer, who is now a journalist and TV anchorman—his first visit to Xinjiang goes back to 1974; and the head of a China-New Zealand friendship association who organizes tourist trips to China, and is also involved half the year in poverty reduction programs in China.

All these experts confirmed the important improvement of living standards and infrastructure in the areas with which they were familiar. Our Pakistani expert, a practicing Muslim, who has a keen interest in seeing that Muslims can practice freely, confirmed that this is the case.

What we saw therefore, during this intense trip, is a model which has been able to cope with a highly degraded security situation, by giving to many Uyghurs, the possibility of looking towards a better future and integration in the nation. The Chinese government White Paper from last March openly discusses that “a large number of people are undergoing training.”

The terrorist problem is not Chinese in origin. China has been successful in bringing some 800 million people out of extreme poverty in the last 30 years. The approach to its western regions is aimed at solving the economic problems of provinces like Gansu and Xinjiang. But foreign powers, which since the end of the 1990s have been playing with fire, have been using Wahabbite extremists as cannon fodder first in Afghanistan, then against Libya and Syria. Chinese officials met on this trip denounced, in this respect, the “double standards” of some Western countries, which make distinctions between “extremists” useful to themselves, and others they decide to battle, letting “useful extremists” operate against China, some based in European countries.

In order to bring terrorism once and for all to an end, I am convinced, it is urgent, that this problem be brought up, once again, at the UN Security Council, as was done most effectively during the Syrian war. We were told, in briefings during the trip, that this approach is one supported by China.

Christine Bierre, Bierrechristine@gmail.com

Leading Russian Thinktank RIAC publishes analysis on failed Russiagate by Schiller Institute Spokesman

August 8, 2019by Jason Ross in General, Media coverage of our activity, Russia SI activity

Leading Russian Thinktank RIAC publishes analysis on failed Russiagate by Harley Schlanger, Vice President of the Schiller-Institute USA: “Anti-Trumpers in shock: Mueller testimony proves there is no case for Trump impeachment”

From the article,

“Mueller’s failed effort to provide a “smoking gun” proving Trump’s “collusion” or “obstruction” in his 448-page report, and then again in his testimony, was summed up in a simple, unambiguous statement during the nearly-seven hour hearing, when he said that his prosecutorial team “did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime.” However, this will not stop fanatics such as Schiff and Nadler from continuing to beat the drums for impeachment, as Russiagate has never really been about Trump or his campaign committing impeachable acts. The underlying issue, which was not addressed by those Republicans at the hearings who were defending Trump [1] is his commitment to break from the post-Cold War unilateralist paradigm, which under his predecessors G.W. Bush and B. Obama, escalated a geopolitical divide between the U.S., and Russia and China. Trump repeatedly stated, during the campaign and as President, that he wished to develop mutually beneficial, cooperative relations with Russia and China, as part of his effort to pull the U.S. back from its role as being the policeman of the world. We must end American involvement in endless wars, he said, wars which have been costly in both monetary terms and loss of life, and which have been pursued without serving any underlying national security interest.

“It was this commitment, to end these regime change wars, combined with his opposition to such “globalist” policies as neoliberal free trade agreements and the Paris Climate Accord, which paved the way for his election victory over Hillary Clinton, who adamantly favored a continuation of the Bush-Obama strategic direction. Unable to combat Trump on these matters, the British intervened as the actual “meddlers” in the U.S. campaign, inventing the story of Russian intervention on behalf of Trump. The British role in initiating the fraudulent narrative of Russian intervention, and the collaboration between British intelligence – including a direct role played by GCHQ, the equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency, and MI6 – with top officials of the Obama administration intelligence team, led to the convening of a “Get Trump” task force during the campaign, with former CIA Director Brennan and National Security Adviser Clapper playing leading roles.

“After his election, as Trump initiated steps to break with the unilateralist military/strategic geopolitical doctrine, in his early, successful meetings with Russian President Putin and China’s President Xi, the coup plotters went into overdrive. Shortly after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, on May 9, 2017, Mueller was appointed a special counsel to investigate the fake story, on May 17, 2017. From that point, until the release of Mueller’s report on March 22, 2019, every effort made by Trump to proceed with improving relations with Putin and Xi was characterized as evidence that he was acting under a blackmail threat from Putin, a charge stemming from the faked and now-discredited dossier compiled by “ex”-MI6 spy Christopher Steele.

“As was made clear by Mueller’s statement that he was “not familiar” with Fusion GPS, which paid Steele with funds from Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign, it is this connection, between Hillary’s campaign, Obama’s intelligence team, and the highest levels of British intelligence, that those behind Mueller wish to keep out of public view. In saying this, Mueller was either lying, in which case he could be charged with lying to Congress – a tactic he used in targeting Trump friend Roger Stone – or he exposed the fact that he was a mere front man for those who ran the investigation, and wrote the report. In either case, it is further evidence of the fraud employed by the Get Trump team.

Investigating the investigators

“It is precisely the nexus behind this fraud which is now under investigation. Attorney General Barr’s appointment of respected U.S. Attorney from Connecticut, John Durham, and the expected imminent release of an investigation conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Horowitz, into the use of the Steele dossier in the filing for a warrant before the FISA court to “spy on” the Trump campaign, has truly spooked the coup plotters. What Trump has called the “greatest political scandal in U.S. history” will be exposed, and many of the key players are fearful that they now face prison for their crimes.”

Read the full article.