Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave the following interview today to the “World Today” broadcast of ChinaPlus, the English website of China Radio International. ChinaPlus: Chinese President Xi Jinping is calling on China and European countries to expand consensus and cooperation to jointly cope with global challenges. He made the remarks at a virtual summit with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Chinese leader says what the world needs is mutual respect and a sincere cooperation among nations. Xi Jinping: At present, the global pandemic situation remains severe, with frequent resurges. The prospects for economic recovery are uncertain and there is still a long way to go. The world more than ever needs mutual respect and close collaboration, rather than suspicion and technism or zero-sum game. ChinaPlus: During the meeting, the German and French leaders expressed their support for the conclusion of the EU-China investment agreement, and adding that they hoped the 23rd EU-China summit would take place as soon as possible. For more on this, we are joined by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a global political and economic think tank headquartered in Germany. Thanks for joining us, Helga. Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, hello; good day. ChinaPlus: So, what’s your main takeaway from this virtual summit, and what’s your assessment of the overall tone of the meeting? Zepp-LaRouche: I think, from everything one can say, is that it was very constructive, and also much needed, because there were some recent difficulties after the European Parliament blocked the EU-China investment agreement. So, I think that they discussed the possibility of reviving it is very positive. Mrs. Merkel said that she wants to have this revived as soon as possible. And President Macron said that he supports the conclusion of the China-EU investment agreement. So, I think it was very useful and productive.ChinaPlus: The summit is coming at an increasingly tense moment for EU and China ties, given that the EU’s recent sanctions against China and its interference in the country’s internal affairs. So, will this call lead to a shift in the EU’s approach to relations with China? And possibly, easing confrontations between the two sides? Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, I think it will. And I think it’s also important that this comes only four days after the very hysterical statement coming from the Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis, who had on Friday last week called for an end of the French-German dominance of the EU. He wanted to have a unified EU policy on China, which in his terms means against China. He even said that he wants to set up offices in Taiwan. So, I think this was a clear rebuttal of this position of Landsbergis. So I think that that was very useful. ChinaPlus: What’s your assessment of the current EU policy on China in general? Do you think that the tough stance recently taken by the EU side against China needs to change? As we know, China became the world’s largest EU trading partner last year, overtaking the U.S. European business leaders have expressed their hope that the EU will strengthen cooperation with China, rather than shut it out and decouple. Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, I think such a change is really very urgent, because, as it was mentioned by President Xi Jinping, the world is still confronted with a very serious pandemic. We have a world famine of biblical dimension, as the head of the World Food Program, Beasley, is calling it. We have a hyperinflation danger in the Western countries. As you can see with the situation in Afghanistan, there needs to be an urgent cooperation for economic development in the entire region of Southwest Asia, because otherwise, there is a danger of a new explosion of terrorism, and also the drug problem is very big. So, I think there are so many common aims of mankind in a world which is very fragile, and therefore, I think that these three important countries—China, France, and Germany—make steps to really mend fences and work together more closely, can only be welcomed in the interest of humanity as a whole. ChinaPlus: We see many European politicians have emphasized the differences between China and the EU, but President Xi is calling on China and the EU to adhere to the norms of mutual respect, and to handle differences appropriately. So, were the differences between the two sides addressed during the talks? And how can the two sides resolve their differences? Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, I think some of the differences were clearly addressed. For example, China is always emphasizing the need to stick to the UN Charter and international law, while some Western politicians always talk about a “rules-based order,” which, if you look at it more closely, has turned out to be a rather arbitrary definition of pursuing the interests of some groups. So, I think that was addressed—at least from the read-out, one can say that. And also, it was stressed by China that the intention of China is not to replace anybody else, but to focus on its own development. But I think there was one aspect in the discussions which I thought was particularly promising: Namely, that they seem to have focussed on a joint mission, which helps countries and people to always overcome their bilateral or trilateral difficulties. In this case, the focus was on Africa, that China and Germany and France would work together. That Germany, for example, said they were considering to join the initiative on partnership for African development. I think President Xi not only pointed to the severe situation of Africa, because of the pandemic and economic hardships resulting out of that, but he also said that Africa has the greatest development potential. He has stressed that in the past, in summits with African leaders, and I think this is absolutely true. The African continent has a very young average population, which means that if you provide them with jobs and economic opportunities, they can become really an economic engine in the next generations. That positive look on Africa is generally lacking in Europe, and I think therefore the populations of Germany and France and other European countries can only profit from the optimistic perspective that China has towards Africa. I think this can only have a positive effect. ChinaPlus: Another key factor crucial for China-EU relations nowadays is the U.S. factor. We’ve noticed increasingly frequent interactions between the U.S. and the EU, with Washington trying to rally its European allies against China. Do you think the call emanating from the summit is sending a signal from France and Germany that they are refusing to align themselves with the U.S. bipolar confrontation? Zepp-LaRouche: I would think so, because as you know, there was just the G7 summit, where Biden had travelled to England, and this was an effort to unite the allies in this stance against Russia and China. But Chancellor Merkel had always stressed in the recent period that she does not like to be pulled in one or the other direction, and forced to choose sides, and that she supports a multilateral world order. So, I think this is definitely a positive signal. One would hope that the Europeans really understand that it’s in their self-interest to have such a balanced view, to say the least. ChinaPlus: But some observers believe the U.S. has more power over the EU than that of Germany and France combined, so the change of attitudes from Germany and France won’t make much of a difference in the EU’s China policy. How do you look at this? Zepp-LaRouche: The EU right now is very disunited You had the Dutch leader, Rutte, who wants to kick out Orban from Hungary, and Hungary out of the EU. Then, Slovenia just took over the EU Presidency for the next six months, and he clearly is supporting Hungary, and backs the Hungarian view that they don’t like cultural interventions, interference with their value set, whereby Western European countries try to impose their liberal views, while the East European countries are more traditional. I think if they keep doing these kinds of things—and von der Leyen then attacked Slovenia, and then you have the disunited Baltic states and Poland. I think the EU right now is not in a strong position at all. I think the thing which will, I’m pretty sure, dominate in the future will be the self-interest of these countries. For Germany, for France, and also the other European countries, the economic interest in a world which is in a turmoil, the relation with China is clearly a factor of stability. This is what the German industry wants for the most part. I think also the United States may change. The United States has pursued policies in the last 20 years which were not really in the interests of the United States itself, as you can see by what happened in Afghanistan, where a war was fought for 20 years, and absolutely nothing came out, other than misery, death, and a lot of cost. So, maybe the United States can also start to change, and see that cooperation is more in their interest than confrontation. I know this is not the dominant policy right now, but things are changing very, very rapidly. I would really hope that the new paradigm of international relations gets into the minds of political leaders, because confrontation can only lead to a disaster. Anyway, I think we are in a flux. We are in an historic moment of dramatic change, and a lot depends on good initiatives which people have to influence the situation for the better. ChinaPlus: OK, thank you very much, Helga. That was Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, a global political and economic think tank headquartered in Germany.
Interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche on an upcoming report by Executive Intelligence Review exposing the evil intent behind the Great Reset and how to defeat it.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche on Saturday, January 9, speaking on The LaRouche Organization webcast, described how the orchestrated assault on the Capitol Building in Washington Wednesday, Jan. 6, was another 9/11, intended to justify fascist dictatorship in the United States by the incoming Biden Administration, turning power over to the Central Bankers’ Green Finance destruction of industry and agriculture.
Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche and her co-thinkers are mobilizing true leaders on every continent—those who thirst for the knowledge of universal principle, such as the doctors, the classical artists, the scientists, the statesmen, and perhaps most importantly, the YOUTH—to inaugurate an Age of Reason, by the successful transformation of Afghanistan, and of Haiti. The people of Afghanistan and Haiti, and of so many nations across the world, face famine, disease, war—but worse, they face the “depraved indifference” of the governments and people of the United States, European countries, and many others, who ignore known solutions to vicious suffering and death, who ignore the success of China in lifting 850 million people out of extreme poverty, who ignore the fifty-year economic forecasting record of the late American economist and statesman, Lyndon H. LaRouche. Together, let us raise up a force of impassioned people, dedicated to righting these wrongs once and for all, so that we may say, truly, “Never again!”
The Moral Collapse of the West Cries Out for a New Paradigm Download a PDF of the statement The Schiller Institute is circulating an urgent response from its founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche to Apostolic Nuncio to Syria Cardinal Mario Zenari, who has alerted the world to the acute humanitarian emergency that has been deliberately imposed upon Syria, in the aftermath of nine years of war, through murderous “sanctions” measures imposed by the U.S. State Department and irresponsibly supported by a number of other governments, most emphatically the British. Action to end the so-called “Caesar Sanctions” imposed upon Syria will not only help halt the mass starvation and poverty now engulfing that nation, but will also benefit the rest of humanity. It is time to pursue, as the Cardinal states, a pathway of Peace through Development, and to reject outright the moral indifference which increasingly threatens to unleash this scale of calamity throughout the planet. In her weekly Schiller Institute webcast discussion on April 14, Zepp-LaRouche demanded that the world come to the aid of the Syrian people. As Cardinal Zenari has stated, more than 90% of Syrians are below the level of extreme poverty, and many are in danger of losing their lives due to famine. The last decade of war, the unjust sanctions, and the COVID-19 pandemic have created an absolutely intolerable condition of suffering for the Syrian people. Similar horrors confront Yemen, where the agonizing reality of hunger is conveyed in the powerful documentary, “Hunger Ward,” referred to by the head of the World Food Program, David Beasley, who saw children dying before his very eyes in the hospital, and he was unable to help. There is nothing “humanitarian” Zepp-LaRouche stated, in starving children and shutting down hospitals and medical care, based on fraudulent narratives cooked up by British and American regime-change advocates, in and out of government. “This must stop and the Caesar Sanctions must be lifted. And all the members of the U.S. Congress who do not lift these sanctions make themselves complicit in every death that occurs in the region.” Zepp-LaRouche continued: “This has reached the point where either the world wakes up and we start to remedy this, or we will not survive, because of our own moral failure as a human species. I call on you: Work with the Schiller Institute. Work with its Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, which is working to get aid programs and reconstruction. I appeal to you: Get in contact with the Schiller Institute and respond to the call by Cardinal Zenari.”
On Aug. 31, the day the U.S. completed its pull-out of evacuees and military forces from Afghanistan after 20 years, President Joe Biden spoke in a national address, of the “end of an era.” The same day in Afghanistan, the Taliban held two press conferences in Kabul—one at the international airport, and one at the national TV building, at which leaders announced their commitment to Afghanistan’s sovereignty, building its economy, asking for international support, and or the return of Afghans to build their nation. “Get the solutions out front,” was the urgent call to action today, by Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche. This is a turning-point moment, she stressed. There are the immediate humanitarian needs in Afghanistan, as well as ongoing crises from the pandemic and famine worldwide which must have attention, and there is the necessity to launch infrastructure-building for basic livelihoods and the future. In the forefront is the necessity to build capacity to provide world health security. All this requires international collaboration.Instead of this overview, there abound all types of abreactions in the Transatlantic Establishment, on the end of the “forever war” by the U.S. pulling out of Afghanistan, ranging from shock, to benign babble on “diplomacy”—but without development content. The MICIMATT complex is working overtime to thwart needed action. That is, the complex made up of the “military industrial congressional intelligence media academia think tank” circles. For example, the media try to inculcate fixated fury, mostly on the Kabul evacuation, and strictly military “issues.” Zepp-LaRouche, instead, called for focus on “What to do next?” It is time to reflect on why this whole sad situation happened in the first place. That raises the question of the 20-year cover-up of those behind the perpetration of the 9/11 attack. In 10 days, the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks will take place. In 2001, blame for that atrocity was deliberately misattributed to shield the British/Saudi Arabia and related networks responsible, to instead focus on bad guys in bat caves in Afghanistan for the next two decades. In New York, the Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate Diane Sare has released a Special Supplement to her monthly newspaper, the New Federalist. Dated today, her lead article is headlined, “9/11 Was Preventable; Only Facing the Truth Will Secure the Future.” The broadside features excerpts from Lyndon LaRouche’s live interview appearance on Utah radio at the very time of the 9/11 attacks. He warned then, on the real nature of the networks which perpetrated the assault, saying, “Osama bin Laden is not an independent force….” On the ground in Afghanistan right now, of the total population of 39 million, there are an estimated 18 million in need of humanitarian relief (shelter, water, food, medicine, livelihood aid). Well over 500,000 Afghanis are displaced within their own nation. UN staff are on the scene from UNICEF, UNHCR and other agencies, to keep relief going. Last week David Beasley, Executive Director of the UN World Food Program, went personally to Afghanistan during the evacuation period, to meet with the Taliban, to keep continuity of aid going. He estimates that 4 million Afghanis could die this year from starvation if food relief is not constant. He reported that the Taliban are cooperating fully, including by providing food warehouses and routes for delivery. The WFP is committed to pre-stage food for the winter over the next 45 days, provided an additional $200 million comes in to the WFP. The events in Afghanistan—historic and dramatic—are in fact part of the collapse of the whole neo-liberal system. The absence and decrepitude of infrastructure in the United States for the last half-century—especially provision of new water supplies, disaster protection structures, rail building, and the takedown of health care capacity, are at the extreme stage. This is the story—not climate change—of the raging Western wildfires, and the vulnerability to hurricane damage on the Gulf Coast and elsewhere. Many states have a harvest disaster, which makes for a world food crisis. The “solutions” Zepp-LaRouche refers to, include banking reorganization on the Glass-Steagall principle, directed credit for crash programs of infrastructure construction, particularly health care, and R&D for space, nuclear fusion energy, and other advanced scientific programs. Afghanistan is a special conjuncture, involving the necessity to change course. But meantime, the danger persists from the pro-“endless war” crowd, which continues the Asia Pivot, anti-China actions in the Pacific; the Ukraine activation against Russia; and all the other geopolitical maneuvers. On Aug. 30, British Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston crowed about how Britain stands ready to make airstrikes anywhere, if terrorism is the target. Even if no longer on the ground in Afghanistan—“one of the most inaccessible parts of the world … we’re still able to operate there” through airstrikes and drones, he said. After all, we launch airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, said Wigston. “I know there will be instances where there will be unavoidable civilian casualties.” By one estimate, the U.K. has conducted 50 airstrikes since January, in Syria and Iraq. Instead of death and failure, the world is ready and open for peace through development.
Representatives of governments and elected officials, together with scientists, economists, farmers, public health professionals, retired military and intelligence officers, and musicians, from around the world, joined forces this past weekend in an International Schiller Institute Conference to analyze the existential crisis facing mankind today, and deliberate on the means required to mobilize the world behind a new paradigm, free of geopolitics and Malthusianism, based on “peace through development.” One after another, these “citizens of the world” expressed their thanks to the Schiller Institute and its founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp LaRouche for mobilizing the conference, and insisting that every effort be made to circulate the video and the transcripts as widely as possible.The conference was titled “For the Common Good of All People, Not Rules Benefitting the Few.” Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche’s Keynote opened the first panel, titled “Whom the Gods Would Destroy: War with Russia and China Is Worse Than MAD!” She noted the timely nature of this panel, since the British had intervened just in the past week to sabotage the small, but critical step forward achieved at the Biden-Putin Summit, where the two leaders renewed the pledge made by Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev at their 1985 Summit: “Nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.” The intentional deployment of a British warship into Russian maritime territory, she declared, is another example of the British Empire’s effort to draw the U.S. into a military conflict with Russia, and demonstrates how easily a war—even a nuclear war—could be sparked by such evil actions. Zepp-LaRouche reviewed the past half-century of efforts by Lyndon LaRouche and his movement to end the Malthusian madness, posing solutions based on uniting the great nations and cultures of the world in a new world order based on the dignity of man, scientific cooperation and aesthetic education. Had her husband been listened to, she said, this unraveling global disaster would have been avoided—and it is still the case that any solution requires listening to the “wise words of Lyndon LaRouche.” She repeatedly emphasized throughout the conference the concept behind the Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, founded by herself and former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders, that the building of modern public health facilities in every nation is not only necessary to end the pandemic, and prevent future pandemics, an issue for every person on Earth, but also forces a serious consideration of the other aspects of infrastructure required for modern health—namely clean water, energy, transportation and more. Dr. Andrey Kortunev, the Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (the leading think tank associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), spoke after Zepp-LaRouche, on: “Has the Geneva Summit Changed Relations Between the U.S. and Russia?” He observed that expectations for the Summit were low, given the attacks on Russia from the U.S., including from within the Administration, but the agreement to jointly assert that nuclear war could not be won and must not be fought, and the agreement to set up high-level discussions on arms control, cyber war, and other issues, were signs of hope for improved relations. Still, progress will not be possible, he said, without new ideas, and thanked the Schiller Institute for the conference, and the urgency to get beyond “conventional wisdom.” This opening strategic panel included a presentation on the view from India by Atul Aneja, the Editor of IndiaNarrative.com, on the need for engagement between India, Russia and China in addressing the global crisis. Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division, spoke on “U.S.-China Relations: A Pathway for War Avoidance and Cooperation.” Colonel Black denounced the mindless attacks on China from the Congress, media and institutions in the U.S.. He called for renewing the spirit of the opening of relations under President Nixon, and warned against the recent efforts to provoke a crisis between Taiwan and the mainland, which could provoke war. He reviewed the terrorist operations in Xinjiang by Uighur Muslims with backing from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which prompted Beijing to provide extensive education and job training for the youth. This humanist approach, he said was denounced as “genocide” by the liars and fools in the West. As an expert in the situation in Syria, Colonel Black stated that 4,000 trained Uighur terrorists are fighting with al-Qaeda in Syria. If the U.S. approach—supporting the terrorists to achieve regime change against President Bashar al-Assad—is allowed to succeed, the terrorists will eventually flow back into China. He appealed to China to bring the Belt and Road into Syria to save the nation from disintegration. What would be the result of war with China, he asked? “Either a land war in Asia—and we know how that worked out before,—or nuclear war and the end of civilization.” This strategic panel closed with Ray McGovern, a former CIA Russia expert and Cofounder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), who spoke on: “When One Step Back Is Also One Step Forward: The Coincidence of Opposites.” He addressed the sin of hubris which drives those political leaders who fall into the category of: “Whom the Gods would destroy they first drive mad.” He analyzed the recent U.S. and British provocations against Russia, which finally caused Biden and perhaps some of his aides to seek the summit with Putin. He ridiculed those who believe they can play Russia off against China, and advised Biden to fire the U.S. military leader who recently declared that nuclear war is now “likely.” The second panel, “The Real Science Behind Climate Change: Why the World Needs Seven Terawatts of Energy,” featured outstanding and courageous scientists from around the world, both refuting the fake science behind the claim of anthropogenic climate change, and appealing for an end to the Malthusian campaign against fossil fuels, while calling for a massive increase in nuclear power development and expanded research for fusion. Scientists from the U.S., South Africa, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany contributed. The third panel, “Weimar Germany 1923 Comes Again: Global Glass-Steagall Policy To End Hyperinflation,” featured Jacques Cheminade, the head of the LaRouche movement’s sister organization in France, EIR economic editor Paul Gallagher, and EIR Ibero-America intelligence director Dennis Small. Gallagher presented LaRouche’s discovery that the actual source of wealth is not raw materials or physical human labor, but ideas and discoveries transformed into new technologies. He reviewed the reality behind the Green New Deal—the takeover of economic policy from elected governments by the banking cartels—what Mark Carney called “regime change”—to cut off credit from the productive economy under the lie of carbon-induced climate change. He compared these policies to those of Hjalmar Schact, Hitler’s Finance Minister and central banaker, which led to war and the death camps. The massive money printing must be stopped, and Glass-Steagall bank reform implemented in every country to wipe out the fake debt, and launch LaRouche’s Four Laws for global development. Small reviewed several of LaRouche’s discoveries in physical economy and the horrendous crisis globally today from the pandemic, the financial bubble, the war, sanctions policy and the cultural decay. He also exposed the bitcoin hysteria as a wildly speculative bubble. Two men from Kansas spoke—a rancher, Mike Callicrate, spoke on the urgent need to stop the cartelization of agriculture, showing the destruction of both farmers and the food supply which has resulted from agriculture being turned over to Wall Street, and calling for the restoration of family farming. State Senator Mike Thompson, the Chairman of the Senate Utilities Committee, addressed: “How Americans Are Herded Into ‘Green’ Energy, by Weaponized, Politicized, Monetized Science.” He said that Kansas now has 41% unreliable and highly subsidized wind power, while the reliable and cheaper coal plants are being shut down based on the carbon hoax, driving up energy prices and leaving the state uncompetitive. Japanese economist Daisuke Kotegawa, a former leading official at the Ministry of Finance in Japan, gave a powerful demonstration that Japan’s allies, the U.S. and the U.K., have repeatedly subverted Japan’s economy. When the Plaza Accords in 1985 forced Japan to double the value of the yen, an unforeseen consequence was that the Japanese banks were able to move into London and compete with the British banks, forcing several venerable British banks to go under. They responded with a “Basel rule” imposed by the BIS, aimed at stopping the Japanese banks. But when the western banks were threatened with collapse in 2008, the Basel rule was not applied, but rather “stress tests,” which, Kotegawa said, covered up that the banks were already bankrupt so the tests were bogus. Thus no western bankers went to jail, the QE simply increased the bubble, and now threatens hyperinflation without immediate Glass- Steagall measures. French economist and jurist Marc Gabriel Draghi spoke on the massive impact of the speculative bubble and the Great Reset in Europe. Pedro Rubio, President of the Association of Officials of the General Accounting Office in Columbia and a long time collaborator of the LaRouche movement, focused on the disastrous impact of the pandemic and the economic collapse in Columbia, leading to weeks of massive demonstrations, primarily by youth who are facing a life with no future. The final panel, “The Coincidence of Opposites: The Only Truly Human Thought Process,” was an extraordinary coming together of American doctors, retired military flag officers, a Russian diplomat, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, literally putting together on the spot the makings of an international alliance of forces to begin the process of building modern health facilities in every country. This would use the skills of military forces—potentially from several countries, including Russia—in dealing with emergencies around the world to address the more long-term emergency of economic backwardness, starting with hospitals, clean water, power and other infrastructure required for a functioning health care system. Zepp-LaRouche opened the session by describing what the 14th century genius Nicholas of Cusa meant by “coincidence of opposites”—overcoming apparently contradictory concepts, or opposing political or religious forces, by rising to a higher platform, where the common aims of mankind supersede the subsumed contradictions. She asserted that the unipolar world is now gone, while the world is poised in conflict between the new multi-polar world, based on international law in the UN Charter, against the hangers-on to the unipolar world, who have manufactured a “rules -based order” of their own construct, ignoring international law. Two former U.S. Surgeon Generals, Dr. Joycelyn Elders and Dr. David Satcher, and two retired officers, Maj. Gen. Peter Clegg and Rear Adm. Marc Y.E. Palaez, were joined by Boris Meshchanov, a Counselor at the Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations. Meshchanov addressed “The Russian Perspective on a Global Sustainable and Sustained Recovery.” Following a rich discussion, Zepp-LaRouche asked if the discussion could lead to a concrete result of these representatives of the medical profession, the military and the Russian foreign ministry could commit to setting in motion a process to establish a working group to begin the process of building modern health facilities, perhaps in a selected group of countries in Africa, South America and Asia. While Mr. Meshchanov expressed support for the concept, he thought the strategic area, which is now under discussion between Washington and Moscow, must be the first area of cooperation given the current extremely strained relations. Rear Admiral Palaez asserted forcefully that clean water was an essential beginning, and that this was something the military could do, and which should not divide us among nations. Dr. Khadijah Lang and Marcia Merry Baker, members of the Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, then gave a report on the Committee’s “Mozambique Pilot Aid Shipment — Action Diplomacy for World Health Security.” Mayor David Castro, President of the Mayors Without Borders Coalition in Honduras sent a video “Greetings to the Conference,” expressing his strong support for the work of the Schiller Institute. The conference closed with a moving presentation by Diane Sare, a candidate for United States Senate in New York State and the founder of the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus. Her presentation was titled “E Pluribus Unum: What We Can Learn from Beethoven.” First posing examples of less than stellar music which avoid the interface of complex voices, she then demonstrated the coincidence of opposites in the Credo movement of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, using examples from the performance of her own chorus. By first playing each vocal voice alone, then several of the instrumental voices alone, noting that there are about 29 voices altogether, sounding very different when played alone, she demonstrated how Beethoven makes it a unity in a way which provokes the mind to rise to the level of the creativity of the composer. She closed by playing the final performance as an uplifting close to the incredible conference. After a recitation of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, slightly abridged to serve as the declaration of the founding of the Schiller Institute in 1984, and the Rutli Oath from Friedrich Schiller’s William Tell, which was based on the U.S. Declaration, the conference was closed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche with the following words: “The state of tension of what we have discussed in the world is incredible—going to the edge of what could be a nuclear war, repeatedly…. I have no idea if the proposal to transfer American military production to a peaceful purpose—perhaps this is utopian. But I’m an eternal optimist that maybe the combination of these ideas, and the danger, that it cannot be in the interest of anybody that this goes out of control, and at the same time the demonstration of good will shown here today, with doctors, and military men offering that the military could help by providing clean water to the world—perhaps there are enough ideas that something will come out of it.”
Join us for a preview of this weekend's Schiller Institute international conference. Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in a webcast on April 28, underscored the extreme urgency of the forthcoming May 8 Conference: "I think it is actually horrifying how few people are aware of the acute danger in which civilization finds itself. There are only a few voices that are warning of nuclear war. One of them, Tulsi Gabbard (former Congresswoman, combat veteran, and Presidential candidate), about two weeks ago, in a show with Tucker Carlson, pointed to the fact that if there would be an outbreak of war, it would turn nuclear, it would reach the territory of the United States,...and nobody would remain alive.” Rising tensions between Russia and the United States, and China and the United States, all thermonuclear powers, can provoke “the unthinkable.” The folly of playing “superpower nuclear chicken-game” as discussed in US military doctrines like “Prompt Global Strike,” is comparable to lighting a match in an apartment building filled with gas. The first moments of such a conflict, will also be the last moments of the conflict.
The four extraordinary panels of the Schiller Institute’s June 26-27 conference described to you in Sunday’s EIR Alert open up new areas for rapidly expanded organizing and influence on world developments by the Schiller Institute and The LaRouche Organization. The latter’s Great Leap Backward pamphlet against the Green New Deal, circulating widely for months, led to a Saturday afternoon panel of real experts presenting “The Real Science Behind Climate Change”, which will become the new basis for discussion among scientists internationally. It is now the leading edge for organizing the “worldwide anti-Malthusian resistance” to defeat the Green New Deal and “Great Reset”.The Sunday morning panel, “Global Glass-Steagall To End Hyperinflation,” relaunches our drive for Glass-Steagall restoration, which was initiated by Lyndon LaRouche with several members of Congress already in 2007 just before the Global Financial Crash. At the same time it opens up anti-monopoly organizing potential in agriculture, where the pandemic has shown that a new model of family farming is necessary if we are long going to continue to eat. The opening session, “War with Russia and China Is Worse than MAD,” with a profound keynote from Helga Zepp-LaRouche and representatives from Russia, China, India and the United States, intensified the Schiller Institute’s 18-month drive for a summit of leaders of those four, genuinely to substitute collaboration in development in place of war. If that is going to be done, the first and primary mission has become clear in the past 18 months. A modern capacity for healthcare, hospitals, public health and medical staff must be created in every nation of the world, where the pandemic has shown that most nations have no approximation of this. The “advanced” countries have seen their lowered hospital capacity overwhelmed by COVID; in the developing nations hundreds of thousands have died at home. The pandemic continues; this must be done, and only collaboration of the strongest nations economically can do it. Helga LaRouche has not stopped urging this be done, since March of last year. In the fourth session of the conference Sunday afternoon she discussed this potential for three and a half hours with two former U.S. Surgeons General, other medical experts, retired U.S. military professionals, and a UN representative of Russia. The key is clean water. Each new hospital of 300 beds requires a reliable source of 100,000 gallons of clean water daily; but this is just the beginning. Public health rests on clean water for residential areas, water for sanitation systems, prevention of floods and swamps and therefore water management for transportation and irrigation for food crops, water for animal husbandry. Clean water really involves river basin systems, which can produce new electricity for new hospitals. This “infrastructure” task of clean water and associated power, bound up with modern public health, hospital, clinic, laboratory systems which must be built in every nation, is the opening for converting confrontation of the military and political systems of the United States, China, Russia, India to the beginning of cooperation in third countries, developing nations. The needed professional representatives of all those nations were at Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Schiller Institute conference, and that international deliberation is underway. (By the way, the greatest infrastructure need of the United States, by far, is for great projects of water transfer and water desalination to prevent the entire West of the nation from becoming an uninhabited desert, in the drought which has been intensifying for a generation.) Forget the political somersaults now going on in Washington whether to pass—whether to fund—whether the President will sign—a bill called “infrastructure” which ignores this entire life-and-death infrastructure matter for the human race. Join the Schiller Institute’s mobilization of conferences until the mission is fully underway worldwide.
The LaRouche movement is conducting a month-long series of events to mobilize the population of the world to defeat the Great Reset and accompanying danger of world war. Defeating this policy opens the door for implementation of Lyndon and Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s policies of economic development aimed at increasing the number of people on the planet and our standard of living.
In reponse to the announcement that Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are forming a new alliance called the AUKUS scarcely two weeks after withdrawing from Afghanistan after twenty years of disaster, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche said that this new alliance is a mindless extension of the policy of endless war. Instead of abandoning Afghanistan to the hell that twenty years of military intervention followed by a shutoff of international funds have created and leaping into a new and totally unnecessary escalation of conflict with China, the United States and other NATO countries must immediately act to do good, to repair the damage of Afghanistan and the other unjust military adventures of the past two decades, through a policy of real development.Zepp-LaRouche laid out the needed approach in her September 5 statement "Can ‘The West’ Learn? What Afghanistan Needs Now!"The needs are urgent; the situation today in Afghanistan is horrendous. Despite a much-hyped sum of $1.2 billion assembled early this week from donors conference, Afghanistan remains largely cut off from sources of funding that are required to keep its people alive. Over $9 billion of the country's banking reserves are frozen by the United States. The World Bank has shut down a major health program required to maintain the system of clinics and hospitals that serve the population. The World Food Program warns of tens of millions of people already facing food insecurity or threatened with it.But after withdrawing from Afghanistan following 20 years of disaster, instead of working to rebuild that nation, the United States has rushed into a new catastrophe — a new British Empire alliance targeting China as NATO already targets Russia. The Australia-United Kingdom-United States AUKUS alliance among what its imperial masters charmingly call "maritime democracies" was announced on Wednesday, focused squarely against China.
Yesterday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted up impeachment against President Donald Trump 232 to 197, just seven days before his term ends in any case, and the latest in a string of operations to nullify the U.S. Presidency, involving baseless accusations against Trump of Russiagate, the Mueller Report, racism, impeachment I, and now, impeachment II.Regarding this latest instance, every hour, more comes out verifying how the “insurrection” that Trump is accused of inciting—in today’s single article of impeachment against him—was in fact a staged affair. It was part of an overall orchestration of events and personalities to whip up a popular frenzy in which “emergency management” can be imposed upon the American people and institutions. This is the nature of what was done in the historic case of the Reichstag fire in 1933, and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. This is what we are up against now, and can defeat, provided we understand it “from the top,” and take countermeasures from the highest level. The Big Tech social and regular media companies—an arm of London/Wall Street and intelligence networks—have blatantly moved in to shut down communications of President Trump, and thousands of others. We received a report tonight that a CNN commentator declared after the impeachment and other anti-Trump actions, “We will make Trump disappear, just like we made outlaw Lyndon LaRouche go away.” So much for what they know. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a ringing denunciation of the madness, and lawlessness of the communications crackdown underway in the United States, saying this morning that, “the Statue of Liberty is turning red with anger, because it does not want to be turned into an empty symbol…. Freedom is even in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.” Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald said last evening on Fox News that the Big Tech corporations have “more power than nations.” Others are speaking out. Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed the whole picture today, in a webcast, “We Are Sitting on a Powder Keg—It’s Not Just Vote Fraud.” Among her points, she stressed that the operations against Trump, the suppression of any proper judicial or Congressional hearings on election irregularities and fraud, and all the rest, are a pretext to crush anyone who would oppose the agenda of the trans-Atlantic establishment, in imposing its green dictatorship Great Reset Initiative. The Wall Street/London half-century of casino economics is over, and their chosen recourse is the Great Reset, which are policies publicly promoted by the World Economic Forum, that will result in mass depopulation. Zepp-LaRouche said, “I think that the same banks and same big corporations—especially including Silicon Valley, Wall Street, but also the City of London—what these people are aware of, is that their system is completely bankrupt, and they’re now preparing for what they call the Great Reset. This is supposed to be featured big time, with a virtual seminar, starting on the 25th of January. This is supposed to be announced big time from the 25th of January until the 29th. And supposed to reorganize the entire financing system so that only Green finance is allowed. And that’s already started to happen with the major banks.” It has nothing to do with the environment, which is just an excuse, but is a drastic downgrade of technology and the means to support life. One of the most outspoken advocates of depopulation, Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb in 1968, just co-authored an article out today calling for lowering “fertility and consumption” by humans, in order to protect the “biocapacity” of the Earth, and saying that one agency which understands that radical action must be taken, is the World Economic Forum. What is required is a complete shift in policies. The added impetus is the present danger of conflicts flaring up into all-out war. Mike Pompeo, true to form ’til the last of his tenure at the State Department, is doing everything possible to ignite trouble. Yesterday, he gave a National Press Club briefing on how Iran is the home base for al-Qaeda, and must be penalized. Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed how to think about what must be done, speaking of the necessity of “working together in solving problems to rebuild the United States … and moving the relations among nations to a completely different paradigm. You have to make up your mind: Do you want to have war with Russia and China and blow up the whole world in a nuclear war, leading to the complete annihilation of the human species? Or do you want to have an approach of a new paradigm, solving problems together.”
Join us LIVE on Saturday, January 22 at 2pm EST. “The war danger is greater than ever, and we are on the verge of World War III,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche warned today. “We are now down to the wire and things will have to break one way or the other in the days ahead.” Although there is a growing chorus of voices calling for sanity in the U.S. and Europe, the control of U.S. policy by the insane British and their American war party confederates has not been broken. Furthermore, Zepp-LaRouche stated, the descent into war is being driven by the systemic breakdown of the trans-Atlantic financial system, which is now going out of control, as Lyndon LaRouche repeatedly explained.There is a second dynamic underway in the world, which is the emerging realignment of nations of all continents around China and Russia, and the Belt and Road Initiative as an alternative to the policy of Malthusian depopulation being promoted by the dying trans-Atlantic system. If the United States remains hostile to this policy alternative, and continues to defend the City of London and Wall Street’s bankrupt system, then the world will in all likelihood careen toward thermonuclear war in the short term. If the U.S. joins with the Belt and Road, as Lyndon LaRouche advocated from the outset, then the prospects for peace and development are excellent.
Dennis Speed and Mike Billington (Executive Intelligence Review) in dialogue with Ray McGovern (Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA-ret.), Co-Founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity). The full transcript is available below. SPEED: Now, what we’re going to do is hear from a couple of people who are going to discuss this. That’s Ray McGovern and also Mike Billington. I just want to say about Ray, I wrote about you about 11 days ago at the top of something I was writing. “Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has insisted that only a metanoia, a 180-degree spiritual bootlegger’s turn away from a self-defeating, self-destructive indifference to promoting the General Welfare of people all over the world can preserve any nation, including a declining United States.” Now, I’m not asking you to take responsibility for my remarks, but I would like to point out that our art of analysis, of actual strategic evaluation seems to be severely endangered right now, particularly in the United States. You’re one of the few people who is still practicing it. So, I’d like you to start us off, both in terms of responding to what Helga said, but you’ve been looking at what’s been said over the last week, week and a half, and Mike’s going to have plenty to say, because he’s been speaking to a few interesting people on his own about these matters. So, make it a little informal, you go ahead and tell us what your own thinking is about these matters, and then we’ll hear from Mike, and then continue to discussion. RAY MCGOVERN: Well, Dennis, thank you for the introduction. I hope you didn’t get too many bricks thrown at you from describing me that way. I wish I could tell you that we were further toward metanoia at present than we were back when I used that term. We are inches further, or inches more toward metanoia now. Let me tell you what I think, and why I think it. I should sort of as a clearness or honesty in advertising, say that I’m an outlier on this, just as I was an outlier for four years on Russiagate and so forth. But I’m used to that, just so you know what you’re getting. Watching the pronouncements by official Kremlin spokespeople and the play from these Biden-Putin conversations, and most important, what happened this last week starting on Monday in Geneva, persuades me that we’re on the road to a relaxation of tension. That Putin got a major concession from Mr. Biden, who very cleverly has told his people to play that down, and that talks will continue. I’ll say that again, the Russians didn’t stomp out of the talks, they didn’t invade Ukraine. They didn’t do anything other than to insist on their maximum position, and then sotto voce saying, well we got a big commitment here. We’re going to reinvent the intermediate forces treaty, the INF Treaty. Most Americans don’t understand this because it happened in 1987, but what was happening in those days was that the Russians had these intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles called SS-20s. We had Pershing 2s, the equivalent. This made the strategic situation incredibly tentative, because instead of 30-35 minutes warning from an ICBM shoot-out, you had maybe 14-15 minutes. These were bases in Europe, the European part of Russia, and Germany and elsewhere. Wise statesmen got together and said, this is crazy. We got to limit this. We don’t need this; we’ve already got a balance of strategic power here, thanks to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. So, we don’t need these things. Let’s get rid of them. People like me kind of said, “Right. We’re going to get rid of a whole class of very sophisticated ballistic missiles.” But, they did. One key element there was that it was verifiable. My friend Scott Ritter, for example, was one of hundreds of U.S. inspectors who were there when they blew up these sites in Russia. So, that’s possible, and what happened more recently is not only lamentable, but stupid and reversible. Now, be the first to know that U.S.-Russian talks are in the process of getting underway to reverse that, and to reinstate something like the INF Treaty. Will it be exact? No, it won’t, but it will place limits on offensive strike missiles in that part of Europe. How come you’re the first to know this? You’re the first to be crazy enough to listen to McGovern; that’s the first answer. But the second one is, McGovern has this arcane methodology, it’s called media analysis. I mean it’s sort of a sub-discipline of political analysis, I suppose. And what he does is, he reads stuff one day, and the next day he reads stuff, and then he figures out what’s different. When Vladimir Putin called Joe Biden and says, “Look, our negotiators are going to get together in just 12 days, but I need to talk to you now.” Biden said, “OK.” And they talked on the telephone on Dec. 30th this past year. How do we know what eventuated? Well, the Kremlin put out an immediate report, and they said—and I’ll quote it here, because I don’t want to misstate it. “Joseph Biden emphasized that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.” I’ll say it again. Biden emphasized that the U.S. has no intention of deploying offensive strike missiles in Ukraine. What about the American side? Well, they didn’t really include that in their read-out. How about Jake Sullivan? I guess he was the senior administration official that briefed all those reporters on background. Well, he said, nothing much happened. One of the reporters said, “Was there anything at all that we could report?” And Sullivan says, “Nothing I can think of.” Well, that’s a bit disingenuous, but it’s also clever. Because he didn’t want to give these reporters, who have their own axes to grind, time to criticize what Biden had done. It’s a mixed blessing that Americans don’t know what Biden had done, but eventually the mainstream media is going to have to deal with it, because those negotiations are in train. We know from Wendy Sherman and Ryabkov that they said these arms control issues are going to be pursued now. And you know, you can’t conclude these talks in a week or a month; it’s going to take some time. Both sides agree that it’s going to take some time to do this. Another straw in the wind, but not really for somebody who follows the media closely. Jens Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, who’s way out there as a hardliner, who says, “Our arms are ready for Russia.” What did he say? Again, you won’t see this reported, but here it is in TASS in English. Reporters can read this. He says, “‘Concrete possibilities for limits on the missiles Russia and NATO should be discussed, but not discussed publicly.’ He stressed that the Alliance was ready to discuss not only limitations, but a ban on intermediate-range missiles. ‘We have clearly expressed our willingness to sit down and discuss these kinds of limitations on different levels, banning all intermediate-range weapons which are a concern in Europe,’ the Secretary-General said.” That’s Stoltenberg! It was missed by the western press. What am I saying here? I’m saying that if you get through all the propaganda, all the stuff that’s sort of boiler-plate—“The Russians are demanding that Ukraine and Georgia will never become members of NATO.” Is that a realistic prospect? No. How long does it take a country like that to qualify for membership in NATO? Several years, maybe decades, maybe never. If you’re Vladimir Putin, what’s more important to you? To get NATO and the U.S. to sign onto an agreement that says we’ll never let Ukraine and Georgia into NATO? When, as Putin points out, Ukraine is already being populated by all kinds of arms emplacements. In other words, Putin said, membership in NATO for Ukraine may sort of be a distinction without a difference, because what they’re doing right now is moving all kinds of troops and offensive capabilities into Ukraine. What I’m saying here is this: You have to distinguish between the rhetoric, which is “No, no Ukraine, no Georgia in NATO.” And we, NATO, and Wendy Sherman, and Blinken and Nod and Sullivan, we all stood up to those Russians. We adamantly said, “Under no circumstances! Win!” Putin was hardly surprised by that. I think he was a little surprised—let’s be realistic—that he frightened Joe Biden with a deployment of—how many? 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border. And persuaded him that, hey, you had a Cuban Missile Crisis which not only bears a resemblance to how we feel now, but is an exact replica. And guess what, Joe? We’re going to react the same way the U.S. when Khrushchev tried to put those medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. As an aside, and as an indication of how dangerous this really is, Khrushchev did put those medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. We found them finally. CIA U-2s found them. But guess what? We never thought they were armed with nuclear warheads. And guess what? They were. We found that out decades later. So, just think, if John Kennedy had been more susceptible to the blandishments of our military, they wanted to give Russia a bloody nose? Long story short, we might not be here; there’s a good chance we wouldn’t be here today to discuss these things. Another sort of aside on this, is simply that here’s Putin before all his generals and admirals above a certain grade, it’s the 21st of December. He’s giving them the word. He says, this time we’re going to have mutually agreed upon signed, legally binding documents to limit arms. And he looks out, and he sees—I’m guessing here, I wasn’t there, right? He sees a couple of generals say, “Yeah, right. That was really helpful on the ABM Treaty, wasn’t it? Or, the INF Treaty? We had mutually binding international agreements, and the Americans just walked out, without explanation, for God’s sake. Tell us more about those mutually binding agreements there, Vlad.” In the next paragraph, Putin says, “OK, the U.S. has not given much respect to mutually binding international agreements.” And he mentions the INF Treaty and the ABM Treaty. So, you know, it will be nice to get these kinds of agreements, but what Putin is most interested in is what happens on the ground. And they’re negotiating on that. If you don’t believe me, or you don’t believe Wendy Sherman, believe Jens Stoltenberg, who is on the far right of the hawks in NATO. The last thing I’ll say has to do with analysis of what the New York Times puts out. I’m just becoming aware how war-mongering the New York Times has always been. I go back a ways. More recently, I go back to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And of course, the New York Times was a main culprit in selling that story. Not only Judy Miller, who did finally get relieved of duty, but a fellow named David Sanger. He was equally responsible. I have the book on David Sanger, and I’ve written about him, but suffice it so say here that in July 2002, so 7-8 months before the war, before the U.S.-British attack on Iraq, Sanger had this article in the New York Times which said, no fewer than seven times, that there were, as flat fact, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now, this was what he was instructed to say by his intelligence sources. It was a very interesting juncture, because that’s when W Bush and the administration were trying to sell the idea to Congress so that Congress would, in its own stupid way, authorize war. Today, we have a lead article, right on the front page above the fold, David Sanger. What’s he saying? He’s saying that my intelligence say that the Russians, those dastardly clever Russians, do you know what they’re planning now? They’re planning to infiltrate agents to shoot up other Russians so they can have a pretext, a casus belli, a reason to attack Ukraine. They are so lusting after some kind of justification to attack Ukraine, that they’ll kill their own Russians there. How about that? What’s his source? The same guys he talked to back in 2002; the WMD guys. How do I know that? They’re the same unknown sources who are reluctant to give their names because of the sensitivity of the subject. Just in contrast, the Russians have also warned about a false flag justification. And how did they do that? It was this fellow named Sergei Shoigu, who happens to be their Minister of Defense. At the same gathering at which Putin talked to all the top admirals and generals, what he said was that we know there are 150 or so Americans, contractors of course, who are preparing this kind of false flag attack in the area of Ukraine, and that they have sarin gas, which is one of their preferred methods of false-flag attacks. So, you have Shoigu identifying himself, he’s not an unnamed source in intelligence who’s reluctant to give his name because of the sensitivity of the subject. No, he’s gone right ahead of time. Is this significant? It is in a sort of intelligence playing around thing. I’m sure that both sides are equally prepared to do just this kind of thing. The operative bottom line for me is simply that Putin is much too clever, much too restrained, and much too much a statesman—and I’ll say that again, statesman—to get himself involved in attacking Ukraine, much less occupying this basket case. It used to be the bread basket of Europe; now, it’s a basket case, thanks to the coup that we, the United States and other Western intelligence services, arranged on the 22nd of February, 2014, aptly called the most blatant coup in history. Why? Because it was advertised; it was advertised on the 4th of February on YouTube. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland talking to U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in Kiev, saying, “We’ve got it all arranged now. Yats is the guy. Incoming Prime Minister. Tell these other guys to wait in the wings here. Did you talk to Jake Sullivan?” “Yeah.” “OK, what did he say? Oh, good. Biden is free to come in and solidify this thing, and we can glue it together.” Pyatt says, “What about the EU?” And Victoria Nuland says—and I don’t want to destroy the nice tone of this conversation, but she uses the F-word. She says, “F— the EU!” Was this a real conversation? Yeah! You had the voices. Did they know it was going to monitored? No. Did Nuland apologize? She apologized, but only for saying the F-word, not for arranging the coup. She said, I’m really sorry I said that; I didn’t really mean it. Of course, that’s exactly what she meant. And that’s what they’re doing even now. The question is, how long the EU will put up with this kind of thing. I could go on for a while, and I’ve probably outlasted my welcome, but perhaps more can be said in what ensues. The operative thing I’d like to leave you with is that right now, many of the leading newspapers—that is, the Wall Street Journal and so forth—are very reluctant to mention that discussions will now take place on intermediate-range ballistic missiles between the U.S. and Russia. Did you know? I ask you, did you know that Biden promised that we have no plans to deploy offensive strike missiles in Ukraine? Did you know that? No, you didn’t know that. OK. Did you know that the so-called anti-ballistic missile emplacements already completed in Romania and going into Poland now, have the same kind of holes that accommodate what Putin calls “Toe-ma-hawk”? Tomahawk missiles. Now, what’s the point there? Tomahawk missiles can easily strike the ICBM force of Russia and destroy the strategic balance. Is this a real concern of Putin? Of course it is! It’s been a primary concern for years, and he said so. Right now, he’s being heard, that’s different. Right now, he’s being heard, and there’s a concession on the table from Biden about not doing this in Ukraine. The discussions will go forward. I’ve been accused of being Pollyanna, and I don’t like that, but I don’t mind seeing some progress here. And of course, the main kibosh can be done by what I call the MICIMATT. There are very strong forces there in the military-industrial, Congressional, intelligence, media, academia, think tank complex. You notice there are parts of the government in there, right? Military, Congressional, intelligence? But in this case, oddly, it’s not the White House. So, the question for the next couple of weeks is, how soon will it become the White House, or conversely, how soon will the White House’s hopeful position descend under pressure of the MICIMATT? I’ll stop there, and thanks very much for letting me go on this long. SPEED: Well, thank you very much, Ray. And I think you had a lot to say there that I’m sure Mike is going to have both responses to and maybe some questions about, too. Mike, of course, for anybody who doesn’t know, is the Asia Desk editor for EIR, but he’s also been spending some time interviewing some interesting people recently, and he’s pursuing that, as we’re doing our best to try to resurrect the lost art of evaluations. So, Mike, why don’t you go ahead. MICHAEL BILLINGTON: Well, thank you, Ray. That was a most comprehensive and very powerful presentation. I think you captured the overall idea in a way which is going to maybe shock a lot of people, but I think also wake them up to the fact that you have to look at the world as a whole. There’s a lot of people, very depressed, or somewhat pessimistic within the United States right now, about the idea that everything’s lost, our country’s going to hell, our cities are destroyed, the pandemic’s out of control, we’re threatened with thermonuclear war, and so on. But if you’re willing to look at the world from the perspective of the world as a whole, as Ray just did, then you have the ability to revive optimism in a population which has been purposely degraded by the media part of the MICIMATT, and by our government in many respects, to give them some optimism, that there is a way out; that in fact, there’s a way to stop this descent into a dark age, which clearly we are in—the threat of war, the pandemic, the cultural breakdown, the social disintegration within the United States and most of Western Europe. But, again, if you look at the world as a whole, if you look at who should be our closest allies, Russia and China, then you begin to get the sense, you can begin to get the sense that what we as individuals do at a moment of crisis like this, can have a huge, huge impact on the world. I want to say a few things about what Helga and Lyn said in the beginning, but let me fill in a few pieces of what Ray McGovern just went through, from a few other, very prominent and knowledgeable intelligence people. There aren’t that many, so the few of them that there are, have stepped forward over the last few days, in a way which really does confirm the perspective that Ray just laid out. One of them is a guy named Gilbert Doctorow: He’s a long, long-time analyst, somebody who’s worked in Russia and around Russia for many years, as well as on other sides of this. He attended the Russian press conference, after the Russia-NATO meeting on Wednesday [Jan. 12], and when he came out, there was an RT journalist who talked with him, and he said that the reason that the Russians deployed these forces on the border with Ukraine was provoked, first, by the fact that the U.S. and the British and others were sending modern missiles, modern weapons—not ballistic missiles, not intermediate-range nuclear missiles, but war-fighting missiles, Javelin missiles against tanks and drones to deliver bombs over the Donbas, that this was happening. And the way Doctorow put it, he said, they were concerned that some of the “hotheads” in Kiev would use this equipment with the mistaken belief that the Western powers would come and defend them militarily if they got into a war with Russia. In order to disprove that to these hotheads in Kiev, they deployed their forces to the border, with no intent to invade—they’ve made that very clear—but they want to do, as Doctorow put it, “flush out the reality” of what nations would come to Ukraine’s defense if they were stupid enough to get into a war with Russia. And it worked! One after another, the U.S., the French, the Germans, others, said, “No! If there’s a war between Ukraine and Russia, we’re not going to send troops, not one troop, not one soldier, not one boot will be on the ground” (although there are people there, training already, and there’s certain activities). But what they mean is that they’re not going to put their full weight into a war with Russia. They’re not stupid enough to fight a potentially nuclear war with Russia, over Ukraine. And in fact, they said so! They said, “If Russia invades Ukraine, we’re going to give them the toughest, most never seen before sanctions against them, it’s going to destroy their economy. It’s the economic nuclear option,” and so on and so forth, but not said was, “we’re going to send any troops, we’re not going to go to war.” And that, in fact, is what happened. Now, another extremely competent analyst on this is a guy called Dmitri Trenin: He is Russian, who spent 20 some years in the Soviet army, at that time. And he’s now heading the Carnegie Institute in Moscow. So he went to work in something called the Moscow Institute in Europe, and then the NATO Defense College in Rome; but then he began working with the think tanks here in Washington, Carnegie in particular, and he’s now heading the Carnegie Moscow center, so it’s the fellow Carnegie Institute in Moscow. He’s in Moscow, he’s in the center of these ideas; he has a long history in the military. And he gave an interview to Christiane Amanpour—I won’t characterize her; she’s with CNN. I think that’s probably enough to indicate her character. And she was trying to bait him and he generally made mincemeat out of her. She began by quoting the hardline positions that were being stated by Russia and by the U.S.; Russia saying, we absolutely insist on written guarantees, you must move NATO back to where it was before you expanded. The U.S. was saying, we didn’t give an inch, we’re telling Russia we’re going to really destroy them if they dare to invade Ukraine; and we will never say that we cannot expand NATO, and so forth. But Trenin said: Look, they’re talking. This is the beginning, this is not the end. And when you talk about Russia going to war, he said—and I’ll read this—he said: “Putin is very careful in using military force. In Crimea, not a shot was fired. In Syria, professionals did the fighting, with few casualties. Kazakhstan is a victory. And they’re beginning to withdraw, today,” he said, which is true. They stopped a Ukraine, a Maidan from happening in Kazakhstan, because they quickly called in the collaborators to make sure that this thing was stopped in its tracks, this color revolution and outside terrorist operation, which burned down several government buildings, but tried to literally create a Maidan, and a coup was crushed. He goes on: “This talk of war is on the Western side, not on the Russian side. There’s no feeling of impending war within Russia over Ukraine. Putin is using the troops as leverage, to get the U.S. to listen and to negotiate.” And as Ray said, Putin is being heard. This is a change in the dynamic of European security development. Now, as Ray also mentioned, Blinken, just yesterday, Blinken and Stoltenberg talked, and they both incurred, indeed, as reported by Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, he said that both the U.S. and NATO are ready to meet again, to pursue diplomacy and reciprocal dialogue. So this is moving forward. And Wendy Sherman, who’s the official negotiator in these talks, talked with the head of the OSCE, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which includes Russia—it’s all the nations of Europe; she agreed with the current Secretary General Helga Schmid of the OSCE that this is a format to continue revitalizing European security dialogue, which includes Russia and all the other nations. So this is moving forward, no question. Amanpour then quoted the U.S. bluster and Trenin replied, just straight out, “Get beyond the rhetoric. We know Ukraine will not be a NATO member soon, maybe never,” as Ray also said. “The simple reason, the U.S. will not fight a nuclear-armed Russia over Ukraine. It is not in the U.S. interest to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Europe, since Russia could retaliate by deploying nuclear-armed submarines to patrol the Eastern seaboard of the United States.” In other words, they could put nuclear weapons, including their hypersonic weapons, which they have and the U.S. doesn’t, they could put them at the same distance from the U.S. cities, as the U.S. would be, if they moved their missiles up to the Russian border, and therefore, it is absolutely not in the U.S. interest to do that kind of thing. Now, one other aspect of this I want to quote; this is back to Mr. Doctorow. The RT reporter asked him, “Why, now?” And Doctorow said, “That’s a question. Why has the media asked the ‘why now’?” Why didn’t Russia do this when they started moving their NATO forces east toward the Russian borders, starting, I think it was in 1999 was the first time. And Doctorow said, it’s very clear, you know, Putin gave a now very famous speech in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, where he laid out precisely these issues of what is not acceptable to the Russians. But, at that time, the Russian economy was still in very precarious condition, and their military was not up to snuff, to put it nicely. Since that time, Gilbert Doctorow said, they have poured huge amounts of money, of brain power, of scientific and technological capacity into building their military, and they now quite rightly believe they have a military that’s equal, perhaps even in some areas like hypersonic weapons, the superior to the Western military powers. Therefore, they can do it. You can’t even pretend any longer that the U.S. is the only superpower, as we did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s simply not true. You have China, as the by far the biggest and best economy in the world; and you have the Russia-China cooperation on both developing the third world. Russia is building nuclear power plants, and of course the Belt and Road is building nations, getting them out of poverty, getting out of the grip of the IMF/World Bank, by giving them infrastructure. So they were able to do it, because they now have the power to do it. And the U.S. knows that. People, no matter how much they bluster, they know that they cannot fight a war against Russia, just like they cannot fight a war against China. The only danger, and it’s an extreme danger, is that you have some real madmen in the United States. You have Admiral Richard, the head of the Strategic Command, the guy who would actually push the button. Who said in February last year, that we used to think nuclear war was unlikely, but now with the rise of Russia and China, it’s likely. And this is madness, real madness. And you all saw, I’m sure, Senator Wicker, who literally, he’s one of the top guys on the Senate Armed Services Committee, openly saying we should prepare for a first nuclear strike against Russia: Madness. So, could madness happen? Could we sleepwalk into a thermonuclear World War III? We have to be on guard. But, as Ray said, we have to look for the optimism where it’s there, because it’s our responsibility to push to make that happen that way, by making sure the American people do know what the American media is trying so hard to make sure you don’t know. I want to say a few more words, in a sense go back to what you heard Lyn say, that when you have a crisis like we have today, you have to look at it in the context of an overall global crisis, an incident, which is not defined by what happened this week, or last week, but as a long-term process. And there’s no question but that this round of crisis started with the collapse of the Soviet Union, when we had a tremendous opportunity, when Lyn and Helga said: OK, we’ve broken the British Empire’s division of the world into East versus West, the free world versus the communists, and so forth. We’ve basically ended that. this is an opportunity to bring about a new paradigm for mankind, and they proposed that it be done by building high-speed rail connections between Europe and China, through Russia; that we create an environment in which we begin to work together as human beings and as sovereign nations committed to the idea that our sovereignty depends upon the sovereignty of the others, as we had in the Peace of Westphalia. So, at that time, with the fall of the Soviet Union, some people, the neocons and others in the West thought, “we just won. We won the war. We won the Cold War.” It’s like Francis Fukuyama said, the neocon who wrote The End of History: Liberal democracy has now proven to be the superior means of running a nation, and it’ll be so from now and henceforth for the rest of time. History is over. We won. And then, just last week, Fukuyama looked around, and he said, I guess I look like a bit of an idiot when people see that I wrote that End of History back in the 1990s. So he wrote an op-ed, I think in the New York Times, which said, “well, you know, I guess I missed up some things. It didn’t occur to me that advanced democracies like the U.S. could collapse—didn’t occur to me. I thought, well, this is permanent, this is the rest of time.” And of course, what he sees as the collapse is January 6, last year, that this “insurrection” showed that our democracy has collapsed. So he’s really no different from the most wacko of the Democrats, who look at it that way. But look at what Helga was discussing with the Peace of Westphalia. I won’t repeat what she said, but it was, in a sense, seen as the birth of the idea of sovereign nation-states, because it’s based on the idea that your sovereignty depends upon recognition and honoring the sovereignty of others, the “interest of the other,” that that was the basis on which this would take place. And the concept was somewhat built into the UN Charter. It was emphatically adopted under something that the Chinese and the Indians first established: In 1954, Zhou Enlai from China and Jawaharlal Nehru from India, established what they called Panchsheel, or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. And then, in the next year, in 1995, the famous Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which was the meeting of Asian and African formerly colonialized nations, meeting for the first time without their colonialist lords, and it was sort of the beginning of the Non-Aligned Movement. Part of the purpose of that conference was to prevent what was then an emerging threat of a war between the U.S. and China. And Zhou Enlai and Nehru and Sukarno, the head of Indonesia, were the key leaders—some from Africa and others from Asia—and in that they adopted officially these Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. And it’s worth thinking about what they are, because it’s really the nature of the Westphalia sovereignty idea and it’s the nature of the United Nations. The first, and you hear these terms, now, often, is: territorial integrity, that you have a sovereign nation. Nobody can move and take over your territory. Nonaggression, that you will not launch aggression against another nation. Non-interference in internal affairs, which of course is the daily fare of the U.S. intelligence community is interfering in other nations’ internal affairs. The equality of nations, the idea that you respect the sovereignty of the other, and cooperate with them. And then, fifth, the idea of peaceful coexistence. So these ideas are the basis upon which we can, and we must establish a new security architecture, to replace NATO. As Helga said, at one point, they were talking about Russia being part of NATO, and perhaps NATO could have sustained itself by being a truly inclusive agreement amongst all of the nations of Europe; but that was undermined, and it’s now threatened. We need a new architecture based on this idea of peaceful coexistence. And it has to be driven, as LaRouche has always insisted, by that idea of economic development: That peace will only come through economic development. We are now faced with both the complete breakdown of the Western financial system: Hyperinflation kicking in. To a great extent, the energy hyperinflation is driven directly by the adoption by the Western banking system of the Green New Deal, which is not something being run by AOC, or any of the silly children, running around screaming about the environment, or Al Gore and his fanaticism. It’s run by the banks. It’s run by Mark Carney, by the people who set up a banker’s cartel at the Glasgow climate summit, who explicitly said, we don’t believe governments are going to implement the policy of shutting down their fossil fuels in their economy, and therefore, we bankers will take upon ourselves, the moral responsibility to save the planet from carbon, by shutting down the world economy, and diverting every available penny into bailing out the bankrupt banking system, and funding the military buildup we need to enforce that. So this is a moment of truth, where we can, and must, inspire optimism in people of the world, and especially the people in Europe and the United States who are drowning in pessimism and degeneracy right now. I think what Ray had to say, what some of these others, and what Lyn and Helga have to say is the antidote to the pessimism and the destruction of the minds of our citizens, that’s been so drilled into them over this systematic descent into a moral and cultural dark age. And, again, I say, we have every reason to be optimistic, and let’s pledge ourselves to bringing that optimism, while holding up the grave danger we’re in, a moment of crisis of whether civilization itself will even survive if there were to be a nuclear war, and yet, it’s precisely because it’s so dangerous that people are looking around; they know something’s gone horribly, horribly wrong. They’re looking for answers. They’re looking for who’s been telling the truth when everybody else was lying. Like what Ray said about the brilliant New York Times journalist. I’m going to end by one short thing. This is the New York Times believe it or not [showing lead editorial, “Let Innocent Afghans Have Their Money,” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/opinion/afghanistan-bank-money.html]. But as you know, we’re having a conference on Monday, an emergency seminar on the extreme danger in Afghanistan, the fact that we have the threat of a genocide, as bad or maybe even worse, than Hitler carried out in his death camps and his wars—believe or not, the New York Times lead editorial this morning was “Let Innocent Afghans Have Their Money.” And the way it’s worded—I won’t go through the whole thing right here—but the way it’s worded, it’s clear that somebody at the New York Times realized that this genocide is so obvious, that if they don’t turn around from what they’ve been doing, which is peddling as they did with the war policy, the idea that we can and should punish the Taliban, they realize that this would be hanging over their heads. And somebody got through to them and said “You better turn that around.” So they did—not fully, not completely. It’s still somewhat self-serving. But they did note that if we don’t release the money that we’ve sequestered, if we don’t allow the central bank of Afghanistan to have their money, then we’re going to be faced with personal responsibility for mass murder, the mass murder of somewhere in the range of 20-24 million people, over this winter, where people have no money. And their editorial says “malnourished children with withered arms have been arriving at clinics in Afghanistan for months. Doctors, nurses, teachers and other essential government workers haven’t been paid in months and it’s not clear when they will. Targetted financial sanctions,” they say—of course, they defend their sanctions policies—“targetted financial sanctions are an appropriate and powerful tool to punish bad actors, and odious regimes. The mere threat of them can achieve results. But too often their cumulative effect over time is indistinguishable from collective punishment.” And of course, they’re guilty of collective punishment in case, after case, after case of these 20 years of mass warfare. But nonetheless, they’re saying this has got to stop. They have excuses about why the Fed can’t release the money, but they say, we can get the money released from Europe and they interview our friend Shah Mehrabi, the former board member of the central bank in Afghanistan. So things are moving: Our emergency conferences, our mobilization, our pulling people together on this Afghan crisis, our Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites, and the statement by Dr. Elders that humanity comes first in the case of Afghanistan, we have to release these funds and immediately launch a development program—this is having an effect. And again, there’s reason to be optimistic, if we’re willing to give our full heart and soul to this fight for the fate of mankind. SPEED: Thanks a lot, Mike. And I’ll just say, to both you and Ray, I’ve gotten three questions which I’m going to pose. They’ll give us an arc of time, and Ray’s got something. Go ahead, Ray. MCGOVERN: I just wanted to comment on one of the points that Mike made and that could be well elaborated on, because it’s the most important new factor in the equation: And that is, China. Now, Biden has had a bad experience. His advisers told him, before the June 16 summit that the Russians and the Chinese have this big, long border, and they have clashes on the border, and China’s so big that it must be threatening Russia. And so, what Biden said to Putin, and we know this, because Biden said this before he got on the plane coming home, “Russia is being squeezed by China. They have this long, long border, and Russia knows that China’s not only one of the biggest economic powers, but the biggest military power. So the Russians have a lot of cause to worry about China.” Now, that’s 180 degrees away from the current situation. It might have been true in the textbooks that Jake Sullivan and Blinken read 40 years ago, but it’s not true now. Never! Never, ever have China and Russia been so close! So, consider Putin coming away from this summit, saying to his associates, “My God! These guys don’t know what end is up! They don’t know how strong we Russians really are—why? Because China will back us up! In the vernacular, China’s got our back! How do we show them that?” Next summit, on Dec. 7, Putin reads Biden the Riot Act. He says: “You got our relationship with China completely screwed up. We’re very, very close. As a matter of fact, in one week I’m going to be talking with President Xi—tune in! Because you’ll see how close we are!” So, a week later, on Dec. 15, I think, there’s a virtual meeting between Putin and Xi, and they released the first minute of it, which was choreographed exactly the way the way they wanted it, and this is what happened. Putin: Thank you so much for the invitation to get together, and I just wish it were in person my good friend, because I look forward to meeting you in Beijing to begin the Olympics on Feb. 4. Then we will be in person and we can discuss things as we usually do. (Witness the fact, in parens here, that the U.S. had just declared that it would not go to the Olympics and it’s not going to have any official presence there and others followed suit.) What does Xi say? Xi says, “My friend, Vladimir Putin. This is the 36th time we’ve met, one-on-one, physically or bilaterally in the last couple of years. I look forward to these discussions. What I really appreciate is what you, Russia, have done to support our core interests. And also, you’ve been really good about preventing others from driving a wedge between Russia and China. Just be assured that we, China, will support your core interests, in the West, just the way you have supported our core interests here.” And then, Yury Ushakov, who’s the prime adviser to Putin, tells the press, “the way these two describe their relationship as something that exceeds, something that’s bigger than or higher than a treaty or a defense alliance, in terms of its closeness and in terms of its effectiveness.” It exceeds an alliance. I checked out the Russian and Chinese words, and that’s the word they used. So, if Biden and his advisers, you know, he brought in the clowns, but at least they’re getting educated! If they didn’t get the message from that, they never—well, they did get the message from that. That was on Dec. 15th. When Putin insisted that Putin and Biden talk on Dec. 30th, Biden had been educated. And what Putin is really saying is, look, even your military I think should be aware of, or shy away from the prospect of a two-front war on opposite sides of the world. China’s got our back, and that’s real. Bottom line, here: What helped Putin to be so assertive, and his people like Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu? Well, because it really is two against one, now, unlike the situation that existed under Nixon, where we successfully played one off against the other. Then their relationship was very thorny. Now it could not be closer. And that’s not pretense, that’s real! Now, one other thing I’ll just tuck in here, is that empowers what reaction our allies get when they make silly statements like German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who said: Look, you Russians are willing to use military force? That’s where we’re moving our troops up into Ukraine and elsewhere. And so, what did Shoigu say? He says, “You know, you’re probably too young to remember, but the last time German troops moved up to our border, it really didn’t end well, so, please go study your history.” There is a new assertiveness. It’s well founded, and I just hope that those sophomores—or, they’re rising juniors now—that Biden has advising him will read more current textbooks, or maybe even some articles from you guys and from me. Thanks. SPEED: I’m very glad you raised that, Ray. Actually, one of the first questions pretty much prompts that. I think before we go to this question, if we could show the map, and maybe either Mike or Ray will have a comment. This is a map of Kazakhstan, and the general area. I’m putting this up here, because of what you referenced concerning the issue of borders. It doesn’t show the whole Chinese border, but it does show something about an area people have just heard about in the world, and one of the things that should be noted is, Kazakhstan, and then you see Afghanistan on the map. The question we have is about Afghanistan, and I’ll ask that, but I suspect either of you may have a more expansive answer. Let’s leave the map up, while I’m asking the question. The question comes from one of our people, Anastasia, who reports: “Helga Zepp-LaRouche just had an awesome class and discussion”—this was during our meeting, as we began here—“with some 80-plus youth from around the world, who are ready to fight for Operation Ibn Sina. How can we combine the NATO/Russia crisis with the Ibn Sina initiative?” Operation Ibn Sina refers to Afghanistan, and it’s an initiative that Helga has discussed concerning the possibility of addressing the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan from the standpoint of a new participation among the United States, China, Russia, and of course, the actors surrounding Afghanistan. You see there on the map: Iran on the west, Pakistan on the east; and then Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. But we’ve just heard on the news about Kazakhstan and what’s happened there. I’ll say that the concept of what was being discussed about Operation Ibn Sina—Ibn Sina was a physician and philosopher, generally from Southwest Asia; the Afghanis claim him, the Iranians claim him, a lot of people claim him. But importantly, as a physician and as a great philosophical thinker, the idea was to invoke someone from the culture of the area, so that when talking about humanitarian relief, you’re invoking a person from the area itself. You’re not just talking about outside intervention, and more importantly, a new form of collaboration: This as a process of a new strategic alliance. So, I just wanted that map up and whatever comment either of you could have, on what can be done on the Afghanistan situation. Mike why don’t you start, since we just heard from Ray? BILLINGTON: Actually, I wanted to respond to Ray by addressing the Kazakhstan issue, because as Ray was making fun of the geopoliticians, including Biden’s gaffe about Russia and China, the Kazakhstan thing is being portrayed by many Western geopolitical writers as “Oh, China’s very worried about this, because Russia used this crisis to step in there, and now Russia’s going to be taking over an area where China’s got its interests….” and nothing could be further from the truth. This was another example of the extremely close cooperative operation between Russia and China—based on principle! This is what’s important, it’s not just alliance of nations ganging up against people they see as their enemies. The old British imperial idea, that when there’s three powers, in order to defeat one, you ally with your enemy, who happens to be opposed to another enemy; and then you crush them, and then create another alliance to crush the other. This is geopolitics: Constant conflict, zero sum game—which deny that there’s a common aim for mankind! The relationship between Russia and China right now is based on the principle of peace through development. What happened in Kazakhstan? Remember that the Russians’ concern with the collapse of the occupation forces in Afghanistan, they’re working with the Taliban, but they’re not agreeing to recognize them because they have a very real concern about the existing al-Qaeda, ISIS type formations that still exist in Afghanistan, that they will come across the borders into the Central Asian countries. What happened in Kazakhstan? They tried to run another Maidan, another 2014 Maidan coup, with different predicates, somewhat, but it was done based on an economic crisis. The National Endowment for Democracy spent $1 million last year; the George Soros Open Society Fund spent $3.5 million last year, organizing the NGO/color revolution forces, to go out in the street and create chaos over some economic or other slight. And that was done. But within about 48 hours, when they doubled the price of gas, and therefore, some of these Soros types came out in the street, you then had very highly trained, armed terrorists, some of whom came from Afghanistan, some from Syria, who intervened into the mobs, with high-powered rifles, with their private communication capacities; attacked buildings, attacked the media—they took over the TV stations; they took over the airport: This is what a coup does. They burned down government buildings. And President Tokayev responded, by immediately calling in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) forces, which includes strong forces from Russia. And the Russians immediately deployed significant numbers of forces, shut the thing down over just a few days. Now, what’s going on in Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan is the key transport route for the New Silk Road. The Chinese already built a major pipeline from the Caspian Sea, right straight through Kazakhstan into China, which is delivering huge amounts of oil to China, so they have that to protect. Then when they decided to build their New Silk Road Economic Belt, the main route goes right through Kazakhstan on its way to Europe and Turkey. And they have a dry port on the border of China and Kazakhstan, which is an incredible place that takes 4,000 trains per year, now going back and forth between China and Europe, they go through the dry port, where they have to switch gauges; they have incredible mechanisms to move the containers from one gauge train to another in record time. So this is a strategically crucial part of the New Silk Road transformation of the economies. And yes, there were difficulties in Kazakhstan, with a lot of corruption in the ruling circles around Nazarbayev, and other problems. But the point is, the potential for its development as a very lightly populated, but huge country, which also has Russia’s spaceport and it also has Russia’s missile training sites are in Kazakhstan. They have uranium that is processed in Russia, and then sent back to be turned into nuclear power fuel. These are totally Russia-China cooperative operations to transform the world, and especially in their neighboring areas. Now, on Afghanistan: Of course, you also have the fact that the Uighur in Xinjiang in China—what people hear all the time is that the Chinese are committing genocide against the Uighurs. It’s such an abomination it’s almost not worth refuting: The Uighur population in Xinjiang has doubled; their standard of living has nearly doubled since China began focussing on developing the poorest parts of the country. And in lifting 700-800 million people out of poverty, a good number of those were the very, very poor Uighur people in Xinjiang, who have been lifted up, educated, given jobs, and this is called “genocide” by Mike Pompeo! They deal with their terrorist problem by educating and giving employment to the young people who otherwise are dragged off into terrorist operations, because the U.S. is dropping bombs on their mothers’ homes. I think that’s the proper way to see it. But these networks came out of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and there are still areas of terrorist training within Afghanistan. it’s not going to be cleaned up overnight, even though the Taliban is fighting them in most cases. So for both Russia and China, the issue of the Islamic movements within the Islamic culture are crucial. Now, what has Helga done, by launching the Operation Ibn Sina? This is not something that came out of the blue. Helga’s studied this for many, many years, and has written extensively about the golden age of Islam. She’s written about Ibn Sina in particular, and she knows that he is a beloved figure in the Islamic world. My interview with Graham Fuller, the former CIA station chief in Kabul, and stationed all over the Islamic world, very much an Islamic scholar himself, made the point that there’s absolutely no reason that you could not have another golden age of Islam! It’s most likely going to come as part of what Lyn and Helga always argued, which is that you’re not going to have a localist renaissance any more. We have to have a global renaissance, in which each culture pulls out the best moments of its history. The Christian Renaissance, the European Renaissance, the Islamic Renaissance during the Baghdad Caliphate, the Confucian Renaissance during the Sung Dynasty; and similar things in Africa and elsewhere, this is what can and must happen. So this Ibn Sina project, of course, it’s aimed at stopping genocide in Afghanistan, it’s aimed and bringing modern health facilities to Afghanistan and in fact every nation on Earth. But it also is crucial to getting people to think in terms of why we, non-Muslims, have to understand who Ibn Sina was and is, today, to the Islamic community internationally, but also that we have to internalize that in our hearts, with the sense of the Peace of Westphalia, that we have to understand the Confucian Renaissance and Chu Hsi in the Sung Dynasty in China. We have to understand what went on during the golden age of Islam, and embrace it as part of what we do, by embracing the Platonic period and Augustinian era, and especially the work of Nicholas of Cusa and Schiller and Leibniz and so forth. This is the basis on which we have to look at every one of these crisis moments as a moment that can change history as a whole. SPEED: Ray, if you have a response to that, and if you don’t, I have two questions for you. MCGOVERN: Let me just make a quick remark and about the strategic significance of Kazakhstan. I think you’re showing that map was a really good idea. Not many people known where Kazakhstan is. Now they do. It sits atop the other “stans,” and needless to say there still is a terrorist threat as Mike has elucidated. And so, what’s the problem? Well, the problem is, that the border between Kazakhstan and Russia is—most people say—the longest contiguous border in the world. Look at it! It’s pretty ragged, and it goes for a long way. Now, also look, in the middle on the left there, the Caspian Sea: What’s there? There are deposits of natural gas, that exceed by far all the oil deposits in Iraq in value. All of them. That’s where the TAPI pipeline was going to come from—Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, and then out into the ocean. And who was going to take care of all of that? Enron! [laughs] That was a totally corrupt enterprise from the beginning, but that accounted in many ways for Bush Jr. and other interests in that TAPI pipeline—which never happened, of course. But the riches there are incredible. Uranium? Mike mentioned that, which is incredibly important, for anybody who’s working with nuclear materials. So the strategic significance of Kazakhstan is in many ways more important than Ukraine in terms of natural resources; not in terms of strategic importance. But when people try to overthrow governments like that, the prompt response of the President Tokayev in Nur-Sultan, in getting the Russians in there, and then the naïve response from my friend Blinken—“Oh, once the Russians come in, you’ll never get them out of there!” Well, as Mike also mentioned, they’re out of there, or they’re getting out of there. So again, Mike is quite right in saying that is a success, that Russia can crow about. And they’re going to watch it very closely, because this in its own way is a very critical, strategic area. SPEED: These will also be pertinent to you, Mike, and we also have a couple other maps to reference here. But the first question is from Cade, and it is: “Thank you for these wonderful analyses of the current situation. My question is to Mr. McGovern: It does seem we have moved a few inches away from a new Cuban Missile Crisis. The Schiller Institute’s interview with Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council Andrey Kortunov also pointed toward a trust from Russia put into Biden individually as a negotiator. But what about the potential, let’s say, of a ‘new Bay of Pigs’? The prospect of rogue elements outside of Biden’s control, such as those training Ukrainian paramilitaries to ‘kill Russians,’ as Yahoo News reported yesterday, inciting either of the false-flag scenarios mentioned or any other operation?” So that’s one question. I’m putting it together with the other question, for reasons of time, but also because they relate. The second question to both of you is from Kynan. He says: “It is quite a relief to hear that there were some positive developments from the talks that took place between Russia and the United States, and the fact that Biden has taken seriously Putin’s concerns about the deployment of nuclear weapons on Russia’s border, is important. “This also coincides with another very significant development in which the leaders of the UN Security Council affirm that a ‘nuclear war could never be won, and therefore must never be fought.’ Why is it that the media aren’t actually reporting on these developments? What do they gain from portraying Russia in this malicious way, and by saying that nothing significant happened in these talks?” MCGOVERN: The first question I discussed a little bit about these false-flag things, and these operations. You know, our intelligence services have lots of money, and if they don’t spend it, they won’t get as much next year. And sometimes there are cockamamie ideas, but they say, well maybe they’ll succeed and you get really fast promoted, so who’s going to be held accountable? It’s all secret, right? So, none of that can be dismissed. Is Biden fully in control? The answer is: No. If he told Bill Burns, head of the CIA, “you make sure that those CIA-nics don’t cause any trouble for us in the border area between Ukraine and Russia,” and Bill Burns said, “Yessir!” would they do it anyway? My guess is—of course, they would! Bill Burns is not in control either. The guys with the money are in control. And they have all these assets and they want to use ’em. That’s the problem. And Putin knows that better than McGovern knows it, because he’s been kind of mouse-trapped in this way before, namely, the ceasefire in Syria, which blew up in the face of Putin and Obama, each, when the U.S. Air Force decided to violate it, a brief week after it had been concluded—after negotiations of 11 months. The other thing here, is, OK, the UN Security Council: that was really nice. “No one can win a nuclear war.” Right. Well, that’s what Putin and Biden said at the end of their June 16 summit. They issued a statement, that’s the same as the one we remember with Reagan and Gorbachev: “No one can win a nuclear war…” That doesn’t really matter! What matters is what Mike mentioned before. Adm. Thomas Richard, who puts his finger on the button. He’s the Strategic Air Command, which used to be called “SAC.” Those guys are real patriots, and they’re not going to let the Russians do anything bad to us, and you know, Richard has never rescinded his notion that nuclear is probable. Has Biden told him to shut up? No, he hasn’t told him to shut up. And so, what is Putin looking at? He’s looking at a very, variegated command structure. In Russia, they have what they call “yedin nachaya” [ph]—leadership in one person. Everyone knows Putin is in control, and I think that’s a good thing. In our country, well, you have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling the Chinese late the year before last, “look, if Trump tells me to take you out, I probably won’t do it” you know? What the hell is that?! I mean, it may have been a good thing in the vast scheme of things, but what conclusions do Putin and his Defense Minister Shoigu draw from this kind of, let’s call it, insubordination? All I’m saying is, the situation is much more itsy-pitsy than anyone realizes. When you look from the Kremlin and you see, that despite all these statements, and they come fast and furious, the guys in charge—you know, if you read Daniel Ellsberg’s book on The Doomsday Machine, you’ll see that the executive authority to authorize nuclear weapons devolved into some of the smallest units you could ever imagine. I don’t know if it’s better now. But neither does Putin, and that’s the point: He’s got to be really careful. SPEED: We may be dealing with one of that kind of Sterling Hayden/ Brig. Gen. Jack Ripper and Slim Pickens/Major “King” Kong! Let’s hope not! [referring to characters in Dr. Strangelove] All right, lets again go the maps, but I want to have respond coming to the conclusion here. But let’s show three maps of NATO in 1990; this is 32 years ago, those were the NATO boundaries when the U.S. promised it would not expand one inch eastward from the German border. That was Secretary of State James Baker speaking to Gorbachev. All right, let’s go to the next one, NATO’s eastern boundary in 2019. Flip back to 1990 for a moment, and then 2019, so people can get the idea here. And then the third map is NATO in 2021, these are the proposed expanded NATO boundaries. Let’s go to the final image, the larger map: This shows what is sometimes referred to as the “Eurasian Heartland,” but more importantly can assist everybody, having seen the map of Kazakhstan, having seen the map of NATO expansion, to get a sense of the entirety of what we’re talking about. There, you’re seeing the border between Russia and China, there in the east. This is what Biden was referring to. Of course, you see the border of Kazakhstan and Russia, which Ray just discussed a moment ago. So, having shown these maps, here’s my question: How can people conquer the fragmented picture that is supplied by media and also supplied by bad education, to think about how these world leaders are required to think about strategic matters; what we are also talking about here as a higher security architecture, how would you approach that kind of thing? And how could we, as citizens think about this, or play a role in thinking about this in such a fashion as to call these people to account? It’s a large question, but I wanted to put it out there, and let each of you give me a sense of it. Mike why don’t we start with you. BILLINGTON: I agree, this is key. What Ray said a minute ago about the fact that the President doesn’t run things, is absolutely true. This was just as true with Trump as with Biden. Trump ordered the military to get out of Syria, and they told him to go to Hell. He said, we’re going to be friends with Russia, and they ran the Russiagate operation against him, and he basically capitulated. Same thing with China: He was friends with China, but then Pompeo and company made up the line about China gave us the coronavirus, and Trump needed somebody to blame or whatever reason. He clearly didn’t run things: he wanted to rebuild U.S. industry, but what did Wall Street do? They kept bailing out the banks. So he failed in everything he said he was going to do, which is why he was voted in by a population that was delighted to hear that we’re going to be friends with Russia, we’re going to rebuild the economy, we’re going to end these damned wars, we’re going to get out of the climate change hoax. This is absolutely true with Biden. Is that reason to be demoralized? I must say, a lot of people I talk to feel demoralized for the reasons I was saying before: they think there’s no leader who can do anything. Well, in a sense that’s true. But I’ve talked about this before: LaRouche always emphasized the institution of the Presidency as more important than the President per se; that sometimes a President plays a crucial role in the institution of the Presidency, but, really, it’s the institution of those who are part of governing, including people in Congress, in the intelligence community, in the private sector, and individuals like Lyndon LaRouche, or Ray McGovern, who’s no longer official in a government agency. But, in other words, citizens who take responsibility for their nation and for the world: That really is the institution of the Presidency. So what does that say to the American people? It says, it’s up to us! Like I said before, there’s a tremendous reason for optimism, in the midst of this descent into a dark age, that because it’s so damned serious, people are looking around for answers and for leadership. I’ve said, many times, when I first met Lyn in late 1971, he said people aren’t going to want to hear my warnings that Nixon’s pulling the dollar off gold and ending the Bretton Woods system is going to lead to depressions, and hyperinflation, and pandemics and wars. But when it happens, we’d better be there to lead, because people are going to look around for who was telling the truth, when everybody else was lying. So this is a wonderful moment for the individual: I think it answers the question about the individual rights and the common good. You know, you have a horrible problem in America, where people think individual rights are the rights to be anarchistic, and say, “I refuse to do what I’m being told to do, because I’m American,” you know. Well, the importance of the individual is in their capacity to effect the Good. This is Platonism. This is the American Founding Fathers. And a moment like this, people have an opportunity to do the Good, which is to change the descent into Hell that the world is going through right now—the Western world in particular, and to act in a way that we make sure that this very interesting potential that’s emerged, that Ray and I discussed, coming out of this last week, that this does go in the right direction, that it does not collapse into Admiral Richard pushing the button. But that it’s going to depend, really, on us. You don’t get demoralized about the fact that Biden doesn’t run things: You take a good that he has put forward with Putin—largely because of Putin’s direction in this—but you take that as the basis on which, this is what we fight for; that’s what we fought for with Trump, that if he had succeeded in doing what he said he was going to do, he would have won the election with or without vote fraud. But he did. And the same thing is true, here. We don’t just sit back and say, “Gee, I hope Biden can do it. We fight like hell to get the American people to understand that there is an opening here which is going to depend upon how the American people act, in conjunction especially with our friends in Russia and in China.” SPEED: OK, fine. Ray? MCGOVERN: Thanks, Mike. It’s been a pleasure to be one with you. I would my gloss on this, this way: things change. Maybe it’s an advantage being so old as I am, you see a lot of change. When I was working, as my first job at CIA as an analyst, it was to analyze the Sino-Soviet dispute, to convince people that the Chinese and the Soviets hated each other with a passion! And that we could take advantage of it. Now, I thought, and most of my colleagues thought that this would be forever the case, that they would hate each other from previous movies! They had irredenta, they had everything! And all of a sudden—not all of a sudden, actually; we watched it gradually dissipate, to the point where no two allies have been ever closer. And this is the reality. So what am I saying? I’m saying that things change. Now, I think we have to leave open the possibility, that people will change, too, and that there is a common enemy here. When the Chinese and the Soviets hated each other, the common enemy was the United States, but the United States took advantage of this. And now, the common enemy is twofold: climate change—I have ten grandchildren. I care about this!—climate change, and the pandemic. We have to do something about all that. Now one has to allow for the fact that more progressive people, less bound to the MICIMATT, will eventually come to the fore and recognize that, you know, it’s over for all of us, if we don’t do something about climate change, and reining in pandemics. And then, then comes individual initiative, where people will come together, individually at first, but without fear and do what is necessary. I would finish with my favorite theologian, Annie Dillard, who said, “Who shall ascend to the mountain? Who shall do the work for us? There’s only us, there never has been any other.” So let’s put our nose to the grindstone. Thanks. SPEED: And thank you, very much, Ray. I just want to say, also, at this point, this has been a particularly both stimulating and informative discussion. And it’s also important to say, and this explains why I’m saying this, that the opinions expressed here are not necessarily ones on which everybody agrees, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Let me repeat that: It’s going to be important, in particularly a United States that has become so sclerotic, that you rarely get a forum in which people can discuss ideas, that people get used to the notion of changing their view and of thinking about matters from a different standpoint. It’s fine—well, it’s not so fine, but it can be tolerable, when people find themselves in what they call “factional positions,” but really, actually, a lot of these are a product of advertising, the product of media. They’re not even opinions that people have formed. I’m saying that for anybody who is watching right now, and also in the future, this is exactly what we all are trying to pursue at this point in our nation. It’s important to get a platform, whereby we can not only talk about these things, but recognize that in the dispute comes wisdom.
Join us on Saturday at 2pm EDT. The current Israeli-Gaza conflict and broader war danger will be discussed in the following context. The legitimacy of a government in the eyes of history — its “mandate from Heaven” — is to promote the common good of its people and of humanity in general. Which governments in the world today can be said to deserve this legitimacy? In welcoming ambassadors from two dozen countries to Russia, President Putin identified, in his own way, the fundamental principle that Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has emphasized is required for human survival — agapē: “The epidemic has proved a real test for such universal human values as solidarity, mutual assistance, and love for humanity…. It is possible to ensure peace, stability and sustainable global development only through the efforts of the entire international community…. We are convinced that everything must be done to prevent the tragedy of World War II from repeating itself, so that its lessons will not be forgotten. All of us must cherish the priceless experience and spirit of allied relations during the struggle against common challenges and threats…. We must ensure the well-being and prosperity of all human beings.” The Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, which Zepp-LaRouche co-founded, insists in its recent statement that “Health security is possible anywhere, only by provision everywhere of sufficient public health infrastructure and medical treatment capacity. This, in turn, depends directly on expanding water, power and food, which is associated with building up industrial capacity, as well as providing for adequate transportation, housing and other basics.” Against this humanist outlook stands the imperial, Malthusian model for society. It is represented in its more historical form in the City of London and Wall Street — whose increasing power over the nominally sovereign governments of the trans-Atlantic world recalls the earlier “privatization” of the British government under the British East India Company. This Malthusian monster seeks to implement a worldwide Great Reset that will reduce the potential human population of the world: dramatically increasing the physical cost of providing and consuming energy (through drastically reducing the use of hydrocarbons while demanding greatly expanded mining to produce rare earth elements necessary for batteries and motors) while pointlessly and perilously heightening the danger of deadly military conflict with Russia and China, to prevent any other paradigm from taking hold.
The following is an edited transcription of an interview with Prof. Li Xing, PhD, conducted on Jan. 26 by Michelle Rasmussen, Vice President of the Schiller Institute in Denmark. Dr. Li is a professor of Development and International Relations at the Department of Politics and Society, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Aalborg University. Li Xing was born in Jiaxing, China, near Shanghai. He earned his BA at the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages. He came to Denmark from Beijing in 1988 for his MA and later completed his PhD studies at Aalborg University. Read the full transcript below. Michelle Rasmussen: Welcome, Professor Li Xing, thank you so much for allowing me to interview you. Prof. Li Xing: Thank you too. Michelle Rasmussen: Li Xing, as we speak, there is an overhanging threat of war between the United States and NATO against Russia and China, countries which the war faction in the West sees as a threat to the disintegrating, unipolar Anglo-American world dominance. On the other hand, the Schiller Institute has led an international campaign to try to get the U.S. and Europe to cooperate with Russia and China to solve the great crises in the world, especially the pandemic, the financial and economic crises, the underdevelopment of the poor countries, and the cultural crisis in the West. Our international president, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has stated that the U.S.-China relationship will be the most important relationship in the future. You recently gave a lecture at the Danish Institute for International Studies about the U.S.-China rivalry. And you are a contributor to the book The Telegram: A China Agenda for President Biden by Sarwar Kashmiri, which was published in 2021 by the Foreign Policy Association in New York City. The book is composed of statements by the contributors of what each would say if they were granted a personal meeting with President Biden. What would your advice be to President Biden regarding China? Advice to President BidenProf. Li Xing: Thank you for giving me this chance for this interview. If I had the chance to meet the President, I would say to him: Hello, President Biden. I think that it is a pity that you didn’t change Trump’s China policy, especially regarding the trade war and the tariff. We can see from the current situation that in the U.S., the shortages issue, the inflation issue, these are all connected with tariff issue. Many congressmen and senators are calling for the removal of the tariffs. So, I really think that the president should give second thoughts to continuing the trade war. Contrary to this, though, the data from 2020 and 2021 shows that the China-U.S. trade actually surged almost 30%, compared with early years. So, the trade war didn’t work. The second issue is the competition in the area of high technology areas, especially regarding the chip industry. I’d say to him: Mr. President, the U.S. has the upper hand in that technology, and China has the largest market. I think that if the U.S. continues to use a technology sanction on Chinese chips, then the whole country and the whole nation will increase the investment on the chips. Once China has the technology, then the U.S. would both lose the market, and also lose technology. So, this is the second issue, I think the president should give a thought to. The third issue, which I think is a very touchy issue, is the Taiwan issue. I would really advise the President: Mr. President, to play the Taiwan card needs caution, because Taiwan is the center of Chinese politics, in its historical memory, and the most important national project in the unification process. So, to play the Taiwan card really needs caution. But still, I would also say to the President: Mr. President, China and the U.S. have a lot of areas for cooperation. For example, climate change; for example, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan; and last but not least, because China has great technology and skill in terms of infrastructure, so you, Mr. President, should invite China to come to the U.S. and play a role in the U.S. infrastructure construction projects. That would be an ideal situation to promote bilateral relations. Attitude of the U.S. Toward ChinaMichelle Rasmussen: In your statement in the book, The Telegram, you address whether the United States should consider China as an enemy or as rival. What would you say to the American people about the attitude that the United States should have towards China? Prof. Li Xing: I don’t think that the U.S. should regard China as an enemy, but as a rival. I think there is a truth in that because China is obviously a rival to the United States on many, many grounds, both in materials and also in ideation. Nevertheless, it is not an enemy. China and the U.S. have so many areas of cooperation as you point out, that this bilateral relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Were this relationship turned into an enemy relationship, it would be a disaster for the world. Michelle Rasmussen: On January 17, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos. What do you think is most important for people in the West to understand about his speech? Prof. Li Xing: Xi Jinping was invited to the World Economic Forum, and he sent some messages. In his address he admitted that economic globalization has created problems, but that this should not constitute a justification to write off everything regarding globalization, regarding international cooperation. So, he suggested that the world should adapt and guide globalization. He also rejected the protectionist forces on the rise in the West, saying that history has proved time and time again that confrontation does not solve problems; it only invites catastrophic consequences. President Xi also particularly mentioned protectionism, unilateralism, indirectly referring to the U.S., emphasizing that this phenomenon will only hurt the interest of others as well as itself, meaning that the U.S. trade war, or sanctions against China, will hurt both. It’s not a win-win, it’s a lose-lose. President Xi delivered a message that rejects a “zero sum” approach. I think it was a very constructive message from President Xi Jinping. He totally rejects, if I interpret his address correctly, the Cold War mentality. He doesn’t want to see a Cold War mentality emerge in either the U.S., or in China. The Belt and Road ConceptMichelle Rasmussen: Let’s move on now to the question of the Belt and Road Initiative. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Schiller Institute has worked to establish a new Silk Road, the World Land-Bridge, and many of these economic principles have been coming to life through China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Li Xing, in 2019 you wrote a book, Mapping China’s One Belt One Road Initiative, and have lectured on this. How has the Belt and Road Initiative created economic development in the underdeveloped countries? Prof. Li Xing: First of all, I think that we need to understand the Belt and Road concept—the historicity behind the Belt and Road; that the Belt and Road is not an international aid program. We have to keep that in mind. It is an infrastructure project attempting to link Eurasia. It has two routes. One is a land route, consisting of six corridors. Then, it has another route called the Maritime Silk Road. Globally, about 138 countries, ranging from Italy to Saudi Arabia to Cambodia, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China. Just recently another country in in Latin America signed up with the Belt and Road. The idea of the Belt and Road is founded on two basic Chinese economic strengths. One is surplus capital. China has a huge amount of surplus capital in its banks, which it can use for investments. The second is that after 40 years of infrastructure development in China, China has huge technology and skill, particularly in the infrastructure development area. So, the Belt and Road is basically an infrastructure development project. The driving force of China’s Belt and Road is that after 40 years of economic development, China is experiencing a similar situation experienced by the advanced countries in world economic history—for example, rising wages, overproduction, overcapacity, and a lot of surplus capital. So, China is looking for what the Marxist analytical lens calls a ”spatial fix,” as in its domestic market, the mass production manufacturing is getting extremely large. In looking beyond Chinese territory at Chinese neighbors, China has discovered that all the countries around China are actually very, very far behind in infrastructure development. So, it’s kind of a win-win situation. The idea behind the Belt and Road is a kind of a win-win situation. Historically, the Post World War II Marshall Plan in Europe, and the military aid to East Asia, were, you could say, like Belt and Road projects, helping those countries to enhance economic development. I recently came across a World Bank study pointing out that if the Belt and Road projects were successfully implemented, the real income level throughout the entire region would rise between two or four times. At the global level, the real income can rise between 0.7 -2.9%. So, you can say, the international financial institutions, and economic institutions like World Bank, are also very positive toward the Belt and Road. However, the Belt and Road also has four areas which we need to be concerned about. Number one: the debt trap, which has been discussed quite a lot at the global level. Number two: transparency, whether the Belt and Road projects in different countries are transparent. This, too, is an issue for debate. Number three: corruption, whether Chinese investments in countries creates corruption by local officials. The number four area for concern is the environmental and social cost. So, these definitely need to be taken care of, both by China and those countries. As a whole, I think the Belt and Road project is huge. It’s very constructive. But we also need to consider its potential to create bad effects. We need to tackle all these effects collectively. ‘Debt Trap’ DiplomacyMichelle Rasmussen: When you spoke just now about a debt trap, our correspondent Hussein Askary, who covers the Muslim world, and also developments in Africa, has argued against the idea that China is creating a debt trap, pointing out that many of the countries owe much more money to Western powers, than they do to China, and that China has done things like forgiving debt, or transferring physical assets to those governments, because the debt trap accusation has been used as the primary argument against the Belt and Road. Do you do you think that this is legitimate argument or that this is overplayed to try to just create suspicion about the Belt and Road? Prof. Li Xing: No, I fully agree, actually, with the comment you just quoted from another study. It is true that the “debt trap” has been used by Western media, or those politicians who are against the Belt and Road, as an excuse, as a kind of a dark picture. But, according to my research, China actually understands this problem, and very often, the Chinese government uses different measures, or different policies, to tackle this problem. One is to write off the debt entirely, when the borrowing country would really suffer, if it had to repay. For example, the Chinese government announced that during the pandemic, debt service payments from some poor countries is suspended until their economic situation improves. China is a central-government-based country. State policy plays a bigger role than in the political system of the West, where different interest groups drive their countries’ policies into different directions. Therefore, the Chinese central government is able to play a bigger role than Western governments in tackling debt problems. Michelle Rasmussen: What has this meant for the underdeveloped countries, for example, in Africa, and other poor countries in Asia, in Ibero-America? What has the Belt and Road Initiative meant for their economic development? Prof. Li Xing: The increasing number of countries that have signed up with the Belt and Road, shows that the Belt Road project is comparatively quite welcomed. I have also followed many debates in Africa, where many African leaders were asked the question and they completely agree. They say that the situation regarding the debt of the old time, their experiences with the colonial countries, is quite different from the debt incurred with China’s investment projects or development projects. So, they still have confidence in China’s foreign development policies, especially in the Belt and Road project. From the many studies and reports I have read so far; they have strong confidence in that. Infrastructure Means DevelopmentMichelle Rasmussen: What would you say about the role of infrastructure development in China in creating this unprecedented economic growth and lifting people out of poverty? What role has infrastructure played in the incredible poverty elimination policy that China actually succeeded in achieving this year? Prof. Li Xing: The entire 40-year history of China’s economic growth and economic development, and China’s prosperity, is based on the lesson that infrastructure is one of the most important factors leading to China’s economic success. China has a slogan: “If you want to get rich, build a road.” Infrastructure is connected with every aspect of national economy. The raw materials industry, the metal industry, you name it. Cement industry, etc. Infrastructure is really the center of a nation’s economy, which can really get different areas of the country running. So, I think this experience of China is really a good lesson, not only for China itself, but also for the rest of the world, especially for developing countries. That’s why China’s Belt and Road project, identified as infrastructure projects, is really welcomed by many people, and especially President Biden. Even though his budget was not passed, because of the resistance, or even if it’s shrunken, the idea about improving U.S. infrastructure, became a kind of hot spot. I think that the U.S. needs to increase its infrastructure investment as well. Definitely. Europe-China RelationsMichelle Rasmussen: Let’s move on to Europe and China relations. You have edited the book China-U.S. Relations at a Crossroads: “Systemic Rivalry” or “Strategic Partnership.” What is your evaluation and recommendation about European-Chinese relations? When we spoke earlier, you had a comment about how the impact of African development, if there would be development or not in Africa, would impact Europe. Could you also include your idea about that? Prof. Li Xing: EU-China relations are increasingly complex, and affected by a number of interrelated factors, such as China’s rise, the growing China-U.S. rivalry, U.S. global withdrawal, especially under the Trump administration, the trans-Atlantic split, the Brexit, and at the same time, the China-Russia comprehensive alliance. Under these broad transformations of the global order, EU-China relations are also getting very complex. Right now, I feel that the EU and China are struggling to find a dynamic and durable mode of engagement, to achieve a balance between opportunities on the one side, and challenges on the other, and also between partnership and rivalry. For instance, China and the EU successfully reached what is called the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment treaty in December 2020. It was a joyful moment. However, in 2021, due to the Hong Kong events, the Xinjiang issue, and mutual sanctions in 2021, this investment treaty was suspended. Not abandoned but suspended. You can see that the relationship can be hurt by events. It’s really difficult to find a balance between strategic partnership and systemic rivalry. “Systemic rivalry” was the official term used in a European Commission document, “EU-China—A Strategic Outlook,” issued March 12, 2019. That document states that China is “simultaneously … an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership. and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.” So, you can see that a systemic rival means alternative normative values. That’s why it’s a new term, when used in that way. It shows that China’s development has both a material impact, and, also, an ideational impact—that many countries are becoming attracted by the Chinese success. For that reason, the Chinese, and the rise of China is increasingly regarded as a systemic rival. On the other hand, the message from my book is also that the EU must, one way or another, become autonomous, and design an independent China policy. Sometimes I feel that the EU-China policy is somehow pushed around or carried by U.S. global interests, or affected by the U.S.-China competition. I really think Europe needs an independent China policy. You know, the EU is thinking of developing “defence independence.” That is, it is pursuing autonomy in defense. But that’s something else. According to data from Kishore Mahbubani, a very well-known Singaporean public intellectual and professor, the Belt and Road has special meaning for Europe in relation to Africa. This is of importance to your question about Africa. According to his data on the demographic explosion in Africa, Africa’s population in the 1950s was half of that of Europe. Today, Africa’s population is 2.5 times that of Europe. By 2100, Africa’s population will be 10 times of that of Europe. So, if Africa still suffers from underdevelopment, if any crisis appears, where will African refugees migrate? Europe! From Kishore’s point of view, the Belt and Road is doing Europe a “favor,” so Europe should be very supportive of China’s Belt and Road project. I totally agree with that. What he says is also a part of the message of my book. A ‘Differentiated’ EuropeMichelle Rasmussen: You were speaking about Europe becoming more autonomous in its relations with China. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated openly that Germany should not be forced to choose between the United States and China, that Germany needs to have relations with both. Can you say more about that? Is China Europe’s biggest trading partner? Prof. Li Xing: Yes, since November last year. Michelle Rasmussen: There’s differentiation inside Europe. For example, the Eastern European countries have a forum called “16+1,” where 16 Eastern European countries, plus China, have a more developed Belt and Road cooperation with China, than the Western countries. And there’s differentiation in the western European countries. You mentioned that some are making Hong Kong and Xinjiang into obstacles to improving European relations to China. What would you say to these concerns? Prof. Li Xing: China-EU relations are being affected by many, many factors. One is, as you mentioned, about 16+1, but now it’s 17+1, because, I think two years ago, Greece became a part of 16+1, so now it’s 17+1. And the western part of the EU, was quite worried about the 17+1 because some think that the Belt and Road plays a role in dividing Europe. Because Europe has this common policy, common strategy, and common action toward the Belt and Road, they also see the 17+1 grouping as somehow playing a divisive role. So, the EU is not very happy about that. Because you’re right, the Belt and Road is more developed in the eastern part of the EU. This is one issue. The second issue is that the EU has to make a balance between China on the one side, and the U.S. on the other. Right now, my assessment is that the EU is somehow being pushed to choose the U.S. side. It’s fine with me, from my analytical point of view, that the EU, most of the countries in the West, the traditional U.S. allies—like including Denmark—if they choose the U.S., that’s fine. But my position is that their choosing sides should be based on their own analysis, their own national interests, not purely on the so-called values and norms, that the U.S. and EU share norms, and therefore should have a natural alliance. I think that is not correct. I always advise Western politicians, thinktanks, and policy makers that they should study China-U.S. relations or EU-China-U.S. relations and try to find their own foreign policies. What is the correct direction? And based on their own judgment, based on their own research results, not based on what the U.S. wants them to do. Michelle Rasmussen: One of Denmark’s top former diplomats, Friis Arne Petersen, has been Denmark’s ambassador to the United States, to China, and to Germany. At the Danish Institute for International Studies, he recently called for Europe to join the Belt and Road Initiative. Why do you think it would be in the interest of Europe and the United States to join or cooperate with the Belt and Road Initiative, instead of treating it as a geopolitical threat? Prof. Li Xing: Well, on the Belt and Road, as we have already discussed, we must first understand what it is. I fully agree with Friis Arne Petersen. When he was Ambassador to Beijing, I met him at one of the international conferences. He was always very positive towards Denmark-China cooperation. I fully agree with his point on the Belt and Road. But we have to understand, first of all, why the West is nervous about the Belt and Road. This is very important, because the European’s or the American’s worry is based on two perspectives. One is geopolitics. The second is norm diffusion. Geopolitics means that through the Belt and Road, China’s economic political influence will gradually expand to cover all of Eurasia, which is not in the interest of the West. This is a geopolitical rationale. Then the second perspective is norm diffusion, which means that through the Belt and Road, the Chinese development model spreads. As I mentioned before, because of the global attraction to China, the Chinese development model will be consolidated and extended through the Belt and Road, and that is also not in the interest of the West. That’s why China is a “systemic rival,” because it has a norm diffusion effect. We have to understand these two aspects. But why should Europe support the Belt and Road? I have already discussed this issue in my answer to your previous question regarding the importance of infrastructure development, and regarding why Europe should support the Belt and Road, especially in the context of Africa. Michelle Rasmussen: And you also spoke about the need for infrastructure development in the United States. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States a grade point average of C- for the state of its infrastructure. Looking at high speed rail in China and in the United States, there’s nothing to compare. Prof. Li Xing: No, no. Michelle Rasmussen: In its 14th Five-Year Plan, China has committed itself to increase its high-speed rail lines by one third, from the present 38,000 kilometers to 50,000 kilometers by 2025. The U.S. has maybe a hundred and fifty kilometers. Prof. Li Xing: I was told by American friends that the U.S. has not invested heavily in infrastructure for many, many decades, about half century, something like that. I was shocked to hear that. So, I think Biden’s idea of infrastructure investment is great, but somehow the bill could not be agreed on by the Congress, and also the Senate, due to partisan conflict. Michelle Rasmussen: And it was not very ambitious in any case. Prof. Li Xing: Yes, totally. Reordering the World OrderMichelle Rasmussen: It was a step in the right direction, but was not very ambitious. Let’s move on to Latin America, which we in the Schiller Institute call Ibero-America. That’s because our members say that the Spanish language did not proceed from Latin. The Iberian Peninsula is Portugal and Spain, so Ibero-America is a better term. In any case, Li Xing, you are working on a study, China-U.S. Rivalry and Regional Reordering in Latin America. Can you please share the main idea with us? Prof. Li Xing: Yes. I’m working on this book, together with a group of Latin American scholars from different countries in the region. The objective of the book is to provide a good conceptualization, first, of the changing world order, and the reordering process. When we talk about that the world order is changing because of the US-China rivalry, at the same time, we also suggest that the world is experiencing a reordering process, that we do not know the future order, or the new order, but the world is in the process of reordering, driven by the China-U.S. rivalry. The book will also try to convey that the U.S.-China rivalry, according to our conceptualization, is “intra-core. According to the world system theory, you have a core which is the advanced economy countries, then you have a semi-periphery, and then you have a periphery. The semi-periphery is between periphery and the core, and the periphery is the vast number of developing countries. So the China-U.S. rivalry, competition, especially in high technologies in the security areas, is between these two core countries, or is intra-core. The China-U.S. rivalry also represents a struggle between two types of capitalism. On the one side is Chinese state capitalism, very centralized, state led, with central planning. On the other side is the U.S. free market, individual capitalist economy. Somehow the China model is gradually appearing to be more competitive. Of course, the U.S. doesn’t agree with that assessment, at least from the current perspectives. So, this rivalry must have a great impact on the whole world, especially on the developing world we call the Global South. Here we’ve tried to focus on the U.S.-China rivalry, and its impact on the Latin American and Caribbean region. The message of the book is, first, that global redistribution of power is inevitable. It’s still in process, and the emerging world order is likely to be dominated by more than one superpower, so the world order will likely look like a polycentric world, with a number of centripetals competing for high positions or strong positions. This is the first message. The second message is that the situation shows that the world is in a reordering process driven by the competition between the two superpowers, and it poses opportunities, and also constraints, to different regions, especially for the Global South, such as Latin America, because Latin America is the U.S. backyard; it is the subject of American doctrines—that North America and South America, are a sphere of U.S. influence. The Monroe DoctrineMichelle Rasmussen: You’re talking about the Monroe Doctrine? Prof. Li Xing: The Monroe Doctrine. Thank you very much. North America and South America have to be within the U.S. hegemonic influence. No external power is allowed to have a hand in, or interference in these two regions. You can say that China’s relations with Latin America has really been increasing tremendously during the past two decades. At the same time, the U.S. was busy with its anti-terrorism wars, and its creation of color revolutions in other parts of the world. If you look at the investment in infrastructure, and also imports of agriculture, China-Latin American trade and Chinese investment in Latin America are increasing tremendously, dramatically, which becomes a worry, a really deep worry, to the U.S. The different scholars, the book’s chapter authors, will use different countries and country cases as examples to provide empirical evidence to our “theoretical conceptualization.” This book will be published around summertime by Brill, a very good publisher in Holland. Michelle Rasmussen: Well, actually, the Monroe Doctrine was adopted in 1823, in the very early history of United States. This is after the United States had become a republic and had freed itself from the British Empire. It was actually John Quincy Adams— Prof. Li Xing: Exactly. Michelle Rasmussen:—who was actually involved in the idea, which was that the United States would not allow imperialism, imperial powers to bring their great power games into Latin and South America, but that the United States would help those countries become independent republics. So the question becomes, will Chinese policy strengthen the ability of the Ibero-American countries to be republics and enjoy economic development, or is China’s intention also a kind of imperialism? Prof. Li Xing: Based on your definitions, on your conceptualization of the Monroe Doctrine, you can say that there are two implications. One is that the U.S. should defend these two regions from imperialist intervention. The U.S. itself was not an imperial power at that time. The U.S. didn’t have intentions to become a global interventionist then, but today it is a different situation. Second, that the U.S. definitely interprets Chinese investment and infrastructure cooperation, and economic investment in Latin America as “helping,” to consolidate the country’s independence? No, I don’t think that is the case. That would be a kind of positive-sum game. Today, unluckily, these two countries are trapped into a zero-sum game. Whatever China is doing in the South American region, is interpreted as not being good for United States. That’s a very unfortunate situation. Michelle Rasmussen: Actually, we in the Schiller Institute have said that if the United States were to join with China to have even better economic development in Ibero-America; that would be a win-win policy. You spoke about the immigration challenge from Africa to Europe. It’s the same thing from Ibero-America to the United States. People would much rather stay in their own countries if there were jobs, if there were economic development, Prof. Li Xing: Yes. Michelle Rasmussen: And if the United States would join with China, then instead of— Prof. Li Xing: —building the wall! Instead of building the wall! Michelle Rasmussen: Exactly, exactly. Prof. Li Xing: Yeah, I agree with you. Operation Ibn SinaMichelle Rasmussen: Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the President of the Schiller Institute, has stated that one very important way to lessen the war danger between the United States, Russia and China would be for these countries to join forces to save the people of Afghanistan, where there is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world now, after the war, the drought, and the freezing of Afghanistan’s central bank assets by the western countries. She has proposed what she calls Operation Ibn Sina, named after the great physician and philosopher from that region, to build a modern health system in Afghanistan to save the people from disease, and as a lever to stimulate economic development. I know that when we spoke about Afghanistan before, you also referred to very important discussions now going on in Oslo, for the first time, between the Taliban and Western governments, including in the United States. But what do you think about this idea of China and the United States, and also Russia and other countries, joining hands to act to alleviate the terrible crisis for the people of Afghanistan? Prof. Li Xing: It’s a superb idea. This is one of the initiatives by the Schiller Institute. When I read your website, you have many development projects, and this one is a great idea. This is one of the areas I mentioned where the U.S. and China have a common interest. Unfortunately, what is happening today is the Ukraine crisis and the China-U.S. rivalry—so many battle fronts—puts Afghanistan more into the background. Right now, the Taliban delegation is talking with the West in Oslo, and I really hope there will be a constructive result, because after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, Afghanistan’s Taliban government immediately went to China. And it was a Chinese interest. It was in China’s fundamental interest to help Afghanistan, because if Afghanistan is safe and prosperous, then there will be no terror and terrorism coming from Afghanistan across the border. Many of the terrorists in Xinjiang actually based themselves in Afghanistan. So it is in China’s national interest to help Afghanistan. Right now, I don’t know whether it is still in the U.S. interest to help Afghanistan. The U.S. might be tired of that region, because the U.S. lost two trillion dollars in the Afghanistan war, without any positive results. So, I do not know. I cannot tell the what the U.S. politicians’ feelings are, but the U.S. holds $9.5 billion of Afghanistan assets. And I think that money has to be released to help in the country’s rebuilding. And particularly, the Shiller Institute’s suggestion of a health care system is the priority. When people are in a good health, then people can work, and earn money. When people have a job or have a family, normally, people do not move. According to refugee studies, people normally do not move just because of a shortage. People move because of a situation devastated by war, by climate change, by various crises. Otherwise, people are relatively stable and want to stay in their homeland. XinjiangMichelle Rasmussen: You mentioned Xinjiang again now. Do you have something to say about Xinjiang for people in the West? Prof. Li Xing: I think that there are a lot of misunderstandings between the West and China, especially the misunderstanding from the Western side concerning Xinjiang. The other day, I saw a debate at Oxford University between an American former politician and a British former politician, about whether China is a friend or a foe. The American representative put forward the claim that in Xinjiang, we are experiencing what is called genocide. But later, at the end of his discussion, he admitted that there is no genocide, but he deliberately used genocide as a kind of provocation in order to receive attention from the world. The British representative asked if this view caused such a bad misunderstanding, misperception, then why not just give it up? Do not use genocide. You can criticize China for human rights abuses. You can criticize China for its minority policies, etc. But to deliberately defame China is not a good way. I don’t think it’s a good way. We also have to be fair. On the one side, you can criticize China’s policy treating problems in the minorities and others. But you have to also condemn terrorist actions because there were a lot of terrorist bomb killings in that region, especially from 2012-2015, around that time. In the beginning of the 2010s. I was in Xinjiang as a tourist in 2011, and I was advised to not pass by some streets, because there could be some risks. You can see that it was a very tense situation because of a lot of bombings. People pointed out to me, here were some bombings, there was some bombings. You don’t understand. So, the West should be fair and condemn these things, while at same time, also advising the Chinese government to develop a more constructive policy to resolve the problem, rather than using harsh policies. It has to be fair. This is the first point. Second, is that genocide not only defames China, it’s also contrary, it’s opposite to the facts. Twenty years ago, 30 years ago, Xinjiang’s Uighur population was about five million or eight million. But after 30 years, I think it’s about 11-13 million. I do not know exactly, but there has been a growth of population. How can you claim genocide, when the local population is increasing? Do you understand my point? So, this is not a good attitude. It is not a very good way to discuss with China and it makes China much more resistant in talking with you, when China is fears that it is being defamed. When some Western sources, in particular one German scholar, use a lot of data from a Turkish scholar, who is connected to the “minority resistance” from Xinjiang, then the credibility, reliability of the source is in question. You understand my point. So, the Xinjiang issue is a rather complicated, but the West and China should have a dialogue, rather than use in this specific discourse rhetoric to frame China in a way that China is the bad guy. It should be condemned. I think this is not constructive. The SWIFT SystemMichelle Rasmussen: Going back to the war danger, what do you think the impact on China and on the world economy would be, were the U.S. to force Russia out of the SWIFT international payment system, or similar draconian measures? Prof. Li Xing: Let me tell you that Olaf Scholz, the current German Chancellor, already expressed it very well, saying that if Russia were sanctioned and pushed out of the SWIFT payment system, then Europe could not pay Russia for its gas and oil. “If we can’t pay Russia, then Russia will not supply us. Then what should we do?” I read in the news today that the U.S. said, “We could supply most of Russia’s oil and gas.” Then Europe began to ponder: “Well then, this war has become your war, you know—a very egoistical interest, because you actually want to replace Russia’s gas and oil supply. That’s why you want to instigate the war.” So, I think it’s the U.S. that has to be very cautious in its sanctions, because the only sanctions possibilities for the United States today against major powers is financial, is payment—it’s the U.S. dollar. That’s the intermediate currency, the SWIFT system. And when China sees this, that only strengthened China’s conclusion to develop what we call electronic currency. China is using a lot of energy today investing in electronic currency. This electronic currency is a real currency. It’s just electronic. It’s being implemented in some big cities in test trials. Then, back to the SWIFT system, [if a country were thrown out] it would be rather impossible or would rather create a lot of problems in the international payment system, then the whole system will more or less collapse, because most countries watch this, and they will try to think about how they should react in the future if the U.S. uses the same system of sanctions against them. I just mentioned China, but also many other countries as well. They have to find an alternate. One other alternative is to use currencies other than the U.S. dollar as much as possible. I just read in the news today that the Chinese yuan has surpassed the Japanese yen as the fourth international [reserve] currency. And the situation will accelerate in that direction. So, I think that the U.S. should think twice. On China-Russia relations, I definitely think that China will help Russia in case the U.S. really implements a sanction of pushing Russia out of the SWIFT payment system. China definitely will help Russia, because both face the same pressure, the same struggle, the same robbery from the U.S. So, it is very bad. It is extremely bad strategy from the U.S. side to fight, simultaneously, on two fronts with two superpowers. This is what Henry Kissinger had said many times during the entire Cold War period. The U.S. was able to keep relatively stable relations between U.S. and China and between U.S. and the Soviet Union, keeping the Russia and China fighting against each other. But now it’s the opposite situation. The U.S. is fighting with two big powers simultaneously. I don’t know what is in the mind of the U.S. politicians. I really think that the U.S. needs to redesign its strategic foreign policy. The Schiller InstituteMichelle Rasmussen: Yeah. We’ve been speaking mostly about the U.S., but the British really are an instigator in this: the British Old Empire policy of trying to drive a wedge between the United States, Russia and China. That also has a lot to do with the current situation. We spoke before about that the Schiller Institute is trying to get the United States’ population to understand that the whole basis for the existence of the United States was the fight against the British Empire, and against this divide and conquer strategy, and, rather, to cooperate with Russia and China. In conclusion, this conversation has been very wonderful. Do you have any parting words for our audience? We have many people in Europe and in the United States. Do you have any parting words of advice as to how we should look at China and what needs to be different about our policy? Prof. Li Xing: No, I think that I want my last words, actually, to be invested in talking about the Schiller Institute. I think that some of your programs, some of your projects, and some of your applications are really interesting. The Schiller Institute has a lot of ideas. For example, you just mentioned your campaign for an Afghanistan health care system, but not only in Afghanistan. You promote these ideas for Africa, in developing countries. I really think that the Schiller Institute should continue to promote some of the ideas—a health care system in a country, especially now, considering the pandemic. The rich countries, including China, are able to produce vaccines, but not the developing countries. The U.S. has more vaccine doses stored up than necessary [for itself]. But Africa still has only very low percentage of people [who have been vaccinated]. Michelle Rasmussen: I think 8%. Prof. Li Xing: And we claim the Omicron variant of the coronavirus came from Africa. That’s an irony. That’s an irony, because it’s definite that one day, another variation will come from Latin America, or from some other part of the world. So, it’s rather important for the West, and for China, to think about some of the positive suggestions by your Institute. I’m glad that you invited me for this interview, and I expect to have more cooperation with you. Thank you very much. Michelle Rasmussen: Thank you so much, Li Xing.
The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) and the Schiller Institute (SI) will be convening a seminar on Thursday, February 10, 2022 at 8 AM EST on the topic, “The Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan: Toward a Long-term Solution."Among the topics to be addressed by a panel of six speakers will be:: What are the causes of the Afghan humanitarian crisis What are the geopolitical implications of a failed state in Afghanistan What is needed to reverse the immediate threat of mass starvation and refugee problems A long-term solution to the humanitarian crisis: the role of the global powers Opening and closing statements will be presented by Dr. Andrey Kortunov, Director General of RIAC, and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the SI Additional speakers will include:Ivan Safranchuk, Director at the Center for Eurasian Studies of MGIMO UniversityTemur Umarov, Fellow at the Carnegie Moscow CenterJim Jatras, U.S. diplomat, former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadershipGraham Fuller, 25 year career as a CIA operations officer, author Questions may be submitted to questions@schillerinstitute.org
Schiller Institute YouTube Strike Response A YouTube video from ten months ago is being used to censor the Schiller Institute just days before its November 13-14 international conference! Early in the morning on Wednesday, November 10, the Schiller Institute was informed that YouTube, after having “reviewed your content,” has concluded that “unfortunately, we think it violates our Community Guidelines.” The Schiller Institute has therefore been banned from YouTube for one week and thus cannot use the platform to stream its conference this weekend.Entitled “A More Perfect Union through the Coincidence of Opposites: MLK and the American Presidency,” the banned video was posted on January 18, 2021, ten months ago, but has only now been taken down. The video is a three-hour discussion among participants of varying political persuasions about issues surrounding American elections, decisions by “big tech” about which voices to allow and which to suppress, and the non-violent creation of a more perfect union. Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s speech was titled “Beauty Over Violence: Beethoven, Schiller, and the Idea of the Sublime.” Video excerpts from civil rights leaders were presented in a segment called “Love Conquers Hate: A Schiller Institute 1995 Conference on Creative, Non-Violent Direct Action.” Absurdly, YouTube claims that the Schiller Institute event violates its policy on “harassment and cyberbullying,” defined as “content glorifying or inciting acts of violence.” This is preposterous. Although the video is gone, you can read this EIR report on the event. The Schiller Institute is appealing YouTube’s decision and will be arranging alternative streaming arrangements for its November 13-14 event. The event will still be live streamed on schillerinstitute.com Fight back against censorship by spreading the word about this weekend’s event, “All Moral Resources of Humanity Have To Be Called Up: Mankind Must Be the Immortal Species!” Defeat Big Tech by co-streaming it on your own platform. Contact us here to become a co-streamer: info@schillerinstitute.com
Join us LIVE on September 11 at 2pm EDT.Register at schillerinstitute.com for updates and reminders. Presentations by: Helga Zepp-LaRouche, William Binney, Ray McGovern...and others.
Hussein Askary of the Schiller Institute paints a picture of a possible future for Afghanistan that is dominated by economic development and peaceful relations both internally and with neighboring nations, which should guide our actions in relation to Afghanistan today. As Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated on July 10, "after the hasty withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan, this country has become, for the moment but likely not for long, the theater of world history...In Afghanistan, it holds true more than anywhere else in the world: The new name for peace is development!"
Join us live on Saturday, April 24 at 2pm EDT. The potential to defeat the genocidal “green new deal” and “great reset” policies of the bankrupt trans-Atlantic Establishment is palpable and growing. That is what makes the global strategic situation “dangerous, polarized, interesting and hopeful—all of the above at the same time,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche asserted today. A growing number of powerful voices are being raised which, although still nodding in the direction of the green climate-change mythology, are digging in their heels against the idea of sacrificing millions or billions of people, especially in the underdeveloped sector, on the altar of Malthusian environmentalism. This week the Indian Energy Minister and an angry editorial in China’s Global Times. Copenhagen Consensus President Bjorn Lomborg, whose op-ed was notably published in the semi-official China Daily, which argued: “Six billion not-rich people also want access to plentiful and cheap energy, lifting them out of hunger, sickness and poverty.” If the G7 nations try to deprive them of that, in the name of an illusory Green New Deal, “that will go badly,” Lomborg accurately warned.
To participate LIVE at 9pm EDT, dial (712)770-5505, and then enter the access code 536662#. Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated this week: “I think it is dawning on more and more relevant people that we are looking at a potential complete and utter failure of civilization...The old paradigm is crashing, but if we do our job right, a new paradigm can be won." Join us tonight to discuss the plan to replace the wretched policies of Prince Philip and the old paradigm (eg. Biden’s Green Infrastructure bill and the International Monetary Fund’s proposed “Debt for Death” swap) with a new paradigm, which defines economic development as the basis for peace.
Join us LIVE on Saturday, September 18 at 2pm EDT. Speakers include Harley Schlanger and Mike Robinson. Now is the time to not only reflect upon the failed policy in Afghanistan, but to reverse it, by rejecting the coverup of the true origins of 9/11. Lyndon LaRouche had forecast 8 months before 9/11 that a “Reichstag fire,” perhaps a terrorist incident, would introduce crisis management as a substitute for Constitutional government worldwide. That happened, followed by decades of perpetual war.9/11, and all that followed—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, universal surveillance and drone warfare—stemmed from an adherence to the doomed, obsolete British doctrine of geopolitics. British agents Arnold Toynbee, Bernard Lewis and Bertrand Russell directly crafted what Henry Kissinger,Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samuel Huntington caused the United States to do, for an imperial geopolitics and against America’s own self-interest. The just-announced AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States) Indo-Pacific military and geostrategic scheme, directed against the unstoppable emergence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative as the world’s leading engine of economic progress, is a sick repetition of the same mistake. Instead of perpetuating lethal axioms already proven wrong—for example the “new” idea of Global Britain, which has as much relevance to the modern world as a 1970s rock group “reunion” tour—Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Afghanistan strategy has provided not only an exit strategy, but an opportunity for economic recovery and even prosperity for the United States.
Join us live on Saturday at 2pm EDT. Now that the United States has irrevocably committed to withdrawing its military from Afghanistan, finally recognizing the intrinsic failure of the use of military force of any magnitude to address that circumstance, is the trans-Atlantic world ready to change its axioms?For example: Would a president Martin Luther King have successfully applied the physical-economic principle of nonviolent direct action to American foreign policy? Stated differently, what is the relationship between the capital-intensive physical economic development of a nation, the rapid mastery of mining, manufacturing, agricultural, construction and transportation skills by that nation’s workforce, and competent military strategy? Lyndon LaRouche campaigned for the United States Presidency multiple times, not only because he understood that relationship. LaRouche also understood that the American Presidency was invented by Washington, Hamilton and Franklin to establish the primacy of that relationship to physical economic production, rather than slavery, as the basis for self-government. President Barack Obama‘s sophistical “Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech”featured a blasphemous attack on King in order to justify the “Afghanistan surge policy” of 2009 now admitted to be a failure by then-Joint Chiefs of Staff head Admiral Mike Mullen. It also provided a textbook example of the failure to grasp, either the strategic significance, or the moral imperative of the principle of economic progress as the preferred mode of nonviolent direct action for progress, both within and among nations, embedded in the very establishment of the Office of the Presidency by Revolutionary War veterans and commanders George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in her proposed “Coincidence of Opposites” approach to the positive resolution of the Afghanistan conflict, has called upon the United States to resurrect the Classical idea of the American Presidency as a sovereign interlocutor in foreign policy, separate and independent from British Colonial Office influence. An American Presidential response to Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and the other nations surrounding Afghanistan, taking the occasion of the present world medical crisis as a jumping off point, should reassert the productive power of the United States, rather than resort any longer to war, as Hamilton and Washington, in particular, would have advised.
Stop watching YouTube videos about what supposedly really happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6! To understand and successfully respond to the events of the last week, start with the big picture. The entire trans-Atlantic financial system is in a breakdown crisis, and the only way that London-led empire can survive is by pulling off what they euphemistically refer to as their “Great Reset,” which really means a fascist reorganization of their utterly bankrupt financial system into a supranational “digital currency” scam, and drastic deindustrialization and depopulation of the nations of the planet. The storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was designed to usher in such a coup in the United States, and to lock it in place with Jacobin-style censorship of any and all opposition voices. This is not the first time that something like this has happened. In 1933, there was the Reichstag Fire: agents provocateurs created the incident; security-stripping facilitated it; and the intended effect occurred: Hitler’s putsch was consolidated. Similarly on September 11, 2001: London-run Saudi terrorists were deployed; security was strangely lacking; and the intended effect was put in place: the Patriot Act with two-decades of foreign wars and an implacable “surveillance state.” And now the Capitol, on Jan. 6, 2021: provocateurs led the charge; no security of any significance was on hand; and the intended effect has been set in motion: the Great Reset, with a pliable Joe Biden in the White House and all opposition in the process of being muzzled by the social media. With that in mind, there are three broad points to be emphasized to properly measure the current strategic battlefield and correlation of forces, and the needed course of action: What transpired on Jan. 6 was a classic “gang-countergang” operation, straight out of the handbook of Britain’s Tavistock Institute and Brig. Gen. Frank Kitson’s counter-insurgency manual. The debate over whether the professional provocateurs who led the assault on the Capitol were “Proud Boys,” “Antifa,” or one or both dressed up as the other, entirely misses the point. This was a classic “third force” operation, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche emphasized in her Jan. 9 Manhattan Project webcast, where the intelligence services deploy to deliberately trigger violence to achieve their intended shock effect. The rest are dupes, well-meaning or otherwise. Sane forces in the U.S. have powerful potential allies internationally to defeat this operation. China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a strong and growing alternative to the Great Reset, and its dynamic has already swept up the majority of the world’s population. Mark Zuckerberg may control Facebook. But China is building railroads and dams in Africa. Peru, which has one of the highest per-capita death rates from COVID-19 on the planet, had been told that it would only get a few vaccines from the WHO at the end of 2021, and not be able to purchase significant numbers of vaccines on the world market until 2022 or 2023. But last week China informed Peru that they would provide the country with 38 million vaccines, with the first million arriving this month. That will cover nearly 20 million of Peru’s 33 million people. Do you really think the nation of Peru is going to care more about Zuckerberg’s Facebook rules and Pompeo’s anti-Chinese rants, than vaccinating its population? There is a reality principle at work here, of the physical economy and the laws of the physical universe, that the British cannot evade. Furthermore, significant forces in other countries are aware of how the Capitol assault “narrative” is working, and the meaning of the brazen censorship being imposed by the Wall Street-run social media against all opposition. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described what Facebook is doing to President Donald Trump and others as “a new Holy Inquisition” designed “to create a world government.” Russian senior analyst Fyodor Lukyanov, the chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, wrote that “Target number one is Trump himself. They want to make an example out of him, so that others wouldn’t dare challenge the sanctity of the political establishment…. And the Capitol building debacle during the last days of his Presidency has created a perfect pretext for cleaning house.” 3. The British gameplan has an even more fundamental weakness and vulnerability. Their plan is that you will not say, nor be allowed to hear, anything other than the vetted material available on social media. You will receive no information, no entertainment, that is not of that approved character. You will be told, as Bertrand Russell famously put it, that snow is black. But there’s one thing that Russell and the British have overlooked. The effectiveness of this strategy depends on the nature of man being what they claim it is. Their informational dictatorship only works if knowledge is indeed premised on sense perception, if identity is defined by Bentham’s felicific calculus, by hedonism. But ask yourself: How would Helen Keller have responded to control of the social media? Would that have affected her conceptual powers, or her ability to understand how the world works? Would it have interfered with her capacity to “hear” and understand a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth? In the final analysis, it is this nature of man, and the implicit powers of man’s mind to discover universal physical principles and shape the world in his image, as the Creator shapes us in His—a power for the Good which Lyndon LaRouche spent a lifetime discovering, conveying and augmenting—that is our greatest weapon in times such as these. That is why 2021 is, again, the year of Beethoven.
