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February 4—On the occasion today of the opening of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in China, President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin attended the opening ceremony, held extensive talks, saw to the announcement of 15 economic and policy deals, and issued a “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development.”The 16-page document opens with an assessment of the world situation—crises and potential—then proceeds through four areas of strategic concern, giving specifics. The statement is a leadership call to action for humanity, not a call to “take sides” in deadly geopolitical games. Most of all, it is grounded in commitment to economic advancement as the basis for security. The place in dire need for immediate, concerted world action, is Afghanistan. The death toll mounts by the hour among the children, from malnutrition, cold and illness, all of which can be prevented. On Feb. 2, the Afghan Ambassador to India Farid Mamundzay made a point of saying how many nations have “turned their back” on Afghanistan at this time of desperate need. But he otherwise singled out India with appreciation, for having sent six tons of medicine, and other supplies, and new funds, and for the Indian wheat donation that will start to be trucked across Pakistan to Afghanistan, beginning Feb. 10 to 12. A full 50,000 tons should be delivered within a month. There are other individual donations coming in, but the scale-up and mobilization are lacking. Moreover, there is the fundamental requirement for the U.S. and Europe to free up the Afghanistan government’s $9.5 bil in funds they have wrongfully frozen, so the country can function. Yesterday, in the U.S. House of Representatives, an amendment on that topic was raised, but didn’t pass. As the Schiller Institute tweet said at the time the amendment was taken up, “Don’t do to Afghanistan what the British Empire did to the Irish, letting them starve, or emigrate! BREAKING: Progressives [in Congress] to force vote on Biden’s policy of arbitrarily starving Afghanistan to death. BUT: The House voted it down! Shame on you!” In the China-Russia document’s opening section, it notes—without naming names—that there are nations and figures which take “unilateral approaches to addressing international issues and resort to force; they intervene in the internal affairs of other states, infringing on their rights and interests, and incite contradictions, differences and confrontation, thus hampering the development and progress of mankind…” The first of the four areas discussed by the statement in detail, is that “democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States…” It is wrong that “certain states” attempt to impose “their own ‘democratic standards’ on other countries,” and act to “establish blocs” that go against genuine democracy. Secondly, “development is the key driver in ensuring the prosperity of nations,” and thus, security. “It is vital to enhance partnership relations” to further development. China and Russia commit to further cooperation between the Belt and Road Initiative and the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union.) Russia will participate in the “Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative (proposed by China) under the UN auspices.” Thirdly, the longest section, which addresses “serious international security challenges,” contains the emphatic statement that, “The two sides (the term used in the statement for Russia and China) oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches…” Also, “The Chinese side is sympathetic to, and supports the proposals put forward by the Russian Federation to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe.” The two sides also, “stand against the formation of closed bloc structures and opposing camps in the Asia-Pacific region…” And, “The Russian side reaffirms its support for the One-China principle, confirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, and opposes any forms of independence of Taiwan.” The fourth section identifies the United Nations as having a “central coordinating role in international affairs,” and calls for cooperation, not confrontation among world powers. The role of the G20, BRICS, APEC, ASEAN and WTO (to undergo “reform”) are discussed at length. The two sides “advocate expanded functionality of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure.” Affirmation is stated for the recent “Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear Weapons States on Preventing Nuclear War and Avoiding Arms Races,” and steps for the drawdown of nuclear weapons and risks are discussed. These are only selected points of the joint statement, but the significance is clear. This is a welcome initiative that throws into stark relief the dangerous geopolitics in play over Ukraine from the U.S./UK/NATO ploys, and their depraved, deliberate inaction which is killing people in Afghanistan. The Schiller Institute’s role as an active platform for getting out the truth, and fostering the dialogue for the needed policies is critical. An international conference is planned for later this month. The sense of what can be done was included in a statement issued today by Senatorial candidate for New York, Diane Sare, on the eve of street rallies Feb. 5 in New York City and several dozen other towns around the country, to protest the Washington/UK/NATO war drive. In the statement entitled "Truth is the First Casualty of War" Sare wrote, "Lyndon LaRouche’s widow and founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has advanced an alternative to this path toward annihilation. The fulcrum is the fate of the people of Afghanistan, who are currently condemned to a tortuous death of starvation and disease because of sanctions and the decision by the United States and European banks to freeze their funds in the wake of the abrupt exit by the United States. Right now, over 7 million children are starving, with one million near death. “The United States, Russia and China, could combine to lead an effort involving the surrounding nations, to not only supply desperately needed humanitarian aid, but to build a fully operational modern healthcare system in that war-ravaged nation. This would require new infrastructure to deliver water and electricity along with modern transportation systems. Obviously, the Taliban would have to be in the center of the negotiations, but they have already opened talks with many of these nations, and have nothing to gain through the suffering of their people. “This initiative, called by Zepp-LaRouche ‘Operation Ibn Sina (Avicenna),’ after the brilliant Islamic scholar and physician born in this region over 1200 years ago, is the opportunity to build trust between the major powers, now perilously close to war, while preventing the imminent death by starvation of as many as 23 million people. By embracing ‘Operation Ibn Sina,’ the United States could avert nuclear war, and save the lives of millions in Afghanistan. Action is urgently needed now. As poets have understood better than politicians, universal law dictates that the fate of these starving children is likely to become your own, sooner than you might imagine."

The Russian Federation continues to insist that the United States and NATO commit to satisfying Russia’s need for assurances that its national security requirements will be respected. But the responses this week — delivered officially by the U.S. and NATO — fall far short of the mark. While offering room for negotiation on secondary matters, the U.S. and NATO have given no positive response on Russia’s core security demands.Russia, which is moving forward with military exercises in Belarus and the Arctic, and organizing training drills using its nuclear forces, has repeatedly made clear that failure to respond will force the use of “military or military-technical measures.” Will those measures include the forward deployment of hypersonic nuclear missiles? Placing short-range nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad? The U.S. maintains some 200 nuclear gravity bombs in Europe, through joint nuclear missions. If Russia moves to bring similar pressure to bear on the United States, how small will become the window of decision for responding to a real (or perceived) nuclear attack? You and I can’t count on U.S. politicians, British imperialists, or NATO commanders to get this right — to avoid a situation which, whether through calculation or accident, could rapidly escalate to an unsurvivable nuclear exchange that would kill hundreds of millions of human beings within an hour and devastate civilization globally, perhaps permanently. Neither can the NATO/Anglo-American maniacs attempting to force Russia and China into submission count on the acquiescence of their supposed partners and instruments. Secretary Blinken claims that NATO is unified, that there “is no light between” the views of the U.S. and other NATO countries. But he is wrong. Those intent on crushing Russia fret that a single NATO country could destroy the consensus on which its decisions must be made. Will Croatia stand firm? Will Bulgaria? Will Hungary dutifully play its suicidal role? Will Germany, after its 1941-1945 attack on the Soviet Union, truly set up another war against Russia? Will diplomats, politicians, generals, and thinkers break ranks? This is the unanswered question of the moment. As Russian diplomats are kicked out of Washington, D.C., as American diplomats reportedly plan to leave Beijing, as the media drumbeat for war intensifies and as supporters of peace are cast as traitors — as weapons fly into Ukraine, as new sanctions are mulled — as calls for censorship grow — will you stand up for the dignity of the human species, and for your own life as well? Will you overthrow the hideous Malthusian dogma that says we are too numerous, and the false culture that says we are animals? Will we be here to marvel at the shocking observations the James Webb Space Telescope will soon be transmitting back to Earth? A crisis of this magnitude — an absolute branching point in history — demands great things of us. The LaRouche movement, headed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has warned of the magnitude of the crisis, to which increasing numbers are awakening, and has committed itself to catalyzing the needed new paradigm on this planet. In his poem The Artists, Friedrich Schiller — the namesake of the Schiller Institute — expressed the awesome responsibility that forces itself upon each of us today. “The dignity of man into your hands is given, “Protector be! “It sinks with you! With you it is arisen!” Can the future count on you?

Economists and political leaders from around the world are meeting in Russia this week for the annual St. Petersburg Economic Forum. A leading topic of discussion in at least several of the many panels was the fact that the illegal use of unilateral sanctions by the US, the UK, and the EU has reached a point that several leading countries, and in particular Russia and China, are deep in discussions about breaking out of the US dollar-dominated international financial system. In a panel chaired by the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “The Risks Sanctions Pose to the Global FInancial System and International Business,” the introduction reads: “The transformation of the dollar into a weapon carries the threat of unforeseen shocks…. The intensity and indiscriminate nature with which sanctions are deployed suggests that a targeted political tool is now becoming all-encompassing.”Vladimir Kolychev, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister, said that as a result of these criminal sanctions, “a new global financial system is coming into being. It won’t come overnight, but it is inevitable. The sanctioned countries will do it.” There is an ongoing withdrawal from the existing structures, he said, since it is not safe to use US dollars (Washington’s claim to have the right to impose sanctions on countries, businesses, and individuals, is based simply on the fact that nearly all global trade transactions pass through the US dollar system, even when the trade has nothing to do with the US). Russia’s trade was 80% in dollars as recently as 2019, Kolychev noted, but is now less than 50%. Reserves in Russia are now only 20% in US dollars. While the sanctions are reason enough for taking such emergency measures, a second looming disaster is that years and years of printing dollars to bail out financial bubbles in the trans-Atlantic banking system, without expanding the productive base, is threatening hyperinflation in the dollar zone. On May 31, China’s Global Times editorial began: “While it is uncertain whether the Biden administration’s helicopter money policies will spur a new round of economic growth, it is already clear that the spending spree will first mire the US economy in a bottomless pit of inflation.” Here is yet another reason to extricate national currencies from the dollar, to trade in national currencies, or, as some suggest, in new digital currencies. But is this wise? It can not be questioned that the dozens of sanctioned countries are justified in wishing to get out from under the deadly and illegal unilateral sanctions. But, should the world be broken up into separate trading zones, especially at a time when the US establishment and NATO are mobilizing for war against both Russia and China, for no reason except to keep the trillions of dollars flowing into the military-industrial complex and its Wall Street/City of London owners? Does further financial division not encourage this war party? Also, even if the majority of the world’s countries pulled out from the dominance of the dollar, and joined in great development projects through the Belt and Road Initiative, if the US, UK, and EU are left to disintegrate, this would only lead to global disintegration and war. Here is where the concept of the Coincidence of Opposites, from Nicholas of Cusa, and the Committee of that name launched by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders in 2020, addresses the necessary resolution of an apparently insoluble crisis. Neither the western economies nor the developing economies can accept the Green New Deal now being forced upon the world by the trans-Atlantic banking oligarchy, as it would destroy the industrial nations economies and literally depopulate the developing nations. Neither the Eastern nations nor the Western nations can withstand a 1929-style crash, let alone a hyperinflationary disaster like that of 1923 Germany. And certainly no sane person wants nuclear war. The solution, as difficult as it may seem in the current chaos, lies in addressing the common aims of mankind: joining nations together in a New Bretton Woods, using the proven method of Glass-Steagall bankruptcy reorganization to restore sound credit policies; use the uplifting and successful model of international cooperation in space exploration, and in realizing the short-term reachable goal of limitless energy through fusion power; foster educational systems which teach both one’s own history and culture, but also those of other cultures vastly different from one’s own. It is known as a Renaissance. We are all human, with creative powers, imago viva dei. We have a responsibility to the Creator to use those powers to further the human miracle. This will be the subject of the Schiller Institute Conference on June 26-27, “For the Common Good of All People, Not Rules Benefitting the Few.”

The imperial establishment of the U.S./NATO/trans-Atlantic created a murderous bloodbath in Afghanistan, killing tens or hundreds of thousands, wasting trillions of dollars, destabilizing the region, and having less than nothing to show for it 20 years later.And, now, that establishment is taking out its rage on the people of Afghanistan, choking their fragile economy by withholding—either directly or through financial means—the food, fuel, electricity, and development the nation so desperately needs. The people of these trans-Atlantic powers are tolerating the denial of development assistance or even cooperation with Afghanistan, with the demand that a government more to the liking of that elite comes to power. But what 20 years of military might could not achieve, will also not be brought about by financial force. Afghanistan will have a government through the decisions and actions of its own people, and the capable nations of the world—particularly those who created its current calamity—bear a responsibility to assist that government in bringing Afghanistan into a peaceful, productive, and proud role in the region and the world. The UN Development Program released a 17-page report that details the current suffering in Afghanistan and how trans-Atlantic institutions are poised to make it much worse. External aid accounts for three-quarters of the Afghanistan budget. How will schools, hospitals, or infrastructure be funded, if it is cut off? The entire country has only 600 MW of installed generating capacity—less than 1% the per-capita level of the United States. Ten million children require humanitarian assistance to survive, with 1 million projected to suffer from acute severe malnutrition. Over 4 million school-age children are out of school. At present, 72% of Afghans live below the poverty level of $2/day. UN modeling suggests that that figure could increase by 25%, to create the specter of “near universal poverty.” Against this backdrop, the Biden administration continues to freeze the assets of Afghanistan’s central bank—over $9 billion. An IMF allocation of $450 million worth of SDRs is out of reach thanks to the Fed shutting off dollar access. The World Bank has also suspended financial support. This is murder, and it must be stopped! On May 12, 1996, Madeleine Albright, was asked by a CBS interviewer about the tremendous cost of the Gulf War against Iraq, including more than 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 who died as a result of the sanctions. Albright, unfazed, responded that the price of those deaths were “worth it.” Worth what? Biden must immediately take his knee off of Afghanistan’s throat, unfreeze the nation’s assets, and play a positive role in its development. Despite the past 20 years, the Taliban has said it is open to U.S. cooperation. The solution is clear. It was laid out at the July 31 Schiller Institute conference “Afghanistan: A Turning Point in History After the Failed Regime-Change Era.” Start the development process now. To achieve this, Schiller Institute Founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for putting to immediate use the experience and talents of Pino Arlacchi, former Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, who made a powerful intervention at that conference. We do no honor to the American victims of 9/11 by adding piles of additional deaths across the world. May this 20th anniversary of that disaster mark the end of two decades of disastrous policy. Let Afghanistan breathe!

The world is careening, nearly out of control, towards the twin deadly dangers of nuclear war between superpowers, and a systemic economic breakdown crisis which threatens to sweep away millions upon millions of human beings, or even swallow up entire nations in the maelstrom.Biden’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken arrived in Ukraine today to prod and jack up that nation into a confrontation with Russia. He was accompanied by none other than Victoria Nuland, the hands-on operative who oversaw the 2014 Nazi coup in Ukraine on behalf of the Obama administration and the British. Before that, Blinken was at the G7 meeting in London May 3-5, where he tried to bludgeon Europe with a simple message: Thou shalt not cooperate with China, or else. He reserved special venom for the Belt and Road Initiative, which the State Department denounced as “economic coercion” which “compromises the sovereignty of those countries”—when in fact it is those nations’ only hope of survival in the middle of a physical economic breakdown crisis. If you want to know what systemic economic breakdown looks like “on the ground,” take India, which is being torn asunder by the COVID pandemic unleashed by 50 years of international economic policies of looting and speculation. There are officially 20 million COVID cases and over 222,000 COVID deaths in that nation of 1.4 billion people. But sober Indian sources in the medical community estimate the actual death toll to be 5-10 times greater—i.e., between 1 and 2 million Indians have already died of COVID. And it is spreading like wildfire, completely overwhelming the country’s medical system. New variants of the virus are reported to be appearing with such rapidity that they are outpacing the ability of vaccination to contain the firestorm. Is this “India’s problem”? Half of the planet’s new COVID cases and a quarter of the COVID deaths are now happening in India, population 1.4 billion. The head of the Africa CDC a few days ago expressed his grave concern, both because of what was happening to India and also because India has been the major exporter of vaccines to the continent of Africa—exports which will now cease almost entirely. Africa’s population is over 1.2 billion. And in Brazil—population 211 million, out of Latin America’s 650 million—the pandemic is almost as badly out of control as in India. And yet, with this gravest of existential threats facing humanity, the British Empire and its Wall Street and City of London financial hitmen—the very forces responsible for the COVID catastrophe—are accelerating their drive for a Green New Deal and a Global Reset. At every opportunity, they are demanding earlier and earlier deadlines to meet their so-called carbon net zero goals, a form of green insanity that will predictably bring about the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. “This is beyond an economic breakdown,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche commented yesterday. “This form of collective suicide reflects the mass breakdown of reason itself, and we have to take the gloves off to stop this Malthusian insanity.” The pandemic, the war danger, the economic breakdown can all be stopped and reversed; but it will require an international mobilization of all nations and political forces on the planet to do so, with a programmatic focus long specified by Lyndon LaRouche. Interested in being part of that historic process? Participate in the Schiller Institute international conference this Saturday May 8, beginning at 9 a.m. EDT.

The following is an edited transcription of an interview with Justin Yifu Lin conducted December 20, 2021 by EIR Editor Michael Billington. Dr. Lin was the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank from 2008 to 2012, and is now the dean at several institutes at Peking University: the Dean of the Institute for New Structural Economics; the Dean at the Institute for South-South Cooperation and Development; as well as a Professor and Honorary Dean at the National School of Development. Subheads, footnotes, and embedded links have been added.EIR: This is Mike Billington, I’m with the Executive Intelligence Review, the Schiller Institute, and The LaRouche Organization. I’m speaking here with Dr. Justin Yifu Lin. Dr. Lin: Thank you very much for the opportunity to have this conversation with you. What Prevents China-U.S. Cooperation for Development?EIR: As you probably know—I sent you some of this—there are several senior diplomats and intelligence professionals in the United States—including Ambassador Chas Freeman, who has great experience in China, and former CIA official Graham Fuller—both of whom have warned that the U.S. foreign policy has been “weaponized,” that diplomacy has been lost, and that this is driving the danger of war between the U.S. and China, as well as with Russia. You have argued in the past for what could be called “economic deterrence,” that as China’s economy becomes significantly larger than that of the U.S., that “the United States’ own development could then not ignore the opportunities brought by the Chinese market,” and that this would bring about a “peaceful and common development between China and the United States.” What in your mind is preventing that peaceful and common development now? Dr. Lin: Thank you very much for this very important question for our world today. First, we need to understand that cooperation between the U.S. and China is crucial for many global challenges, because the U.S. is the largest and the strongest country in the world, and China is the second largest economy in terms of economic size. Their cooperation will be the foundation for combating climate change, containing the pandemic, and to help the other countries to get rid of their poverty in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. So, the cooperation is important, and our cooperation certainly is good for the U.S., for China, and for the whole world. But we did not see the cooperation come along. We see a lot of tensions in the recent years. I think it is because the U.S. has lost confidence in itself. The U.S. was the largest economy in the world throughout the 20th century. In terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), China overtook the U.S. in 2014, but the U.S., for her own interests, tried to maintain its dominance, economically, politically and so on. And so now there are some involved in the strategy of the U.S. who try to contain China. And certainly, that kind of strategy reflects in the U.S. diplomatic and foreign relations policy with China. Certainly, that will threaten the stability of the world, because, first, we need to have cooperation to address global issues, but also because that kind of tension is a threat to the foundation for cooperation; that will add to the uncertainty of the world. That’s very bad. How To Resolve the Difficulty How can we improve that? Well, one way is that China could reduce its economic size. If China cut its GDP by half, then the U.S. would not feel threatened. But it’s not possible, because development is a human right. That is in the UN constitution, and that is a constitution has been advocated by the U.S. and many other countries for decades. So, there’s no reason why China would need to cut our income by half or more to please the U.S. The other way is to continue to have development, to have growth. I wrote an article arguing that if China can reach half the per capita GDP of the U.S.—I think that’s very moderate, only half of the U.S.—I think the U.S. will accept China by that time, for three reasons: First, [even] if China’s per capita GDP is half that of the U.S.—and certainly we would still have some internal differences—our more developed regions, like the major cities, Beijing and Shanghai, and the more developed areas, our coastal provinces, like Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, have a combined population of a little bit more than four hundred million. Currently, the U.S. population is around three hundred and forty million, but certainly the U.S. population will continue to grow. In those more developed regions in China, per capita GDP will be about the same as in the U.S. Both per capita GDP and the economic size will be about the same as the U.S. We know that per capita GDP reflects the average labor productivity of that part of the economy, and the average labor productivity reflects the industrial achievement, the technological achievement. So, by that time the U.S. will not have the technological superiority that they could use to choke off Chinese development. Currently, you see, the U.S. has put a lot of high-tech companies in China on its so-called Entity List,1 without actually having any concrete evidence for their accusations. That is only because the U.S. wants to use their technological superiority to choke off China’s development. But if at that later time, if the more advanced regions in China had the same income level, the same technological level, then the U.S. would not be able to do that. Second, our population size is about four times that of the U.S. If our GDP is half the U.S., then in fact China’s economic size will be twice as large as the U.S. No matter how unhappy the U.S. is, the U.S. cannot change that fact. It’s a fact. And third, China will be the largest economy by that time, and China will continue to grow. For the U.S., for example, if those companies on the Fortune 500 list, want to stay on that 500 companies list, they cannot lose the Chinese market. And also in trade, certainly it’s a win-win. But we know that in trade, the smaller economy gets more than the larger economy. By that time, China’s economy will be twice as large as the U.S., so in trade with China, the U.S. will gain more. So, for that reason, certainly, if U.S. politicians really care about their own people, then, to have friendly relations with China will be necessary. It would be necessary for the U.S. to improve the well-being of their own people and to maintain their companies’ leadership in the world. Countering Economic Suppression by the U.S.EIR: You argued once before that the U.S. intentionally suppressed the Japanese economy in the 1980s and 1990s to, as you said, “prevent them from threatening the U.S. economic status.” And, as you’ve just said, they’re doing pretty much the same thing now towards China, having suppressed these Chinese companies with accusations and so forth. How has China countered this today? You’ve already said what you propose will come in the future, but how can China counter this attack on Huawei and other companies today? Dr. Lin: I think the first thing we need is to remain calm and open. We need to move our economy to further improve its market efficiency. The U.S. today has some superiority, an upper hand in certain technologies, but the U.S. is not the only country which has those kinds of technologies. The advanced countries in Europe—Germany, France, and Italy—and Japan and Korea—also have many advanced technologies. China should remain open, to have access to the technology from other advanced countries, as long as it’s not technologies in which the U.S. has the monopoly. Advanced technologies require their own heavy R&D—it’s a bit expensive, and once they get those kinds of technological breakthroughs, the profitability of these companies depends on how large the market is. Measured by purchasing power parity, China is already the largest market in the world. Every year since 2008, China has contributed about 30% to global market expansion. So as long as China can open the Chinese market, I figure that other high-tech companies will be ready to fill in the gap that is due to the U.S. restricting its companies from exporting those kinds of technologies to China. China only needs to focus on a few technologies, for which the U.S. is the only supplier in the world. By that we will not be choked off. Second, we need to continue to develop our economies. Currently, if you measure by purchasing power parity, our GDP is about 25% that of the U.S., and by market exchange rate our GDP is about one sixth of the U.S. As I said, if we can maintain the growth momentum, I think the dilemma will be addressed. ‘Industrial Policy’ vs. ‘Free Trade’EIR: You’ve written for years about the fact that the advanced industrial nations reached the point they are at today by using government directed credit, and what you call “industrial policy,” to protect and support emerging industries and the research that’s necessary for that kind of development. But now these advanced sector countries are denying the same measures to today’s emerging economies, under the demand of “free trade.” The Korean economist Chang Ha-joon called this “Kicking Away the Ladder.” Lyndon LaRouche has pointed to this as the primary difference between the British System of “free trade” and the original American System of protection and directed credit. I have also written that the Chinese economic model today that you promote is closer to the American System—people like Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich List and Henry Carey—than is now practiced in the U.S. itself. How do you see this? Dr. Lin: I fully agree with it, no question. Actually, not only did the U.S. protect her own industries during the “catching up” stage, but Britain practiced the same. Before the 17th Century, Britain was in a process of trying to catch up with the Netherlands, because at that time the Netherlands’ wool textile sector was more advanced than Britain. The GDP in the Netherlands was about 30% higher than the GDP in Britain. So, Britain adopted similar strategies to protect its own wool textile industries, and created all kinds of incentives to smuggle the equipment from Netherlands to Britain and provide incentives to attract the craftsmen in the textile sector in the Netherlands to come to Britain. Exactly the same process, like what Hamilton argues, and List argues. Britain only turned to free trade after the industrial revolution. Britain was then the most advanced country in the whole world, and their industry was the most advanced in the world. They wanted to export their products to other countries, so they started to advocate free trade. At that time, the U.S. wanted to catch up, so the U.S. used exactly the same policy as Britain had used in the 17th century, when Britain wanted to catch up with the Netherlands. If you look at history, only a few countries were able to industrialize and catch up. You can see in the catching-up process, they all used the government’s active facilitation to support their industrial upgrading. Britain and the U.S., after they became the most advanced countries, on the one hand, they argued free trade for their electorates, but at the same time, they also actively supported research and development to further improve their technology. And that’s how they can continue to upgrade their technology, and also develop new higher-value industries. Because at that time, their technologies were on the global frontiers, so if they wanted to have new technologies, they would have to invent the technologies by themselves. The invention of technologies has two parts. One is basic research, the other is the development of new products based on the breakthroughs in basic research. Private firms, certainly, have the incentive to develop new technologies and new products, because if they’re successful, they can get patents, and then they can have a monopoly for up to 17 or 20 years in the global market. But at the same time, if they do not have breakthroughs in basic research, then it would be very difficult or even impossible for them to have the development of new products and new technologies. But you know, basic research, you’ll find, is a public good, and so the private sectors do not have the incentive to do basic research. If you look into the high-income countries, their governments all support basic research. That is a necessity for them, to continue to have a new stream of technology, a new stream of products and so on. They are still using the industrial policy. But the difference is that they are on a global frontier [of new technologies], and that’s how an industrial policy in the advanced countries, to address market failures, will be different from the type of industrial policy to address market failures in a developing country. In nature it is the same, but actually the areas that the government is required to contribute its efforts will be different. Recently, there’s a famous book called The Entrepreneurial State, by Mariana Mazzucato. Her theme is: In all of the major and competitive industries in the U.S. today, they are the result of the government’s active support in basic research in the previous period. So, the area in which a country requires the government to put its efforts will be different, depending on the stage of development. Hamilton vs. Jefferson In the U.S., there are two traditions: One tradition is the Hamilton tradition, to argue that the government should provide support to overcome the barriers for further development. The other tradition is the Jefferson tradition, to say the government should do nothing, should leave the market to function—the government should be minimal. In fact, in practice, the U.S., since the founding of the nation, has been following Hamilton. But in rhetoric, it is totally dominated by the Jefferson tradition. I think you have a split between the reality and your rhetoric, but unfortunately your rhetoric has been so powerful, and it’s all over the developing countries—they are advised not to do anything by their government, and as a result—except for a few countries whose governments followed the Hamilton tradition and were able to industrialize and catch up—but other countries were misguided by the Jefferson tradition to not do anything, and so they were unable to narrow the gap with the advanced countries. Money Accounting’ vs. ‘Wealth Accounting’EIR: You and other Chinese officials, including Premier Li Keqiang, have called for a new means of accounting the strength of nations, arguing that looking only at the GDP and the debt—which are the money side—is what you call “severely flawed,” for considering only monetary data and leaving out the underlying national assets, including human capital, natural capital and produced capital. You call this alternative method “wealth accounting.” How far has this idea been developed and put in use in China or anywhere else? Dr. Lin: First, I’m delighted to see an increasing recognition for change in some nations. GDP is a flow concept—how much you produce every year. But the production every year depends on the stock of the wealth, including human capital, natural resources, biodiversity, as well as the produced capital: the equipment, the machinery, and also the infrastructure. All those are the wealth of that nation and the foundation for producing goods and services to generate the GDP. In the past, we only looked at the flow concept, the GDP, without paying attention to the condition of the foundation to generate the flow. The foundation should be based on the wealth—the assets we just described. I’m delighted to see now, increasingly, there is a recognition of the necessity to change the concept, including in the IMF recently, which has produced a paper saying that if the government can use debt to finance an investment in infrastructure, it generates assets; and it is different from the government using that debt to finance consumption—those are pure debts. So, if we calculate debt according to whether the government used the debt to support infrastructure or other improvements in human capital, then it will contribute to the ability for the nation to generate new streams of income and thereby enhance the ability to pay back its debt. In the past, when we talked about the debt-sustainability framework, that framework only calculated the gross debt, without paying attention to the asset side. The IMF today called for a revision in its debt sustainability framework. So, we are delighted to see now this more inclusive concept has been increasingly recognized and put into the policy consideration. EIR: Were you and other Chinese economists involved in that change at the IMF? Dr. Lin: When I was at the World Bank, I started to advocate that. I wrote policy notes to advocate that. To change peoples’ beliefs, people’s ways of behaving, certainly takes time. I was the Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2008 to 2012. The proposal to change to the new framework came only after about four years after I left! So, I think that if we want to change the world, conversations like this one with you and me, and people with a better concept, a better idea, should not stop advocating for that. And the more people understand, then I think that gradually, in the end, I’m sure the world will change for the better. EIR: You are attacking neoliberal orthodoxy. But while you were at the World Bank between 2008 and 2012, you were face-to-face with that as the dominant ideology at the World Bank and the IMF. I guess you are explaining now how you dealt with it then, and how it’s having a longer-term effect from your arguments. Does that sound right? Dr. Lin: Yes, that’s very true. For example, when I first arrived at the World Bank, I started to say, okay, structural transformation is the foundation for inclusive and sustainable development in any country. But if you look into the structural transformations, you not only need to rely on the entrepreneur in order to have innovations, but entrepreneurs, if they are to be successful, need to be provided with adequate infrastructure. You need to provide adequate financial support. You need to have an improvement in infrastructure, improvement in the financial structure, institutions, and so on. Also legal institutions. All those things that individual enterprises will not be able to deal with. You need to require the state to do it. But the state’s capacity and resources are limited. You need to use your limited capacity and resources strategically. That means you need to pick certain areas that you want to do. And those certainly require so-called industrial policy. At the beginning, industrial policy was a taboo in international development organizations, including World Bank. But I started to advocate for it. I’m delighted to see, increasingly now, people accept that it is necessary to have industrial policy, including the U.S. government, which now openly says we embrace industrial policy for our future development. Right? For example, infrastructure. In 2008, I started to advocate investing in infrastructure, on the one hand, to cope with the necessity for counter-cyclical intervention, but at the same time to lay the foundation for long-term development in the developing world. So, it’s one stone killing two birds. At the beginning, people were also very reluctant. At that time, the counter-cyclical intervention was mostly providing rescue packages to laid-off workers and so on. I see, certainly, that to stabilize the economy would be essential. But if you only provided, let’s say, unemployment benefits—it’s about the consumption, yes, but you do not contribute to enhancing the growth potential in the future. If you invested in infrastructure, you [not only] create jobs, but you reduce the need for unemployment benefits, and at the same time you lay the foundation for long-term growth. At the beginning, people were very reluctant. But I’m delighted to see now, the World Bank, the IMF and the European Union, and to some extent also the U.S., accept the idea, and have started to advocate the need for infrastructure. Recently, the Biden administration proposed to the Congress for funds to support infrastructure investment. Those kinds of ideas. When I was at the World Bank, when I started to argue for that, it was so foreign to many people. They thought, well, infrastructure is an investment, so the market will take care of that. But as we see, the market could not do it, and so we need to have an active government participation. Gradually, people started to embrace many ideas I had started to advocate at the World Bank, and put them into their programs. EIR: On the other hand, the U.S. and Europe are continuing to deal with their huge debt crisis by simply printing money—Quantitative Easing [QE] and other programs. So, while they’re acknowledging the huge deficit in infrastructure, and they’re making some small efforts in that direction, they’re continuing with the QE, which is threatening hyperinflation today, which I think even the inside gurus of Wall Street and the City of London are acknowledging, that there’s a grave, grave danger of a hyperinflation. What is your view on that? The Power of Great IdeasDr. Lin: Yes, I think that in order to change their policies it will be essential to change their ideas, their policy orientations. For this, I agree with Keynes. In the last sentence of his General Theory, he said: “But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.” In the past, the world was influenced by those kinds of inappropriate neoliberal ideas, so the government policy was shaped by those kinds of misguided ideas. And so, it’s very important for your Institute and for scholars like me to advocate and present alternative ideas which can address the issues, and also improve our way of doing things in individual countries, and also in the world. In the end, people will see the benefit and they will start to make some changes. At the beginning, maybe a very small step. But once they see the power of the right interventions, the power of the right policy, I’m hopeful. I think that the world will move for the better. I do wish the right idea will win the debate in the end. EIR: When I looked at your idea of “wealth accounting,” going beyond the monetary figures of GDP and debt, I thought about Lyndon LaRouche’s idea of a non-monetary measure of economic progress, which he called “relative potential population-density.” His view was that these measures were ratios determined by the transformation of the physical economies through the rates of development of new physical principles, discovered in nature, and then applied to the productive process through new machine tools using those new principles. Do you see that as similar to your idea of “wealth accounting”? Dr. Lin: Yes, I think that that idea is very close to the idea that we just discussed, what I have been advocating for a long time. And we do see, you know, we share the same wisdom and our ideas, our proposals, converge on the same directions. And so, we need to join hands to propose the right ideas, through your Institute and my Institute, and to convey it to more people. EIR: You recently wrote an article, “Development Begins at Home,” with your associate, Dr. Wang Yan, who has also spoken at one of our Schiller Institute conferences, comparing the approach of the IMF and the World Bank to the development of Africa, to that of the Chinese approach, using your “wealth accounting” idea. In that article, you said that despite many decades of aid from the West, the infrastructure bottlenecks were not addressed, and that this was the primary reason that the African countries very much appreciate Chinese investment, which emphasizes infrastructure as the means to lift the productivity of the entire nation and escape from poverty The Belt and Road Initiative As you know, the Schiller Institute and EIR have strongly promoted the idea of the New Silk Road, since the 1990s—actually, following the fall of the Soviet Union—as a means of achieving peace through development. Of course, the Belt and Road Initiative, launched by President Xi Jinping [in 2013], is very much in that light. How would you evaluate, so far, the progress of the Belt and Road Initiative in Africa and elsewhere? Dr. Lin: I’m delighted to see that these new ideas have been welcomed and also joined hands in practice. For example, the Belt and Road Initiative—there are already 145 countries and more than 30 international organizations which have signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement with China. I am delighted to see this idea has been widely accepted in the world. China also has continued to support infrastructure and infrastructural improvements in the world in spite of the pandemic situation, and those kinds of investments certainly provide the foundations for the future, but at the same time, improve jobs and economic developments, even during these pandemic times. I am also delighted to see the European countries now proposing a similar strategy, like the European Gateway, as a way to improve the infrastructure, to link to other countries. I think the world is moving towards the same direction. The infrastructural gap is so huge, that no one country can accomplish all of this. So it is desirable to join hands, with all the initiatives, by China, by European countries, by Japan, by the U.S., because fundamentally we care about humanity, we care about the future of the Earth, the future of human beings. As long as we contribute to that, we should join hands. We should not, in each individual country and for our political purposes, put up barriers to our cooperation. A Modern Global Health Care SystemEIR: In that same article about African development, you directly blame the IMF and the World Bank for what you called “neoliberal orthodoxy,” and that the result of that was that many low- and middle-income countries continue to suffer from fundamental deficiencies, such as the lack of health care personnel and resources. You noted that even after 70 years of development aid, still “there is the inability to deliver clean water, electricity and sanitation.” As you know, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche has formed what she calls the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites—based on an idea of the 15th-century genius Nicholas of Cusa—calling for a global mobilization to address the health crisis that you’ve identified, to provide a modern health system in every country, if the pandemic and future pandemics are going to be defeated. I know that part of what China has launched is a Health Silk Road. So, what are your thoughts on global cooperation to achieve this kind of health system in every country? Dr. Lin: I think that there is a need, and a huge need, as this pandemic shows up, and China certainly contributes to what you mentioned about health care overall. China already provided two billion doses of vaccine to Africa and other parts of the world—one third of the doses of vaccine in the world excluding China. But that’s not sufficient. So, we need to work harder, to work together. Otherwise, the COVID-19 pandemic may linger, and the longer the pandemic is there, the harder it is to deal with, because there are going to be other new mutations coming out all the time, making the vaccines become less effective. So, we need to join hands to contain it, and the sooner, the better. We also need to set the foundation to cope with similar challenges in the future. When this kind of threatening virus appears, at the beginning, we should cope with it. We should repress it immediately. And with that, we need to have global cooperation. So, I think the call [for a modern health system in every country] is very important, and we should join hands to promote that. Operation Ibn SinaEIR: Let me bring up the horrible situation in Afghanistan, where, as you know, 40 years of war, and now the freezing of that nation’s very scarce reserves by the U.S. Federal Reserve and several European banks, and the imposition of sanctions and even cutting off the aid from the IMF and the World Bank, which has created a threat of what has to be recognized as genocide through starvation and disease in that country. In particular, the World Bank was supporting the nation’s health care system for the last 20 years of the U.S./NATO warfare and occupation there, but that’s been completely cut off, leaving the country with virtually no public health system at all. In this case, Helga Zepp-LaRouche has launched another project—she calls it Project Ibn Sina, named after the 11th century Persian medical genius, who came from that region, of Afghanistan. Our proposal is demanding not just emergency aid, and the release of these funds—but also to build the nation’s infrastructure, as you have been emphasizing. By integrating Afghanistan into the Belt and Road, and in particular, extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the CPEC, into Afghanistan. Do you think this is possible? Dr. Lin: I think it’s possible, if we really care about humanity. I think that the support in the health care, in the medical situation, should be unconditional. Conditions in Africa and in Afghanistan and other developing countries will be improved once they have improvement in their health, and improvement in their economic development. Then the socio-political stability there can be maintained. I’m sure that it’s not only good for the individual country, but also good for the global communities, because then we will be in a better situation to work together and to have more collaboration, and it will also reduce the refugees, legally and illegally, to the high-income countries. And you know, that will also be a big challenge for the high-income countries. So, in some areas, the support should be unconditional, because only that will get you humanity. If we really care about human beings, then no matter under what consideration, we should support those basic needs. Prospects of a ‘Greater Harmony’ and PeaceEIR: Right. As you know, the U.S. and China signed a “Phase One” trade agreement in January of 2020 between the U.S. and China. [Vice Premier] Liu He was in attendance at the White House and President Xi Jinping was on the telephone with President Donald Trump. At that time Trump announced that he would soon make a second visit to China, and said he looked forward to what he called, in his words, “continuing to forge a future of greater harmony, prosperity and commerce,” which would lead to an “even stronger world peace.” Now, clearly, that never happened. As the U.S. failed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump eventually fell into adopting the antagonistic approach to China expressed by his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, blaming China for virtually every failure in the United States. And although the current Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, has the same hostile attitude toward China, President Biden has had several long calls with President Xi. Do you see some chance of restoring that “greater harmony” coming out of this cooperation between Presidents Biden and Xi? Dr. Lin: I think that China’s door is always open, and, as we said at the beginning, cooperation between China and the U.S. will lay the foundation to address many of the global challenges that we encounter today. So, it will be essential. As to why it did not occur: I think it is because there are some problems in the U.S. If you look into the past, the U.S. always liked to use other countries as the scapegoat for its own domestic problems. That may gain some kind of political interest for the politician in the short run, but it will make the issue become worse for the long term. So, I hope the politicians and the intellectual communities in the U.S. will have the wisdom to understand the roots of its own problems, and it should not use other countries as the excuse or scapegoat for its own problems. Short-term political gain is for a few politicians, but at the cost of the well-being of the whole nation. I hope that this kind of situation will be improved. If those kinds of using other countries as a scapegoat for its own domestic problems, is removed, then certainly U.S. and China cooperation will be good for the U.S., for China, and for the world. Creating a Culture of Science and ArtEIR: In his own work, Lyndon LaRouche very much focused on the quality of creativity, which distinguishes Man from the Beast, as the same in scientific investigations as it is in artistic discoveries, especially that of classical music. In that light, he insisted that scientific education and aesthetic education must go hand in hand in order to allow for the full development of the creative powers of our youth and our population. I personally have very much taken note of the fact that there is a new appreciation in China, following the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, to honor the classical traditions in China, of Confucius and Mencius and the great minds of the Song Dynasty Renaissance, people like Zhu Xi and Shen Guo, and that this is going on simultaneously with the incredible economic and scientific developments taking place in China, as well as China’s increased acknowledgment of the great cultural developments in Western culture and Western classical music, and so forth. How do you see the relationship between economics and science, and the aesthetic side of cultural development? Dr. Lin: I see that science and art—they are complementary to each other, they are both [areas] in which all human beings unleash all of our potentials. So, we should not just focus on one thing and neglect others, if we want to have a better society. We also want to allow the people to develop themselves with greater potentials. And, as you described and you noticed, China now has tried to bring in our traditional culture—appreciation of art, music, classics, not only from China, but from other civilizations—into our programs, educational programs. That’s a good sign. I’m sure that will further the rejuvenation of China to a higher stage, not only materially, but culturally, spiritually. EIR: Thank you. Are there any other thoughts you would like to convey to the readers and supporters of The LaRouche Organization? Dr. Lin: I am delighted to have this opportunity, and I hope our voice will be heard in more corners of the world, because fundamentally, we all care about human beings, and we all want to have a better society for every country in the world. And so I hope that our message will get momentum, traction in the world. EIR: Thank you very much. I hope that we can in fact build on this cooperation. Helga Zepp-LaRouche has always insisted that if we are going to bring about a new paradigm for mankind, it’s going to mean that each culture reaches back to its greatest moments, and that we work together to bring about a truly human renaissance, rather than just a European Renaissance or a Chinese Renaissance or an Islamic Renaissance, but that we bring mankind together to address our common humanity. That is the one basis on which we can end this descent into conflict and war and depression. Dr. Lin: Very good. Thank you very much.

On Wednesday morning, Joe Biden and his wife will depart for his first travel abroad as President, an eight-day trip for three summits—the Group of Seven, June 11-13 in Cornwall, England; the NATO heads of state meeting, June 14 in Brussels; and the June 16 Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva. The principle of leaders of major nations meeting for collaboration is sorely needed in today’s world of crises—the continuing pandemic, famine, and confrontation to the point of the danger of all-out war.However, the counter-forces to potential collaboration, and even to the principle involved of serving the public good, are in high gear to either sabotage the Biden-Putin Summit happening at all, or, in some fantasy-ridden way, to try to dominate the events to steer whole nations into a doomsday course of green de-construction and conflict. It was announced yesterday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be alongside Biden when he meets with Putin. Not surprising, but not propitious. As it happens, Blinken was the witness at marathon, day-long Congressional hearings of Appropriations and Foreign Relations Committees, in the House of Representatives all day Monday, and in the Senate today. The recurring theme, expressed with smarmy bi-partisanship, was that Russia and China are U.S. enemies; they oppose U.S. “values,” and so on and on. For example, Rep. Gerald Connelly (D-VA) asserted that NATO must no longer be only a defense organization, in the military sense in which it was founded, but now be active “for democracy,” against malign leaders. “It must be an antidote to Putin and Xi…. Democracy must be built into the architecture of NATO” itself, for “democratic resilience.” Blinken assured him, it will be. He said that in 2010—the last year of NATO’s formal “conceptual” mandate— Russia was referred to as a “partner,” and China hardly mentioned at all. Now, preserving democracy against these nations must be NATO’s official conceptual charter. There were dozens of such exchanges and kindergarten-level jingoism. As NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said this past week: NATO is no longer just a military alliance, but a “military-political” alliance, and “global,” not just in the “Atlantic” as the name may mistakenly imply. In line with all this, Biden’s first stop tomorrow will be to Mildenhall, England, to the Royal Air Force base, where the U.S. Air Force 100th Air Refueling Wing is located, the only permanent U.S. refueling site in the European theatre. He will address American personnel. Thursday, he will meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in what media itineraries describe as an occasion to stress the special U.S.-UK relationship. Sunday, the Bidens will go to Windsor Castle to meet with the Queen. This political alignment is as venal as it is dangerous, but it also is delusional. The monetarist financial system associated with the U.S.-U.K. special financial relationship of Wall Street and the City of London, is now in the terminal phase. It cannot continue. Look at today’s hyperinflation, worsening by the hour. There will either be a break-forward into a new paradigm of economic policy, and foreign relations, favoring peoples and nations, or there will be chaos and misery, with the likelihood of war. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute Chairwoman, is stressing this forcefully in recent communications, warning that the hyperinflation shows that a major phase-change is in store. “It is not endless…not a bad infinity.” One manifestation of the end-phase is that people cannot afford to eat. International prices of basic foods—taken as a group—in May are up 38 percent over their level in May, 2020, measured and weighted by different categories. This is the latest report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Price Index, a monthly tracking survey, issued on June 1. The FAO gives details—e.g., corn (maize) prices are up 89 percent over that period; dairy products prices are up 28 percent, etc. Look at COVID-19, now raging in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as in India and at points in Southeast Asia. The Pan American Health Organization’s latest survey reports surges from Chile to the Caribbean. Amidst this terrible picture, there are instances which stand out, of the opposite paradigm of compassion, sanity, and sound policy. On the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last week, President Putin met with representatives of many pharmaceutical companies, investors, and nations, on plans to rapidly establish Sputnik V vaccine production facilities in many places. So far 25 firms and 14 nations are involved, plus 30 investors from 17 nations. Among the heads of state in the meeting (virtually) were those of Argentina and Serbia. Nations participating in setting up vaccine facilities include Mexico, Germany, Italy, Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, and more. This exemplifies the spirit to be addressed everywhere, in mobilizing for a new paradigm for mankind. The theme of the upcoming, two-day Schiller Institute international (virtual) online conference: “For the Common Good of All People, Not Rules Benefiting the Few!”

It is very easy to lose sight of any path forward in the existential crisis facing mankind today, especially when viewed from within the trans-Atlantic region: the financial bubble in the banking system—literally quadrillions of dollars of speculative paper, already threatening a hyperinflation which could wipe out everyone’s savings; a government issuing daily war cries against the nuclear-armed Russia and China; the insane Green New Deal already shutting down the real economy based on a scientific fraud; a pandemic which is expanding globally; and a social crisis fueled by drugs, violence, and perversity.But that is not the global reality. In fact, another paradigm is in place, and rapidly expanding around the world, and is showing signs of emerging within the US and Europe, in spite of the extreme danger—or perhaps because of the extreme danger. China’s Belt and Road is hated and demonized by the Anglo-American financial oligarchy precisely because it offers the world an alternative to the Malthusian genocide of war, pandemics, and “green finance”—and nations in Asia, Africa, and Ibero-America are seizing that alternative. When the US State Department warns them that accepting vaccines from China and Russia is a malign attempt to destroy democracy, they simply wonder what has driven the State Department mad. The eleven days of mass murder in Gaza this month has created a backlash in the US and Europe. Mass demonstrations against the slaughter have been joined by many non-Palestinians and non-Muslims, including many Jews, who are sickened by the constant harping about human rights violations around the world while offering uncritical support for the apartheid state created by the right-wing leaders in Israel. It is important to recall that the Netanyahu leadership dates back to the pro-Hitler Vladimir Jabotinsky’s “Revisionist Zionism” in the UK (Bibi Netanyahu’s father was Jabotinsky’s personal secretary, while David Ben Gurian labeled Jabotinsky “Vladimir Hitler”). It is equally important to recall that the British imperial lords who created the state of Israel, without providing for a Palestinian state, also created Hamas in the 1980s, when it was useful to have a religious-based radical Palestinian organization to oppose the secular Palestine Liberation Organization of Yasser Arafat. And, of course, when Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin launched a peace process together, the Jabotinskyites had Rabin assassinated. Lyndon LaRouche, throughout his life, identified the manufactured “unresolvable conflict” between Jews and Arabs in Palestine as central to the British imperial division of the entire world into conflicting blocs. But, he insisted, there is a solution—Peace Through Development. He devised an “Oasis Plan” for the development of the region after meetings with Arabs and Israelis in 1975. Several iterations of the plan over the years led to the publication of the Schiller Institute report Extending the New Silk Road to West Asia and Africa in 2017. In fact, this is a paradigm for the solution to the global crisis now threatening mankind. The Committee on the Coincidence of Opposites co-founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in June, 2020, is predicated on this principle, developed by the 15th-Century genius Nicholas of Cusa: when differences based on ideological, ethnic, religious, national, territorial or any other basis, provoke a crisis, the discussion can, and must, be lifted to a higher level of thought, based on the common creative powers unique to all human beings, and the common aims of mankind derived from their unique capacity to participate in God’s continuing creation of the universe. Impossible? Cusa created a Renaissance in Europe based on that principle, overcoming the Dark Ages of war and plague. Zhu Xi created a Renaissance in China in the 12th Century based on precisely the same principle, as did the creators of the Islamic Renaissance in the Baghdad Caliphate beginning in the 8th Century. Are we not human beings, capable of creating a future worthy of the dignity of man? It has been announced that Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will meet in Geneva on June 16. The Kremlin states that the meeting will address the “further development” of US-Russia relations, as well as cooperation in fighting the pandemic and resolving “regional conflicts.” The White House states that the meeting aims to “restore predictability and stability” to the relationship. A White House statement following the meeting of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, on Monday said the sides “expressed confidence that mutually acceptable solutions could be found in a number of areas,” and “agreed that a normalization of U.S.-Russian relations would be in the interest of both countries and contribute to global predictability and stability.” The Kremlin statement was quite the same. Will this lead to a new paradigm of peace and cooperation, rather than war? Will the same process take place between the US and China? We can only be certain that the British Empire and its war-mongering assets within the U.S., in both parties, and in the intelligence community and the media, will take drastic actions to prevent such a result. But the momentum in a positive direction is there, and has been significantly affected by the LaRouche movement over the past decades, and especially by the international Schiller Institute conferences held in March and May. It is not a time for speculation or predictions of success or failure. It is time for all of us to build a Renaissance.

Vladimir Putin’s recently expressed convergence with the outlook of late 17th/early 18th century Massachusetts republican thinker, scientist and patriot Cotton Mather, on the nature of humanity and government, is of true strategic importance, as we approach the eve of the June 16 Russia- U.S. Summit. When Putin, during a June 8 speech to social workers, stated: “The very values of mercy, love for one’s neighbor, and support for those in need bind and consolidate the entire centuries-old history of our people. They constitute the spiritual basis of the traditional religions of Russia … the fundamental aim of life should be to do good,” Putin echoed the premise, exposition and very words of Cotton Mather’s 1710 Essays To Do Good.The premise of the idea called “the coincidence of opposites,” is that there is a higher domain—what, for example, is sometimes referred to as “the complex domain”—of ideas, not bounded by the banal linearity of Newtonian space-time, or other equally noxious fictions. In that realm of absolute space-time, there is one human culture, and ideas and the individuals responsible for them, exist in what LaRouche referred to as “temporal eternity.” For example, the Mather family—Cotton Mather and his father Increase Mather in particular—was probably the most important of the seminal influences on the early life and later mission of scientist Benjamin Franklin, the intellectual author of the conspiracy called the American Revolution. Vladimir Putin, however, echoed this “Bonifacius outlook” independently, from a Russian, as well as universal perspective, and this perspective is coincident, from the standpoint of temporal eternity, with that of the ancestors and history of the American republic—including the “current history expression” of those ideas in the writings and deeds of Lyndon LaRouche. Yes, there appears, from the present semi-literate braying of the State Department against Russia and China, to be no hope at the summit for a security breakthrough of the quality required to bring the world to safety. That job, however, is what Lyndon LaRouche has required of this organization, with no excuses for what others might fail to do or say.The June 26-27 Schiller Institute conference organizing process, and the June 16-26 period leading up to it, are a point of inflection, and intervention. Followers of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz should regard this “interval of action” as containing the “best possible” potential—not through the upcoming events themselves, but through our mobilization of a worldwide, “no limits to growth” anti-Malthusian alliance. This can allow the people of the world, through their advocating a world health platform, to disrupt the constructive fraud of geopolitics, and declare that only the health and general welfare of the whole world can come first, that humanity comes first, before anything smaller. “One humanity, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” is what this movement must pledge its allegiance to. In a higher sense, both the United States and Russia reflect, in this notion of doing good, the impact of Gottfried Leibniz, the founder of physical economy, on both nations—directly and personally on Russia’s Peter the Great, and indirectly on Franklin, through Pennsylvania’s James Logan and Logan’s defense of Leibniz against Newton, as well as John Locke. Leibniz’s long-arc impact on China, both personally and through both the physical-economic writings of Lyndon LaRouche, and the self-conscious adoption of the mission of Leibniz to China of Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has come back to haunt his enemies, and the enemies of humanity in the form of the historic China-Russia “community of principle” collaboration, still missing the United States. The specter of Lyndon LaRouche, and his conceptual ancestors, hangs over the upcoming world proceedings, and not merely because of the 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative. The coronavirus pandemic has crashed the party. The 1974 “economic breakdown and the threat of global pandemics” forecast of LaRouche, the 1995 Ninth Forecast of LaRouche, and LaRouche’s 1999 “Storm Over Asia” presentation, are on the minds of those that may have doubted him, but cannot deny what he said. Even in the United States Congress, we now see the recognition that, yes, the worldwide nature of a pandemic demands that a Franklin Roosevelt-style approach to assisting the world, is the only realistic way to address the continued survival of the United States itself. When Sergey Lavrov says that “I am convinced that we cannot ignore the indisputable fact that the current world system is a sum of accords by the powers of victors in World War II. And Russia will object to those who want to throw the results of this war into doubt,” the real legacy of FDR is being invoked. The post-1945 NATO alliance is rejected, and should be rejected, as a relic of a condition that ended in 1989-91. The principle of world reconstruction of independent, sovereign nation-states, instead of a return to empire, of the 1946 United Nations, as advocated by Franklin Roosevelt and advanced in part by Eleanor Roosevelt, not a post-1991, or post-September 11, 2001 “rules-based system” is the starting point, however imperfect. “We have neither an inferiority complex nor a superiority complex on the global political scene,” Lavrov stated. “However, we are always ready to render assistance to those who need it. This is our historic mission, and it is rooted in centuries of our history.” Russia is prepared in leadership, history and intent, to do good. China has transformed itself in the past half-century to do good, as the improved lives and circumstances of 800 million people in China attest. Like Lyndon LaRouche, Cotton Mather’s more than 450 books and pamphlets were written for those that wished to do good. Today, as that summit process begins, let it be our mission to, by referring to the deeper history of these Leibnizian principles in the practice of statecraft, and particularly as expressed in the documents and books of Lyndon LaRouche, point to the true domain within which the conception expressed by Vladimir Putin, and demonstrated by the Belt and Road Initiative, dwells—the realm of the coincidence of opposites, not geopolitics.

Feb. 27 (EIRNS)—Large steps down the slope toward a world war—a thermonuclear war—were taken over this weekend. The most widely publicized was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement this morning that he had told his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Military Staff Valery Gerasimov to put the Russian strategic nuclear forces on high alert.He made his announcement following economic attacks on the Russian banking system, attempting to freeze and steal Russia’s financial reserves and crash its currency and banks, and bans on all Russian flights and all Russian media, while European high-tech arms and soldiers of fortune poured into Ukraine to fight. RIA Novosti quoted Putin as follows: “Western countries are not only taking hostile actions towards our country in the economic realm, by which I mean the illegitimate sanctions everybody knows about very well, but the highest officials of leading NATO countries are also making aggressive statements towards our country. Therefore I order the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff to place the [nuclear] deterrent forces of the Russian Armed Forces onto a special alert status.” We are now clearly in a form of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, nearer than anyone alive then, ever wanted to come to nuclear war. U.S. military leaders wanted then to launch war on Cuba; had President Kennedy not stopped them and negotiated a solution, nuclear missiles would have rained down on America’s Eastern cities. Now U.S. and European political and military leaders, accustomed for decades to brutalizing smaller countries by wars and economic strangulation, want to provoke Russia to war and destroy it. These leaders have surrounded Russia with hostile military—including nuclear—capabilities to a point it could not accept. They moved to make Ukraine—reaching deep into Russia itself—their ultimate anti-Russia military platform. President Putin warned them 15 years ago in a 2007 speech in at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, that Russia could not tolerate indefinitely being surrounded and enveloped by hostile arms. But having lit that fuse of war, they’re now fanning it to the point it may go nuclear. (See Putin’s speech, EIR, Feb. 23, 2007.) Once nuclear weapon attacks begin anywhere, they will envelop the globe. Now an entirely different approach must be taken, where strategic stability is put on the basis of economic development. Now the economic and scientific development policies of Lyndon LaRouche must be on the agenda. They have long been neglected as impossible (like returning to the principles of Franklin Roosevelt’s Bretton Woods credit system); or unnecessary (like crash development of laser and fusion plasma technologies in every nation); or even ridiculous (like nations cooperating to colonize the Moon and explore Mars). Those policies are the last available chance for peace now—the very last chance. The Schiller Institute on Feb. 25 launched a petition in this crisis, “Convoke an International Conference To Establish A New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations.” “Every person,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche urged today, “should deploy with every capability to distribute this petition and to discuss it.” Get others to discuss it, and to write about it in everything from Internet commentaries to simple letters to the editor. “Just 50 leading individuals in the world promoting this idea could convene an important conference.” Ask why so many millions, 60 years ago this October, were so alarmed that nuclear war was staring them in the face; and now, after 25 years of war and with the world’s second-largest nuclear missile force on high alert, people pretend it cannot happen. Perhaps we were then more morally fit to survive. A real, broad mobilization for this petition and this conference is the only issue which can bring about an alternative to the further slide down toward world war. The petition is literally drawn so that civilization will survive.