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May 31, 2022 interview with H.E. Ambassador Ahmed Farooq, Ambassador of Pakistan to Kingdom of Denmark.  
Contact: www.pakistanembassy.dk
Interviewed by Tom Gillesberg, chairman, Schiller Institute in Denmark, and Executive Intelligence Review’s Copenhagen bureau chief.
Contact the Schiller Institute in Denmark: si@schillerinstitut.dk ; +45 53 57 00, Danish: www.schillerinstitut.dk
English: www.schillerinstitute.com

This transcript appears in the June 10, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.  Subscribe to Executive Intelligence Review (larouchepub.com)

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På engelsk:

This transcript appears in the June 10, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this transcript]

INTERVIEW: Ambassador Ahmad Farooq

Twenty-Two Million People in Afghanistan Continue To Face a Dire Humanitarian Emergency

The following is the edited transcript of the interview with His Excellency Ambassador Ahmad Farooq, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the Kingdom of Denmark, conducted by Tom Gillesberg, May 31, 2022 at the Pakistani Embassy in Denmark. The video of the interview is available here.

Tom Gillesberg: I’m Tom Gillesberg, Chairman of the Schiller Institute in Denmark, and also with Executive Intelligence Review. I’m here at the Pakistani Embassy in Denmark with His Excellency Ambassador Ahmad Farooq, the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the Kingdom of Denmark since April 2020. Before that, the Ambassador held several posts in connection with the United Nations: Counsellor/Alternate to the Rome-based UN Agencies; Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the UN; member of Pakistan’s Security Council team; Director General dealing with counter terrorism at the UN and other multilateral forums; and Director, dealing with the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, Counter Terrorism, UN Peacekeeping and other political and peace and security issues.

Your Excellency Ambassador Farooq, I’m very glad you agreed to give us an interview. You gave a speech to the Schiller Institute in Denmark’s Afghanistan seminar in October 2021, “Afghanistan, What Now? Peace Through Economic Development,” where you especially described the dire situation in Afghanistan at the time, and how the Afghanistan war had affected Pakistan. Since then, the people of Afghanistan have suffered through seven months of winter conditions, and the humanitarian situation is much worse, probably the worst in the whole world. Could you please describe the humanitarian emergency for the people of Afghanistan right now?

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Michelle Rasmussen

H.E. Ahmad Farooq, Ambassador of Pakistan to Denmark.

Ambassador Ahmad Farooq: Thank you very much, Tom. I would first of all like to thank you and the Schiller Institute for coming to the Pakistan Embassy in order to discuss this important issue that is being faced by the people of Afghanistan and the region. The Schiller Institute, I must say, has been doing a very good job, in highlighting what is happening in Afghanistan, so I would like to begin by thanking you for that.

You have very rightly said that Afghanistan has been going through a very difficult situation, and when we met at the Schiller Institute in October, things were not as bad. But we could see which way the situation could go, if the international community did nothing to help the people of Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, what we had foreseen at that time did play out in the following period. What we now know—and these are statistics [that] have come out from the United Nations—is that over 22 million people in Afghanistan continue to face a dire humanitarian emergency. Over 1 million Afghan children are malnourished and at the risk of dying. The winter period, in particular, has been very hard on the people of Afghanistan, because of the food shortages and because Afghanistan had been facing a prolonged drought even before things happened in August of last year. That, combined with the economic situation that Afghanistan faced after the withdrawal of the international forces in particular, has helped to further compound the humanitarian crisis being faced by the people of Afghanistan.

So, it continues to be a very difficult situation there. The region itself, obviously, has suffered from this conflict for over four decades, and we continue to do so. There is a lot of concern in Pakistan, as it is a very sad and difficult situation that we see which the people of Afghanistan are currently facing.

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Ibn Sina (Avicenna), 980–1037, the great doctor, philosopher, and political advisor.

Gillesberg: Obviously, much too little humanitarian aid has reached Afghanistan. The Schiller Institute has been pleading for emergency action. We also did that very much in the seminar together with you, to alleviate the sufferings of the Afghan people. And our founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has proposed Operation Ibn Sina, named after the great doctor and philosopher and political adviser from the region, born in 980, also known in the West as Avicenna. Operation Ibn Sina is a call for mobilizing emergency humanitarian aid and building a modern health system as a focus for sparking the long-term development of Afghanistan’s infrastructure and economy. What do you think of this? And what must be done to prevent even more millions of people from starving and many dying?

Ambassador Farooq: I think—and it is the position of the government of Pakistan in this regard—that the international community needs to come together and address the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, and that there is need for engagement with the authorities in Afghanistan. There is a need for coordinated provision of humanitarian assistance for the people of Afghanistan.

So far, what we are seeing is that there is a sporadic effort, and obviously, many Western countries that were present previously in Afghanistan, no longer have any presence there. Then, we also had a significant presence of the United Nations which mostly is not there anymore. Then, there is this issue of how to deal with the authorities in Afghanistan, and what we generally see is an effort to try to bypass them when dealing with the people of Afghanistan.

Now, Afghanistan is a large country in terms of size, area, and also in terms of the size of its population; it’s over 40 million people. The way we see it, it is not possible for a good, coordinated humanitarian effort to reach the most vulnerable people in the country when you are trying to bypass the authorities. This is something we have been calling upon the international community—that everybody needs to come together and look at what the humanitarian needs are in Afghanistan. The other issues, the political issues, obviously, those also have to be dealt with, but the priority has to be on how we can prevent further suffering in Afghanistan.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, we have been trying to facilitate, for example, the UN humanitarian effort. Most of it in the past was also being routed through Pakistan, and we have an arrangement with the UN on how they can again direct their humanitarian actions through Pakistan. So that is happening.

But again, I think the principal obstacle is this issue—that the policies which the Western countries have come up with, is that whatever they do there, they have to bypass the authorities. And that, in itself, is preventing a more sustained and coordinated effort to help the people there.

So when you mention about the initiative which Helga Zepp-LaRouche has launched, it is a very good idea. It’s something that should have a lot of traction, particularly for Muslim countries, because obviously Ibn Sina comes from our part of the world, and could provide a sort of rallying point for Islamic countries to help the people of Afghanistan. So, anything that can be done should be done. We are of the view that it is our obligation to help those poor people there.

Gillesberg: Could you say more about what the government of Pakistan is concretely proposing, and what they are doing in relation to Afghanistan?

Ambassador Farooq: Well, being the most immediate neighbor of Afghanistan, and a country which has suffered throughout the last four decades, both in terms of the humanitarian angle—we have been hosting over 4 million refugees at any given point in time, and over 3 million still continue to live in Pakistan, we have faced the security dimension of the instability in Afghanistan, especially over the last 20 years, so we have a deep interest in having a stable Afghanistan as our neighbor.

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UNICEF/Omid Fazel

Refugee camp in Afghanistan, May 18, 2020.

Right after the events of August 2021, we coordinated with the international community, first in the evacuation of the international staff, diplomats, Afghan nationals that the international community wanted to evacuate from there. We have been trying to coordinate efforts among the neighboring countries of Afghanistan. So, Pakistan hosted a conference in September of the six neighboring countries; then another conference was held in Tehran, Iran, in October, and we participated in that. We then hosted the meeting of the Troika-Plus: This is a grouping of China, Russia, the United States, and Pakistan, so we hosted that, and on the sidelines of that meeting, there was also a meeting of this grouping with the Taliban delegation. Then we hosted the emergency meeting of the Islamic countries’ Foreign Ministers in December, which was focused, specifically, on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

So our effort has been to promote engagement with Afghanistan, bring the international community together, so that we, specifically, deal first with the humanitarian situation. Bilaterally as well, Pakistan has contributed, despite our economic difficulties, about $30 million in terms of humanitarian assistance. We have been facing the challenge of COVID, and despite that, we have tried to keep cross-border movement of people, as well as trade of goods and services open, so that the people of Afghanistan do not suffer more than they have to. And we recently also allowed a shipment of wheat from India: This is a sensitive issue in Pakistan, but for the benefit of the Afghan people, we allowed an overland shipment of Indian wheat from India to Afghanistan.

So, we continue to engage with the international community in terms of what we can do to help Afghanistan.

Gillesberg: Pakistan also organized the conference in Islamabad of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) about Afghanistan, on March 22-23 this year. What was the result of that meeting?

Ambassador Farooq: Yes, as I mentioned in my previous response, actually the emergency session on Afghanistan was held in December. And there were two important outcomes of that conference: First was that a special humanitarian trust fund was created for Afghanistan; and then the Organization for Islamic Cooperation also appointed a special representative to deal with the humanitarian situation. These were the two key decisions that were taken at the December meeting. In March, we had a regular session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC, which basically operationalized those two decisions. So now that trust fund is operational, and countries have started to contribute money to that, which would then be channeled to Afghanistan through the Islamic Development Bank. So the OIC has its own set of organizations that can deal with these humanitarian issues, and we feel very happy that we were able to coordinate, and to have this work done for Afghanistan.

Gillesberg: What is your message to people in the U.S. and in Europe, regarding Afghanistan, and what should happen?

Ambassador Farooq: Our consistent message to our European and other Western partners is that we have to come together: It’s our obligation to help the people of Afghanistan, and it is important to continue to our engagement even with the authorities of Afghanistan. We do understand that there are sensitivities with regard to issues relating to political inclusion, as well as human rights, especially the rights of women and girls. But we believe that in order to make progress on these issues as well, we have to continue our engagement. Pakistan has been, as I mentioned, part of several initiatives in terms of trying to bring countries together on Afghanistan, and we have consistently joined the international community in expressing the same concerns that they have, in terms of human rights, in terms of political inclusion, and especially the rights of women and girls. So we share those concerns, but we believe if we are to make progress, we have to continue our engagement with the country.

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OIC

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on March 22-23 in Islamabad, Pakistan operationalized a special humanitarian trust fund for Afghanistan, and appointed a special representative to deal with humanitarian aid.

Then, the most important aspect, I think, that has to be addressed is the economic meltdown which has happened in Afghanistan, because without a functioning economy, you cannot deal with the humanitarian situation. The world cannot be expected to just keep pumping in money in terms of providing food and medical assistance: The country eventually has to stand on its own two feet. And for that, we have to ensure that the banking system of the country is functional, and we have to look at this issue of the sanctions that exist against the Taliban authorities, because when you have that kind of a situation, it is not possible for a country to do business internationally. So these, I think, are some of our key messages to our international partners, for how we bring about stability in Afghanistan, and take them out of the current sad situation.

Gillesberg: This also includes, of course, that part of these sanctions has been to freeze all the accounts of the national government of Afghanistan, so they do not have Afghanistan’s money to spend on dealing with the situation in Afghanistan; but it’s also a big factor that Afghanistan has been cut off from the whole SWIFT system, which means that Afghanis living abroad are not able to send money back home.

Ambassador Farooq: Exactly. So this is what I’m trying to say, that the international connectivity of Afghanistan with the banking system—the banking system of Afghanistan, it is clear, has collapsed. There is an issue of liquidity, which the United Nations is trying to address, and we appreciate that. More needs to be done. When you mention about freezing of Afghan assets, again, they have the money to take care of their people for some time, but because of the sanctions, they don’t have access to it. And lately, we were also disappointed with the decision that part of that money has been sequestered to pay, to compensate the victims of, for example, the 9/11 attack. So this again, is an unfortunate decision, because that money was the money of the people of Afghanistan: They need it. They are starving to death. So that consideration should have been given.

Gillesberg: Well, now, on top of all the calamities, you can say, in that situation, you also have a war between Russia and Ukraine, with the U.S. and NATO actively engaged in many ways, and which also directly affects the situation with these enormously rising food prices, and all of the other things involved. Now, could cooperation to help the people of Afghanistan maybe be a way for the great powers to begin to cooperate to solve their problems?

Ambassador Farooq: Well, it has been most unfortunate for the world as a whole that we have this conflict in the heart of Europe in the 21st century, which was unthinkable until a few months back, and unfortunately, it has diverted the focus of the international community from grave humanitarian situations like Afghanistan, like Yemen, also some situations in Africa, and the entire focus is now on this war: So this is most unfortunate.

Frankly, sitting in Europe, and looking at the positions which the opposing sides have taken on this conflict, I really don’t see a possibility of some kind of a compromise—I mean, cooperation on Afghanistan that could help solve this conflict. It has to be the other way around. There has to be peace in Ukraine, which would be for the betterment, I think, of the entire international community. And Pakistan was among the first countries that raised these concerns, that this conflict would have serious consequences for the global economy, and especially for the developing countries that are dependent on import of food items, grain, import of petroleum products.

And it is playing out: You have seen what has happened in Sri Lanka. Pakistan itself is facing very serious economic issues on the external front, because we also import wheat, we also import most of our petroleum products, so it has put a serious strain on our economy. I’m sure there are many other countries that are facing these difficulties. So what we urge all the players that are involved in this conflict is, that we have to find a peaceful solution through dialogue, through diplomacy, because conflicts and wars don’t provide any solution. That has been our consistent perspective in respect of Afghanistan, and we say that, also, in the case of Ukraine.

Gillesberg: Well, most people and most politicians normally say, “first we have to create peace, and once we create peace we can begin to collaborate.” The Schiller Institute has always insisted that it’s the other way around, that you create peace through development: That if nations engage with each other, in really taking care of their common interests by having economic development, then you also have the opportunity for long-term peace.

The Schiller Institute is right now circulating a petition that was released a few days before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, entitled, “Convoke an International Conference To Establish a New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations,” modeled on the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which, after 30 years of war in Europe, which really was over 100 years of war in Europe, the conflicting parts then agreed that peace could only come about by taking into account the interests of every country. Also, the regional economic development programs are essential for increasing global security. Do you have any comments on this proposal?

Ambassador Farooq: I think it’s a good proposal. But if you look at it from a historical perspective, didn’t this happen at the end of the Second World War when we created the United Nations, and the United Nations Charter has all those elements—respect for territorial integrity, non-use of threat or force; solving disputes through peaceful means—all this was there, and then the whole global architecture was created, the financial and economic architecture that was meant to promote peace and development. And the European Union, itself, is the best example that once countries start to cooperate economically, then the chance of having a war is reduced significantly. We are seeing this in the Southeast Asian region, where we have ASEAN. So it is correct.

But at the same time, we still see, that there are forces, or it’s perhaps when a certain generation which has gone through these difficult times is phased out, and there is a new generation, they forget about how destructive wars are, and you see the start of another war happening. There has to be a consistent effort by humanity that wars don’t provide any solutions, and we have to look at cooperation between the countries, and through that find peace.

So, this petition you have launched, it’s very timely, but now we have a war here, and we have to find a peaceful solution to it, because conflicts, as I said, are no answers to any differences between countries.

Gillesberg: Well, Mr. Ambassador, it’s been very interesting talking to you about these matters, and much more could be brought into the discussion, but is there anything else, at the end of the interview, you would like to say to the viewers?

Ambassador Farooq: Well, it’s been an interesting time for me, serving as Pakistan’s ambassador to a member of the European Union. And I believe that it is important to develop a better understanding of each other, in order to have peace, stability, and global prosperity. The world is facing huge challenges: COVID was just one example, but the bigger challenge and threat that the entire globe is facing is climate change. And what we are seeing is, for example, that the situation in Ukraine tends to dilute your focus from the bigger challenges that we all are collectively facing. So there is a need for bringing the world together to address those challenges in which everybody has a stake.

One of the key things for us which has come out of this conflict in Ukraine, is that we didn’t want to take any further sides in great power conflicts, because we believe that developing countries have to focus on the betterment of their people, and we have to look at what bigger challenges we are facing in the future.

Gillesberg: Also, when you have a conflict, where the obvious unsaid question is, when will this escalate into thermonuclear war, if the dynamic is not changed, it’s difficult to see how you can be a “winner” by simply choosing sides.

Ambassador Farooq: Exactly.

Gillesberg: Then it might be better to change the dynamic.

Ambassador Farooq: That is correct.

Gillesberg: Well, Your Excellency, thank you very much for the interview. And let’s talk again later, when, hopefully, some of these issues are getting a more interesting development, which gives more opportunity for actually solving the problems.

Ambassador Farooq: Thank you Tom. It’s always a pleasure to interact with the Schiller Institute.

Fra videokonferencen den 25. maj 2022.

Jeg vil lige bruge et par minutter på at tale om den danske situation, idet jeg afløser Tom Gillesberg, der er formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark.

Schiller Instituttet i Danmark siger helt klart, at folk skal stemme NEJ ved folkeafstemningen, som skal afholdes den 1. juni. Folkeafstemningen drejer sig om en situation, hvor fem partier i den danske regering i forbindelse med Ukraine-krigen stemte for at få en folkeafstemning, som en del af et nationalt forsvarskompromis, herunder Socialistisk Folkeparti, som i første omgang havde sørget for fravalgene. Det var tilbage i 1992, hvor den danske befolkning først havde stemt NEJ til Maastricht-traktaten. Derefter kom forhandlingerne, der førte til Edinburgh-aftalen, frem til fire undtagelsesbestemmelser. Derefter stemte befolkningen JA til at acceptere Maastricht-traktaten.

En af undtagelserne var, at Danmark ikke ville deltage i de fælles europæiske EU-militære aktiviteter. Vi mener, at befolkningen skal stemme NEJ. Det ville være en måde, ikke blot at forhindre Danmark i at øge sine militære aktiviteter med EU, men også at sætte en stopper for en militariseringsproces, der især siden 2001 har været i gang. Personligt er jeg amerikansk statsborger, og for nylig er jeg også blevet dansk statsborger. Og jeg vil sige, at Danmark, mit nye hjemland, i stedet for bare at følge med i USA’s politik, mit oprindelsesland, at Danmark i stedet burde arbejde for at ændre USA’s politik.

Lyndon LaRouche opfordrede for mange år siden til en fire-magts-aftale. Hvis USA, Rusland, Kina, Indien og Rusland samarbejder om at etablere et nyt retfærdigt økonomisk verdenssystem, et nyt kreditsystem, kunne dette har været grundlaget for konfliktløsning gennem økonomisk udviklingssamarbejde. Som Li Xing sagde, er det bedste alternativ til krig at få iværksat et økonomisk samarbejde. [Dermed kunne den nuværende konflikt have været undgået.]

Siden 2001 har Danmark deltaget i alle de krige, som USA, tilskyndet af briterne, har indledt, fra Afghanistan under statsminister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, og det var især under statsminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, som senere blev NATO’s generalsekretær, at militariseringen blev optrappet. Danmark deltog i krigene i Irak, og så havde vi Libyen. Vi var med i de andre krige, der kom bagefter.

Nu er Danmark i forhandlinger med USA om etablering af en bilateral forsvarsaftale, som formentlig vil omfatte permanent udstationering af amerikanske tropper på dansk jord, hvilket vil sige, at udenlandske tropper for første gang i fredstid vil blive permanent udstationeret her.

Der var et spørgsmål til de fem partier, der kom med dette nationale forsvarskompromis, fra en journalist til de to højrepartier, Det Konservative Folkeparti og Venstre, om, hvad de ville sige, hvis USA ville bede om at forhandle om opstilling af atomvåben i Danmark. Og deres svar var: “Jamen, det må vi da tale om.” Det er også en total kursændring i forhold til den tidligere danske politik.

Den anden ting er, at det ikke er nok at stemme NEJ ved folkeafstemningen. Det vil ikke løse problemerne. Men det vil være en måde at dæmme op for denne trinvise militarisering.

For det, Schiller Instituttet siger, er, at nøglen til en mere fredelig verden ikke er at øge militariseringen, men at etablere en ny arkitektur for sikkerhed og økonomisk udvikling, hvor man kan undgå krigsudbrud. Som Jan Øberg påpegede, kan man have konflikter, men hvordan sikrer vi, at de ikke fører til krig? Hvordan kan vi løse disse konflikter på en fredelig måde?

Det er her, at idéen om fremgangsmåden med den Westfalske Fred dukker op. Jeg vil snarest stille et spørgsmål til Helga for at få mere at vide om det.

Danmark har også haft en anden tradition. Et af vores slogans her har været, at i stedet for krigsførelse skal vi bygge broer. Der er en dansk tradition for økonomisk udvikling, partnerskab med lande om vandudvikling, om brobygning og om energiudvikling. Det er det, vi skal fremhæve.

In English:
I will just take a few minutes to speak about the Danish situation, standing in for Tom Gillesburg, the chairman of the Schiller Institute in Denmark.
The Schiller Institute in Denmark is definitely saying that people should vote NO in the referendum, which is to be held on June 1st. The referendum concerns a situation where after the Ukraine war, five parties in the Danish government voted to have a referendum as part of a National Defense Compromise, including the Socialist People’s Party, which had organized the opt-outs in the beginning. Back in 1992, where the Danish population had first voted NO to the Maastricht Treaty. Then,  the negotiations that led to the Edinburgh agreement came up with four opt-outs. Then, the population voted YES to accept the Maastricht Treaty.

One of the opt-outs was that Denmark would not participate in the joint European EU military activities. We think that people should vote NO. This would be a way, not only to prevent Denmark from increasing its military activity with the EU, but would also put a stop to a process of militarization that has been going on, especially since 2001. Personally, I’m an American citizen, and recently, I also became a Danish citizen. And I would say that Denmark, my adopted countr, ought to, instead of just following along with the policies of the United States, my native country, that Denmark should, instead, work to change the policies of the United States.

Lyndon LaRouch, many years ago, called for a four power agreement. If the United States, Russia, China and India would cooperate to establish a new just world economic system, a new credit system, this could be the basis of conflict resolution through economic development cooperation. As the Li Xing was saying, the best alternative to war is to get economic cooperation going.

Since 2001, Denmark has participated in every war that the United States, goaded on by the British, have launched, from Afghanistan under Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, and it the militarization was especially escalated under Prime Minist Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who later became the NATO’s general secretary. Denmark participated in the the wars in Iraq, and then we had Libya. We had the other wars that came after that.

And now Denmark is in negotiations with the United States for setting up a bilateral defense treaty, which will probably include permanent stationing of United States troops on Danish soil, which would be that foreign troops would be permanently stationed here for the first time in peacetime.

There was a question to the five parties that came up with this National Defense Compromise from a reporter to the two right parties, the the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party (Venstre), about what they would they say if the United States would ask for negotiating about stationing of nuclear weapons in Denmark. And their answer was, “Well, we’ll have to talk about it.” This is also a total reversal of the previous Danish policy.

The other thing is that it’s not enough to vote NO in the referendum. That will not solve the problems. But it will be a way of of stemming the tide of this step by step by step militarization.

Because, what the Schiller Institute is saying, is that the key to a more peaceful world is not increasing the militarization, but it is establishing a new security and economic development architecture, where you can avoid the outbreak of war. As Jan was saying, you can have conflicts, but how do we make sure that it doesn’t lead to war? How can we solve these conflicts in a peaceful way?

And that is where the idea of the Peace of Westphalia approach comes in. I will soon ask a question to Helga to explain more about that.

And Denmark has also had a different tradition. One of our slogans here has been, instead of war fighting, bridge building. There is aa Danish tradition for economic development, partnership with countries about water development, about building bridges, about energy development. And this is what we need to be emphasizing.

So, I would like to introduce, then, the question period, by asking the question to Helga. This is from Sarah on YouTube, who would like to ask Helga “What is a foreseeable path to reaching a position to propose the peace of Westphalia? Is war the only way? How much can transparency work towards reaching this goal?” To sum it up. What is the idea of the Peace of Westphalia? How can these principles of peace building be used today? And how can we actually implement this?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche:
The answer will come soon.

Næstformand Michelle Rasmussen fortalte, hvorfor vi tog initiativ til at holde videokonferencen den 25. maj 2022 og om organiseringsprocessen. 

Michelle Rasmussens indlæg begynder 57 min. inde i videoen.

Bagefter er der spørgsmål og svar fra Michelle og medpanelist Richard A. Black, Schiller Instituttets repræsentant i FN, som talte om den første Euræsiske Økonomiske Forum i Kyrgyzstan den 26. maj 2022. Der var også spørgsmål om kultur og om at komponere klassisk musik.

Se konferencen her:
Vi behøver en ny sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitekturfor alle nationer,
ikke en styrkelse af geopolitiske blokke;
NEJ ved den danske folkeafstemning den 1. juni om afskaffelse af EU’s forsvarsforbehold
NEJ til Sveriges og Finlands optagelse i NATO.

Præsentation på Schiller Instituttets seminar “Vi har brug for en ny sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur, ikke for en styrkelse af de geopolitiske blokke” den 25. maj 2022.

På vegne af Schiller Instituttet i Sverige, som er medvært for dette seminar, vil jeg gerne byde alle velkommen og især takke de talere, der er kommet før mig, for deres fremragende præsentationer.

Jeg vil forsøge at besvare spørgsmålet: “Hvorfor bør Sverige og Finland ikke tilslutte sig Nato?”

Faktisk var ansøgningerne om at blive medlem af Nato unødvendige, uforsvarlige og vanvittige. De var unødvendige ansøgninger, fordi der ikke var nogen trussel mod Sverige eller Finland. Rusland havde travlt på andre fronter, og der var ingen hensigt om at angribe vores lande.

De var uforsvarlige, fordi de øger truslerne mod Rusland i strid med OSCE-traktaten, især princippet om inklusiv sikkerhed, som betyder, at man ikke må øge sin egen sikkerhed på bekostning af andres sikkerhed i henhold til traktaten, og det er faktisk også i overensstemmelse med FN-traktaten. Det var også uforsvarligt, fordi vi nu har etableret en konfrontations linje i Nordeuropa. Under Den kolde Krig var der tidligere en meget stærk konfrontationslinje på kontinentet med store hære, der stod over for hinanden i Tyskland m.m.. Nu vil vi få den samme konfrontationslinje i Nord, hvilket gør det til et ustabilt område. Hele Østersøen vil blive blokeret med en amerikansk politik kaldet 2A/AD, “Area Denial”-politikken, som nu diskuteres i det svenske Krigsvidenskabelige Akademi.

Ansøgningerne var vanvittige, for det vi har nu er en absolut, enorm nuklear provokation, muligvis en omvendt Cuba-krise med Sverige og Finland placeret så tæt på Rusland og især deres baser for atomubåde i Arktis. Allerede nu er det tilladt for B-52 strategiske bombefly at flyve ind i svensk luftrum i henhold til værtslands-aftalen med Nato. Jeg vil gerne dele dette billede fra den 18. februar
der viser en amerikansk B-52 Stratofortress fra Bomber Task Force, som eskorteres af svenske kampfly over Sverige. Ved denne lejlighed var der ikke kun én B-52, men to. Hver af dem kan bære 12 Tomahawk-missiler, der kan have atomare sprænghoveder. Det betyder, at disse B-52, der flyver fra Storbritannien ind i svensk luftrum, fra svensk territorium på få minutter kan tilintetgøre 24 russiske byer. Det var en enorm provokation. Det var faktisk på samme tidspunkt, som den ukrainske hær øgede beskydningen af Donbass med tredive gange.

Som Jan Öberg havde mistanke om, var det et planlagt angreb for at få Sverige ind i Nato. Det var som et bagholdsangreb. Den svenske tidligere forsvarsminister Sven Tolgfors har i en bog (2016) skrevet, at man kunne forvente, at en sikkerhedskrise ville kunne ændre den svenske Nato-politik. I en sikkerhedskrise skal vi være forberedt på at gøre det rigtig hurtigt.

Vi kan også se, hvordan det er kommet i stand. Bare få uger med frygt og hysteri ændrede Finland og Sverige sig. Dette pludselige skift er stadig et chok for især den svenske befolkning. Det, der var sandt for to måneder siden, er nu forkert. For to måneder siden sagde statsminister Magdalena Andersson: “Et svensk Nato-medlemskab ville destabilisere regionen”. Nu skulle svenskerne omprogrammeres af presset fra massemedierne.

Som svenskerne har for vane, at være “de bedste i klassen”, der mestrer den type “gruppetænkning”, som Jan Öberg ligeledes nævnte. Nu forventes det, at Sverige vil være “den bedste i klassen” til krig mod Rusland og Kina. Vi befinder os i en enorm identitetskrise blandt svenskerne og især blandt de socialdemokratiske vælgere.

Tyrkiets modstand mod at tillade medlemskab for de nye ansøgere er et eksempel på den manglende suverænitet i Nato. USA skal nu “løse” problemet. Hvor er den så højt besungne frihed og suverænitet, som Nato skal forsvare, blevet af? Svenskerne er chokerede over at se, hvordan Tyrkiet behandles nu, hvor USA formodes at lægge pres på deres beslutning.

Faktisk forsvarer Tyrkiet nu den svenske og finske suverænitet mere end vores regeringer. Forhåbentlig vil flere NATO-medlemslande tilslutte sig Tyrkiet. Det vil i det mindste give os mere tid her til at stoppe dette vanvid. Ved at blokere vores Nato-ansøgning forsvarer Tyrkiet hele Nato og verden mod en omfattende atomvåbenkrise. Tyrkiet er faktisk den voksne person i rummet ved at organisere fredsforhandlingerne mellem Rusland og Ukraine, hvilket Sverige og Finland burde have koncentreret deres diplomatiske indsats om i stedet for at tilslutte sig Nato!

Men Sverige og Finland bør tage sine skæbner i egne hænder. Vi skal genetablere vores tidligere fælles mission for fred og økonomisk udvikling. Vi bør deltage i etableringen af en ny arkitektur for sikkerhed og udvikling for alle nationer, som erstatter geopolitik og storfinansens plyndring af vores nationer. Nato har kørt os over. Sammen med andre nationer i verden kan vi nu gøre Nato forældet og begrave det.

Det første skridt for Sverige og Finland bør være at slå sig sammen med Italiens premierminister, Mario Draghi, som netop har fremsat et fredsforslag for Ukraine. Denne form for internationalt samarbejde kunne også få Tyrkiet til at presse på for at få fred i stedet for krig.

For det andet er vi nødt til at inddrage den økonomiske dimension, fordi det kan være afgørende for hele Sveriges og Finlands beslutning om ikke at blive medlem af Nato. Hele Europa er nødt til at imødegå sanktionernes økonomiske chok. Det er en neoliberal chokterapi på steroider, der kaster befolkningerne direkte ud i elendighed. Sanktionerne er [ikke til for at hjælpe Ukraine, men er] en ondsindet plyndring for at frigøre de finansielle gældsbobler på ryggen af befolkningen, industrien og middelklassen, hvilket gør millioner af mennesker i Vesten fattige og medfører massiv sult i udviklingslandene.

Faktisk vil den udplyndring i krigstiden, som de vil foretage ved at aflaste den finansielle boble, være meget større end den udplyndring, som det militærindustrielle kompleks foretager, og lige så uproduktiv.

Det vi har, er de fire love, som Lyndon LaRouche har foreslået for at standse denne chokterapi. Vi bør stoppe centralbankernes pengetrykning for at redde det svigtende finanssystem. Vi bør indføre en Glass/Steagall-bankopdeling for at kunne nægte at betale for spekulationsboblerne. Med en adskillelse af bankerne vil vi være i stand til at genetablere bankerne som banker for produktiv kredit. Derefter kan vi oprette en nationalbank for udvikling, der udsteder produktive kreditter.

Helga har allerede peget på denne politik. Jeg vil gerne fremhæve den igen, fordi den kunne være det absolutte centrum for modstanden mod krigspolitikken og Nato-ansøgningerne. Det, vi har brug for nu, er forordninger til at håndtere nødsituationer med hensyn til fødevarer, energi og elektricitet. Vi plejede at have et reguleret elektricitetssystem her i Sverige med en meget billig og sikker strømforsyning. Det kan vi vende tilbage til. Vi kan vende tilbage til regler for fødevareforsyningen, for landbruget og industrien, der er forbundet med fødevareproduktionen, og for energien, faktisk for hele økonomien.

Det vigtige er princippet om, at mennesket kommer først, at beskytte produktionen og boligerne. I denne krise vil mange mennesker miste deres job, fordi virksomheder vil gå konkurs. Mange mennesker vil miste deres hus, fordi de vil få problemer med at betale deres renter i en galopperende inflation. Det, vi har brug for, er en fastfrysning af huslejer og gældsbetalinger. Det er nødvendigt for at beskytte befolkningen og produktionen. Vi er nødt til at investere i den mest avancerede teknologi med høj energitæthed for at øge produktiviteten. Dette er at bekæmpe inflationen på den rigtige måde.

Vi har nu en situation i Sverige, hvor halvdelen af den svenske befolkning er vred over det svenske etablissementets og regeringens forræderi. Der afholdes et valg den 11. september. Der bør ske store forandringer her, som må og kan blokere for Nato-medlemskabet og modstå krigsfremstødet mod Rusland og Kina!

Vi har denne mulighed nu for at udnytte den opstandelse i befolkningen, der skyldes den økonomiske krise, til at stoppe ansøgningen om Nato-medlemskab. Så dette er vores store chance nu.

Vi bør stræbe efter at arbejde for dette, og Sverige og Finland bør stræbe efter ikke at være bedst i Nato-klassen for krig og økonomisk plyndring, men bedst i klassen for fred og udvikling!

Tak! Det var det, jeg ønskede at sige.

English:

Presentation to the seminar ”We Need a New Security & Development Architecture, Not a Strengthening of Geopolitical Blocs”. (https://youtu.be/G5Xkq-xfFgQ?t=8779 )

Thank you,

On behalf of the Schiller Institute in Sweden, being the co-host of this seminar, I would like to welcome everyone and especially thank the speakers ahead of me for their excellent presentations.

I will try to answer the question: “Why Sweden and Finland should not join Nato?”

Actually, the applications to join Nato were unnecessary, reckless and insane. They were applications unnecessary because there was no threat to Sweden or Finland. Russia was busy on other fronts and there was no intention to attack our countries.

They were reckless because they are increasing the threats to Russia in violation of OSCE treaty, especially the principle of inclusive security which means that you are not allowed to increase your security at the cost of other´s security according to the treaty, actually this is also according to the UN treaty. It was also reckless, because we now have established a line of confrontation in the North of Europe. There used to be in the Cold War a very strong confrontation line on the Continent with big armies standing against each other in Germany and so on. Now we will have the same confrontation line in the North making it an area of instability. The whole Baltic Sea will be blocked with an American policy called 2A/AD, the “Area Denial”-policy, which is now discussed in the Swedish Royal Academy of War Sciencies.

The applications were insane because what we have now is an absolute, immense nuclear provocation possibly a Cuban missile crisis in reverse with Sweden and Finland positioned so close to Russia and especially their bases for the nuclear submarines in the Arctic. Already now B-52 strategic bombers are allowed into Swedish airspace according to the Host Nation Agreement with Nato. I would like to share this picture from February 18th

showing U.S. a B-52 Stratofortress from the Bomber Task Force being escorted by Swedish fighter planes over Sweden. On this occasion there was not only one B-52, but two. Each one of them can carry 12 Tomahawk missiles that could have nuclear war heads. It means, that these B-52 flying from Great Britain into Swedish airspace could, from Swedish territory within minutes, extinguish 24 Russian cities. It was a huge provocation. It was actually the same time, as the increase of the shelling by thirty times in Donbass by the Ukrainian army.

As Jan Öberg suspected, it was a planned attack to bring Sweden into Nato. It was like an ambush. The Swedish former Minister of Defense, Sven Tolgfors, has written in a book (2016) that a security crisis could be expected to shift the Swedish Nato policy. In a security crisis we must be prepared to make it really swift.

We can also see how it came about. Just in few weeks out fear and hysteria Finland and Sweden shifted. This sudden shift is still a shock to especially the Swedish people. What was true two months ago, is now false. Two months ago, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said: “A Swedish Nato membership would destabilize the region”. Now the Swedes are supposed to be reprogrammed by the mass media pressure.

As the habit of the Swedes are to be “the best in the class” as master the type of “Group think”, which Jan Öberg also mentioned. Now it is expected that Sweden will be “the best in the class” for war against Russia and China. We are in a huge identity crisis among Swedes and especially among the social democratic voters.

Turkey`s opposition to allow membership to the new applicants, sets an example of the lack of sovereignty in Nato. The US is now supposed to “fix” the problem. Where is the so much heralded freedom and sovereignty, which Nato is supposed to defend? The Swedes are shocked to see the treatment of Turkey now, when the US is supposed to put pressure on their decision.

Actually, Turkey is now defending the Swedish and Finnish sovereignty more than our governments. Hopefully, more Nato member nations will join Turkey. It will at least give us more time here to stop this insanity. By blocking our Nato-application, Turkey is defending all of Nato and the world against a huge nuclear weapons crisis. Turkey is actually the grown up in the room, in its organizing the peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, something Sweden and Finland should have concentrated its diplomatic efforts on, instead of joining Nato!

However, Sweden and Finland should take our destiny in our own hands. We must reestablish our former common mission for peace and economic development. We should take part in the establishing a new architecture for security and development for all nations, replacing geopolitics and the robbery by high finance against our nations. Nato has run us over. Together with other nations in the world, now we can make Nato obsolete and bury it.

The first step for Sweden and Finland should be to team up with Italy´s Prime Minster, Mario Draghi, who has just put forward a peace proposal for Ukraine. This kind of international cooperation could also pull in Turkey to put pressure for peace instead of war.

Secondly, we need to bring in the economic dimension because this could decide the whole process of Sweden and Finland not to join Nato. All of Europe need to counter the sanction economic shock wawe. It is a neoliberal shock therapy on steroids, throwing the peoples directly into misery. The sanctions are [not there to help Ukraine but are] an evil looting to unload the financial debt bubbles on to the back of the population, industry, middle class making millions in the West poor, bringing massive starvation to developing nations.

Actually, the war-time looting they will do, by unloading the financial bubble, will be much bigger than the looting being done by the Military Industrial Complex, and as unproductive.

What we have, are the Four laws proposed by Lyndon LaRouche to halt this shock therapy. We should stop the Central Bank money printing for bailing out the failing financial system. We should implement a Glass Steagall bank separation to be able to refuse paying the speculation bubbles. With bank separation we will be able to reestablish banks as banks for productive credit. Then we can establish a National bank for development, issuing productive credit.

Helga pointed already to this policy. I want to point to it again because this could be the absolute center of the resistance to the war policy and the Nato applications. What we need now are regulations to address emergencies of food, energy, electricity. We used to have a regulated electricity system here in Sweden with a very low cost and secure power supply. We can go back to that. We can go back to regulations for the supply of food, for farming and the industry hat is connected to the food production and for the energy, actually for the whole economy.

What is important is the people first principle, to protect production, protect housing. In this crisis many people will lose their jobs because businesses will go out of business. Many people will lose their houses because they will have difficulties to pay their interest in a run-away inflation. What we need, are the freezing of rents and debt payments. This is necessary to protect the people and the production. We need to invest in the most advanced technology with high energy density to increase productivity. This is to fight inflation the real way.

We have a situation now in Sweden where half the Swedish population are angry over the betrayal by their establishment and government. There is an election coming on September 11. There should be huge changes here that can and must block the Nato membership and resist the war drive against Russia and China!

We have this opportunity now to use the uproar in the population because of the economic crisis, to stop the Nato membership application. So this is our big chance now.

We should strive to work for this and Sweden and Finland should strive for not being best in the Nato class for war and financial looting, but the best in class for peace and development!

Thank you! That is what I wanted to say.

May 25, 2022 (EIRNS)—Michelle Rasmussen, vice president of the Schiller Institute in Denmark, opened the online seminar this afternoon:

Your Excellencies and diplomats from many countries on four continents, guest speakers, members and friends of the Schiller Institute, ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to this seminar sponsored by the Schiller Institutes in Denmark and Sweden, which is also being live streamed on YouTube. The title is, “We Need a New International Security and Development Architecture, Not a Strengthening of Geopolitical Blocs. NO in the Danish June 1 referendum about abolishing the EU Defense opt-out, and NO to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.” I am Michelle Rasmussen, vice president of the Schiller Institute in Denmark, and I will be the moderator today.

After the start of the war in Ukraine, a dramatic shift in defense policy has been proposed in three of the Nordic countries. Denmark is having a referendum on June 1 about joining the EU’s military activities, and Sweden’s and Finland’s governments want to join NATO. We think that it is necessary to discuss these issues from a higher standpoint.

Our keynote speaker, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and international chairwoman of the Schiller Institute stated on May 19, that this is the most dangerous moment in world history. There is war in Europe, and many experts are warning that if the war were not ended soon, and a diplomatic solution crafted, and if those advocating increasing the geopolitical confrontation were not politically defeated, the war could escalate to, even, nuclear war. At the same time, the world economy is in crisis.

While the dangers are great, there is hope, because there are solutions in the form of a new security and development architecture, including proposals by the late Lyndon LaRouche, the founder of our political movement, Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute,for a security agreement modeled on the Peace of Westphalia, combined with increased economic development cooperation between countries.

We have called this meeting to discuss:

• What caused the current extremely dangerous military, and economic crisis.

• Why strengthening the EU military arm with Danish participation, and Sweden and Finland joining NATO would only exacerbate geopolitical conflict, and

• What are the principles upon which we can create a new security and development architecture, for the benefit of all nations and people.

We want to ensure that both the dangers and solutions are known, and that an effective movement is built to stop a further escalation of this war and its economic effects, and prevent future wars and economic destruction. Somehow, humanity must create the conditions where war is not an option, in this era of nuclear weapons.

————–
Helga Zepp-LaRouche Keynote

May 25, 2022 (EIRNS)—Here is the Keynote of Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche: We Need a New Security And Development Architecture for All Nations, Not a Strengthening of Geopolitical Blocs: Why Sweden and Finland Should Not Join NATO, and ‘No’ in the Referendum in Denmark to Join EU’s Military,” the online seminar in Denmark and Sweden today. She was introduced by Schiller Institute in Denmark Vice President Michelle Rasmussen, who moderated the seminar.

The video is available here: 
On the international Schiller Institute YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/8Dt9D_D_U4U

On the Danish YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/1Pji0vjD9Kg

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Hello, good day, Ladies and Gentlemen: As Michelle just said, I have stated that we are facing the most dangerous crisis in the history of mankind. Now, why am I am saying that? Obviously, that includes two world wars in the 20th century, the Cuban Missile Crisis, so it’s a big order. Well, the first reason is the most obvious, for the very first time, we are facing the real danger of a global nuclear war, and if it would ever come to that, it for sure would mean the annihilation of the human species.

In the recent period, the illusion has developed that a limited nuclear war can be fought, and won, or that protracted, hybrid nuclear/conventional war can take place. This was the subject of a maneuver in January of this year, called “Global Lightning,” which had the idea that you have some nuclear bombs, neutron bombs, space war, cyberwar, and this would go on for weeks. Now, the famous nuclear arms specialist, former MIT Prof. Ted Postol has developed all the arguments why this is completely ludicrous, that why, if one uses only one single nuclear weapon, it is the logic of nuclear war, that all will be used.

In the recent months, since the war in Ukraine started, you hear from all kinds of politicians and journalists and who knows who else making reckless talk, saying things like “even if there is the risk of nuclear war, we have to send heavy weapons to Ukraine. We can’t be blackmailed.” Or, “it won’t happen, because nobody would be so foolish to do this.” Well, I don’t think that that is a convincing argument.

The second reason why I am saying we are in the worst crisis ever, is that we experience a civilizational breakdown, the end of an entire system. Now, this has many elements. We have an immediate danger of an escalation of the war, as a result of the present chicken-game policies conducted by NATO against Russia. We are facing a hyperinflationary blowout of the Western neoliberal financial system, which was long in process, even before the war in Ukraine started. We are looking at a world famine, which according to the United Nations is threatening 1.7 billion people with starvation. That is 20% of the entire human species. The pandemic is not over, and all of this is threatening social chaos as a result, and that chaos, all by itself, could threaten to plunge the world into a war.

If one listens to the Western media, and all kinds of politicians, it is naturally all to be blamed on Putin. He is being given all possible names right now, that he has caused an “unprovoked war of aggression”; that he responsible for world famine; that he is the cause of inflation; and so forth and so on. If you say any argument for the real causes of the present situation, you are immediately accused of fake news, you are called a “Putin agent,” it is denounced as Russia propaganda.

Well, it has very little to do with Ukraine. In reality, this present confrontation is about the world order. It is a fight between an unipolar world, which is really a world empire based on the “U.S.-British special relationship,” whereby the Anglo-American hegemon insists that only the so-called “rules-based order” which they have defined is valid; versus a world in which the rise of China and countries associated with Russia and China insist on their own right for economic development.

We are right now at the most precarious moment: The neoliberal system is collapsing. It is not strong enough any more to enforce its will, but the new order is not yet clearly defined. Naturally, in the officially allowed discussion, it is being said that this is a fight between the “democracies” and the “autocratic regimes.” Well, right now, if you listen to what certain politicians and people like Stoltenberg are saying, we are heading toward a potential total decoupling between the West, plus the Five Eyes, plus Japan, Australia, and South Korea, versus a part of the world which includes Russia, China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS, plus many countries that are now trying to become part of the BRICS, which is most of the Global South.

In frantic trips, Blinken is running around the world, trying to convince people to join the faction of the “democracies.” President Biden right now is in Asia, doing the same thing. Chancellor Scholz just went to Africa, von der Leyen to India, all in an effort to isolate Russia and China, but it’s not working: Because India, Indonesia, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, and many others do not want to be pulled into a geopolitical confrontation between the two sides. And what we are actually experiencing is a real renaissance of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Well, we should not overlook, given the American policies, the role of the British, which is “Global Britain,” which is really a new word for the British Empire, which contrary to the views of many, has only changed its shape, but not its essence. Take, for example, an article by Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which happens to be the oldest official think tank associated with the Royal household, and the British military. They describe themselves as the “world’s oldest and leading U.K. defense and security think tank.” They’re proposing a “Cuban Missile Crisis on steroids,” which could result over the Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea, which would make it easier, in their view, to settle the Ukraine-Russia war. And this is the stunning proposition in this article, which has the headline, “This War Still Presents Nuclear Risks—Especially in Relation to Crimea,” which was published on May 20 by the RUSI think tank. [https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/war-still-presents-nuclear-risks-especially-relation-crimea]

Chalmers discusses how Russia could be forced into a nuclear confrontation, by sending evermore sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, from which it would ultimately back down. Chalmers describes NATO’s strategy over the last three months as that of “boiling the Russian frog.” You all remember the picture—according to the story, I don’t think it’s actually true—but according to the story, if you throw a frog into boiling water, the frog it will jump out; but if you put the frog into the water pot, when the water is cold, and then you slowly increase the temperature, the frog ends up being boiled without noticing. So he talks about “boiling the Russian frog” by progressively increasing “size and sophistication of the weapons they have been prepared to supply to Ukraine.” Because of those weapons, “the next period will see Ukraine reversing most of Russia’s recent territorial gains, including Kherson and even Mariupol.” That, however, would not occasion a nuclear threat, nor would Ukraine, using those weapons and territorial gains to destroy bridges, railheads, storage sites, and airbases inside Russia. But should Ukraine move to retake Crimea, strike a “tempting target,” of the Kerch Bridge for example, now, that could lead to a “Crimea Missile Crisis,” Chalmbers argues. “A specific threat to use nuclear weapons in relation to Crimea … might be viewed by Putin as a way to restore some of his coercive power, even if he (and the U.S.) doubted whether he would deliver on such a threat…. If a red line were not accepted by Ukraine, Russia might then feel that it had to consider a series of further escalatory options, such as putting its nuclear forces on higher alert.” They are already on alert. “Faced with the alternative of the likely loss of Crimea, Putin might believe that Ukraine (with U.S. encouragement) would be likely to blink first. It would be a moment of extreme peril, with all the parties seeking to understand the intent of each other even as they looked to pursue their national interests.

“Precisely because of the peril inherent in such a situation, a nuclear crisis of this sort could make it easier for leaders to make difficult compromises. Provided that the war was ended and the blockade of Odesa lifted, Ukraine’s leaders might be willing to postpone a settlement of the Crimea question. For Putin, the failure of the invasion, and the subsequent success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, would have been a massive humiliation. But he would at least be able to argue that the might of the Russian strategic arsenal had, at a moment of great national weakness, successfully deterred NATO’s designs for dismembering Russia. This could be enough for both sides to avoid the worst outcome of all.”

I mean, this is complete insanity, you know! Saying that one has to threaten to retake Crimea, and then get all the nuclear weapons on the highest alert, and then we can sit down and settle. So he calls that a Crimea Cuban Missile Crisis on steroids.

Now, that policy of “boiling the Russian frog,” that has not started three months ago, but that has been the method since 1990, when on Feb. 9, 1990, James Baker III promise to Gorbachev, that NATO would not move one inch eastward. In the entire Yeltsin period, there was a policy to reduce the former superpower into a raw materials exporting nation, with the “shock therapy” of Jeffrey Sachs, and between 1991-1994, the industrial potential of Russia was reduced to only 30%. There is a very important book by Sergei Glazyev, which describes the 1990s, with the title Genocide: Russia and the New World Order, because that is what was imposed on Russia at that time.

Now, the crime of Putin is that he tried to reverse that, and had some success with it. The answer was color revolutions, regime change, humanitarian wars, like the 20 years in Afghanistan, where as a result of the hasty retreat of NATO and the U.S. in August, now, there are 24 million people at starvation levels in Afghanistan, exposed to COVID, measles, polio, without adequate medicine. So, if one would have equally detailed TV coverage of Afghanistan for 20 years, like we see it now with Ukraine every day, maybe the world would have been equally upset—or, maybe not, because the Afghanis are not white.

Then you had the Iraq War in 2003, about which Nancy Pelosi admitted publicly that all responsible people knew ahead of time that there were no weapons of mass destruction. You had Libya. Hillary Clinton, during the Durham investigation in the United States, had to admit that the entire basis of Russiagate were all lies. Did one see anything about that in the mainstream media? Absolutely not! At least not in Europe. Then there was Syria. Then you had the 2014 Maidan coup, about which Victoria Nuland bragged, $5 billion were spent by the State Department on NGOs, and, let’s not forget, the Azov Battalion, which media in the West are now saying, there are no Nazis in Ukraine—but it is a documented fact that there are.

Now, Putin, as a result of this “boiling the Russian frog,” over almost 30 years, on Dec. 15 demanded legally binding security guarantees from the United States and NATO. He has not received an answer from the U.S. or NATO on the core demands, only on arms control, but that was not the essence of what he was demanding. The head of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said that Russia had no other way, because they were threatened in the existence of the statehood of Russia, when they made what they call the “special military operation” in Ukraine. And one can absolutely argue that Russia was in a situation, according to UN Charter Article 51, which is a question of self-defense and not of aggression.

Now, we are facing with Finland and Sweden, the sixth expansion of NATO. That is the answer, which Stoltenberg even brags about. He says, “Putin wanted less NATO, now he gets more NATO.” So the boiling temperature is just being increased.

One has to take this insane policy of causing a Crimea Cuban Missile Crisis, together with another British policy, which was exposed in a paper by the Henry Jackson Society in 2020, which they put again on the front page of the Henry Jackson Society website, which means it’s ongoing policy of that think tank. It is a report outlining a strategy to use the infamous “Five Eyes” alliance—U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand—as the instrument to force through the decoupling of the West from China. This rabidly anti-Russia, anti-China neocon think tank is run by British intelligence, through among others, the former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove, who is the main brain of Russiagate, which was completely discredited as a lie; and he was one of the founders of the Henry Jackson Society and is one of its principals today.

So, even the attempt to decouple China from the international system, before consummated, could detonate an economic nuclear bomb upon the entire world economy. China is not just the world’s largest trading power: It’s currently generating the highest rate of scientific and technological development on the planet, a productive power which the developing sector nations and the collapsing Western nations urgently require if they want to survive. But actual nuclear warfare could also be the result, because part of the Henry Jackson Society strategy is to build up ties with Taiwan leading to its separation from China. China has made abundantly clear that it will respond with overwhelming military force to any attempt to split Taiwan off from the rest of the nation of China. This is as dangerous a proposition as a NATO-backed Ukraine moving to retake Crimea. So, when President Biden made a gaffe in answer to a reporter on his recent trip to Japan, “Would the United States defend Taiwan militarily?” Biden said, again, “Yes.” And he had to be correct, again, by the White House.

Now, the Chinese already had editorials where they said, this is not a “gaffe,” this is a signal of what is the real intention of the United States. And Chas Freeman, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and he was the official translator for President Nixon in his 1972 trip to China, and a career diplomat, he warned, and called it a colossal mistake for Biden to have made such a stupid statement.

President Biden is currently championing these precisely British strategies on his current trip to Asia. Fresh from celebrating the expansion of NATO, Biden is to unveil a grandiose Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) during his stop in Japan as the highlight of the trip. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated bluntly on Wednesday, May 18, that the message of the IPEF is that “democracies and open societies of the world stand together to shape the rules of the road. We think that message will be heard everywhere. We think it will be heard in Beijing.”

Fifty-two U.S. Senators sent Biden off on his trip with instructions that Taiwan be incorporated as one of the “countries” participating in the IPEF, which is clearly not acceptable from the standpoint of China, because it is a violation of the One China policy.

Now, just today, if you open the media, if you look at the TV, if you look at TV or newspapers, a huge scandal story about pictures from the supposed labor camps in Xinjiang, were “investigated” by a group of international media, that 1 million Uighurs would have been tortured, beaten in labor camps, forced labor, and so forth. Naturally, our so-called Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock immediately had an outcry demanding a transparent clearing up of the accusations. Calls that all relations with China should be cut—after cutting relations with Russia—and that all trade with China should be stopped, now, let’s look at it realistically: China in 2021 was the third largest partner for the EU export of goods, 10.2%, and the largest partner for the EU import of goods, 22.4%; for Germany, it was the largest trading partner for goods in 2021, with a volume of trade of over €245 million. To cut that would mean total economic suicide, which is already happening with the relations with Russia.

What is the source of this incredible story? The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the leading newspapers in Germany, says, all the photos and data have been made available through Adrian Zenz, a German anthropologist, and longtime Xinjiang observer. Now, this Mr. Adrian Zenz claims that he got all of that from an “unnamed source” who had access to cyber, cyberwar spying and whatnot. Well, that’s a very dubious observation. But Adrian Zenz is not an unknown entity: The blog, The Grayzone, and the very respected investigative journalist Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal already wrote articles in 2019, after he had come up with a similar story about genocide in Xinjiang, that Mr. Zenz is a “far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports ’scriptural spanking”’ of children, and believes he is ‘led by God’ on a ‘mission’ against China.,” because the end-times are near and the rise of the anti-Christ is also coming. He is on a complete rampage, saying that [there is genocide in] Xinjiang because of a collapse of the demographic curve of the Uighurs, and Lyle Goldstein, who is professor at the Naval War College in the United States, says that such a statement is “ridiculous to the point of being inciting to those who lost relatives in the Holocaust.”

There is ample evidence that there is no “demographic collapse” of the Uighurs in Xinjiang: Just the opposite. There is a 2019 study in the British medical journal Lancet, which talks about a massive improvement of life expectancy among the Uighurs, a demographic growth rate which is much higher than that of the Han Chinese, an improvement in maternal health, in infant mortality, and all of this represents “a remarkable success story.”

Zenz’s so-called testimony comes from Uighur exiles who are cultivated by the U.S. State Department. Zenz served as a fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., which is a right-wing lobbying group born out of the National Captive Nations Committee. Now, that is a very, very interesting connection, because that was founded by Ukrainian nationalist Lev Dobriansky, who is heading this institution whose co-chairman was Yaroslav Stetsko, who was a leader of the OUN-B militia, which is the Nazi group that fought along with German Nazis during the occupation of Ukraine in World War II. Stetsko and his wife had a residence in Munich during the entire postwar period, and led from there the “Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations.” After he died, Mrs. Stetsko went to Ukraine and rebuilt the OUN-B, the Bandera organization, in the tradition of the ideas of Stepan Bandera. Now, that is a direct connection to that apparatus, which was heavily led by the Western secret services—Bandera himself joined the MI6 in 1947, and the BND in Munich had a close, at least “knowledge” about these people (to say the least).

Zenz was also deployed by the Jamestown Foundation, a neocon think tank in D.C., which was founded by CIA director William Casey as an extra-governmental channel to pay Soviet dissidents.

If Germany or other European nations fall for this intelligence operation, which is exactly what the Henry Jackson Society talked about, namely the “Five Eyes” at work, if they follow this, it would be complete economic suicide. Now, even Henry Kissinger, at the age of 99 years, is more reasonable, and at Davos, he said the world has at maximum a window of two months to end the Ukraine war through negotiations, and he appealed to Ukraine that they should agree to a territorial compromise to get peace.

At the Schiller conference on April 9, we presented a completely different approach: There is an alternative to the complete decoupling between the so-called “democracies” and the Global South on the other side. The new system is already emerging rapidly. There are many countries which at the recent foreign ministers’ meeting of the BRICS, want to be part of: Argentina, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and many others. You have the BRICS enlarged, you have the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, almost all organizations of the Global South that want to be part of a new international security and development architecture, which basically is the combination of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, together with two other proposals by President Xi Jinping: The Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, which is actively being implemented.

Now, what we need is such a conference, for a new international security and development architecture, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia. Now, the Peace of Westphalia was the recognition of all war parties that if they would continue the war, no one would be left to enjoy the victory, because they would all be dead. And that is why they developed the principle that any peace must be based on the interest of the other. The security interest of every country on the planet, which today would mean a security architecture emphatically involving Russia and China. And such a conference, must address the causes for such a war danger: Because it is not enough at this point to be against the war. You have to solve the problem that the collapse of the neoliberal financial system is in progress.

Lyndon LaRouche has a unique record that he foresaw what is happening today, the present crisis, already in August 1971, when Nixon ended the old Bretton Woods system, by replacing the fixed-exchange-rate system, with a floating exchange-rate system, and LaRouche predicted at that time, that if you would continue on that road, it would lead to a new depression, the danger of a new war, and fascism. And that is exactly where we are today.

LaRouche proposed Four Laws to solve the crisis. The first step, a global Glass-Steagall banking separation system, must end the casino economy. There must be capital and exchange controls to prevent the speculative manipulation of currencies, which we see right now in much of the world.

Every country must have a National Bank to make credit generation again the question of the sovereign government, and not that of private bankers, in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton. Then, these National Banks must be connected through a credit system which provides long-term, low-interest credit for real investment in the physical economy.

Also, the Fourth Law is that we must have a crash program for fusion technology, which in the recent period has made tremendous progress, and the commercial use of it is visibly on the horizon. Because we need a massive increase in the productivity of the world economy because just the fact that 1.7 billion people are threatened with starvation, that 2 billion have no clean water, is the proof that the present level of productivity has fallen way below the level of maintaining the present world population of 8 billion people.

And there must be international cooperation, not only for fusion technology, but also for space technology and space travel, because that is the vanguard of scientific and technological realm today.

So we are right now confronted with a situation where the leading governments and institutions are challenged: Are we able to solve the problems of the world, are we able to address the problems which threaten the very existence of mankind, or not? Now, the Schiller Institute has proposed for more than 30 years, first, the Eurasian Land-Bridge; the New Silk Road, and in 2013, we proposed the “New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge.” Please show the slide: Now, this is a blueprint how we can overcome world poverty, how we can eradicate underdevelopment forever, and how can we create a new, modern world health system for every country in the world, which is the only way how we can overcome old and new diseases, this pandemic and threatening new pandemics.

This is absolutely possible, and this is the vision of how the world will look in a few years, anyway, if we avoid the present danger of nuclear war. The development of infrastructure connecting all continents is the natural way how infrastructure development will continue, provided there is peace. So I think that is something we need to put on the agenda for discussion, and the reason why, despite the incredible danger, one can be optimistic, is because we are the human species, we are capable of reason, and we are not barbarians.

Thank you.

Rasmussen: OK, we have 10 minutes now questions to Helga. … We have a question from Elena. While we’re waiting for Elena, we have a question from Jens Jørgen Nielsen, one of our speakers.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Thank you for a very good presentation. I essentially agree with you. I have one question. As you may know, I live in Denmark, where we will have a referendum in a week’s time, about the European Union: We are discussing in our country for the time being, the role of the European Union and whether it should have an army, how should we have security. I would like a few words: How do you think about the European Union in this context? Because I am somehow skeptical, but I would like to hear your opinion on the European Union and the development right now of the European Union in this context? And also specifically the question of the European military arm, which is the subject of referendum? And the policy toward Ukraine and Russia?

Zepp-LaRouche: When there was a referendum about the EU Constitution in France and Holland 2005, which was defeated, because the majority voted against it. And then they shifted it to the Lisbon Treaty, because by not calling it a “constitution” but by calling it a “treaty,” it did not require a vote. So this was decided in great secrecy, but we were extremely closely watching it at the time. And if you look at the Charter of the EU as it was agreed upon in Lisbon in December 2007, it is practically interwoven with NATO, in such a degree that the Article 5 of NATO practically also involves the EU. In other words, when you join the EU, you are practically also part of whatever NATO does. And the character of NATO has also dramatically changed, in the last 30 years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the time of the Soviet Union, it was a defensive apparatus against the Warsaw Pact. But in the recent period, it has turned into a completely anti-Russian Russophobe alliance, and therefore, when, in November 2013, when the Ukraine government under Viktor Yanukovych refused to join the EU Association Agreement, it was clear that if Ukraine would join the EU, it would give NATO access to the Black Sea, and that is why he opted out in the last moment.

So, I think that that is an important thing to keep in mind. And the fact that Ursula von der Leyen is at the forefront of all of the policies which I described as British, in my various examples, such as the fight of so-called democracies and so-called autocratic regimes, when she is talking about that every day: She went to India talking like that.

I think the present EU has completely lost touch with the interest of its member-states. I think they have become a gigantic waterhead of a bureaucracy in Brussels which makes for the most part completely ridiculous decisions and orders and rules which are absolutely contrary to the interest of the member countries. And I actually have called for Germany to move out of the EU, because we don’t need a bureaucracy to have a unified Europe! We could have a Europe of the Fatherlands, in the spirit of Charles de Gaulle! We could work together for a join mission to contribute to shaping a new world order in a positive way: We could do that by having national sovereign governments just working together. You don’t need this bureaucracy. That is my view, and I would just advise anybody who has an interest in their own sovereignty to not join this colossus.

Rasmussen: Elena, why don’t you ask your question now?

Elena: Thank you so much. I find everything that Madam Helga said very, very interesting. And of course, at the moment, as I am very interested in the situation between Ukraine and Russia, my optimistic feeling is that Russia is going to come to a solution with Ukraine. Because as I have heard today, Putin has been somehow winning in the territories. So most likely something good will happen.

However, I think what Madam said is so beautiful, I would like to have something to read if possible. Because my connection was not very good, and I was not able to hear well. However, I would be very grateful if Madam could let me have what she said in a written form, that I can read and study. And I can write an article about what she has said, what are the goals of this new architecture and let other people to know about it.

Rasmussen: Elena we will have a transcript of Helga’s comments, and we can send those to you and all the participants. And also the video of this conference will be available to send around.

We have one more questioner, Kwame. We can take a short question.

Kwame: I’m a Swede. Thank you for a nice presentation. My question, because I don’t know: Would you say that China is united and in full control of the Chinese Communist Party? Or, are there some Chinese oligarchs that have good connections with their American counterparts? As for they send some money into the [inaud 51:09] laboratory, maybe to somehow get them connected to the globalists in the Western hemisphere. So, my question is, does the Chinese Communist Party have full control of the country?

Zepp-LaRouche: I would say, absolutely yes. And I just should say something, because right now, when you say “Communist,” some people fall completely into a coma and have hysterical outbursts. I mean, the Communist Party of China is, in my view—and I don’t even think that they would agree with that—but I think they’re 90% Confucian, in the tradition of the ancient Chinese traditions and philosophy, which influenced Chinese policy for more than two millennia. And naturally, there is an element of Marxism and communism, but it’s a meritocracy.

The way people look at the CPC in the West is completely uninformed, and I can only—my best way of answering is that I was in China for the first time, in 1971, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, and I could travel around in Shanghai, Tientsin, Qingdao, Beijing, I could visit the countryside: And I saw a country which was really distraught! People were poor, the conditions were very terrible. The beautiful garden of the Summer Palace had been painted all red by the Revolutionary Guards. In any case, this was 51 years ago, and when you go to China now, it is so developed! They have 40,000 km of fast train system, of which nobody in the United States or Europe can even dream, because we have nothing like that! China has made an incredible development: 850 million people have been lifted out of poverty. And I could say many, many more things.

Deng Xiaoping coined the term “judging truth from facts.” And if you look at the facts of the gigantic development of China in the last 40 years, in particular, then this Communist Party has done something right. And if you travel to China, and study Chinese history, and meet people in all ranks of life, professors, students, people living in the countryside, other professions, you go to restaurants, and you see how people live, you find a population which is primarily content. They’re optimistic: They’re not like the Europeans and they’re for sure not like the Germans, who are completely pessimistic, and think nothing can function and you can’t do anything anyway. No. That is not the view in China. They are optimistic; they have, to a very large extent, trust in the government. And I think that the Chinese model, which the West is now regarding as a big competitor and threat, the Chinese model is doing something right, which the West is not doing right! And rather than opposing it, we should go to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and say: We should respect each other, even if the other one has a different social system, and even if the other one has a different way of doing things, according to their history, and their tradition. And I think then, we can absolutely peacefully live together. And that is my stated view, and I think all the slanders about China are really absolutely unfounded, and in particular, this present campaign by this very dubious Adrian Zenz, we should squash before it really takes hold.

Rasmussen: All right, thank you very much Helga! We really appreciate your very in-depth discussion.

Den 25. maj 2022 (EIRNS) — Her er introduktionen og grundlæggeren af Schiller Instituttet, Helga Zepp-LaRouches tale ved videokonferencen:
Vi har brug for en ny sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur for alle nationer, ikke for en styrkelse af geopolitiske blokke: 

Hvorfor Sverige og Finland ikke bør tilslutte sig NATO, 
“Nej” ved folkeafstemningen i Danmark om at tilslutte sig EU’s militær”. 

Introduktion ved Michelle Rasmussen, næstformand, Schiller Instituttet i Danmark 

Helga Zepp-LaRouche blev introduceret af Michelle Rasmussen, som også var ordstyrer på seminaret. 

Den første taler er Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Instituttets stifter. Hun er også chefredaktør for Executive Intelligence Review, formand for det tyske politiske parti BüSo (Borgerrettighedsbevægelsen Solidaritet), og hun var hustru til og nærmeste medarbejder af den afdøde amerikanske økonom og statsmand Lyndon LaRouche.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche stod blandt mange andre ting i spidsen for en bevægelse for økonomisk udviklingssamarbejde mellem øst og vest efter Berlinmurens fald og Sovjetunionens sammenbrud, først kaldet Den eurasiske Landbro eller Den nye Silkevej, der siden blev udvidet til at blive Verdenslandbroen.

Helga, vi er glade for, at du kan tale til os i dag.

{{Helga Zepp-LaRouche:}} God dag, mine damer og herrer: Som Michelle netop har sagt, har jeg erklæret, at vi står over for den farligste krise i menneskehedens historie.  Hvorfor siger jeg nu det? Det inkluderer naturligvis to verdenskrige i det 20. århundrede, Cuba-krisen, så det er en stor ting. Den første grund er den mest indlysende; for allerførste gang står vi over for den reelle fare for en global atomkrig, og hvis det nogensinde skulle komme dertil, ville det helt sikkert betyde udslettelse af den menneskelige art.

I den seneste tid er der opstået en illusion om, at en begrænset atomkrig kan udkæmpes og vindes, eller at en langvarig hybrid-atom/konventionel krig kan finde sted.  Dette var emnet for en manøvre i januar i år, kaldet “Global Lightning”, som havde den antagelse, at man har nogle atombomber, neutronbomber, rumkrig, cyberkrig, og at dette ville fortsætte i ugevis. Nu har den berømte atomvåbenekspert, den tidligere MIT-professor Ted Postol, udviklet alle argumenter for, hvorfor dette er fuldstændig latterligt, hvorfor, hvis man blot bruger et enkelt atomvåben, er logikken i atomkrig, at alle vil blive brugt.

I de seneste måneder, siden krigen i Ukraine startede, har man hørt alle mulige politikere og journalister og alle mulige andre, der har holdt uforsvarlige taler og sagt ting som: “Selv om der er risiko for atomkrig, er vi nødt til at sende tunge våben til Ukraine. Vi kan ikke lade os afpresse”. Eller: “Det vil ikke ske, for ingen ville være så tåbelige at gøre det”.  Jeg synes ikke, at det er et overbevisende argument.

Den anden grund til at jeg vil påstå, at vi befinder os i den værste krise nogensinde, er, at vi oplever et civilisatorisk sammenbrud, afslutningen på et helt system. Dette har mange aspekter.  Vi har en umiddelbar fare for en optrapning af krigen som følge af NATO’s nuværende krigspolitik over for Rusland, der er baseret på konfrontation. Vi står over for et hyperinflationært sammenbrud af det vestlige neoliberale finanssystem, som længe har været undervejs, selv før krigen i Ukraine begyndte. Vi står over for en hungersnød i verden, som ifølge FN truer 1,7 mia. mennesker med sult.  Det er 20 % af hele menneskeheden. Pandemien er ikke overstået, og alt dette truer med socialt kaos som følge heraf, og dette kaos kan i sig selv true med at kaste verden ud i en krig.

Hvis man lytter til de vestlige medier og alle mulige politikere, skal det hele naturligvis bebrejdes Putin. Han får alle mulige betegnelser lige nu: at han har forvoldt en “uprovokeret angrebskrig”, at han er ansvarlig for hungersnøden i verden, at han er årsag til inflationen, osv.  Hvis man fremsætter noget som helst argument for de virkelige årsager til den nuværende situation, bliver man straks beskyldt for fake news, man bliver kaldt “Putin-agent”, det bliver fordømt som Rusland-propaganda.  

Men det har meget lidt at gøre med Ukraine.  I virkeligheden handler denne nuværende konfrontation om verdensordenen. Det er en kamp mellem en unipolær verden, som i virkeligheden er et verdensimperium baseret på det “særlige amerikansk-britiske forhold”, hvor det angloamerikanske herredømme insisterer på, at kun den såkaldte “regelbaserede orden”, som de har defineret, er gyldig, imod en verden hvor Kinas fremvækst og lande, der er associeret med Rusland og Kina, insisterer på deres egen ret til økonomisk udvikling. 

Vi befinder os lige nu i det mest usikre øjeblik: Det neoliberale system er ved at bryde sammen.  Det er ikke længere stærkt nok til at gennemtvinge sin vilje, men den nye orden er endnu ikke klart defineret. I den officielt tilladte diskussion siges det naturligvis, at dette er en kamp mellem “demokratier” og “autokratiske regimer”. Men hvis man lytter til, hvad visse politikere og folk som Stoltenberg siger, er vi lige nu på vej mod en potentiel total afkobling mellem Vesten samt Five Eyes plus Japan, Australien og Sydkorea over for en del af verden, som omfatter Rusland, Kina, Shanghai-samarbejdsorganisationen (SCO), BRICS, samt mange lande der nu forsøger at blive en del af BRICS, hvilket er det meste af det globale syd. 

Med hektiske udflugter farer Blinken rundt i verden og forsøger at overbevise folk om at slutte sig til “demokratiernes” fraktion.  Præsident Biden er lige nu i Asien og forsøger at gøre det samme. Kansler Scholz har for nylig rejst til Afrika, von der Leyen til Indien, alt sammen i et forsøg på at isolere Rusland og Kina, men det virker ikke: Fordi Indien, Indonesien, Brasilien, Egypten, Nigeria, Sydafrika og mange andre ikke ønsker at blive trukket ind i en geopolitisk konfrontation mellem de to parter.  Det, vi faktisk oplever, er en reel renæssance for Den alliancefrie Bevægelse.

Vi må ikke overse briternes rolle i lyset af den amerikanske politik, som er “Global Britain”, hvilket i virkeligheden er et nyt ord for det Britiske Imperium, som i modsætning til hvad mange tror, kun har ændret form, men ikke dets væsen. Tag f.eks. en artikel af Malcolm Chalmers, vicegeneraldirektør for Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), som i øvrigt er den ældste officielle tænketank med tilknytning til kongehuset og det britiske militær. De beskriver sig selv som “verdens ældste og førende britiske tænketank inden for forsvar og sikkerhed”.  De foreslår en “Cuba-krise på steroider”, som kunne blive resultatet af Ukraines forsøg på at generobre Krim, hvilket efter deres mening ville gøre det lettere at løse krigen mellem Ukraine og Rusland.  Dette er det forbløffende forslag i denne artikel, som har overskriften: “This War Still Presents Nuclear Risks – Especially in Relation to Crimea”, som blev offentliggjort den 20. maj af tænketanken RUSI. [https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/war-still-presents-nuclear-risks-especially-relation-crimea]

Chalmers diskuterer, hvordan Rusland kunne blive tvunget ind i en nuklear konfrontation ved at sende stadig mere sofistikerede våben til Ukraine, som det i sidste ende ville trække sig tilbage fra. Chalmers beskriver NATO’s strategi i de sidste tre måneder som en strategi, der går ud på at “koge den russiske frø”. I husker alle billedet – ifølge historien, jeg tror ikke, at det faktisk er sandt – men ifølge historien, hvis man smider en frø i kogende vand, vil den hoppe ud; men hvis man lægger frøen i gryden, når vandet er koldt, og så langsomt øger temperaturen, ender frøen med at blive kogt, uden at den opdager det. Så han taler om at “koge den russiske frø” ved gradvist at øge “størrelsen og graden af raffinement af de våben, som de har været parate til at levere til Ukraine”. På grund af disse våben vil man “i den næste periode se Ukraine tilbagevinde de fleste af Ruslands seneste territoriale gevinster, herunder Kherson og endda Mariupol.” Det ville imidlertid ikke give anledning til en atomtrussel, og det ville heller ikke give Ukraine anledning til at bruge disse våben og territoriale vindinger til at ødelægge broer, jernbanehoveder, lagerpladser og luftbaser inde i Rusland. Men hvis Ukraine skulle forsøge at generobre Krim og angribe et “fristende mål”, f.eks. broen i Kertj, på nuværende tidspunkt, kunne det føre til en “Krim-missilkrise”, mener Chalmers. “En specifik trussel om at bruge atomvåben i forbindelse med Krim … kunne Putin se som en måde at genoprette noget af sin magtanvendelse på, selv om han (og USA) tvivlede på, om han ville gennemføre en sådan trussel…. Hvis en rød linje ikke blev accepteret af Ukraine, kunne Rusland så føle sig nødsaget til at overveje en række yderligere optrapningsmuligheder, såsom at sætte sine atomstyrker i højere beredskab.” De er allerede i beredskab. “Stillet over for alternativet med det sandsynlige tab af Krim, kunne Putin tro, at Ukraine (med USA’s opmuntring) sandsynligvis ville blinke først. Det ville være et øjeblik med ekstrem fare, hvor alle parter ville forsøge at forstå hinandens hensigter, selv om de søgte at varetage deres nationale interesser.

“Netop på grund af den fare der ligger i en sådan situation, kunne en atomkrise af denne art gøre det lettere for lederne at indgå vanskelige kompromiser. Forudsat at krigen blev afsluttet og blokaden af Odessa ophævet, kunne Ukraines ledere være villige til at udskyde en løsning af Krim-spørgsmålet. For Putin ville en mislykket invasion og den efterfølgende succes for den ukrainske modoffensiv have været en massiv ydmygelse. Men han ville i det mindste kunne argumentere for, at det russiske strategiske arsenals styrke på et tidspunkt med stor national svækkelse havde haft held til at afskrække NATO’s planer om at splitte Rusland op. Dette kunne være nok for begge parter til at undgå det værste resultat af alle.”

Jeg mener, at det er fuldstændig vanvittigt! At sige at man skal true med at generobre Krim og derefter sætte alle atomvåben i højeste alarmberedskab, og så kan vi sætte os ned og finde en løsning.  Så han kalder det en Krim-cubansk missilkrise på steroider.  

Denne politik med at “koge den russiske frø” er ikke begyndt for tre måneder siden, men det har været metoden siden 1990, da James Baker III den 9. februar 1990 lovede Gorbatjov, at NATO ikke ville bevæge sig en tomme mod øst. I hele Jeltsin-perioden var der en politik, der gik ud på at reducere den tidligere supermagt til en råstofeksporterende nation med Jeffrey Sachs’ “chokterapi”, og mellem 1991-1994 blev Ruslands industrielle potentiale reduceret til kun 30 %. Der findes en meget vigtig bog af Sergei Glazyev, som beskriver 1990’erne, med titlen {Folkemord: Rusland og den nye verdensorden}, fordi dette var hvad der blev pålagt Rusland på det tidspunkt. 

Putins forbrydelse er, at han forsøgte at omgøre dette og havde en vis succes med det.  Svaret var farverevolutioner, regimeskift, humanitære krige, som de 20 år i Afghanistan, hvor der som følge af NATO’s og USA’s forhastede tilbagetrækning i august nu er 24 millioner mennesker, der sulter i Afghanistan, udsat for COVID, mæslinger, polio, uden tilstrækkelig medicin.  Så hvis man havde haft en lige så omfattende tv-dækning af Afghanistan i 20 år, som vi ser det nu med Ukraine hver dag, ville verden måske have været lige så oprevet – eller, måske ikke, for afghanerne er ikke hvide.

Så havde vi Irak-krigen i 2003, hvor Nancy Pelosi offentligt indrømmede, at alle ansvarlige mennesker på forhånd vidste, at der ikke fandtes masseødelæggelsesvåben.  Der var Libyen.  Hillary Clinton måtte under Durham-undersøgelsen i USA indrømme, at hele grundlaget for Russiagate udelukkende var usandheder. Har man set noget om det i de etablerede medier?  Absolut ikke!  I hvert fald ikke i Europa.  Så var der Syrien.  Så var der Maidan-kuppet i 2014, som Victoria Nuland pralede med, og hvor Udenrigsministeriet brugte 5 mia. dollars på ngo’er, og, lad os ikke glemme, Azov-bataljonen, hvor medierne i Vesten nu siger, at der ikke er nogen nazister i Ukraine – men det er et dokumenteret faktum, at det er der.

Som et resultat af denne “kogning af den russiske frø” gennem næsten 30 år, krævede Putin den 15. december juridisk bindende sikkerhedsgarantier fra USA og NATO. Han har ikke modtaget noget svar fra USA eller NATO på de væsentligste krav, kun på våbenkontrol, men det var ikke essensen af det, han anmodede om. Lederen af det russiske sikkerhedsråd, Nikolaj Patrusjev, erklærede, at Rusland ikke havde nogen anden udvej, fordi Ruslands eksistens som stat var truet, da de foretog det, de kalder den “særlige militære operation” i Ukraine. Man kan absolut argumentere for, at Rusland var i en situation, i henhold til FN-pagtens artikel 51, som er et spørgsmål om selvforsvar og ikke om aggression.

Nu står vi over for den sjette udvidelse af NATO i forbindelse med Finland og Sverige.  Det er reaktionen, som Stoltenberg endda praler af.  Han siger: “Putin ville have mindre NATO, nu får han mere NATO.”  Så kogepunktet bliver bare øget.

Man må betragte denne vanvittige politik for at fremkalde en Krim-Cuba-krise sammen med en anden britisk politik, som blev afsløret i et dokument fra Henry Jackson Society i 2020, som de igen har anbragt på forsiden af Henry Jackson Societys hjemmeside, hvilket betyder, at det er den igangværende politik fra denne tænketank. Det er en rapport, der skitserer en strategi for at bruge den berygtede “Five Eyes”-alliance – Storbritannien, USA, Canada, Australien og New Zealand – som et instrument til at gennemtvinge Vestens afkobling fra Kina. Denne rabiate anti-russiske, anti-kinesiske neokonservative tænketank drives af den britiske efterretningstjeneste, bl.a. gennem den tidligere MI6-chef Sir Richard Dearlove, som er den primære hjerne bag Russiagate, der blev fuldstændig miskrediteret som en løgn, og han var en af stifterne af Henry Jackson Society og er en af dets ledere i dag. 

Så selv forsøget på at afkoble Kina fra det internationale system kunne, før det gennemføres, detonere en økonomisk atombombe over hele verdensøkonomien.  Kina er ikke blot verdens største handelsmagt: Det skaber i øjeblikket den højeste videnskabelige og teknologiske udviklingstakt på planeten, en produktiv kraft, som landene i udviklingssektoren og de sammenstyrtende vestlige nationer har hårdt brug for, hvis de vil overleve.  Men en egentlig atomkrig kan også blive resultatet, for en del af Henry Jackson Societys strategi er at opbygge forbindelser med Taiwan, der fører til dets adskillelse fra Kina.  Kina har gjort det helt klart, at det vil reagere med overvældende militær magt på ethvert forsøg på at adskille Taiwan fra resten af Kina. Dette er lige så farligt som et NATO-støttet Ukraine, der forsøger at generobre Krim. Så, præsident Biden begik den bommert i sit svar til en journalist på sin rejse til Japan for nylig, adspurgt: “Ville USA forsvare Taiwan militært?” Biden svarede igen: “Ja.” Og han måtte endnu en gang blive korrigeret af Det Hvide Hus.

Kineserne har allerede skrevet i deres lederartikler, at dette ikke er en “bommert”, men et signal om USA’s virkelige hensigt.  Og Chas Freeman, der var assisterende forsvarsminister for internationale sikkerhedsanliggender, og den officielle oversætter for præsident Nixon på hans rejse til Kina i 1972, samt en karrierediplomat, advarede og kaldte det en kolossal fejltagelse af Biden at have lavet en så tåbelig udmelding. 

Præsident Biden er i øjeblikket fortaler for netop disse britiske strategier på sin nuværende rejse til Asien. Lige efter at have fejret udvidelsen af NATO skal Biden afsløre en storslået økonomisk rammeaftale, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) som højdepunkt på sin rejse under sit stop i Japan. Den nationale sikkerhedsrådgiver Jake Sullivan erklærede onsdag den 18. maj uden omsvøb, at budskabet i IPEF er, at “demokratier og åbne samfund i verden står sammen om at forme reglerne for fremtiden”. Vi tror, at dette budskab vil blive hørt overalt. Vi tror, at det vil blive hørt i Beijing.” 

52 amerikanske senatorer sendte Biden af sted på sin rejse med instrukser om, at Taiwan skulle indlemmes som et af de “lande”, der deltager i IPEF, hvilket helt klart ikke er acceptabelt set fra Kinas side, fordi det er en overtrædelse af Et-Kina-politikken.

Nu er der netop i dag, hvis man åbner medierne, hvis man ser på tv eller aviser, en kæmpestor skandalehistorie om billeder fra de påståede arbejdslejre i Xinjiang, der blev “undersøgt” af en gruppe internationale medier, hvor 1 million uighurer skulle være blevet tortureret, slået i arbejdslejre, tvangsarbejde osv.  Naturligvis udbrød vores såkaldte udenrigsminister, Annalena Baerbock (Tyskland), straks et ramaskrig og krævede en transparent afklaring af beskyldningerne. Opfordringer om at alle forbindelser med Kina skal afbrydes – efter at forbindelserne med Rusland er blevet afbrudt – og at al handel med Kina skal stoppes, lad os nu se realistisk på det: Kina var i 2021 den tredjestørste partner for EU’s vareeksport, 10,2 %, og den største partner for EU’s vareimport, 22,4 %; for Tyskland var Kina den største handelspartner for varer i 2021 med et handelsvolumen på over 245 mio. At skære ned på dette ville betyde totalt økonomisk selvmord, hvilket allerede er ved at ske med forbindelserne med Rusland. 

Hvad er kilden til denne utrolige historie?  Ifølge {Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung}, en af de førende aviser i Tyskland, er alle fotos og data blevet stillet til rådighed af Adrian Zenz, en tysk antropolog og mangeårig observatør af Xinjiang.  Nu hævder denne Adrian Zenz, at han har fået alt dette fra en “unavngiven kilde”, som havde adgang til cyber, cyberkrigsspionage og hvad ved jeg.  Det er en meget tvivlsom observation.  Men Adrian Zenz er ikke en ukendt person: Bloggen, The Grayzone, og de meget respekterede undersøgende journalister Ajit Singh og Max Blumenthal skrev allerede i 2019, efter at han var kommet med en lignende historie om folkemord i Xinjiang, artikler om, at Zenz er en “højreekstremistisk fundamentalistisk kristen, der er imod homoseksualitet og ligestilling mellem kønnene, støtter “bibelsk prygl”‘ af børn, og tror at han er “ledet af Gud” på en “mission” mod Kina.”, fordi dommedag er nær, og opkomsten af antikrist også er på vej.  Han er helt ude i hampen og siger, at der er folkemord i Xinjiang, på grund af et sammenbrud i uighurernes demografiske kurve, og Lyle Goldstein, der er professor ved Naval War College i USA, siger, at en sådan udtalelse er “latterlig i en sådan grad, at den er provokerende over for dem, der mistede slægtninge i Holocaust”. 

Der er rigeligt bevis for, at der ikke er tale om noget “demografisk sammenbrud” blandt uighurerne i Xinjiang: Tværtimod.  Der er en undersøgelse fra 2019 i det britiske medicinske tidsskrift {Lancet}, som omhandler en massiv forbedring af den forventede levealder blandt uighurerne, en demografisk vækstrate, som er meget højere end hos Han-kineserne, en forbedring af mødres sundhed, faldende børnedødelighed, og alt dette repræsenterer “en bemærkelsesværdig succeshistorie”.

Zenz’ såkaldte vidnesbyrd kommer fra eksil-uighurere, som er blevet kultiveret af det amerikanske udenrigsministerium. Zenz har været medlem af Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation i Washington, D.C., som er en højreorienteret lobbygruppe, der er affødt af National Captive Nations Committee.  Det er en meget, meget interessant forbindelse, for den blev grundlagt af den ukrainske nationalist Lev Dobriansky, som står i spidsen for denne institution, hvis medformand var Yaroslav Stetsko, som var leder af OUN-B-militsen, som er den nazistiske gruppe, der kæmpede sammen med de tyske nazister under besættelsen af Ukraine under Anden Verdenskrig.  Stetsko og hans kone havde en bopæl i München i hele efterkrigstiden og ledede derfra den “Anti-bolsjevikiske Blok af nationer”. Efter hans død rejste fru Stetsko til Ukraine og genopbyggede OUN-B, Bandera-organisationen, i traditionen fra Stepan Banderas ideer.  Se, det er nu en direkte forbindelse til dette apparat, som var stærkt ledet af de vestlige efterretningstjenester – Bandera selv blev medlem af MI6 i 1947, og BND i München havde et tæt, i det mindste “kendskab” til disse mennesker (for at sige det mildt).

Zenz blev også indsat af Jamestown Foundation, en neokonservativ tænketank i Washington D.C., der blev grundlagt af CIA-direktør William Casey, som en kanal for udenrigsministeriel til at betale sovjetiske dissidenter.  

Hvis Tyskland eller andre europæiske nationer falder for denne efterretningsoperation, som er præcis det, som Henry Jackson Society talte om, nemlig “Five Eyes” på arbejde, hvis de følger dette, vil det være et totalt økonomisk selvmord. Nu er selv Henry Kissinger i en alder af 99 år mere fornuftig, og i Davos udtalte han, at verden højst har et tidsrum på to måneder til at afslutte krigen i Ukraine gennem forhandlinger, og han appellerede til Ukraine om at gå med til et territorialt kompromis for at opnå fred.

På Schiller Instituttets konference den 9. april præsenterede vi en helt anden tilgang: Der er et alternativ til den fuldstændige afkobling mellem de såkaldte “demokratier” og det Globale Syd på den anden side.  Det nye system er allerede ved hastigt at udvikles. Der er mange lande, som på det nylige udenrigsministermøde i BRICS, ønsker at være en del af dette: Argentina, Indonesien, Egypten, Nigeria og mange andre.  Vi har BRICS i udvidet form, vi har Shanghai-samarbejdsorganisationen (SCO), næsten alle organisationer i det Globale Syd, som ønsker at blive en del af en ny international sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur, som grundlæggende er en kombination af det kinesiske Bælte- og Vej-Initiativ samt to andre forslag fra præsident Xi Jinping: Det Globale Udviklings Initiativ og det Globale Sikkerheds Initiativ, som aktivt er ved at blive gennemført.  

Nu har vi behov for en sådan konference om en ny international sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur i traditionen fra Den Westfalske Fred.  Den Westfalske Fred var en erkendelse fra alle krigens parter om, at hvis de fortsatte krigen, ville ingen være tilbage til at nyde sejren, fordi de alle ville være døde.  Derfor udviklede de princippet om, at enhver fred skal være baseret på den andens interesser. Sikkerhedsinteresserne for alle lande på planeten, hvilket i dag ville betyde en sikkerhedsarkitektur, der i høj grad inddrager Rusland og Kina. En sådan konference skal adressere årsagerne til så stor en krigsfare: For det er ikke nok på nuværende tidspunkt at være imod krigen.  Man er nødt til at løse det problem, at det neoliberale finanssystems sammenbrud er i gang.

Lyndon LaRouche har den usædvanlige fortjeneste, at han forudså det, der sker i dag, den nuværende krise, allerede i august 1971, da Nixon afsluttede det gamle Bretton Woods-system, ved at erstatte systemet med faste valutakurser med et system med flydende valutakurser, og LaRouche forudsagde dengang, at hvis man fortsatte på den vej, ville det føre til en ny depression, fare for en ny krig og fascisme.  Det er præcis, hvor vi er i dag.

LaRouche foreslog fire love til at løse krisen. Det første skridt, et globalt Glass-Steagall-bankopdelingssystem, skal gøre en ende på kasinoøkonomien.  Der skal være kapital- og valutakontrol for at forhindre den spekulative manipulation af valutaer, som vi lige nu ser i store dele af verden.

Hvert land skal have en nationalbank for atter at gøre skabelse af kredit til et anliggende for den suveræne regering i Alexander Hamiltons tradition og ikke for private bankfolk. Derefter skal disse nationalbanker være forbundet gennem et kreditsystem, som giver langsigtet kredit med lav rente til reelle investeringer i den fysiske økonomi.

Den fjerde lov består af, at vi skal have et forceret program for fusionsteknologi, som i den seneste periode har gjort utrolige fremskridt, og den kommercielle anvendelse af den er umiddelbart forestående.  Vi har brug for en massiv forøgelse af verdensøkonomiens produktivitet, for alene det faktum, at 1,7 milliarder mennesker er truet af sult, at 2 milliarder mennesker ikke har rent vand, er beviset på, at det nuværende produktivitetsniveau er faldet langt under det niveau, der er nødvendigt for at opretholde den nuværende befolkning i verden på 8 milliarder mennesker.  

Der skal være et internationalt samarbejde, ikke kun om fusionsteknologi, men også om rumteknologi og rumfart, for det udgør den videnskabelige og teknologiske spydspids i dag.

Vi står lige nu over for en situation, hvor de førende regeringer og institutioner er udfordret:  Er vi i stand til at løse verdens problemer, er vi i stand til at løse de problemer, der truer menneskehedens eksistens, eller er vi ikke i stand til at løse dem?  Schiller Instituttet har i mere end 30 år foreslået først Den Eurasiske Landbro, Den Nye Silkevej, og i 2013 foreslog vi “Den Nye Silkevej bliver til Verdenslandbroen”. Vis venligst diasbilledet: Dette er en plan for, hvordan vi kan overvinde verdens fattigdom, hvordan vi kan udrydde underudvikling for altid, og hvordan vi kan skabe et nyt, moderne globalt sundhedssystem for alle lande i verden, hvilket er den eneste måde, hvorpå vi kan overvinde gamle og nye sygdomme, denne pandemi og truende nye pandemier. 

Det er bestemt muligt, og det er visionen om, hvordan verden vil se ud om nogle få år, hvis vi i øvrigt undgår den nuværende fare for atomkrig.  Udviklingen af infrastruktur, der forbinder alle kontinenter, er den naturlige måde, hvorpå infrastrukturudviklingen vil fortsætte, forudsat at der er fred. Jeg mener, at det er noget, vi skal sætte på dagsordenen til diskussion, og grunden til, at man trods den utrolige fare kan være optimistisk, er, at vi er den menneskelige art, vi er i stand til at ræssonere, og vi er ikke barbarer.

Mange tak.

Rasmussen: OK, we have 10 minutes now questions to Helga. We have a question from Jens Jørgen Nielsen, one of our speakers.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Thank you for a very good presentation. I essentially agree with you. I have one question. As you may know, I live in Denmark, where we will have a referendum in a week’s time, about the European Union: We are discussing in our country for the time being, the role of the European Union and whether it should have an army, how should we have security. I would like a few words: How do you think about the European Union in this context? Because I am somehow skeptical, but I would like to hear your opinion on the European Union and the development right now of the European Union in this context? And also specifically the question of the European military arm, which is the subject of referendum? And the policy toward Ukraine and Russia?

Zepp-LaRouche: When there was a referendum about the EU Constitution in France and Holland 2005, which was defeated, because the majority voted against it. And then they shifted it to the Lisbon Treaty, because by not calling it a “constitution” but by calling it a “treaty,” it did not require a vote. So this was decided in great secrecy, but we were extremely closely watching it at the time. And if you look at the Charter of the EU as it was agreed upon in Lisbon in December 2007, it is practically interwoven with NATO, in such a degree that the Article 5 of NATO practically also involves the EU. In other words, when you join the EU, you are practically also part of whatever NATO does. And the character of NATO has also dramatically changed, in the last 30 years, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the time of the Soviet Union, it was a defensive apparatus against the Warsaw Pact. But in the recent period, it has turned into a completely anti-Russian Russophobe alliance, and therefore, when, in November 2013, when the Ukraine government under Viktor Yanukovych refused to join the EU Association Agreement, it was clear that if Ukraine would join the EU, it would give NATO access to the Black Sea, and that is why he opted out in the last moment.

So, I think that that is an important thing to keep in mind. And the fact that Ursula von der Leyen is at the forefront of all of the policies which I described as British, in my various examples, such as the fight of so-called democracies and so-called autocratic regimes, when she is talking about that every day: She went to India talking like that.

I think the present EU has completely lost touch with the interest of its member-states. I think they have become a gigantic waterhead of a bureaucracy in Brussels which makes for the most part completely ridiculous decisions and orders and rules which are absolutely contrary to the interest of the member countries. And I actually have called for Germany to move out of the EU, because we don’t need a bureaucracy to have a unified Europe! We could have a Europe of the Fatherlands, in the spirit of Charles de Gaulle! We could work together for a join mission to contribute to shaping a new world order in a positive way: We could do that by having national sovereign governments just working together. You don’t need this bureaucracy. That is my view, and I would just advise anybody who has an interest in their own sovereignty to not join this colossus.

Rasmussen: Elena, why don’t you ask your question now?

Elena: Thank you so much. I find everything that Madam Helga said very, very interesting. And of course, at the moment, as I am very interested in the situation between Ukraine and Russia, my optimistic feeling is that Russia is going to come to a solution with Ukraine. Because as I have heard today, Putin has been somehow winning in the territories. So most likely something good will happen.

However, I think what Madam said is so beautiful, I would like to have something to read if possible. Because my connection was not very good, and I was not able to hear well. However, I would be very grateful if Madam could let me have what she said in a written form, that I can read and study. And I can write an article about what she has said, what are the goals of this new architecture and let other people to know about it.

Rasmussen: Elena we will have a transcript of Helga’s comments, and we can send those to you and all the participants. And also the video of this conference will be available to send around.

We have one more questioner, Kwame. We can take a short question.

Kwame: I’m a Swede. Thank you for a nice presentation. My question, because I don’t know: Would you say that China is united and in full control of the Chinese Communist Party? Or, are there some Chinese oligarchs that have good connections with their American counterparts? As for they send some money into the [inaud 51:09] laboratory, maybe to somehow get them connected to the globalists in the Western hemisphere. So, my question is, does the Chinese Communist Party have full control of the country?

Zepp-LaRouche: I would say, absolutely yes. And I just should say something, because right now, when you say “Communist,” some people fall completely into a coma and have hysterical outbursts. I mean, the Communist Party of China is, in my view—and I don’t even think that they would agree with that—but I think they’re 90% Confucian, in the tradition of the ancient Chinese traditions and philosophy, which influenced Chinese policy for more than two millennia. And naturally, there is an element of Marxism and communism, but it’s a meritocracy.

The way people look at the CPC in the West is completely uninformed, and I can only—my best way of answering is that I was in China for the first time, in 1971, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, and I could travel around in Shanghai, Tientsin, Qingdao, Beijing, I could visit the countryside: And I saw a country which was really distraught! People were poor, the conditions were very terrible. The beautiful garden of the Summer Palace had been painted all red by the Revolutionary Guards. In any case, this was 51 years ago, and when you go to China now, it is so developed! They have 40,000 km of fast train system, of which nobody in the United States or Europe can even dream, because we have nothing like that! China has made an incredible development: 850 million people have been lifted out of poverty. And I could say many, many more things.

Deng Xiaoping coined the term “judging truth from facts.” And if you look at the facts of the gigantic development of China in the last 40 years, in particular, then this Communist Party has done something right. And if you travel to China, and study Chinese history, and meet people in all ranks of life, professors, students, people living in the countryside, other professions, you go to restaurants, and you see how people live, you find a population which is primarily content. They’re optimistic: They’re not like the Europeans and they’re for sure not like the Germans, who are completely pessimistic, and think nothing can function and you can’t do anything anyway. No. That is not the view in China. They are optimistic; they have, to a very large extent, trust in the government. And I think that the Chinese model, which the West is now regarding as a big competitor and threat, the Chinese model is doing something right, which the West is not doing right! And rather than opposing it, we should go to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and say: We should respect each other, even if the other one has a different social system, and even if the other one has a different way of doing things, according to their history, and their tradition. And I think then, we can absolutely peacefully live together. And that is my stated view, and I think all the slanders about China are really absolutely unfounded, and in particular, this present campaign by this very dubious Adrian Zenz, we should squash before it really takes hold.

Rasmussen: All right, thank you very much Helga! We really appreciate your very in-depth discussion.

Nikolay Patrushev, sekretær for Ruslands Sikkerhedsråd, siger, at den krigs- og dominerende trang, som de angloamerikanske eliter udviser i dag, ikke er noget nyt: “Angelsaksernes tankegang har ikke ændret sig i århundreder. I disse dage bliver de ved med at diktere deres betingelser til verden, idet de arrogant ignorerer landenes suveræne rettigheder”. Mens eliterne i City of London og Wall Street “skjuler deres handlinger bag retorikken om menneskerettigheder, frihed og demokrati”, er effekten at frembringe økonomiske kriser og tvinge millioner af mennesker til at sulte ved at begrænse adgangen til korn, gødning og energiressourcer. Disse eliter “fremmer doktrinen om den “gyldne milliard”, som indebærer, at kun nogle få udvalgte har ret til velstand i denne verden”, forklarede den russiske leder. “Alle andres lod er at slide for deres velbefindende.”

Og for dem i verden, der har suverænitet og evne til at nægte et sådant slid, til at gå en anden vej, er der højlydte ord og en pisk med atomvåben.

Den tidligere amerikanske ambassadør og førende Kina-ekspert, Chas Freeman, har kritiseret Biden for hans udtalelse om, at USA ville forsvare Taiwan med magt, i tilfælde af at Beijing besluttede sig for at gå militært til værks mod øen. “Kineserne kan ikke ignorere denne udtalelse, som er værre end en fejltagelse, fordi den giver Kina et casus belli,” udtalte han. “Det er fjerde gang i år, at Det Hvide Hus har forsøgt at trække udtalelser tilbage fra præsidenten, der forpligter USA til at gå i krig imod Kina om Taiwan. Sådanne tilbagetrækninger har nul troværdighed i Beijing, ikke mindst fordi de er et ekko af en tilsyneladende konsensus i Washingtons embedsværk, som afspejles i forsvarsbudgetter og beslutninger om styrkestruktur.”

I en tale på World Economic Forum advarede Henry Kissinger, der fylder 99 år på fredag, om, at Ukraine-konflikten kan “omforme verden, som vi kender den … vi kan komme ind i et tomrum, hvor … Rusland er fuldstændig isoleret.” Rusland har været en del af Europa i 400 år, mindede han publikum om, og han udtrykte sin bekymring for, at Rusland kunne blive drevet ind i en alliance med Kina. Måske skulle nogen fortælle Sir Henry – det skib er allerede sejlet!

I den seneste manifestation af de voksende bånd mellem Rusland og Kina, som de to lande markerede i deres aftale af 4. februar, erklærede den russiske udenrigsminister Sergej Lavrov mandag: “Nu hvor Vesten indtager diktatorens position, vil vores økonomiske bånd med Kina vokse endnu hurtigere”. Faktisk vil angrebet af sanktioner mod Rusland give “mulighed for at gennemføre planer for udvikling af Fjernøsten og det østlige Sibirien”. Størstedelen af projekterne med Kina er koncentreret der. Det er en mulighed for os til at realisere vores potentiale inden for højteknologi, herunder kerneenergi, men også på en række andre områder.”

Tirsdag meddelte talsmand for det kinesiske udenrigsministerium, Wang Wenbin, at “Kina sætter pris på udenrigsminister Lavrovs udtalelser… at forbindelserne mellem Kina og Rusland har bestået den nye afprøvning af det skiftende internationale landskab og fortsat bevæger sig fremad i den rigtige retning.” Landenes samarbejde er “ikke rettet mod nogen tredjepart og vil ikke blive påvirket af andre”. De to vil “fortsat være forpligtet til at fremme en multipolær verden og øget demokrati i internationale relationer, opretholde ægte multilateralisme og modsætte sig hegemonisk adfærd og blokkonfrontation i internationale relationer.”

Et nyt paradigme er ved at opstå!

Økonomiske trusler fra Vesten kan ikke forhindre det. Forsøg på at få verden til at begå selvmord under dække af at bekæmpe klimaforandringerne vil ikke lykkes. Den voksende fødevarekrise vil være et kraftigt (om end potentielt smertefuldt) slag mod den onde grønne ideologi. Eksplosive inflationsrater, omfattende afbrydelser af forsyningskæder og leverancer – det er udtryk for en beslutning, der først blev truffet for årtier siden og gentagne gange er blevet ratificeret igen, om at vende verdens førende institutioner væk fra det antikoloniale udviklingsperspektiv, som Franklin Roosevelt forestillede sig ved afslutningen af Anden Verdenskrig. Men denne unipolære verdens magt er brudt sammen.

Kun en atomkrig kunne garantere en afsporing af fremtidens store potentiale. Og det er netop den retning, som det anglo-amerikanske/NATO-etablissement påtvinger verden gennem uendelige angreb på Rusland og Kina, herunder Sveriges og Finlands meddelelse i sidste uge om, at de også vil ansøge om at blive medlemmer af NATO.

Er det for sent for Storbritannien/USA/NATO at fjerne fingeren fra aftrækkeren, trække hovedet ud af røven og samarbejde fornuftigt med Rusland, Kina, Indien og andre store nationer for at udrydde fattigdom fra kloden, indlede en renæssance inden for infrastruktur og videnskabelig udvikling og lukke døren for altid for geopolitik?

Vil du gøre noget for at afgøre svaret på dette spørgsmål?

I dag, den 25. maj, er Schiller Instituttet i Danmark og Sverige sammen værter for et arrangement, der starter kl. 7:30 EDT / 13:30 CEST med titlen: “Hvorfor Finland og Sverige ikke bør tilslutte sig NATO”.

Torsdag den 26. maj deltager et kraftfuldt panel af forstandige militær- og efterretningsledere i et arrangement i Schiller Instituttet med titlen “Amerikanske og europæiske militær- og sikkerhedseksperter advarer: Politikernes vanvid truer med atomkrig”. Arrangementet starter kl. 11.00 Eastern / 17:00 CEST.

Invitationer og tilmelding er muligt på Schiller Instituttets websted.

Med formand Tom Gillesberg.

Videokonference invitation:

Invitation til at deltage i et gratis internationalt onlineseminar arrangeret af

Jan Øberg, ph.d., freds- og fremtidsforsker og kunstfotograf, ph.d. i sociologi, gæsteprofessor i freds- og konfliktstudier i Japan, Spanien, Østrig og Schweiz, medstifter og direktør for det uafhængige TFF, Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, i Lund, Sverige, og forfatter.
dansk oversættelse
 
* Kinesiske forslag til en ny sikkerheds- og udviklingsarkitektur: Xi Jinpings forslag fra april om en ny international sikkerhedsarkitektur, Bælte- og Vej-Initiativet og det globale udviklingsinitiativ.
Li Xing, ph.d., professor i udvikling og internationale relationer ved Institut for Politik og Samfund, Det Humanistiske og Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultet, Aalborg Universitet, og forfatter.
dansk oversættelse
transcript in English
  
* Hvorfor Danmark bør afstå fra et intensiveret geopolitisk militært engagement. 
Michelle Rasmussen, næstformand, Schiller Instituttet i Danmark
dansk oversættelse 
 
* Hvorfor Sverige og Finland ikke bør tilslutte sig NATO. 
Ulf Sandmark, formand, Schiller Instituttet i Sverige
afskrift på engelsk
 
Information: si@schillerinstitut.dk. +45 53 57 00 51 

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English:

Invitation to a free international online seminar by

the Schiller Institutes in Denmark and Sweden:

We need a new security and

development architecture for all nations,

not a strengthening of geopolitical blocks

The Schiller Institute recommends:

NO in the Danish June 1 referendum about abolishing the EU Defense opt-out, and

NO to Sweden and Finland joining NATO

Date: Wednesday May 25, 2022

Time: 13:30-16:30 CEST

Online via Zoom

Free admission

The seminar will be held in English.

Please register here: si@schillerinstitut.dk, +45 53 57 00 51

The Schiller Institute seminar will discuss:

• What caused the current extremely dangerous military, and economic crisis.
• Why strengthening the EU military arm with Danish participation, and Sweden and Finland joining NATO would only exacerbate geopolitical conflict, and
• What are the principles upon which we can create a new security and development architecture, for the benefit of all nations and people.

Program:

The world need a new security and development architecture. 
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the Schiller Institute founder and international president.

Background to the Ukraine-NATO-Russia war.
Jens Jørgen Nielsen, degrees in the history of ideas and communication, a Moscow correspondent for the major Danish daily Politiken in the late 1990s, author of several books about Russia and Ukraine, a leader of the Russian-Danish Dialogue organization, and an associate professor of communication and cultural differences at the Niels Brock Business College in Denmark.

Why we need a new security architecture.
Jan Øberg, PhD, peace and future researcher and art photographer, PhD in sociology, visiting professor in peace and conflict studies in Japan, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland, co-founder and director of the independent TFF, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, in Lund, Sweden, and author.

Chinese proposals for a new security and development arcitecture: Xi Jinping’s April proposal for a new international security architecture; the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative.

Prof. Li Xing, PhD, professor of Development and International Relations in the Department of Politics and Society, Faculty in Humanities and Social Sciences, Aalborg University, and author.

Why Denmark should not intensify its geopolitical military engagements.
Tom Gillesberg, chairman, the Schiller Institute in Denmark

Why Sweden and Finland should not join NATO.

Ulf Sandmark, chairman, the Schiller Institute in Sweden

Information: si@schillerinstitut.dk. +45 53 57 00 51 (Denmark)

Schiller-institutet@nysol.se, +46 98 30 10 (Sweden)

—————————————

As background, here are excerpts from a speech given by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and president of the Schiller Institute, to an online conference with young people on May 7, 2022,

“The world is facing an incredibly dangerous moment. But there’s also hope…. That is only possible if we overcome the idea of geopolitics.

“Now, geopolitics is the idea that you always will have a bloc of nations, or a nation which will define or has to define its interest against another bloc of nations, and that there will always be a deadly controversy, where either one wins, or the other, and the whole thing will be a zero-sum game. And that is exactly what needs to be overcome, and which can be overcome.

“[W]e have to establish an international order, where basically the principle on which this order is based, is the idea that every nation has the right and the means to develop all potentials of all of its citizens. We are in a situation where we need a systemic change: A complete change of the system. The reason why I’m saying this is because the situation is very urgent. More and more analysts and experts agree that the danger of World War III is acute, that the situation is more dangerous than at the height of the Cold War….

“So we are a hair-trigger away from the annihilation of human civilization…. [I]f the present policies are continued, the world could end very abruptly, in a few minutes from now, in a few days, weeks or months, and obviously, the war in Ukraine is the flashpoint. But this whole crisis is not about Ukraine. It’s about what kind of a world order should exist: Should it be a unipolar world, dominated by one or two nations? Should it be a “rules-based order,” where a small club of nations makes the rules? Or should it be multipolar, and should it be based on international law as it is expressed in the UN Charter?…

I think that that is the starting point: That only if you make it clear to yourself, that nuclear war between the two largest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia, means the annihilation of the human species, and then mobilize that the war must stop, and fight for an alternative which has to start with the idea that the war has to stop; diplomacy and negotiations have to immediately start to find a settlement agreeable to all sides….

“Now, we should be clear, and this is the position of everybody working with the Schiller Institute, that war cannot be a method of conflict resolution in times of nuclear weapons; and I’m not saying this war should have happened, but you have to understand the reasons why it did happen….”

As Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated, “starting at the time of the German reunification, when the Berlin Wall came down, the U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III did promise to Gorbachev, NATO will not move one inch to the East….”

“A retired German General, named Harald Kujat, who had been the chairman of the Military Committee of NATO in 2002-2005, just gave an interview to a German magazine, in which he said, that the center of gravity is no longer to protect and assist Ukraine in its defensive struggle against a Russian attack, which is contrary to international law, but to weaken Russia as a strategic rival in the long term.

“[Countries with a population of] 2.2 billion people, they all are refusing to be pulled into geopolitical confrontation between the U.S. and NATO on the one side, and Russia and China on the other side.

“And all of these countries are sticking to the idea of non-alignment, and that I think is the key to peace right now. Because the Non-Aligned Movement principles, these were the principles of the UN Charter, the Bandung Conference, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, which is sovereignty, non-interference into the internal affairs of the other country; acceptance of the other social system….

“I think we need, in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended 150 years of war in Europe, a security architecture, which takes into [account] the interest of the developing countries first; there must be an increase of the living standard of every single individual, of Europe, of the United States, of Russia and China. I think that is the make or break issue for humanity to survive. This means we need a new paradigm in thinking, namely the idea that each nation has the right to develop its fullest potential. Each child, each baby born, no matter in what nation in the world, has the right to develop its fullest potential, which means it has to have a universal education….

“[T]he dangers have never been as great, but the potential that we can create a completely new world, has never been so close: To end colonialism; to have an economy based on thermonuclear fusion, which would mean, we have energy security for all nations, raw materials security; that we can have international cooperation in space exploitation; that mankind will become adult, and that geopolitical wars will become a question of the past.”

We sincerely hope that you will be able to join us for this important event, and that you will share this invitation, and encourage other people to participate.

Homepages: English: The Schiller Institute | A New Paradigm for the Survival of Civilization

Danish: Hjem – Schiller Instituttet

Swedish: Schillerinstitutet

Med formand Tom Gillesberg

Lyd:

Resumé:
Mødet på den amerikanske luftbase i Ramstein, Tyskland, hvor Morten Bødskov deltog, var NATO ++. Ud over NATO-medlemmer og Ukraine var også Israel, Japan, Sydkorea og andre af USA’s partnere til stede for at aftale massiv militær støtte til Ukraine og fortsat udvidet militært samarbejde. Tysklands kansler Scholz gav efter for presset til at levere tanks og tunge våben til Ukraine. NATO er i total krig mod Rusland via sin proxy Ukraine. Ukraines præsident Zelenskij er blot en skuespiller, der læser de manuskripter op, der er skrevet i London og Washington.

USA, NATO og EU lyver om at lave sanktioner for at stoppe krigen. Man har på intet tidspunkt forsøgt at stoppe krigen i Ukraine, men har tværtimod skabt den for at bruge den til at ødelægge Rusland, som en uafhængig magt. Se analysen fra den amerikanske tidligere militærmand og senator Richard Black og læs de rystende fakta fra den schweiziske tidligere FN og NATO-militærrådgiver Jaques Baud. Det var ikke Rusland der startede krigen den 24. februar. De reagerede blot på den igangværende planlagte militære operation, som Vesten har haft i gang i Ukraine siden kuppet i Kiev i 2014. Der har aldrig været en massiv russisk militær overlegenhed. 130.000 russiske kombatanter har stået over for 250.000 på den ukrainske side. Rusland havde aldrig opbygget den 3-1 fordel, en angriber gerne skal have, for det var aldrig Rusland, der ønskede krigen. Man handlede i desperation for at imødegå det planlagte vestligt støttede ukrainske angreb imod Donbas og Krim.

Der er masser af krigsforbrydelser i krigen, men i modsætning til den ukrainske (britisk iscenesatte) ukrainske propaganda er det ikke russerne, der er unødigt brutale, men de ukrainske ideologiserede specialstyrker. Se interviewet med Richard Black. Var der nogen der troede på, at videoen med nyvaskede smilende blonde børn virkelig var indspillet efter to måneders mareridt i jorden under stålværket i Mariupol? Eller var det blot endnu en iscenesat propagandafilm. Er der 50 franske militærmænd gemt i værkets underjordiske gange, der var ansvarlige for sænkningen af Ruslands flagskib Moskva?

I lighed med Tyskland og de andre europæiske vasalstater har Danmark opgivet sin suverænitet og parerer blot ordrer fra USA (EU) og NATO. Stem nej til ophævelsen af forsvarsforbeholdet, men det er ikke nok til at stoppe krig. Der skal også være et massivt nej til fortsættelsen af verdenskrigen imod Rusland og andre (som f.eks. Kina), der nægter at opgive sin suverænitet. Ellers får vi atomkrig.

Den fortsatte krig i Ukraine og sanktionerne imod Rusland vil medføre global fødevaremangel der kan true over en milliard mennesker på livet, men hvem hører stemmer i Vesten bekymre sig om det? Kun Rusland, Kina, Indien og andre ikke-vestlige nationer har iværksat tiltag for at undgå det. Vil Indien indgå i en alliance sammen med Rusland og Kina for at opretholde sin suverænitet? Ruslands lukning af gassen for Polen og Bulgarien er blot et skud over boven. Tyskland og Italien er langt mere afhængige af russisk gas, der ikke kan erstattes med andet i løbet af flere år. Hvis EU fortsætter konfrontationen vil man påføre Tysklands og Europas økonomi og levestandard ubodelig skade.

Det vestligt ledede globale finanssystem er allerede i nedsmeltning pga. kæmpe gæld, stigende inflation og eksploderende renter. De vedvarende paniske aktioner for at skade Rusland og andre, der ikke makker ret, trækker tæppet væk under det vestlige system og den vestlige globale magt. Vil Vesten forstå sin fejltagelse inden alt forsvinder i atomkrig?

Det er ikke Rusland imod verden men Vesten imod det meste af Verden. Schiller Instituttets konference fra den 9. april om en ny global sikkerhedsarkitektur viser vejen ud. Kinas Xi Jinping har svaret med en opfordring til et globalt sikkerhedsinitiativ. Kan vi få folk i Vesten til at hæve deres stemmer og sige fra over for selvmordspolitikken?

Bliv aktiv. Gå med i Schiller Instituttets kampagne. Skab historie. Stop katastrofen og skab en fredsorden og en global renæssance.

“Jens Jørgen Nielsen, som er historiker, Ruslandskender og forfatter til bøger om både Ukraine og Rusland, holdt dette foredrag d. 5.  marts 2022 på Aarhus mod Krig og Terrors debatmøde om situationen i Ukraine.” fra hjemmesiden Flygtninge og Fred her.

Diabilleder:

Download (PPTX, 2.67MB)

Med formand Tom Gillesberg.

Lyd:

Resumé:
Det ser ud til at vestlige efterretningstjenester planlægger et falsk kemisk angreb, som det man lavede i Syrien i som fik Trump til at bombe Syrien i 2017. Vil man få Nato i åben krig med Rusland? Faren for en atomkrig har aldrig været større. Der er to krige: Den i Ukraine og den større økonomiske krig USA og Vesten har iværksat imod Rusland. Man forsøger at få russisk kapitulation men trækker også tæppet væk under økonomien, særligt Europas. Hvor længe varer det inden at vi ser konkurser pga. af Ruslands manglende betalinger? De vestlige tiltag som man siger skyldes ”Putins krig”, var noget USA længe har presset på for, både 2 % af BNP til militær og stop for køb af russisk gas. Nato har længe sendt våben og trænet Ukraines hær, også de åbent fascistiske elementer i den, for at Ukraine kunne påføre Rusland maksimal skade. Skaden på Ukraine betyder lige så meget for Vesten, som man bekymrer sig om befolkningen i Afghanistan.

Vestens økonomiske atombombe imod Rusland, udelukkelsen fra SWIFT og indefrysningen af Rusland formue i udenlandske banker vil medføre at ingen kan vide sig sikker, hvis pengene står i vestlige banker der handler på politiske ordrer. Dollarens og euroens rolle som reservevaluta vil blive kraftigt udfordret. En russisk statsbankerot og manglende russiske betalinger kan vælte meget.

Uden russisk gas, olie og kul står Europa stille. Energipriserne himmelflugt gør stor økonomisk skade. Fødevareforsyning og fødevarepriser rammes også af mangel på kunstgødning og evt. dårlig høst i Ukraine og Rusland. Og fiskere som bliver hjemme fordi det er for dyrt at sejle. Andre ting, som f.eks. produktion af mikrochips kan også blive hårdt ramt. Vestens sanktioner vil gøre stor skade på økonomien. Rusland vil nok nationalisere eller tvangsovertage vestligt ejede virksomheder som McDonalds og JYSK der har lukket ned for aktiviteten. Hvad med Carlsberg?

Rusland siger, at de aldrig igen vil være afhængige af Vesten. Fokus bliver på Kina og Asien. Man satser på den verdensorden, som Rusland og Kina fremlagde den 4. februar. Kina vil støtte Rusland for de ved, at hvis Rusland knækker, så er det deres tur bagefter.

Globalt økonomisk kaos truer pga. Vestens sanktioner imod Rusland. Ifølge UNICEF og Verdensfødevareprogrammet er 1 million børn under 5 år på vej til at dø af sult i Afghanistan. 8 millioner børn og 22 millioner mennesker er i fare, og de kan kun hjælpe 12 millioner. Vesten gør ingenting.

Vi behøver en ny sikkerhedsarkitektur som alle, også Rusland, Kina og Indien, kan se sig selv i og vi behøver den nu. Skriv under på Schiller Instituttets appel. Rejs debatten. Gør noget, før det er for sent. 

Her er endnu en video, som også inkluderer TV2’s spørgsmål, om Danmark og Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) optrapper krisen med deres militære øvelser i Østersøen.

Hele pressekonferencen kan stadigvæk ses på TV2News den 4. marts 2022: Find “Nordeuropæiske forsvarsministre briefer om samarbejde” her.

English:

COPENHAGEN, March 4 (ERINS) — EIR asked the question at a press conference with the ministers of defense from Denmark, Great Britain and Sweden, aboard the Danish frigate Niels Juel, on the occasion of the start of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) military exercise in the Baltic Sea. The JEF is led by Great Britain, and this exercise, with the starting point in Denmark, also includes Sweden, and the three Baltic countries.

Danish Defense Minister Morten Bødskov answered EIR’s question, alongside British Defense Minister Ben Wallace and Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist.

The press conference was broadcast live and is archived on Danish TV2, and there were film crews and reporters from other Danish media, Sweden, Great Britain (BBC), Agence France Press, and maybe other countries, so it might also have been covered live in other countries.

“EIR: Michelle Rasmussen from Executive Intelligence Review in the United States. Given the seriousness of war in Ukraine and the danger of escalation, even up to nuclear war, the president of the Schiller Institute Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for an international conference for a new security and economic architecture to address the interests of all countries. Do you have any comments to that — any of the ministers?

Danish Defense Minister Morten Bødskov: There is only one comment, that the JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force) cooperation that we have made here is the way forward. We stand together here, today, to confirm our values, our cooperation, and that’s the way forward for the region that we are in now, and I’m glad that our British colleague and my Swedish colleague are here today.”

During the morning short press conference, the BBC reporter brought the nuclear war question up when he asked if, in light of the Russian attack on a Ukrainian nuclear plant, Russia would be in the mindset to use nuclear weapons. British Defense Minister Ben Wallace played down the danger of the current nuclear plant situation, warned Russia against hitting nuclear plants by accident or intention, said that Putin’s mindset seemed to be that there are no limits, and Putin should be reminded that NATO is a conventional and nuclear alliance.

During the afternoon press conference EIR was the second journalist to ask a question, preceded by a national Danish TV2 journalist, broadcasting live, who asked four questions about if this Joint Expeditionary Force exercise can escalate the current crisis. The answer from the Danish minister included that we have to draw a line in the sand for Putin, and ensure freedom in the Baltic region. EIR will release another video with this exchange in Danish and followed by the EIR question and answer.

Følgende er to citater fra Poul Villaums debat artikel i Ræson den 14, januar 2022:

Titlen: Poul Villaume: Efter 1989 lovede vesten, at Europa skulle have en ”ny sikkerhedsstruktur”. Skal vi ikke bygge den nu – sammen med Rusland?

Poul Villaume (f.1950) er dr.phil. og professor emeritus i samtidshistorie, Saxo-Instituttet, KU.

»Det er i denne forbindelse også værd at minde om, at både NATO selv (London-erklæringen, juli 1990) og alle CSCE-lande (Paris-charteret, november 1990) ved Den Kolde Krigs afslutning lovede sig selv og hinanden, at der nu skulle opbygges nye sikkerhedspolitiske mekanismer og institutioner og en ny sikkerhedsarkitektur i et helet og helt Europa, som naturligt også skulle omfatte både Nordamerika og Rusland. Man talte også om et sikkerhedsfælleskab, som skulle strække sig ”fra Vancouver til Vladivostok”. Men efter at Sovjetunionen brød sammen under sin egen (død)vægt i 1991, blev NATO kastet ud i en stille, eksistentiel krise, som man først gradvist overvandt med vedtagelsen af NATOs udvidelsesprogram mod øst i 1993-94 (”expand or die”, lød parolen internt). Der blev dermed, som Vestens yndlings-russer i 1990erne, Boris Jeltsin, fortroligt advarede Bill Clinton om i 1994 og 1995, i praksis tale om, at den tilbageblevne koldkrigsalliance blev dominerende i Europa på bekostning af et sikkerhedspolitisk marginaliseret, isoleret og ydmyget Rusland….«

»En anden vigtig erfaring fra Den Kolde Krig er, at uanset hvor skarpt modsætningerne mellem parterne er trukket op, er det altid godt, at der er dialog, forhandlinger og personlige kontakter – gerne suppleret af fortrolige ’bagkanaler’ mellem parterne på højst muligt niveau, og med gensidig respekt for modpartens bekymringer, uanset alle politiske og værdimæssige forskelle. Det var på den måde, afspændingsepoken under Den Kolde Krig blev igangsat i 1960erne og 1970erne, og det var sådan, den, især på europæisk plan, overlevede selv det stærkt forværrede supermagtsforhold i begyndelsen af 1980erne. Det er derfor farligt at bagatellisere dét, at der alene finder forhandlinger sted, som måske nytteløs ”bla-bla-bla”; det er under alle omstændigheder bedre end ”bang-bang-bang” (eller som Churchill formulerede det i 1954, da han ihærdigt søgte at stable et topmøde mellem Øst og Vest på benene: ”To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war”). Og en sidste påmindelse, også formuleret midt under Den Kolde Krig, og af gyldighed også i den aktuelle situation mellem Rusland og Vesten, fremsagt af den respekterede britiske militærskribent Sir Basil Lidell Hart i 1960: ”Fasthold styrke, om muligt. Under alle omstændigheder, hold hovedet koldt. Hav ubegrænset tålmodighed. Træng aldrig en modstander op i hjørnet, og hjælp ham altid med at redde ansigt. Sæt dig selv i hans sted – for at se tingene gennem hans øjne. Undgå selvretfærdighed som djævlen – intet gør mere blind.”«

Læs hele artiklen i Ræson her.

22. februar 2022 – Schiller Instituttet i Danmark gennemførte et 45-minutters interview med Dr. Li Xing, professor i udvikling og internationale relationer ved Institut for Politik og Samfund, Det Humanistiske og Samfundsvidenskabelige Fakultet, Aalborg Universitet, Danmark.

Dr. Li beskriver indholdet af den fælles erklæring af 4. februar 2022 mellem Kina og Rusland og analyserer, hvad dette betyder for forbindelserne mellem Kina og Rusland, men også for resten af verden. De emner, der diskuteres, omfatter unipolaritet eller multipolaritet, et nyt forhold mellem nationer, demokrati, økonomisk udvikling, en amerikansk domineret “regelbaseret orden” eller en FN-baseret orden, behovet for en ny international sikkerhedsarkitektur, som efterlyst af Helga Zepp-LaRouche, og hvordan Kina vil reagere på de kraftige vestlige sanktioner mod Rusland, der er udløst af Ukraine-krisen.

Dr. Li havde også givet Schiller Instituttet et interview den 26. januar med titlen “Samarbejd med Kina”: Det er ikke fjenden”. 

Afskrift på engelsk:

Interview: Li Xing, PhD
The China-Russia Feb. 4 Joint Statement:
A Declaration of a New Era and New World Order

Michelle Rasmussen: Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin held a summit meeting on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics and issued a statement on Feb. 4 called 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. Schiller Institute founder and international President Helga Zepp-LaRouche said that this signals a new era in international relations. To discuss the content and implications of the development, I am pleased to interview Dr. Li Xing, Professor of Development and International Relations in the Department of Politics and Society, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences from Aalborg University in Denmark. Dr. Li also gave the Schiller Institute an interview on Jan. 26 of this year, entitled “Cooperate with China. It Is not the Enemy.” 
Before we go into details, can you please give us your assessment of the overall importance of the summit and statement, including what it means for relations between China and Russia, and China-Russian relations with the rest of the world. And at the end of the interview, we will also discuss what it means in the current, very tense situation between Russia and NATO.

Li Xing: Thank you Michelle for your invitation. It’s my pleasure to be invited again by the Schiller Institute.
First of all let me emphasize that it is a landmark document. Why? Because the document emphasizes what I call a “new era,” declaring a shift in the world order, a multipolar world order, in which the U.S. and the West are not the only rule-makers, and Russia and China take the lead, and lay out a set of principles and a shared worldview. This is my first general summary.
Second, unlike the U.S./NATO alliance, the China-Russia relationship is described by the joint document as a “close comprehensive strategic partnership.” In Putin’s early words, he said, “The China-Russia relationship is a relationship that probably cannot be compared with anything in the world.” The relationship is not “aimed against any other countries.” It is “superior to the political and military alliances of the Cold War era,” referring to the U.S.-NATO alliance. It also echoes Xi Jinping’s recent statement, that “the relationship even exceeds an alliance in its closeness and effectiveness.” So the document tries to demonstrate that the China-Russia relationship is a good example of interstate relationships.

Rasmussen: You have characterized the introduction as “a conceptual understanding and analysis of global changes and transformations taking place in the current era.” It especially refers to the transformation from a unipolar to a multipolar world. Can you please explain how the statement addresses this, and what it means?

Li: In the beginning of this statement, it puts forward both countries’ conceptual understanding of the world order, which is characterized as “multipolarity, economic globalization, the advent of information society, cultural diversity, transformation of the global governance architecture and world order; there is increasing interrelation and interdependence between the States; a trend has emerged towards redistribution of power in the world.” [emphasis added by Li] “Redistribution of power in the world.” This is what the part emphasizes.
Second, this part also clearly sets up a series of analyses, arguments and discourses to demonstrate both countries’ understanding, and to emphasize the fact that the world order has entered a new era. Again, “new era” are the key words for this document.
Lastly, in this beginning part of the joint statement, it shows both Russia and China’s grand worldview that pave the foundation for the two countries’ broad consensus on almost all issues of the world, which we will deal with one by one later on.

Rasmussen: Part 1 is about the question of democracy, and it starts by saying: “The sides” —that is, China and Russia—”share the understanding that democracy is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States, and that its promotion and protection is a common responsibility of the entire world community.”
But the charge is that China and Russia are not democratic, but rather autocratic. This is one of the leading accusations by those in the West who are trying to maintain a unipolar world, and they portray the world as a battle between the democrats and the autocrats. How does the document respond to this, and treat the idea of democracy?

Li: Actually, this document utilizes a large amount of space to discuss this point. First, the joint statement points out that “democracy”—including human rights—”is a universal human value, rather than a privilege of a limited number of States.” So here it implies that the concept of democracy must not be defined by the West alone. The West cannot singlehandedly define which country is autocratic and which country is democratic.
Second, the joint document emphasizes that their standpoint is that there is no universal one-form document, or human rights standard. Different countries have different cultures, histories, different social-political systems in a multipolar world. We have to respect the way each country chooses their own social-political system, and also the tradition of other states.
Third, it signals a strong critique of the West, and in this part, there are a lot of criticisms toward the West. That is, that the West has a tendency to weaponize the issue of democracy and human rights, and very often uses it as a tool to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. It is completely wrong for the U.S. and the West to impose their own “democratic standards” on other countries, and to monopolize the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria, and to draw a dividing line on the basis of ideology, including by establishing exclusive blocs and lines of convenience, and this is very bad, according to these two countries, that the West tends to use democracy and human rights to interfere into other countries’ internal affairs, and China really suffers a lot from this point.

Rasmussen: How would you say democracy works in China?

Li: I would argue that if we use Western standards to define democracy, then definitely, China is not a democracy. In a Western version of democracy, China does not have a multi-party system, China does not have elections. But the point is, how the West will respond to the fact that according to major Western sources, survey data sources, throughout many years, that the Chinese people’s confidence in their government is the highest in the whole world. And the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state receive the highest approval from the Chinese population according to those data. And also China has reached very high, rapid economic development, under the so-called “non-democratic government.” Now, how can the West explain these issues? Many democratic countries suffer from economic backwardness and underdevelopment.
So, as to the form of governance in China, I think it is the Chinese people, themselves, who should make the judgment.

Rasmussen: Let’s move on to part 2, which is about coordinating economic development initiatives, including harmonizing the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, and also the Russian Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), even more, and taking initiatives to create economic development, where they emphasize the role of scientific research in generating economic growth, something that Lyndon LaRouche and our movement have had as a priority concept. And also increasing healthcare and pandemic response in poor countries. What do you see as the significance of this call for increasing economic development cooperation?

Li: Yes. I also read this part of the document very carefully. This part shows a clear difference in approach between the West and the U.S. on the one side, and China-Russia on the other side. While the West is emphasizing, or holding the flag of democracy and human rights, China-Russia actually emphasize that peace, development and cooperation lies at the core of the modern international system. So, according to the understanding of Russia and China, development is the key driver in ensuring the prosperity of other nations, even though democracy and human rights are important, but development must be the core. So it implies that good development will lead the country in the direction of democracy, but not defined solely by the West, the concept of democracy.
Second, that following this line of understanding, then China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union are good examples of interregional cooperation. So they actually use the Belt and Road, and also Russia’s Eurasia Economic Union, as good examples. One interesting point I want to emphasize is that both countries emphasize scientific and technological development, and “open, equal, and fair conditions.” I think here, there is a kind of implicit criticism toward the United States, which has been conducting sanctions against Chinese tech companies, for example, Huawei, or other high-tech companies.
Finally, I’ll remark here that both countries show their commitment to the Paris Agreement and to combat COVID-19, and these two issues are the most vital issues for the international community today. So it is a core for every country to emphasize these two vital issues: climate change, Paris Agreement, on the one side, and COVID-19 on the other side.

Rasmussen: Yes, I can add that Helga Zepp-LaRouche has initiated a proposal which she calls Operation Ibn Sina, which deals with the terrible humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan, leading off with creating a modern health system in every country. And if we could get much more international cooperation for building a modern health system, having the economic development which gives the basis for the population to have the immunology to resist disease, this would be a very important field for economic development, which means life and death at this moment.

Li: I fully agree with Helga’s understanding and call.

Rasmussen: As to part 3, this is about the increasing, dangerous international security situation, with a sharp critique of Western attitudes and actions. And the statement reads: “No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States.” And here, China addresses Russia’s concerns and criticizes NATO’s expansion eastward after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. And Russia addresses China’s concerns by reaffirming the One-China principle and concerns about building different regional alliances against China —the Quad and AUKUS. It also praises the recent P5 statement against nuclear war.
Can you say more about China’s and Russia’s concerns? And do you think this is a call for a new international security architecture?

Li: Yes. If you read the document carefully, and this part on international security architecture, or their understanding of international security, occupied quite a large space. So it is a very important part for China and Russia.
In this part, the statement is actually bluntly clear about their mutual support for each other’s national security concerns. For Russia, it is connected with the Ukraine crisis, but the document does not mention Ukraine specifically, but it is connected. For China, it is the Taiwan issue, definitely. So they show their mutual support for each other.
On Russia’s concern for its national security, both countries oppose “further enlargement of NATO,” and “respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries.” And it clearly pronounced, there will be no peace if states “seek to obtain, directly or indirectly, unilateral military advantages to the detriment of the security of others.” The document claims that the NATO plan to enlarge its membership to encircle Russia will mean security for the Western side, but it is a danger for Russia. It is a national security concern.
On the Taiwan issue, Russia reconfirms that Taiwan is part of China—the One-China policy—and it is against any form of Taiwan independence.
Third, the joint statement also openly criticized the formation of closed blocs, as what you mentioned about the Quad. The document does not mention the Quad, but it does mention AUKUS. The document shows that both countries oppose U.S.-led military camps, or security camps in the Asia-Pacific region, definitely implying the Quad and AUKUS, and it points out the negative impact of the United States Indo-Pacific strategy.
Finally, the two countries call for a new international security architecture, with “equitable, open and inclusive security system … that is not directed against third countries and that promotes peace, stability and prosperity.” So this part is very important for China and Russia to challenge the traditional international security architecture, and call for a new international security architecture, which I will touch on a bit later.

Rasmussen: Many political spokesmen in the West have criticized Russia and China for not adhering to the “rules-based order” and here, in part 4, China and Russia write that they “strongly advocate the international system with the central coordinating role of the United Nations in international affairs, defend the world order based on international law, including the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, advance multipolarity and promote the democratization of international relations, together create an even more prospering, stable, and just world, jointly build international relations of a new type.”
And it continues: “The Russian side notes the significance of [Xi Jinping’s] concept of constructing a ‘community of common destiny for mankind…’”
Can you say more about the significance of this section, about global governance and the difference between the question of the “rules-based order” and an order based on international law, as laid out by the United Nations Charter?

Li: Yes. This part is extremely interesting, because it touches upon the mental clashes between China-Russia on the one side, and the U.S. and West on the other side, about the “rules-based order.” China, in particular, has been criticized a lot, as you also mentioned, that China has been accused by the U.S. of not following the “rules-based order.” If you remember the dialogue between a Chinese delegation and a U.S. delegation in Alaska in December two years ago, then we still remember the clash, that the Chinese claim that the U.S. rules-based order does not represent the global rules-based order, rather the United Nations—China emphasizes that the United Nations should play the central coordination role in international affairs. But the United States does not really like the UN-based structure, which is based on one-country/one-vote. So if we trace UN voting, we could easily find that the United States very often suffers from many setbacks when it comes to UN voting on many issues. So that’s why China emphasizes the United Nations rules-based order, whereas United States prefers a U.S. rules-based order.
And this joint statement also calls for advancing multipolarity and promoting democratization of international relations. In my interpretation, democratization of international relations implies that the power structure embedded in the Bretton Woods system, which was created by the United States after the Second World War, does not really reflect the new era, as I pointed out earlier. China and Russia think reforms are needed to reflect the new era. This definitely, again, from my interpretation, refers to international financial institutions like the World Bank, and the IMF, where Chinese voting power is proportionally weaker than it should have been, according to its economic size.
And also the joint statement mentions the China foreign policy, as you mentioned in your question, “community of common destiny for mankind,” which was raised by President Xi Jinping. And in this nexus China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a good example, seen from China’s point of view, a good example of community of common destiny for mankind, in which the Belt and Road intends to promote, through worldwide infrastructure investment, the formation of a new global economic order, through creating a community of shared interest, and the community of shared responsibilities.
Unfortunately, the West does not really like both a “community of common destiny for mankind,” and the Belt and Road Initiative, because they are interpreted as the Chinese agenda is to transform global governance and the rules-based order.
However, I really think that the West should rethink their opposition, and they must face the fact that the Belt and Road memorandum has been signed by 148 countries and by 32 international organizations. So, according to my judgment, the Belt and Road, and also a community for common destiny for mankind, have already become an indispensable part of global governance and global order.

Rasmussen: Yes, this is also to underscore what you said before, about how important economic development is for the wellbeing of the countries. And here you have China, which was the first country to eliminate poverty in their country, over the last 40 years, and is offering this as a model for other countries to get economic development. The slogan of the Schiller Institute is “Peace through Economic Development,”—

Li: Exactly.

Rasmussen: The way that you can get countries that have perceived each other as enemies to rise to a new level, to seek common interest, is through arranging economic development programs, not only for a single country, but for a whole region, which encourages them to work together. You spoke before about the Chinese criticism of the Bretton Woods institutions. What the Schiller Institute and Lyndon LaRouche have been saying, is that the initial idea of the Bretton Woods institutions as proposed by Franklin Roosevelt was to try to get the economic development of the poorer countries. But it degenerated into, for example, where you had the World Bank and International Monetary Fund imposing austerity conditions on countries as a precondition for loans, where nothing was done to actually increase the productivity of the countries, in the way that the Belt and Road is actually —with the infrastructure development, creating the basis for the countries to becoming prosperous. And what we’re saying is that the total change in the international financial institutions is absolutely necessary now, at a point where financial speculation is blowing out, hyperinflation, and we need to have a new economic architecture, you could say, based on the physical development of the countries.

Li: I fully agree with your remarks and comments.

Rasmussen: Then another important statement in part 4, is that Chinese-Russian relations have reached a new level, as you said at the beginning, “a new era.”
“The sides [China and Russia] call for the establishment of a new kind of relationship between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation. They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.”
And yet, this is a plea to end the geopolitical blocs, where the two countries also call for strengthening multilateral fora, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BRICS.
Li Xing, what will this much strengthened alliance mean for China and Russia, and also for the rest of the world? Should the West be worried, or is this a plea for a new type of international relations? What are the implications for shaping the new world order? What is your conclusion from the joint statement?

Li: I think one of the purposes of the joint statement is to demonstrate the good example of the China-Russia relationship, characterized as mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and mutually beneficial cooperation. It is not targetted at any other country. It is not like the U.S.-led coalitions which are Cold War minded, according to Russia and China’s understanding.
And if we look at the BRICS, and if you look at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, they are not purely juridical and geopolitical organizations or alliances. They are non-binding, open and non-binding.
After I read the document several times, I reached the conclusion that the unipolar world order is over. The West and the United States might have a hard time to accept it.
So the joint statement shows a strong unity between Russia and China. So my question is where is the West’s unity after the Cold War, and when the unipolar world order is over? How strong is the trans-Atlantic relationship today? I don’t know: I’m asking the questions to the West, the U.S. The West must rethink its Cold War strategy of reviving unity through creating enemies, and I think this is a completely wrong strategy, in a multipolar world order, where countries are much more interdependent. So it is necessary for the U.S. to rethink its own version of the rules-based order, in which the U.S. is the rule-maker and others are rule-followers. And this does not work in a new era any more. That is my conclusion after reading the joint statement.

Rasmussen: Now, as to the current situation, today is Feb. 22, and yesterday, Russia recognized the two breakaway republics in Ukraine as independent republics, which is now going to lead to very heavy sanctions by the West. Putin’s point was that these sanctions would have come anyway, but in any case, without going into the details of the Ukraine-Russia-U.S./NATO crisis, the fact is that Russia will be most probably faced with enormously hard sanctions.
In our last interview, you were asked, for example, if Russia were thrown out of the SWIFT system, how would China react? Now it’s a question of the not only of the SWIFT system, but also of other major financial penalties. How do you see China reacting, in light of the joint statement, to the new sanctions against Russia, that will most probably come?

Li: Let me first of all put it in this way: That sanctions are never one-sided punishments. That both sides will suffer. It’s like President Trump’s trade war, that President Trump thought the trade war would hurt China. Yes, it hurt China, but it had a backlash, a backfire to the U.S. economy. And today, if you look at the U.S. economy, the inflation actually is, one way or another, connected with the trade war, as well. It was one of the outcomes.
Now, sanctions against Russia will also cause mutually suffering by both sides. Because if you look at the European dependence on Russia’s oil and gas, it’s about 30-35%; some countries more, some less. If Russia is thrown out of the SWIFT system, which means that Russia cannot have international trade, then Europe cannot pay Russia as well, then the oil or gas pipelines will be blocked, which is in the interest of the United States, but not in the interest of Europe. This is the first point.
Second, that China and Russia have already agreed that they are not going to use dollars for their bilateral trade. So that doesn’t really matter seen from the Russian and Chinese perspective, and in light of the spirit of this joint statement. So definitely China will continue to do business with Russia, and if the U.S. is saying that any country that is doing business Russia will be sanctioned as well, then the U.S. is creating even a larger, a bigger enemy. And China is a different story. And Russia, because Russia’s economy, Russia’s economic-financial status is relatively limited, compared with China. China is the second largest economy in the world.
By the way, China is the largest trading nation in the world. And you can see that last year, the China and EU trade reached more than 850 billion! That’s a lot! And look at the China-U.S. trade as well. If you punish China, in what way? I cannot imagine it. Take China out of the SWIFT system as well? No, you can’t do that! Then the whole world is blocked! Then no trade, no economic development at all.
So these are grave consequences of sanctions. I cannot predict the future situations. Until now I haven’t read any concrete reaction from the Chinese government, but I guess, following the spirit of this document, which was signed three weeks ago, definitely, China is going to act. China will also act in accordance with the spirit of solidarity between both countries.

Rasmussen: Our analysts were saying that it may be the case that China would buy more oil and gas and other products from Russia. Actually, one thing is that today, February 21 , is the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s trip to China, [February 21 to 28, 1972] and the opening up of relations, andthe United States commitment to the One-China policy. And at that time, many people were saying that Kissinger’s strategy was to open up the relations to China, as a way of isolating Russia, of putting Russia aside. But the fact is that these sanctions and this type of policy over the recent period, has done more to bring Russia and China together, as signified by this document. What is your reaction to that? But also the prospects of how we get out of this?
Lyndon LaRouche, for many years, called for a “Four Power” agreement between the United States, Russia, China, and India. How can we break through, looking at the world as Russia and China on one side, andthe U.S. and Europe on the other side, how can we get a cooperation among the great powers for the necessity of dealing with these other very serious crises the world is facing?

Li: Extremely interesting that you mentioned Nixon’s trip, of playing the “China card,” during the Cold War, in the beginning of the 1970s. You are completely right that the U.S. has historically enjoyed a very favorable position, in which the U.S. has been able to keep relatively stable relations with China, relatively stable relations with Soviet Union, at that time—but making the Soviet Union and China fight each other all the time. And especially after the Cold War, the U.S. still had this favorable position—relatively stable relations with both countries, but China and Russia still had difficult relations with each other.
But today, the situation is reversed. It’s totally shocking that the U.S. is fighting both world powers simultaneously. If you remember that the former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, he wrote, before he died, he wrote clearly, that the worst situation for the United States, for the West is when Iran, Russia, and China become a bloc, become an alliance, with China as the economic driver, the economic power. I was very surprised that his words are becoming true today!
So, the only way we can come to the second part of your question, about how we can manage major power relations, is in line with the spirit of the Schiller Institute conference that took place last week and its call for establishing a new international security architecture. There is no other way. The Western dominance, the U.S. singlehanded dominance, the unipolar world is over. We need what Helga proposed, to establish a new international security architecture. We don’t know exactly what the form of this architecture, but that needs discussion from both sides! Unless the international community forms a kind of great, new international security architecture, conflict will continue.

Rasmussen: And then, as we spoke, it goes hand in hand with the increasing economic cooperation and the determination of the great powers to really do something for the economic development of the poor parts of the world.

Li: Yes, definitely. I agree with you. Thank you.

Rasmussen: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Li: No, I just want to add the last point, that I am very amazed by this joint statement, because I have come across many joint statements by two countries, or by multiple countries. But this one is the most comprehensive political document I have ever come across, because it covers every aspect of the world order, international relations, governance, security, values, norms, technology, climate change, health—you name it. So it is an extremely comprehensive document, which shows what Russia and China envision as a just world order.
So I would argue that this document implies a kind of new world order which Russia and China are going to, not only propose, but also push forward.
Unfortunately, this document has been demonized by many Western media—I have read many media talking about — to me it’s a kind of Cold War syndrome, because those media describe the document as creating a “bipolar world,” they say bipolar world, with the Russia and China/autocracies on the one side, and the U.S. and the West/democracies on the other side. So to me again, it’s a dividing line, when they allege that this document divides the world into two camps again. So to me, this is a typical Cold War syndrome.
Again, I come back to my last point: That we need a new international security architecture, as the Schiller Institute also proposed during the conference last week. Otherwise, there will be no peace and development. Thank you.

Rasmussen: Thank you so much, Li Xing. This has been a very important discussion.

Li: Thank you very much.

Jan Øberg, ph.d., er freds- og fremtidsforsker og kunstfotograf,
Direktør, The Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, Sverige, https://transnational.live

Jan Øberg kan kontaktes her: oberg@transnational.org

Interviewet er på engelsk p.g.a. international deling.

Lydfil: 

Afskrift: 1. del om Ukraine-Rusland-U.S.-NATO krisen:

Michelle Rasmussen: Hello. Today is February 21st, 2022. I am Michele Rasmussen, the vice president of the Schiller Institute in Denmark. And I’m very happy that peace researcher Jan Oberg agreed to this interview. Jan Oberg was born in Denmark and lives in Sweden. He has a PhD in sociology and has been a visiting professor in peace and conflict studies in Japan, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, part time over the years. Jan Oberg has written thousands of pages of published articles and several books. He is the co-founder and director of the Independent TFF, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research in Lund, Sweden since 1985, and has been nominated over several years for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Our interview today will have three parts. The danger of war between Russia and Ukraine, which could lead to war between the United States and NATO and Russia, and how to stop it.

Secondly, your criticism of Denmark starting negotiations with the United States on a bilateral security agreement, which could mean permanent stationing of U.S. soldiers and armaments on Danish soil.

And thirdly, your criticism of a major report which alleged that China is committing genocide in Xinjiang province.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some in the West said would start last Wednesday has not occurred. But as we speak, tensions are still very high. You wrote an article, Jan Oberg, on January 19th, called Ukraine The West has paved the road to war with lies, specifying three lies concerning the Ukraine crisis. Let’s take them one by one.

You defined lie number one: “The Western leaders never promised Mikhail Gorbachev and his foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, not to expand NATO eastwards. They also did not state that they would take serious Soviet or Russian security interests around its borders, and, therefore, each of the former Warsaw Pact countries has a right to join NATO, if they decide to freely.” Can you please explain more to our viewers about this lie?

Jan Oberg: Yes, and thank you very much for your very kind and long and detailed introduction of me. I would just say about that point that I’m amazed that this is now a kind of repeated truth in Western media, that Gorbachev was not given such promises. And it rests with a few words taken out of a longer article written years ago by a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who says that Gorbachev did not say so. That article was published by Brookings Institution. Now the truth is, and there’s a difference between truth and non truths, and we have to make that more and more clear when we deal with the West at the moment. The truth is, if you go to the National Security Archives in the U.S., if I remember correctly, the George Washington University that is well documented, their own formulation is that there are cascades of documentation. However, this was not written down in a treaty, or signed by the Western leaders, who one after the other came to Gorbachev’s dacha outside Moscow or visited him in Kremlin, and therefore some people would say it’s not valid. Now that is not true in politics. If we can’t rely on what was said and what was written down by people personally in their notebooks, etc.

George Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, James Baker, you can almost mention any important Western leader were unanimous in saying to Gorbachev, we understand that the Warsaw Pact has gone, the Soviet Union has gone, and therefore, we are not going to take advantage of your weakness. James Baker’s formulation, according to all these sources, is we’re not going to expand nature one inch. And that was said in 89, 90. That is 30 years ago. And Gorbachev, because of those assurances also accepted, which he’s been blamed very much for since then, the reunification of Germany. Some sources say that was a kind of deal made that if Germany should be united, which it was very quickly after, it should be a neutral country. But the interpretation in the West was it could remain a member of NATO, but would then include what was at that time the German Democratic Republic, GDR [East Germany] into one Germany. You can go to Gorbachev’s Foundation home page and you will find several interviews, videos, whatever, in which he says these things, and you can go to the Danish leading expert in this, Jens Jørgen Nielsen, who has also written that he personally interviewed Gorbachev, in which Gorbachev, with sadness in his eyes, said that he was cheated, or that these promises were broken, whatever the formulation is.

And I fail to understand why this being one of the most important reasons behind the present crisis, namely Russia’s putting down its foot, saying “You can’t continue this expansion up to the border, with your troops and your long-range missiles, up to the border of Russia. And we will not accept Ukraine [as a member of NATO]. You have gotten ten former Warsaw Pact countries which are now members of NATO, NATO has 30 members. We are here with a military budget, which is eight percent of NATO’s, and you keep up with this expansion. We are not accepting that expansion to include Ukraine.

Now, this is so fundamental that, of course, it has to be denied by those who are hardliners, or hawks, or cannot live without enemies, or want a new Cold War, which we already have, in my view, and have had for some years. But that’s a long story. The way the West, and the U.S. in particular — but NATO’s secretary general’s behavior is outrageous to me, because it’s built on omission of one of the most important historical facts of modern Europe.

Michelle Rasmussen: Yes. In your article, you actually quote from the head of NATO, the general secretary of NATO, back in 1990, one year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Manfred Wörner, where you say that in these documents released by the U.S. National Security Archive, that you just referred to, “Manfred Wörner gave a well-regarded speech in Brussels in May 1990, in which he argued ‘The principal task of the next decade will be to build a new European security structure to include the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. The Soviet Union will have an important role to play in the construction of such a system.’ And the next year, in the middle of 1991, according to a memorandum from the Russian delegation who met with Wörner. He responded to the Russians by saying that he personally and the NATO council, were both against expansion “13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view,” and “Wörner said that he would speak against Poland’s and Romania’s membership in NATO to those countries leaders, as he had already done with leaders of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. And he emphasized that we should not allow the isolation of USSR from the European community,” and this was even while the U.S.S.R. was still alive. So it must have been even more the case after the U.S.S.R. collapsed, and Russia emerged.

Jan Oberg: Well, if I may put in a little point here, you see, with that quotation of a former NATO secretary general, compare that with the present secretary general of NATO. Wörner was a man of intellect. The leaders around him at the time in Europe were too. I mean, those were the days when you had people like Willy Brandt in Germany and östpolitik [East policy], and you had Olof Palme in Sweden with common security thinking. We cannot in the West be sure, feel safe and secure in the West, if it’s against Russia. Which does not mean at all to give into everything Russia does, but just says we cannot be safe if the others don’t feel safe from us. And that was an intellectualism. That was an empathy, not a necessarily a sympathy, but it was an empathy for those over there, that we have to take into account, when we act. Today that intellectualism is gone completely.

And it is very interesting, as you point out, that 13 out of 16 NATO countries, at that time, were at that level, but in came in 1990 Bill Clinton. And he basically said, well, he didn’t state it. He acted as though he had stated it, I don’t care about those promises, and then he started expanding NATO. And the first office of NATO was set up in Kiev in 1994. That was the year when he did that. And that was a year when I sat in Tbilisi, Georgia, and interviewed the U.S. representative there, who, through a two-hour long conversation, basically talked about Georgia as “our country.”

So, you know, it’s sad to say it’s human to make mistakes, but to be so anti-intellectual, so anti-empathetic, so imbued with your own thinking and worldview, you’re not able to take the other side into account, is much more dangerous than it was at that time, because the leaders we have in the western world today are not up to it. They were earlier, but these are not.

Michelle Rasmussen: Lie number two that you pointed out, “The Ukraine conflict started by Putin’s out-of-the-blue aggression on Ukraine and then annexation of Crimea.” What’s the rest of the story here?

Jan Oberg: Well, it’s not the rest, it’s the beginning of the story. You see, people who write about these things, and it’s particularly those who are Western media and Western politicians and foreign ministers, et cetera, they say that it all started with this out-of-the-blue invasion in the Donbass, and then the taking, annexing or aggression on, or whatever the word is, Crimea. Well, they all forget, very conveniently, and very deliberately — I mean, this is not a longer time ago than people who write about it today would know — that there was a clearly western assisted, if not orchestrated, coup d’état in Kiev in 2014. After, I won’t go into that long story, after some negotiations about an economic agreement between Ukraine and the EU, in which the president then jumped off, allegedly under pressure from Putin, or whatever, but there were a series of violent events in Kiev.

And it’s well known from one of those who were there, and participated, namely the assistant secretary of State for European Affairs, Mrs. Nuland, and she’s given a speech in the U.S. where, if I remember correctly, she says that the US has pumped $5 billion into Ukraine over the years, to support democracy and human rights, et cetera, and training courses for young NGOs, et cetera. And it’s obvious that that operation, that ousting of the president, he had to flee to Russia, and the taking over, partly by neo-Nazis and fascists who were present and who probably did the beginning of the shooting and the killing of people, that all this had to do with the promise that was given to Ukraine years before that it would be integrated into the Euro-Atlantic framework. And then it was kind of stopping and saying, we don’t want that anyhow. We will negotiate something else, and we will look into what Putin has to offer, etc.

But that that, in Putin’s mind, in Russia’s mind, meant that NATO would be the future of Ukraine. And Russia had, still has, a huge military base in Crimea, which it had a lease on for, at the time, I think it was 30 plus years, meaning should Ukraine, which was clearly signalled by the western NATO member’s leadership, enter and become a full member of Ukraine, then he would look at a Russian base, either being lost or you would have a Russian military naval base in a NATO country.

Now I’m not saying that that was a smart move. I’m not saying it was a legal move, but it’s very difficult for the western world to blame Russia for annexing Crimea. If you look at the opinion polls and the votes for that, if you will, voting ourselves back to Russia — you know, the whole thing was Russia until 1954, when Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine, and he was from Ukraine himself. And so this happened three weeks before. And I’m amazed that it should not again be intellectually possible for people who witnessed this — The other thing we talked about with 30 years ago. There might be some young fools who would not read history books.

But what I’m talking about was something that happened in 2014, and there’s no excuse for not mentioning that there’s a connection between that coup d’état, and the influence of the West in Ukraine in a very substantial way, and what happened in Donbas and Crimea.

So I’m just saying, if I put it on a more general level, if we look at today’s ability to understand, describe, analyze issues as conflicts, we are heading for zero understanding. There is nobody in the press, and nobody in politics who are able, intellectually, to see these things as conflicts, that is, as a problem standing between two or more parties that has to be analyzed. And conflict resolution is about finding solutions that the parties we have defined as parties, and there certainly are many more than two in this very complex conflict, can live with in the future. What we are down to in banalization is that there is no conflict. There’s only one party, Russia, that does everything bad and evil and terrible, while we are sitting in the receiving end, being the good guys who’ve done nothing wrong in history. Who could never rethink what we did or say, we’re sorry, or change our policies, because we are right. There’s only one problem. That’s them. We’re down now to the level in which these things, also the last three months, the accusations about Russia invading Ukraine, has nothing to do with conflict analysis. It is purely focusing on one party, and one party, by definition, is not a conflict.

We are not party to a relationship anymore, and that makes a huge difference, again, from the leaders and the way of thinking and the intellectual approach that existed 20-30 years ago. And one reason for all of this is, of course, that the West is on his way down. Secondly, and they feel threatened by anything that happens around the world. And secondly, when you have been number one in a system for a long time, you become lazy. You don’t study. You don’t have as good education as you should have. You bring up people to high levels who have not read books, because we can get away with everything. We are so strong militarily. And when that happens, you know, it’s a slippery slope and you are actually on board the Titanic.

This is not a defense of everything Russia does. What I’m trying to say is there is a partner over there, by the way they call us partners in the West. We call them anything else but partners. We don’t even see them. We don’t listen to their interests. We didn’t listen to Putin when he spoke at the Munich conference in 2007 and said, ‘You have cheated us.’ And of course, when Gorbachev, 90 years old, says, you have cheated us, he’s not even quoted in the Western world, because there’s no space anymore for other views than our own. You know, this autism that is now classical in the Western security policy elite is damn dangerous.

Michelle Rasmussen: I want to just ask you shortly about the third lie, and then we’ll get into what you see as the solution. The third lie you, you pointed out, was that “NATO always has an open door to new members. It never tries to invite or drag them in does not seek expansion. It just happens because Eastern European countries since 1989 to 1990 have wanted to join without any pressure from NATO’s side, and this also applies to Ukraine.” And in this section, you also document that Putin actually asked for Russia to join NATO. Can you shortly, please explain your most important point about this third lie?

Jan Oberg: Yeah, well, it’s already there since you quoted my text, but the fascinating thing is that you have not had a referendum in any of these new member states. The fascinating thing is, in 2014, when this whole NATO membership came to its first conflictual situation in the case of Ukraine, there was not a majority, according to any opinion poll in Ukraine. There was not a majority. And I would say it’s not a matter of 51%. If a country is going to join NATO, it should be at least 75 or 80% of the people saying yes to that. Third, and it’s not something I’ve invented, it is NATO’s former secretary general Robertson, who has told the story. I think it was first released in the Guardian, but it’s also in a long podcast from a place I don’t remember, which the Guardian quotes. He says that he was asked by Putin whether, or at what time, or whatever the formulation was, NATO would accept Russia as a member.

This probably goes back to what you had already quoted Wörner, the NATO secretary general for having said, namely that a new security structure in Europe would, by necessity, have some kind of involvement, in a direct sense, of Russia, because Russia is also Europe.

And that was what Gorbachev had as an idea that the new [common] European home, something like a security structure where we could deal with our conflicts or differences or misunderstandings, and we could still be friends in the larger Europe.

And that was why I argued at the time thirty years ago that with the demise of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the only reasonable thing was to close down NATO. And instead, as I said with Clinton and onwards, the whole interpretation was we have won. The Western system, the neoliberal democratic NATO system has won. We have nothing to learn from that. There’s nothing to change now. We just expand even more.

And the first thing NATO did, as you know, was a completely illegal. Also, according to its own charter, the invasion, involvement and bombing in Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia was not a member. Had never been a member of NATO, and NATO’s only mission is paragraph five, which says that we are one for all and all for one. We are going to support some member, if the member is attacked. Now, it had nothing to do in Yugoslavia. That happened in 1991 and onwards, all the nineties. And you remember the bombings and 72 two days of bombings in Kosovo and Serbia. And it’s nothing to do — and there was no UN mandate for it. But it was a triumphalist interpretation. We can now get away with everything, anything we want. We can do it because there’s no Russia to take into account. Russia could not do anything about it. China could not do anything about it at the time.

And so, you get into hubris and an inability to see your own limitations, and that is what we are coming up to now. We are seeing the boomerang coming back to NATO, the western world for these things. And then, of course, some idiots will sit somewhere and say, Jan Oberg is pro-Russia. No, I’m trying to stick to what I happen to remember happened at the time. I’m old enough to remember what was said to Gorbachev in those days when the Wall came down and all these things changed fundamentally.

I was not optimistic that NATO would adapt to that situation, but there was hope at that time. There’s no hope today for this, because if you could change, you would have changed long ago. So the prediction I make is the United States empire, NATO, will fall apart at some point. The question is how, how dangerous, and how violent that process will be, because it’s not able to conduct reforms or change itself fundamentally into something else, such as a common security organization for Europe.

Michelle Rasmussen: Well, I actually wanted to ask you now about the solutions, because you’ve been a peace researcher for many decades. What what would it take to peacefully resolve the immediate crisis? And secondly, how can we create the basis for peaceful world in the future? You mentioned the idea that you had 30 years ago for dismembering NATO and the founder and international chairman of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, has now called for establishing a new security architecture, which would take the interests of all countries, including Russia, into account. So how could we solve the immediate crisis? If there were the political will, what would have to change among the parties? And secondly, what needs to be done in terms of long term peaceful cooperation?

Jan Oberg: Well, first of all, the question you are raising is a little bit like the seventh doctor who is trying to operate on a patient who is bleeding to death and then saying, “What should we do now?” What I have suggested over 30 years is something that should have been done to avoid the situation today, and nobody listened, as is clear, because you don’t listen to researchers anymore who say something else that state-financed researchers do. So it’s not an easy question you are raising, of course. I would say, of course, in the immediate situation, the Minsk agreements, which have not been upheld, particularly by Ukraine in establishing some kind of autonomy for the Donbass area. Now that is something we could work with, autonomous solutions. We could work with confederations, we could work with cantonization, if you will. Lots of what happened, and happens, in the eastern republics of Ukraine. It reminds me of a country I know very well, and partly educated in and worked in during the dissolution, namely Yugoslavia. So much so that it resembles Granica. Ukraine and Granica in Croatia, both mean border areas. Granica means border, and there’s so much that could have been a transfered of knowledge and wisdom and lessons learned, had we had a United Nations mission in that part. A peacekeeping mission, a monitoring mission. UN police and U.N. civil affairs in the Donbas region.

If I remember correctly, Putin is the only one who suggested that at some point. I don’t think he presented it as a big proposal to the world, but in an interview he said that was something he could think of. I wrote in 2014, why on earth has nobody even suggested that the United Nations, the world’s most competent organization in handling conflicts, and, if you will, put a lid on the military affairs, for instance, by disarming the parties on all sides, which they did in eastern and western Slovonia, in Croatia. Why has that not been suggested? Because the western world has driven the United Nations out to the periphery of international politics..

I’ve said Minsk. I’ve said the UN. I’ve said some kind of internal reforms in Ukraine. I have said, and I would insist on it, NATO must stop its expansion. NATO cannot take the risk, on behalf of Europe, and the world, to say we insist on continuing with giving weapons to, and finally making Ukraine a NATO member. You can ask Kissinger, you can ask Brzezinski, you can take the most, if you will, right wing hawkish politicians in the West. They’ve all said neutrality like Finland or Switzerland, or something like that, is the only viable option.

And is that to be pro-Russian? No, that needs to be pro-Western. Because I am just looking like so many others, fortunately, have done at the Cuban Missile Crisis. What would the United States — how would it have reacted, if Russia had a huge military alliance and tried to get Canada or Mexico to become members with long-range weapons standing a few kilometers from the U.S. border?

Do you think the US would have said, “Oh, they were all freely deciding to, so we think it’s OK.” Look at what they did during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They could not accept weapon stations in Cuba.

So, one of the things you have to ask yourself about is there one rule and one set of interests for the Western world that does not apply to other actors? If you want to avoid Russia invading Ukraine, which all this nonsense is about repeatedly now for two or three months. Look into a new status where the East and the West and Ukraine, all of it, can sit down and discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

President Zelensky has said it quite nicely, I must say. If you don’t want us to become members of NATO, and he says that to the West, because he feels that it has taken a long time for the West to act, and he last said that at the Munich Security Conference, I think yesterday or two days ago, by the way, interestingly a man whose country is going to be invaded any moment, leaves the country and goes to a conference to speak which he could have done on Zoom.

I mean, the whole thing doesn’t make sense, like it didn’t make sense, was it on the 18th or 17th when all the West said that they’re going to invade Ukraine, and the Russian defense minister was sitting in Damascus and Putin was receiving Bolsonaro. I mean, don’t they have intelligence anymore in NATO and Washington?

So long story short, sit down and give Ukraine the guarantees and non-aggression pact with both sides or all sides, clearly limited non-nuclear defensive defense measures along the borders, or whatever, integration in whatever eastern and Western economic organizations.

And I would be happy to see them as part of the Belt and Road Initiative with economic opportunities. There is so much Ukraine could do if it could get out of the role of being a victim, and squeezed between the two sides all the time. And that can only be done if you elevate the issue to a higher level, in which Ukraine’s different peoples and different parts and parties are allowed to speak up about what future they want to have in their very specific situation that Ukraine is in. It is not any country in in Europe. It’s a poor country. It’s a country that has a specific history. It’s a country which is very complex, complex ethnically, language wise, historically, etc.

And that’s why I started out saying confederation. I said something like a Switzerland model, something like Cantonization, or whatever, but for Christ’s sake, give that country and its people a security, a good feeling that nobody’s going to encroach upon you..

And that is to me, the the schwerpunkt [main emphasis], the absolutely essential, that is to give the Ukraine people a feeling of security and safety and stability and peace so that they can develop. I find it very interesting that President Zelensky, in this very long interview to the international press a couple of weeks ago, say I’m paraphrasing it. But he says “I’m tired of all these people who say that we are going to be invaded because it destroys our economy. People are leaving. No business is coming in, right?”

Who are we to do this damage to Ukraine and then want it to become a member of NATO? You know, the whole thing is recklessly irresponsible, in my view, particularly with a view of Ukraine and its peoples and their needs.

So I would put that in focus, and then put in a huge UN peacekeeping mission and continue and expand the excellent OSCE mission. Put the international communit, good hearted, neutral people down there and diffuse those who have only one eyesight, only one view of all this. They are the dangerous people.

Michelle Rasmussen: And what about the more long-term idea of a new security architecture in general?

Jan Oberg: Oh, I would build a kind of, I wouldn’t say copy of, but I would I would build something inspired by the United Nations Security Council. All Europe, representatives for all countries, including NGOs, and not just government representatives. I would have an early warning mechanism where the moment there is something like a conflict coming up, we would have reporters and we would have investigations we would look into, not conflict prevention.

My goodness, people don’t read books. There’s nothing about conflict prevention. We should prevent violence. We should prevent violent conflict, but preventing conflicts is nonsense, life is getting richer. There’s not a family, there’s not a school, there’s not a workplace, there’s not a political party, there’s not a parliament in which there are no conflicts. Conflict is what life is made of. Conflict is terribly important because it makes us change and reflect. I’m all for conflicts, and I’m one hundred and ten percent against violence. But people will say “Conflict prevention is something we should work, on and educate people in.” Nonsense from people who never read books, as I said.

So I would look for something like common security. The good old Palme Commission from the eighties, which built on defensive defense. The idea that we all have a right, according to Article 51, in the UN Charter. Everybody has a right to self-defense.

But we do not have a right to missiles that can go 4,000 km or 8,000 kilometres and kill millions of people far away. Get rid of nuclear weapons and all these things. It has nothing to do with defensiveness and common security, and I say that wherever I go and whoever I speak to. Get rid of nuclear weapons and offensive long range weapons.

The only legitimate weapons there are in this world are defensive ones, and they are defined by two things. Short distance, ability to go only over a short distance, such as helicopters instead of fighter airplanes or missiles.

And second, limited destructive capacity because they’re going to be used on your own territory in case somebody encroaches or invades you. But nobody wants to have nuclear weapons or totally super destructive weapons on their own territory because they don’t want them to be used to there. So just ask yourself, what would you like in Country X, Y and Z to be defended with? And that’s a definition of a defensive weapons. If we all had only defensive military structures, there would be very few wars, but they would also not be a military-industrial-media-academic complex that earns the money on this.

The whole thing here that the big elephant in the room we are talking about is, well, there are two of them, is NATO expansion, which we should never have done this way. And secondly, it’s the interest of the military-industrial-media-academic complex, as I call it, that earns a hell of a lot of money on people’s suffering, and millions of people who, at this moment while we speak, are living in fear and despair because of what they see in the media is going to happen. None of what we see at this moment was necessary. It’s all made up by elites who have an interest in these kinds of things happening or the threat of the Cold War. And even if we avoid a big war now, and I hope, I don’t pray to anything, but I hope very much that we do, thanks to some people’s wisdom, and it’s going to be very cold in Europe in the future after this.

Look at the demonization that the West has done again against Russia, and to a certain extent, of Ukraine. This is not psychologically something that will be repaired in two weeks.

Michelle Rasmussen: Yeah, and also, as you mentioned at the beginning, it has also something to do with the unwillingness in part of certain of the Western elites to accept that we do not have an Anglo-American unipolar world, but that there are other countries that need to be listened to and respected.

Jan Oberg: Yeah, and you might add, what the West gets out of this is that Russia and China will get closer and closer. You are already seeing the common declaration. We will have friendship eternally. And that’s between two countries who up to the sixties at some point were very strong enemies. And the same will go with Iran, and there would be other countries like Serbia which are turning away from the West. We’re going to sit and be isolating ourselves because, one, we cannot bully the world anymore, as we could before in the West. And secondly, nobody wants to be bullied anymore. We have to live in a world in which there are different systems. This Christian missionary idea that everybody must become like us. We opened up to China because then we hope they would become liberal democracies with many parties, and the parliament is awfully naïve. And time is over for that kind of thinking.

Michelle Rasmussen: I want to go into the other two subjects. Firstly, the question of the negotiations between Denmark and the United States in the context of the political, military and media statements of recent years alleging that Russia has aggressive intentions against Europe and the U.S. the Danish Social Democratic government announced on February 10th that a year ago, the U.S. requested negotiations on a Defense Cooperation Agreement, and that Denmark was now ready to start these negotiations. The government announced that it could mean permanent stationing of U.S. troops and armaments on Danish soil. And if so, this would be against the decades-long policy of the Danish government not to allow foreign troops or armaments permanently stationed in Denmark. And you wrote an article two days later criticizing these negotiations. Why are you against this?

Jan Oberg: I’m against it because it’s a break of 70 years of sensible policies. We do not accept foreign weapons and we do not accept foreign troops, and we do not accept nuclear weapons stationed on Danish soil. I sat, for ten years, all throughout the 1980s, in the Danish Governments Commission for Security and Disarmament as an expert. Nobody in the 80s would have mentioned anything like this. I guess the whole thing is something that had begun to go mad around 20 years ago, when Denmark engaged and became a bomber nation for the first time in Yugoslavia. And then Afghanistan and Iraq, and it means that you cannot say no. This is an offer you can’t refuse. You can’t refuse it, among other things, it’s my interpretation, because you remember the story where President Trump suggested that he or the U.S. could buy Greenland, and the prime minister Mette Frederiksen said, ‘Well, that is not something to be discussed. The question is absurd,’ after which he got very angry. He got personally very angry, and he said, ‘It’s not a matter of speaking to me. You’re speaking to the United States of America.’ And I think this offer to begin negotiations must have come relatively shortly after that, as ‘This offer is not something you should call absurd once again.’ I’ve no evidence for that. But if these negotiations started more than a year ago, we are back in the Trump administration.

And secondly, what kind of democracy is that? We do not know what that letter in which the Americans asked to have negotiations about this, when it was written and what the content of it was. But what we hear is that a little more than a year ago, we began some negotiations about this whole thing, that is behind the back of the parliament, and behind the back of the people, and then is presented more or less as a fait accompli. There will be an agreement. The question is only nitty-gritty, what will be in it.

In terms of substance, there is no doubt that any place where there would be American facilities based in sites, so whenever you’d call it, weapon stored will be the first targets in a war, seen as such in a war, under the best circumstances, seen by Russia. Russia’s first targets will be to eliminate the Americans everywhere they can in Europe, because those are the strongest and most dangerous forces.

Secondly, it is not true that there is a no to nuclear weapons in other senses than Denmark will keep up the principle that we will not have them stationed permanently. But with such an agreement where the Air Force, Navy and soldiers, military, shall more frequently work with, come in to visit, etc., there’s no doubt that there will be more nuclear weapons coming into, for instance, on American vessels than before, because the cooperation would be closer and closer.

Jan Oberg: And there the only thing the Danish government will do is, since they know that the “neither confirm nor deny policy” of the U.S., they would not even ask the question. If they are asked by journalists, they would say, “Well, we take for granted that the Americans honor or understand and respect that we will not have nuclear weapons on Danish territory, sea territory, or whatever. Now the Americans are violating that in Japan even. So, this is this is nonsense. There would be more nuclear weapons. I’m not saying they would go off or anything like that. I’m just saying there would be more undermining of Danish principles.

And then the whole thing, of course, has to do with the fact that Denmark is placing itself — and that was something the present government under Mette Frederiksen’s leadership did before this was made public — is to put 110 percent of your eggs in the U.S. basket. This is the most foolish thing you can do, given the world change. The best thing a small country can do is to uphold international law and the UN. Denmark doesn’t. It speaks like the U.S. for an international rules-based order, which is the opposite of, or very far away from the international law.

And secondly, in a world where you are going to want multipolarity, a stronger Asia, stronger Africa, another Russia from the one we have known the last 30 years, etc., and a United States that is, on all indicators except the military, declining and will fall as the world leader. This is, in my view, be careful with my words, the most foolish thing you can do at the moment, if you are a leader of Denmark, or if you leading the Danish security politics. You should be open — I wrote an article about that in a small Danish book some six or seven years ago, and said “Walk on two legs.” Remain friendly with the United States and NATO, and all that, but develop your other leg, so you can walk on two legs in the next 20, 30, 40 years. But there’s nobody that thinks so long term in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and there’s nobody who thinks independently anymore in research institutes or ministries. It’s basically adapting to everything we think, or are told by Washington we should do. And that’s not foreign policy to me. There’s nothing to do with it.

Jan Oberg: A good foreign policy is one where you have a good capacity to analyze the world, do scenarios, discuss which way to go, pros and contras, and different types of futures, and then make this decision in your parliament based on a public discussion. That was what we did early, 60s, 70s and 80s. And then also when you become a bomber nation, when you become a militaristic one, when active foreign policy means nothing but militarily active, then, of course, you are getting closer and closer and closer down into the into the darkness of the hole, where suddenly you fall so deeply you cannot see the daylight, where the hole is. I think it’s very sad. I find it tragic. I find it very dangerous. I find that Denmark will be a much less free country in the future by doing these kinds of things. And, don’t look at the basis of this agreement as an isolated thing. It comes with all the things we’ve done, all the wars Denmark has participated in. Sorry, I said we, I don’t feel Danish anymore, so I should say Denmark or the Danes. And finally, I have a problem with democratically elected leaders who seem to be more loyal to a foreign government, than with their own people’s needs.

China and Xinjiang

Michelle Rasmussen: The last question is that, you just mentioned the lack of independence of analysis, and there’s not only an enemy image being painted against Russia, but also against China, with allegations of central government genocide against the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province as a major point of contention. And on March 8th, 2021, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington published a report The Uyghur Genocide, an examination of China’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in Montreal, and the next month, April 27, last year, you and two others issued a report which criticized this report. What is the basis of your criticism and what do you think should be done to lessen tension with China?

And also as a wrap-up question in the end, if you wanted to say anything else about what has to be done to make a change from looking at Russia and China as the autocratic enemies of the West, and to, instead, shift to a world in which there is cooperation between the major powers, which would give us the possibility of concentrating on such great task as economic development of the poorer parts of the world?

Jan Oberg: Well, of course, that’s something we could speak another hour about, but what we did in our in our tiny think tank here, which, by the way, is totally independent and people-financed and all volunteer. That’s why we can say and do what we think should be said and done and not politically in anybody’s hands or pockets, is that those reports, including the Newlines Institute’s report, does not hold water, would not pass as a paper for a master’s degree in social science or political science. We say that if you look into not only that report, but several other reports and researchers who were contributing to this genocide discussion, if you look into their work, they are very often related to the military-industrial-media-academic complex. And they are paid for, have formerly had positions somewhere else in that system, or are known for having hawkish views on China, Russia and everybody else outside the western sphere.

So when we began to look into this, we also began to see a trend. And that’s why we published shortly after a 150 page report about the new Cold War on China, and Xinjiang is part of a much larger orchestrated — and I’m not a conspiracy theorist. It’s all documented, in contrast to media and other research reports. It’s documented. You can see where we get our knowledge from, and on which basis we draw conclusions.

Whereas now, significantly, for Western scholarship and media, they don’t deal with, are not interested in sources. I’ll come back to that. It’s part of a much larger, only tell negative stories about China. Don’t be interested in China’s new social model. Don’t be interested in how they, in 30 to 40 years did what nobody else in humankind has ever done. Uplifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and creating a society that I can see the difference from, because I visited China in 1983, and I know what it looked like back then when they had just opened up, so to speak.

And what we are saying is not that we know what happened and happens in Xinjiang, because we’ve not been there and we are not a human rights organization. We are conflict resolution and peace proposal making policy think tank. But what we do say is, if you cannot come up with better arguments and more decent documentation, then probably you are not honest. If there’s nothing more you can show us to prove that there’s a genocide going on at Xinjiang, you should perhaps do your homework before you make these assertions and accusations.

That’s what we are saying, and we are also saying that it is peculiar that the last thing Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, did in his office, I think on the 19th of January last year, was to say I hereby declare that Xinjiang is a genocide, and the State Department has still not published as much as one A4 page with the documentation.

So, I feel sad on a completely different level, and that is, Western scholarship is disappearing in this field. And those who may really have different views, analyses and question what we hear or uphold a plurality of viewpoints and interpretations of the world, we’re not listened to. I mean, I’m listening to elsewhere, but I’m not listened to in Western media, although I have forty five years of experience in these things and I’ve traveled quite a lot and worked in quite a lot of conflict and war zones. I can live with that, but I think it’s a pity for the Western world that we are now so far down the drain, that good scholarship is not what politics built on anymore. If it, I think it was at a point in time.

So what is also striking to me is, very quickly, the uniformity of the press. They have all written the day that the Newsline report that you referred to, was published, it was all over the place, including front pages of the leading Western newspapers, including the Danish Broadcasting’s website, etc., all saying the same thing, quoting the same bits of parts from it.

The uniformity of this is just mind boggling. How come that nobody said, “Hey, what is this Newlines Institute, by the way, that nobody had heard about before? Who are these people behind it? Who are the authors?” Anybody can sit on their chair and do quite a lot of research, which was impossible to do 20 years ago. If you are curious, if you are asked to be curious, if you are permitted to be curious, and do research in the media, in the editorial office where you are sitting, then you would find out lots of this here is B.S. Sorry to say so, intellectually, it’s B.S.

And so I made a little pastime, I wrote a very diplomatic letter to people at CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc. Danish and Norwegian, and Swedish media, those who write this opinion journalism about Xinjiang, and a couple of other things, and I sent the all our report, which is online, so it’s just a link, and I said kindly read this one, and I look forward to hearing from you. I’ve done this in about 50 or 60 cases, individually dug up their email addresses, et cetera. There is not one who has responded with anything. The strategy when you lie, or when you deceive, or when you have a political man, is don’t go into any dialogue with somebody who knows more or it’s critical of what you do.

That’s very sad. Our TFF Pressinfo goes to 20 people in BBC. They know everything we write about Ukraine, about China, about Xinjiang, et cetera. Not one has ever called.

These are the kinds of things that make me scared as an intellectual. One thing is what happens out in the world. That’s bad enough. But when I begin to find out how this is going on, how it is manipulated internally in editorial offices, close to foreign ministries, etc. or defense ministries is then I say, we are approaching the Pravda moment. The Pravda moment is not the present Pravda [newspaper], but the Pravda that went down with the Soviet Union. When I visited Russia, the Soviet Union at a time for conferences, et cetera, and I found out that very few people believed anything they saw in the media. Now, to me, it’s a question of whether the Western media, so-called free media want to save themselves or they want to become totally irrelevant, because at some point, as someone once said, you cannot lie all the time to all of the people, you may get away with lying to some, to some people, for some of the time.

Michelle Rasmussen: President Lincoln

Jan Oberg: Yeah. So the long story short is this is not good. This deceives people. And of course, some people, at some point, people will be very upset about that. They have been lied to. And also don’t make this reference anymore to free and state media. Viewers may like to hear that may not like it, but should know it, the US has just passed a law — They have three laws against China — How to intervene in all kinds of Chinese things, such as, for instance, trying to influence who will become the successor to Dalai Lama, and things like that. They are not finished at all about how to influence Taiwan, and all that, things they have nothing to do with, and which they decided between Nixon and Zhou Enlai that America accepted the One-China policy and would not mix themselves into Taiwanese issues. But that is another broken promise. These media are state media in the U.S. If you take Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, they are those, particularly the latter, who have disseminated most of these Xinjiang genocide stories, which then bounce back to BBC, etc. These are state media. As an agency for that in in Washington, it’s financed by millions of dollars, of course, and it has the mandate to make American foreign policy more understood, and promote U.S. foreign policy goals and views. Anybody can go to a website and see this. Again, I’m back to this, everybody can do what I’ve done. And that law that has just been passed says the U.S. sets aside 15 hundred million dollars, that’s one point five billion dollars in the next five years, to support education, training courses, whatever, for media people to write negative stories about China, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative. Now I look forward to Politiken [Danish newspaper] or Dagens Nyheter [Swedish newspaper] or whatever newspapers in the allied countries who would say, “This comes from a state U.S. media” when it does.

And so, my my view is there is a reason for calling it the military-industrial-media-academic complex, because it’s one cluster of elites who are now running the deception, but also the wars that are built on deception. And that is very sad where, instead, we should cooperate. I would not even say we should morally cooperate. I would say we have no choice on this Earth but to cooperate, because if we have a new Cold War between China and the West, we cannot solve humanity’s problems, whether it’s the climate issue, environmental issues, it’s poverty, it’s justice, income differences or cleavages, or modern technological problems or whatever. You take all these things, they are, by definition, global. And if we have one former empire, soon former empire, that does nothing but disseminate negative energy, criticize, demonize, running cold wars, basically isolating itself and going down.

We lack America to do good things. I’ve never been anti-American, I want to say that very clearly. I’ve never, ever been anti-American. I’m anti empire and militarism. And we need the United States, with its creativity, with its possibilities, with what it already has given the world, to also contribute constructively to a better world, together with the Russians, together with Europe, together with Africa, together with everybody else, and China, and stop this idea that we can only work with those who are like us, because if that’s what you want to do, you will have fewer and fewer to work with.

The world is going towards diversity. And we have other cultures coming up who have other ways of doing things, and we may like it or not. But the beauty of conflict resolution and peace is to do it with those who are different from you. It is not to make peace with those who already love, or are already completely identical with. This whole thing is, unfortunately, a conflict and peace illiteracy that has now completely overtaken the western world. Whereas I see people thinking about peace. I hear people mentioning the word peace. I do not hear Western politicians or media anymore mention the word peace. And when that word is not, and the discussion and the discourse has disappeared about peace, we are very far out.

Combine that with lack of intellectualism and an analytical capacity, and you will end up in militarism and war. You cannot forget these things, and then avoid a war. So in my view, there are other reasons than Russia, if you will, that we’re in a dangerous situation, and that the danger has to do with the West operating, itself, at the moment. Nobody in the world is threatening the United States or the West. If it goes down, it’s all of its own making. And I think that’s an important thing to say in these days when we always blame somebody else for our problems. That is not the truth.

Michelle Rasmussen: Thank you so much, Jan.

Når Mette Frederiksen i sin rolle som statsminister inden for få dage har afholdt hele to pressekonferencer, hvor hun flankeret af udenrigsministeren og forsvarsministeren har talt i forherligende toner om kampen for frihed og suverænitet, så er det nok et tegn på, at det er netop de erklærede principper, som hun i en studehandel er blevet pålagt at ofre for fortsat opbakning til hendes fremadrettede personlige karriere. Da Anders Fogh Rasmussen brugte sin platform som dansk statsminister til at støtte Storbritanniens og USA’s ulovlige krig imod Irak, der blev legitimeret med løgnen om at Irak havde masseødelæggelsesvåben, endte det som bekendt med, at han blev belønnet med posten som generalsekretær for Nato og en international rolle som arrangør af konferencer til støtte for den britisk-amerikanske kampagne for at nedbryde suveræniteten hos de lande, der formaster sig til ikke blindt at følge de diktater, der kommer fra London og Washington.

Hvad har Mette Fredriksen gang i? At give USA ret til at udstationere militærpersonel og udstyr på dansk jord under amerikansk suverænitet afskaffer Danmarks nationale suverænitet og vil i stedet afsløre Danmark som en ren amerikansk vasalstat. Selv i de mørkeste stunder under den kolde krig, da Danmark var truet af sovjetiske planer om en besættelse af Danmark, var det noget, som danskere med respekt for både nationen og sig selv ikke ville tillade. Det ville have reduceret Danmark fra en nation til blot at være kanonføde i supermagternes stedfortræderkrig (Afghanistan er et skoleeksempel på, hvordan den slags typisk ender).

Forslaget til en ny forsvarsalliance mellem Danmark og USA har som sin grundantagelse, at vi skal forberede os på krig med Rusland, noget som bliver underbygget af mediernes svulstige krigspropaganda. Men siden den kolde krigs afslutning har Rusland på intet tidspunkt truet Danmark eller andre dele af Nato, men har tværtimod passivt set til, mens stadig flere dele af det tidligere Sovjetunionen og dets interessesfære blev indlemmet i Nato. Da turen så kom til Ukraine, sagde Rusland fra, og kræver nu aftaler, der kan garantere Ruslands fremtidige sikkerhed. Det burde være en kærkommen anledning til at diskutere en inkluderende sikkerhedsarkitektur for Europa, som det faktisk blev lovet Rusland, da de satte Østtyskland og de andre tidligere Warszawapagt-lande fri i lighed med de andre sovjetrepublikker. En sikkerhedsarkitektur, hvor både øst og vest kan føle sig hjemme. I stedet ser vi en mobilisering for sanktioner og krig, hvor Danmark nu skal spille en udvidet rolle, på bekostning af danske interesser.

Hvordan kan det forsvares, at Mette Frederiksen overhovedet overvejer at sige ja til et for Danmark så ufordelagtigt og potentielt ødelæggende forslag i dag? Blot fordi en ven kræver at få lov til at dele seng med din ægtefælle eller dit barn, så behøver man jo ikke takke ja. Det er tydeligt, at Mette Frederiksen har lavet en aftale med djævelen, som i dette tilfælde er den britisk-amerikanske finansielle magtelite, der kontrollerer den vestlige efterretnings- og sikkerhedspolitik. I betragtning af den berettigede foragt, som Mette Frederiksen med flere udviste for Helle Thorning-Schmidt og andre, der helt åbenlyst var villige til at ofre sine vælgeres og nationens interesser for at være en del af magten, så vil nemesis ramme dobbelt hårdt, hvis Mette Frederiksen fortsætter med dette skoleeksempel på hybris.

Om Mette Frederiksen har fået et tilbud hun ikke kunne afslå, eller hvad hun forventer at få som tak for denne ofring af danske interesser og suverænitet, ved jeg ikke. Givet er det, at det på ingen måde er i dansk interesse at indgå en sådan aftale. Det vil ikke forbedre den danske sikkerhed men kraftigt forværre den. Danmark vil flytte sig selv ind i kategorien af strategiske mål for atommagten Rusland. Danmark udstiller sig samtidigt som et land, der ikke længere frit kan handle og interagere med det voksende antal lande, der i lighed med den nylige Beijing-erklæring fra Rusland og Kina ikke længere vil acceptere en særlig vestlig ret til at bestemme de internationale spilleregler, men som mener, at vi skal have en multipolær inkluderende verdensorden, hvor alle nationer bliver respekteret og kan samarbejde uden først at skulle spørge om lov i London eller Washington.

At Mette Frederiksen foreslår dette samtidigt med at chefen for Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste, Lars Findsen, er varetægtsfængslet under anklage for højforræderi og uden mulighed for at kommunikere med offentligheden, bør få mere end et enkelt øjenbryn til at løfte sig og få flere end blot mig til at spørge, hvad pokker der egentlig foregår? Vi må råbe vagt i gevær og få Folketingets medlemmer til at gøre op med den slappe følgagtighed, de plejer at udvise over for magtens arrogance, specielt blandt ”de gamle” partier, og sammen med modige patrioter i de danske institutioner få stoppet denne ødelæggelse af dansk suverænitet og danske interesser inden det er for sent.

Med formand Tom Gillesberg.

Lyd:

Resumé:
Før åbningsceremonien ved OL i Beijing er der topmøde mellem Putin og Xi Jinping hvor Rusland og Kina vil bekræfte det tætte venskab og nok fremlægge nye økonomiske samarbejdsaftaler. Man forbereder at gøre sig uafhængige af amerikanske dollars og SWIFT-systemet. Vestens diplomatiske boykot understreger at man ikke kan regne med Vesten.

Mette Frederiksens pressemøde på Marienborg, hvor hun annoncerede at Danmark nu er i frontlinjen imod Rusland og ikke ville have en ligeværdig dialog er en farlig kurs. Arrogance + Ignorance = Katastrofe. Man er ikke dumme men dumlærde. Man fravælger med fuldt overlæg fakta, hvis de ikke passer ind i fortællingen man forsøger at sælge. Man overser de dramatiske konsekvenser af de beslutninger man træffer som i FE-sagen, Minksagen og nu korstoget imod Rusland.

Rusland havde ikke kun fået mundtlige løfter om at NATO ikke ville blive udvidet mod Øst. OSCE-aftalen fra Istanbul i 1999 garanterede ikke kun frihed for stater til at indgå alliancer for egen sikkerhed, men også at dette ikke måtte ske på bekostning af andre landes. Der har man ikke respekteret ved udvidelsen af NATO og diskussionen om at integrere Ukraine i Nato. Vi må forhandle og samarbejde med Rusland og Kina så alle kan leve trygt og sikkert.

Hvordan kan Vesten beskylde Kina for at lave (et ikke eksisterende) folkemord i Xinjiang, når man selv gennemfører et reelt folkemord i Afghanistan gennem at fastholde sanktioner og tilbageholde Afghanistans penge i vestlige banker? 20 mio. børn sulter og mange vil dø her i vinter, hvis ikke Vesten skifter kurs.

Se interview med Liu Xing fra Aalborg Universitet på Schiller Instituttets hjemmeside.

Nedsmeltningen af det transatlantiske finansielle system er i gang. Siden 2008 er det blevet opbygget gigantiske finansboler under 13 år med negative renter og kvantitative lempelser. Inflationen i USA er nu 7 % og den er over 5 % i EU. Det er kun begyndelsen. Den kæmpe gæld der er opbygget skal der nu betales renter på og det er der ikke råd til. Der skal betales mere og værdierne er langt mindre værd. Det kan kun gå galt.

Eneste løsning er LaRouches fire økonomiske love. Lær af Kina. Rusland skal ikke vælge mellem Europa og Asien men være bindeled mellem Europa og Kina.

Hvedebrødsdagene er måske ovre for den danske regering. Kan ikke længere gemme sig bag COVID-19. Se på verden med friske øjne inden det er for sent. Gå med i Schiller Instituttet.

Diskussion: Den danske håndtering af COVID-19 var meget bedre end mange andre steder, men det var ikke pga. af regeringen, men fordi der var en høj grad af tillid og samfundssind blandt befolkningen. Husk at mange lande i Europa ikke som Danmark er hoppet med på briternes korstog imod Rusland.

KØBENHAVN, 31. januar (EIRNS)- I dag, to dage efter at den danske statsminister Mette Frederiksen sagde, at hun ville overveje at sende våben til Ukraine, blev der indkaldt til et pressemøde på Marienborg med statsministeren, udenrigsminister Jeppe Kofod og forsvarsminister Trine Bramsen for at lancere regeringens nye Udenrigs- og Forsvarspolitiske Strategi. EIR havde mulighed for at stille et spørgsmål. Første del af pressekonferencen blev transmitteret direkte på TV2 News, og anden del, der startede med EIR’s spørgsmål, blev transmitteret direkte på TV2 Play.

Danmark er midt i beslutningen om, hvorvidt man vil følge den britiske eskaleringspolitik eller afvise den, som flere og flere europæiske lande gør. For to dage siden udtalte statsminister Mette Frederiksen til Jyllands-Posten: »Jeg vil ikke udelukke (at sende militært isenkram til Ukraine, red.), og jeg har ingen principiel modstand mod, at vi gør det. Situationen omkring Ukraine udgør nu en alvorlig trussel mod Europa, og der er en reel risiko for en væbnet konflikt på europæisk jord. Skulle situationen i Ukraine eskalere yderligere, vil Rusland også blive mødt med sanktioner af »en hidtil ukendt dimension«.« Dette var også budskabet på pressekonferencen.

Inden EIR’s spørgsmål blev ministrene spurgt, om Danmark ville sende våben og endda tropper til Ukraine. Indtil videre har Ukraines forsvarsminister bedt om dansk støtte til at håndtere cyberangreb, sagde Forsvarsministeren.

Her er Statsministerens udveksling med EIR-journalist Michelle Rasmussen:

EIR: Det er Michelle Rasmussen, Executive Intelligence Review.

I forgårs sagde Ukraines forsvarsminister Reznikov, at situationen langs grænsen til Rusland er den samme, som for et år siden. At der er ingen aktioner eller fænomener af betydning. Præsident Zelensky sagde, at USA bør holde op med at sige, at krig er umiddelbart forstående – at man ikke skal skabe panik.

Hvis Danmark sender våben til Ukraine, en politik, som er ført an af Storbritannien lige nu, vil det bare optrappe krisen, så vel som, hvis man indførte endnu hårdere sanktioner, som også vil ramme Europa, eller USA’s krigsspil, som Global Lightning [øvelse afholdt af USA’s strategiske kommando -red.}, om hvordan man fortsætter en atomkrig efter et førsteslagsangreb?

Er det ikke bedre, at have alvorlige forhandlinger med Rusland angående et muligt NATO-medlemskab for Ukraine, offensive våben langs grænsen, og at forhandle om en ny sikkerhedsarkitektur, som inkluderer Rusland, som vi burde have gjort i 1991? 

Mette Frederiksen: At vi skulle have givet Rusland indflydelse på den europæiske infrastruktur i 1991?

EIR: At efter Sovjetunionens opløsning var der lagt op til —

Mette Frederiksen: Det er helt klart, at det er kun Europa og europæere der bestemmer, hvordan vores infrastruktur skal se ud. Vi ønsker selvfølgelig at have en dialog med Rusland. Det har vi. Det har vi i NATO-sporet. Det har vi mellem Europa og Rusland. Og det ønsker vi at have fremadrettet. Vi har hele vejen igennem det her appelleret til Rusland om at vælge en diplomatisk løsning, og går dialogens vej.

Det vi samtidig siger er, hvis Rusland vælger at angribe Ukraine, så svarer vi selvfølgelig igen.

Men lad mig gentage. Hvordan Europæere vælger at indrette sig, det er et anlæggende for Europa, ikke for nogen som helst andre.

Jyllands-Posten.

EIR: Undskyld. Udenrigsministeren vil sige noget. 

Mette Frederiksen: Vi skal have flere spørgsmål. Jyllands-Posten, værsgo.

KØBENHAVN, 27. januar 2022 — Schiller Instituttet i Danmark har gennemført et vigtigt, timelangt videointerview med Li Xing, ph.d., professor i udvikling og internationale relationer ved Aalborg Universitet i Danmark. Li Xing er medlem af det samfundsvidenskabelige fakultet på Institut for Politik og Samfund og leder af forskningscentret for udvikling og internationale relationer. Han er oprindeligt fra Jiaxing nær Shanghai og arbejdede i Beijing, inden han kom til Danmark i 1988 for at tage sin kandidat- og ph.d.-grad.

Det omfattende interview dækker Kinas forbindelser med USA, Europa (USA–Kina-rivalisering), Rusland (Kina ville støtte Rusland, hvis det blev smidt ud af Swift-betalingssystemet), Europa og Afrika (Kinas udviklingsprogram er en hjælp for Europa i forbindelse med flygtningeproblemet), Latinamerika (Kina har fremmet den økonomiske udvikling i USA’s baghave, mens USA har været fokuseret på krige og farverevolutioner), Afghanistan (med helhjertet støtte til Operation Ibn Sina) og andre udviklingslande.

Det omfatter også, hvad professor Li Xing ville sige til præsident Biden om forbindelserne med Kina, Xi Jinpings Davos-tale, Bælte- og Vej-Initiativet og Xinjiang-spørgsmålet. Han opfordrer USA og Europa til at samarbejde med Kina om deres respektive nødvendige infrastrukturudvikling, for at fremme udviklingen af de underudviklede lande og for at droppe den geopolitiske taber-strategi. Han slutter med at rose Schiller Instituttets udviklingsprogrammer for verden.

Interviewet, der blev foretaget af Michelle Rasmussen, vil blive transskriberet til offentliggørelse i EIR og er nu tilgængeligt på Schiller Instituttets YouTube-kanal i Danmark.

Here is a pdf version published in Executive Intelligence Review, Vol. 49, No. 5 (www.larouchepub.com/eiw). We encourage you to subscribe.:

Download (PDF, Unknown)

INTERVIEW

Professor Li Xing

Cooperate with China – It Is Not the Enemy

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.

Subheads have been added. A video of the interview is available here . https://youtu.be/rulm1czmaTE

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 Biden

Prof. 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 the advantage in that 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 China

Michelle 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 Concept

Michelle 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 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’ Diplomacy

Michelle 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 think that this is a 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 Development

Michelle 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 Relations

Michelle 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’ Europe

Michelle 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 Order

Michelle 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 U.S.-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 Doctrine

Michelle 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 the 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 Sina

Michelle 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 Schiller Institute’s suggestion of a health care system is the priority. When people are in 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.

Xinjiang

Michelle 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.

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 were 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 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 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 System

Michelle 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 alternative.

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 Institute

Michelle 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 every 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 a 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.

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Resumé:

USA´s og Ruslands udenrigsministre mødes i morgen. Er USA og NATO villige til at give Rusland de nødvendige sikkerhedsgarantier på skrift eller går man konfrontationsvejen? Rusland bakker ikke ned. Man gør op med årtiers svigt fra Vesten, hvor Vesten har ført krig imod Rusland og dets interesser med farvede revolutioner m.m. Nu er Rusland militært og økonomisk stærk mens Vesten er svag. Rusland og Kina kan klare sig uden Vesten, men Europa kan ikke klare sig uden russisk gas og kinesiske varer.

Eksperter advarer at hvis USA og NATO overskrider Ruslands røde linjer kan Rusland angribe fra Hviderusland og Kaliningrad med SS-26 Skander kortdistance atommissiler i hele Østeuropa. USA kan trues med ubådsbaserede Zircon atommissiler, der flyver 5-10 gange lydens hastighed, som USA ikke kan forsvare sig imod. Hvis det bliver krig mellem Rusland og USA vil Kina indtage Taiwan og Nordkorea angribe Sydkorea uden at USA kan gøre noget. Få derfor langsigtede fredsaftaler med Rusland og Kina, som alle kan leve med i stedet for konfrontation og krig. Rusland deltager i militærøvelser i Hviderusland fra den 9. februar så tag snakken med Rusland, evt. med et topmøde mellem Biden og Putin, inden de Olympiske Vinterlege i Beijing fra den 4.-20. februar er afsluttet og scenen sat for eskalation og mulig krig.

USA’s inflation på 7 % og USA’s Federal Reserve bliver tvunget til at hæve renten. Resultatet vil være en nedsmeltning på de finansielle markeder. Nedflyvningen er startet så spænd sikkerhedsbælterne. Europa er ikke bedre stillet. Forbered implementering af LaRouches fire økonomiske love så realøkonomien og samfundet kan beskyttes imod konsekvenserne af nedsmeltningen.

COVID-19: Pga. den høje vacinetilslutning er Omikron-variantens indtog en gamechanger på trods af sin meget større smitbarhed. Største problem for sundhedsvæsenet er ikke Coranapatienter men hjemsendelse og karantæne for ikke-syge ansatte. Vi må reducere karantænetiden, men vente en uge eller to inden vi sætter fuld fart på genåbningen, til vi har set konsekvenserne af at der er 4 gange så mange daglige smittede som for en måned siden.

FE-skandalen viser i lighed men mink-skandalen en stor villighed hos regeringen til at ville bestemme, men en dårlig evne til at sikre sig den fornødne rådgivning og ekspertise inden man træffer drastiske beslutninger med store og vidtrækkende konsekvenser. Efter hybris kommer nemesis. Det kan true regeringens fremtid. Det er ikke kun regeringens medlemmer der handler hurtigt og overilet, uden tanke på de langsigtede konsekvenser, men hele den nuværende regerende elite. Husk at hovmod står for fald.

Grib ind i historien. Vær med til at sikre et globalt sundhedssystem. Lad os samarbejde om at stoppe sultkatastrofen i Afghanistan og få opbygget hele verdens økonomiske sundhed. Gå med i Schiller Instituttets kampagne. Tænk som LaRouche.

Fra 2017:

Bidrag af Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark, til et festskrift i anledning af Lyndon LaRouches 95 års fødselsdag.

Verden har brug for Lyndon LaRouche universiteter, af Tom Gillesberg På engelsk fra 2017:
Contribution from Tom Gillesberg, President of the Schiller Institute in Denmark, to the Festschrift for Lyndon LaRouche on his 95th birthday Her er den tale, der blev holdt for at præsentere Lyndon LaRouche ved åbningen af LaRouche-universiteterne den 8. september 2022.

Kære præsidenter, statsministre, Deres Excellencer, lærere, studerende, mine damer og herrer.
Før jeg giver ordet til Lyndon LaRouche ved denne meget, meget specielle lejlighed, som ikke blot fejrer, at han har nået milepælen på hundrede år, men også etablerer et sikkert fundament for menneskehedens kommende generationer, vil jeg kort gennemgå sammen med jer, hvordan det kunne lade sig gøre, at vi i dag åbner LaRouche-universiteter i New York, Beijing, Moskva, New Delhi, København, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, Milano, Tirana, Edinburgh, London, Dublin, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Pretoria, Cairo, Damaskus, Teheran og Sanaa.

Det hele begyndte i 2017, straks efter Lyndon LaRouches 95-års fødselsdag. Universitets- og regeringskredse i Kina reflekterede over den dybe betydning, som idéerne fra LaRouche og hans bevægelse havde haft for omdannelsen af Kina og etableringen af den internationale Bælte & Vej-politik, og det faktum at LaRouche nu var 95 år gammel, mens mange af hans mangeårige medarbejdere, som f.eks. hans kone Helga Zepp-LaRouche, nærmede sig eller var i halvfjerdserne. De spurgte sig selv, om de kunne være sikre på, at der i fremtiden fortsat ville være en LaRouche-bevægelse, der kunne levere de nødvendige nye kreative input og idéer, der var nødvendige for Kinas og verdens udvikling, på et tidspunkt hvor Kina i stigende grad skulle lede verden ind i nye områder og opdagelser, som mennesket aldrig før havde prøvet. En proces, der krævede nye, unikke, kreative løsninger og ikke blot en kopi af noget, som mennesket allerede havde prøvet før. Alle var enige om, at der hurtigt måtte gøres noget.

Der blev nedsat hurtigt arbejdende udvalg på alle de forskellige videnskabelige, politiske og kulturelle områder for at få en plan for de nødvendige ændringer i pensum og for oprettelsen af supplerende kurser, som var nødvendige for at anvende LaRouches videnskabelige arbejde på de forskellige indsatsområder. Et kursus i Lyndon LaRouches fysisk økonomi blev obligatorisk for alle studerende i statskundskab og økonomi, og det blev besluttet at udvikle et studieprogram for specialister inden for området fysisk økonomi og LaRouche-Riemann-metoden.

Inden for de fysiske videnskaber blev LaRouche obligatorisk som hjælp til at udvikle de studerendes kreative kræfter til videnskabelig opdagelse, med fokus på LaRouches opdagelse og de videnskabelige tankeobjekters historie. Inden for samfundsvidenskaberne skulle eleverne undervises i princippet om potentiel relativ befolkningstæthed, stigende energigennemstrømningstæthed og menneskets naturlige udvikling i universet, set gennem Vernadskijs og LaRouches arbejde. LaRouches skrifter om metafor-princippet og andre vigtige skrifter blev obligatoriske inden for de forskellige kunstarter, og der blev foretaget ændringer inden for alle de forskellige uddannelsesområder.

Rusland, der ikke ville lade sig overgå, fulgte hurtigt trop og udviklede et lignende program, og mange andre nationer fulgte trop. Selv i USA, LaRouches eget land, blev dette et spørgsmål, der blev taget op på mange niveauer, herunder i Det Nationale Sikkerhedsråd. Kunne USA tillade andre stormagter at øge deres erkendelsesevne med stormskridt gennem fornuftens kraft, styret af LaRouches ideer, mens USA selv sakkede bagud? Der blev iværksat et nødprogram under præsidentens direkte tilsyn for at sikre, at USA ville få et lignende program på benene og atter blive førende i verden inden for LaRouches videnskabelige metode.

Efter et par år, hvor den bemærkelsesværdige effekt af LaRouches idéer begyndte at gøre sig gældende, fik politiske ledere og førende intellektuelle i mange forskellige lande samtidig øjnene op for idéen: Bør der ikke oprettes særlige universiteter, der uddanner de studerende i selve Lyndon LaRouches kreativitet?

Bør der ikke være akademier, der er dedikeret til at forsøge at efterligne Lyndon LaRouches genialitet ved at beherske den metode, hvormed han opnåede så meget?
Og ville det ikke være passende, at disse nye universiteter åbner deres døre den 8. september 2022, dagen hvor LaRouche ville fejre sin 100-års fødselsdag?

Så således gik det til, at vi i dag har samtidige åbninger af LaRouche-universiteter i New York, Beijing, Moskva, New Delhi, København, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, Milano, Tirana, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Pretoria, Edinburgh, London, Dublin, Cairo, Damaskus, Teheran og Sanaa.

LaRouche vil, på grund af de fysiske begrænsninger, ikke være i stand til at være fysisk til stede ved alle disse samtidige fejringer, men ved hjælp af moderne teknologi har vi sørget for at få hologrammer af LaRouche alle steder på én gang, og vi venter nu ivrigt på Lyndon LaRouche og hans kone Helga, som vil holde tale og erklære alle disse nye universiteter for åbne.

Med tanke på den tidligere mexicanske præsident Lopez Portillos berømte ord: »Nu er tiden inde til at lytte til LaRouches kloge ord«, kan vi i dag fejre, at »endelig lyttede verden til Lyndon LaRouches kloge ord«, og vi kan alle se, hvor meget lysere en fremtid det betyder for hele menneskeheden.