Introduction:

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Table of Contents:

Preface
Introduction

A New Global Paradigm 11

China’s Role in the Economic Renaissance of West Asia and Africa 14

What is Win-Win Philosophy? 16

The Age of Mega-Projects Is Back 21

Redefining ‘Sustainable Development’ 22

‘Helping’ or Empowering Africa 24

The African Union Aims High 25

Africa Must Leap Ahead, Not Crawl Forward! 28
Chapter 1: West Asia: The Silk Road’s Crossroads to the Mediterranean and Africa 29

Egypt: A Bridge between Asia, Europe and Africa 30

Chapter 2: The Silk Road Reaches Africa 33

China in Africa: Myths or Facts 36

Europe, not China, Is Engaged in Land Grabbing in Africa 37

Defining an African Future 40

Chapter 3: The Economic Science Behind the World LandBridge 41

What is Infrastructure, Really? 41

Economics: The Ultimate Science 41

Platforms: Artificial Environments 44

Energy Flux Density 45

Power and Energy 45

Promethean ‘Fire’ 46

Aspects of the ‘Synthetic Environment’48

Materials 48

Water 49

Transportation 50

Energy 53

Space 55

A Future Platform: Nuclear Fusion 56

Nuclear Power: Fission and Fusion 56

Benefits of Fusion 58

New, Unique Applications of Fusion 59

Conclusion 60

Chapter 4: Financing Regional and National Infrastructure 63

Money vs. Credit 63

Credit and Productivity 64

Invariance of Historical and Modern Examples 66

President Roosevelt’s RFC 68

A Southwest Asia/Africa Regional Infrastructure Bank 69

Cooperation with International Development Banks  70

Public-Private Partnerships Cannot Substitute 73

Appendix: Egypt: Internal financing of development 74

A National Reconstruction and Development Bank 74

Appendix: “LaRouche on Money vs. Credit” 75

Chapter 5: Demography and Development 77

Case Study: Egypt—Myth of Overpopulation 79

Moving Forward and Outward 80

Egypt Reclaims the Desert 81

The New Nile Valley 82

Chapter 6: Integration of West Asia with the New Silk Road 85

The Bridge Among Continents 85

Completing the Land-Bridge Westward 87

Proposed Corridors Integrating Arab States 90

A Common Enemy: The Desert 91

Attacking the Desert from the Fertile Crescent 91

Petrochemicals: Industry of the Future 99

Plastics 100

Appendix—Case Study: Syria’s Reconstruction Project Phoenix 103

Financing Reconstruction in a Nation Ruined by War? 105

Physical-Economic Development 106

Syria and the New Silk Road 106

Conclusion 108

Chapter 7: Africa — Transport Network Integration 111

Colonial Legacy 113

Dependency on Roads 114

Landlocked Nations 116

Turning a Crisis Into an Opportunity 118

A. The Nile Basin and East Africa  119

Creating a Powerful North-South Axis 119

East Africa’s Economic Corridors 125

B. Southern Africa  134

Roads, Rails and Ports in Southern Africa 134

The South African High-Speed Rail Project 135

Gautrain 137

When Will South Africa Convert to Standard Gauge?138

Africa’s North-South Corridor 138

Africa Tomorrow 142

C. West and Central Africa  142

Fast Track Development Perspective for West and Central Africa 142

Ports Connecting to the BRI 144

Development of West Africa 145

Development of Central Africa 147

Mechanized Agriculture: Africa Can Feed Itself and the Rest of the World 147

D. North Africa 147

Dreams and Setbacks 149

Highway Networks 149

Maghreb Railway Networks 151

Trans-Maghreb High-Speed Rail 152

Morocco Joins the BRI: Tanger-Med Port and Technopolis 154

Algeria Joins, Too156

Bridging the Gap Between Europe and Africa 157

Chapter 8: Africa — Water Resources Development 161

Managing the Water Cycle as a Cycle 163

Category 1: Management of Land Flow 165

Into the Future: How Africa Can Lead the World 169

Category 2: Weather Control 170

Category 3: Desalination of Ocean Water 174

Africa’s Water Future 175

Case study: The Nile Basin 175

The Linear Facts 176

Lost to Evaporation 177

Hydropower, Water Management, Agricultural Development 181

Chapter 9: To Power Africa, Go Nuclear! 185

Energy Requirements 185

An African Visionary: Diop 189

Chapter 10: Africa — Food Security: Realizing Africa’s Vast Agricultural Potential  193

Land and Yield 195

China’s Contributions 197

Lake Chad Basin 198

Sudan 200

Commitment to Transformation 200

Chapter 11: Africa in Space 203

New Space Nations 204

Space as a Driver for Development 205

A World-Class Science Project

206 Case Study — South Africa: Looking to the Heavens to Develop the Continent  208 Scientific Orientation 209

Imagination and Wonder 211

Space Technology Can Support Africa’s Development Goals 212

Working with China and the BRICS 213

Chapter 12: Conclusions and Recommendations 215

The Political and Economic Context 215

Some Necessary Axiomatic Shifts 217

Recommendation: Understanding Physical Economics 218

Recommendation: Financing Infrastructure 219

Recommendation: Science and Technology 220

Recommendation: Transport 220

Recommendation: Power 221

Recommendation: Water 221

Recommendation: Agriculture 222

Chapter 13: Selection of Proposed Mega Projects in Africa 225

Pan-African High-Speed Rail Network 225

Regional and Continental Corridors 227

New Suez Canal and Industrial Zone 229

Transaqua: The Centerpiece of Africa’s Development 231

Grand Inga Dam Project 237

South African Nuclear Program 239

Sicily–Tunis Connector — TUNeIT 242

Gibraltar Euro-African Tunnel 245

Egypt’s 2030 Mega Projects: Investment Opportunities for Intermodal and Multimodal Connectivity

This is an edited transcript of a presentation by Mrs. Moni Abdullah to the Nov. 25-26 Schiller Institute Conference. She is the Executive Manager of Pyramids International, Cairo, Egypt.

Transcript

Good afternoon. Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Guests, Dear Friends:

My name is Moni Abdullah. I am the general manager of Pyramids International group, which is a private sector company. First I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to be invited as a speaker today at such an important event. I would further extend my gratitude to the Schiller Institute, and Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche in particular, for taking an interest in our company and in Egypt, and in an initiative and willingness to cooperate with the New Silk Road Project, for sharing the same courageous spirit of the Egyptians that human reason will be able to find the higher level where problems can be solved, and defending the rights of humanity to progress economically, morally, and intellectually, by development and connectivity.

My children are actually Swiss and I live in Geneva and in Egypt. I would like very much to see connectivity through Egypt to all of Africa, and possibly for the three continents to connect Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Our company is an events organizer. We organize conferences and exhibitions worldwide. We are an ISO-certified company and accredited with UFI, the global association of the exhibition industry.

Pyramids International group was established in 1993 and specializes in organizing, planning, and holding all kinds of large-scale international activities, such as conference, exhibitions, and trade shows. We work with different sectors, and organize around 115 events worldwide, basically in oil and gas, energy, and renewable energy, transportation, maritime and ports, shipping, and logistics, fashion, leather, furniture, health, real estate, general trade shows, auto shows, building and construction, household, food, machinery, and more.

In the continuous development of its business the company has established wide cooperation and interactive relations with the related governmental departments, trade associations, nongovernmental organizations, and scientific research institutes.

As a diversified service company, it also offers media services, digital information consulting services, research capacity and marketing solutions. Hence, our database marketing capacity and business connections help our worldwide international customers do business and to succeed in reaching new markets.

We organized the First Suez Canal Global Conference, last February, under the patronage of His Excellency President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Egyptian President. Here are some photos of the exhibition and the conference at the same time.

This is the Suez Canal parallel dredging waterway canal. It’s a megaproject that was concluded in one year, to increase the depth of the canal and to have a double, parallel waterway. It reduces the time of transport, for example, from Asia to Europe, and it reduces the cost as well. It can now accommodate the biggest vessels, thanks to its greater depth. These are some photos of the different container ships. That is the Suez Canal Economic Zone, or corridor.

The conference we organized, was to market the megaprojects in Egypt, for international investors who would like to engage in the megaprojects taking place. The megaprojects taking place are in different sectors, and as Mr. Hussein kindly mentioned, Egypt wants to leap to develop, we don’t want to crawl; so in parallel, there are megaprojects in transport, in industry, in agriculture and so on.

The Suez Canal Global Conference was followed by a Suez Canal tour, where the attendees could come and engage in debates, discussing the maritime field, and then go on a tour of the Suez Canal to see it in reality.

The function of our conferences was to foster discussions of a variety of issues affecting the Suez Canal and its development, clarify the opportunities for investment, the role of the megaprojects, and how it will serve to boost the traffic handled by the canal. The Conference aimed to help develop a Suez Canal Zone area, transforming it into a world-class global logistic hub and industrial processing center to serve the global market.

The importance and invention of the Suez Canal: The Suez Canal is considered to be shortest link between east and west, compared with the Cape of Good Hope. Due to its unique geographic locale, it’s an important international navigational canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea at Port Said and the Red Sea at Suez.

The distinctive location of the Suez Canal makes it of special significance to the world and to Egypt as well. This importance is augmented with the evolution of maritime transport and world trade. Maritime transport is the cheapest means of transport. More than 80% of the world trade volume via waterways, seaborne. The canal route achieves savings in distance between the ports north and south of the canal, and that is converted into other savings for the shipping industries. These savings are reflected in saving time and saving money. Fuel consumption and operations costs are markedly reduced for vessels that transit the Suez Canal. It’s the longest canal in the world without locks, having a high level of safety and security measures, compared to other, alternative routes. Transit navigation there goes on day and night.

The Suez Canal, as I mentioned, accommodates the biggest shipping fleets now. Creating a new canal parallel to the existing one, has maximized benefits from the present canal, and its bypass, doubling the longest possible parts of the waterway, facilitates traffic in the two directions, and minimizing the waiting time for transiting ships. This certainly reduces the time needed for the trip from one end of the canal to the other, and increase the numerical capacity of the waterway, In anticipation of the expected growth in world trade.

The project goes hand in hand with the Suez Canal area development project. The two projects will add to the importance of the Suez Canal and will make it the route of choice for shipowners the world over, putting any alternative routes out of competition—hopefully. The Suez Canal Area Development Project is now a preferential market, because of the bilateral and multilateral agreements that Egypt benefits from, with Africa, with the Middle East, with Europe, and with the U.S.A., through the case agreements, for example; and then extending the operation of this law to the Suez Canal region is an important step towards transforming the Suez Canal to a global trade hub and world trade gateway.

The New Silk Road is an enormous Chinese project, which has gone global. It is composed of land routes, known as the Silk Road Economic Belt, and sea routes known as the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, and both pass, actually, through the Suez Canal. It goes to Nairobi, Kenya and then afterwards to the Suez Canal. Together they make up the One Belt, One Road, creating a link among the three continents. Egypt has taken steps forwards towards the New Silk Road global vision: The New Silk Road will boost trade, productivity, investment, and cultural exchange, of course.

The 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road crosses the Indian Ocean, and then it goes through the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal Corridor Area Project is a megaproject in Egypt that has been launched by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The project’s aim is to increase the role of the Suez Canal region in international trading, and to develop the three canal cities located around it. The project involves building a new city, Ismailia, and fish farms, industrial zones, technology valleys, seven new tunnels—many, many, many megaprojects that Dr. Saad Elgioshy, former Egyptian transport minister mentioned before.

Building on that, the project will transform the canal cities into important trading centers globally. The purpose of this project is to make the region a global industrial center and a logistics services and maritime transport hub, making the Suez Canal a world trade gateway between east and west.

A number of key priorities are identified, including the Port Said port, which aims to develop all of the ports, logistics services, maritime activities and an industrial cluster on the eastern side of the canal. In addition, there are port expansion projects— expansion of Port Said West Port, Ras Sadr Port, and many other ports.

And then there’s Ismailia Technology Valley, establishing high-tech projects in the fields of electronics, communications, IT, biotechnology, medical components, and pharma-technology.

And then northwest of the Gulf of Suez, the project comprises a large industrial zone in close proximity to Ras Sadr Port covering 200 km, including industrial parks and many previously mentioned megaprojects.

Investment opportunities. And this is why I’m here: Egypt is has many opportunities for investment in different ways, with the government, or with the private sector. As previously mentioned by former Egyptian Minister Dr. Saad, Egypt is offering for the first time opportunities for development and investment in the long-term plan, to transform Egypt 2013 to a leading country in the region, a major global trading hub, and place it as a landmark on the global investment map as one of the most promising and attractive countries for investment in logistics and transport sectors. Many of its future multi-billion-dollar national projects rank it third in the Middle East and Africa region, in terms of the volume of investment availability. Egypt will also take offers for global and domestic investment in existing and prospective projects starting soon in various sectors within the medium-term plan until 2020, with investment exceeding 300 billion Egyptian pounds.

One of the most important topics of the conference was to discuss the investment opportunities in the New Silk Road, to enable Egypt to link between the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to create new opportunities for countries with development wishes. Egypt has taken steps forward towards a global vision and has already signed contracts with the Chinese government for cooperation on Egyptian railway projects, because the New Silk Road promotes trade, productivity, investment, and cultural exchange.

TEDA, which is the Chinese-Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone based in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, is a fine example of how the Chinese are engaged in Egypt, and is actually considered to be one of the best overseas economic and trade cooperation zones of China. It has established a good overseas development platform for Chinese enterprises, going global with the aim of creating an international capacity cooperation model of how the overseas economic and trade cooperation zones can be “win-win” situations.

Any manufacturer based in the Suez Canal Economic Zone has so many facilities and incentives to benefit from. For example now, Egypt is making many reforms, such as the new investment law, with “one-stop shop”— better licensing procedures, faster, you don’t have to go through government bureaucracy any more to get licensing. Also there is the floatation of the Egyptian currency, so now there’s no black market—there’s one currency rate. There are bilateral agreements and the multilateral agreements, as I mentioned before, and many industrial areas and free zones available.

There’s a lot of legislative reform and social reform going on as well in Egypt.

Now, I would like to talk about our upcoming events in the transport sector: for whoever is interested in participating and learning more about the megaprojects that are taking place there, and how Egypt is trying to connect the three continents. We are having one on April 16-17: It’s called the 2030 Megaprojects and it’s about means of transport in Egypt.

In tandem with the conference, there will be two exhibitions: Pharos, the International Exhibition of Maritime Transport Logistics and Shipping; and the Middle East and Africa Rail Show, the International Exhibition for Railway Systems Underground Metro and Mass Transportation. The conference and two exhibitions are being organized by our company. The conference with its two international exhibitions will be a very important event for investors, developers, professionals, and stakeholders as the Egyptian Ministry of Transport will present, for the first time, a comprehensive vision of its entire plan for megaprojects in inter-modal and multimodal transportation connecting Egypt locally and internationally, based on Egypt’s strategic location, linking Africa, Europe, and Asia, and the Middle East, of course, all in accordance with the strategy of sustainable development, the vision Egypt 2030.

The conference will be a global gathering for international experts from the east and west, with the support of many international organizations, associations, financial authorities, and government entities around the world.

Egypt now is trying to develop its rail system, as we said. Years of underdevelopment, and now, all of a sudden, there is a boost in all of the transport sectors. We’re trying to have an efficient railway system that connects Egypt internally, supported by good, proper service for truck fleets, and increasing river transport services, and development in all of the ports and the logistics centers. So Egypt will have a complete, new network, which is safe, reduces cost, and is efficient. That will enable Egypt to be able to connect internationally. Egypt-based manufacturers in the new industrial areas can actually reduce the cost of transfer and the time of products to the three different continents.

Egypt is trying to brand itself and position itself to be a world trade hub. The objective of Pharos is to emphasize the role of the private sector and investment in maritime transport and logistics, multimodal transport and logistics centers in the Arab region in Africa, and the role of dryland and river ports and logistics centers in supporting and developing the economy, elaborating the role and use of information technology, and infrastructure in the maritime transport sector, and intensifying the role of green ports and its impact on the environment.

Following Pharos, we will have the Middle East and Africa Exhibition for Infrastructure, underground roads, bridges, transportation. And in cooperation with the Schiller Institute, we will have the EWTH, Egypt World Trade Hub East and West Connectivity conference, proposed for July. That conference will focus on Egypt being a good and desirable place for world trade connectivity, and not only between East and West, but also between the northern and southern regions of Africa.

Egypt World Trade Hub is connecting east and west is proposed to take place in July. It will discuss development investment opportunities in Egypt’s infrastructure, railways, roads, underground bridges, tunnels in land transport, ports, logistics centers, maritime and shipping services, all transforming Egypt into a major world-class trade hub, and placing it on the map of one of the top potential investment countries in the logistics and transport sectors. Due to its strategic location, Egypt aims to connect the Middle East and Africa, Europe, and Asia, to become a prominent leader in the new era. The conference will discuss the Marshall Plan of intermodal and multimodal connectivity of Egypt to the three continents.

The Egypt World Trade Hub Conference will discuss ways of connecting and increasing global trade, examining latest trends in global trade with an outlook on alternative routes, and discussing the importance of Egypt’s strategic location that connects the three continents. Panel discussions will cover Egypt’s local and foreign investment opportunities in Egyptian industrial areas, free trade zones, and all of the Egyptian transport sectors that are witnessing major expansion and development, creating a wider vista of commerce for Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Inviting investors and developers to relocate to Egypt to benefit from the many incentives and facilities, Egypt is now offering and benefiting from the reduction in cargo transport costs and transfer time, by the parallel way dredging megaproject of the Suez Canal. Egypt is pursuing existing means that encourage export to east and west, and the whole region, acting as a great big hub for logistics and world trade.

China and Egypt agreed to cooperate on the New Silk Road and signed a five-year agreement to that end, calling for redoubled efforts to develop the ChinaEgypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone. Egypt has taken steps toward a global vision, and has already signed agreements and contracts with the Chinese government. [applause]

For more details, there are brochures at the table in the back of the conference hall and outside at the registration area for the 2030 Megaprojects and for the Egypt World Trade Hub conference.

Thank you very much.

The Need for Europe to Cooperate with China in the Industrialization of Africa

Mr. Mehreteab Mulugeta Haile is Consul General of Ethiopia in Frankfurt. This is an edited transcript of his address to the International Schiller Institute conference on “Fulfilling the Dream of Mankind,” Nov. 25-26, 2017, in Bad Soden/ Taunus, Germany. Subtitles have been added.

Transcript

Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President and Founder of the Schiller Institute, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, at the outset, allow me to thank and express my appreciation to the Schiller Institute for organizing conferences that help shed light on current political and economic developments in the world. I feel honored and I am thankful to be invited and to make a speech at this august gathering.

Today, I will talk about Ethiopia’s rapid economic development and its involvement in regional cooperation, and contributions made by Europe and China to enhance these developments.

Ethiopia is one of the largest Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of about 100 million people. After suffering economic stagnation for decades, its economy began to grow in the mid-1990s after a new administration led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took the helm of government.

For the last 15 years, Ethiopia has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with an average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of about 11% per annum. To continue with this rapid economic growth, the Ethiopian Government rolled out, in 2010, an ambitious five-year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) that aims to attain a lower-middle-income status by 2025. Currently the country is implementing the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II), which is built on Sectoral Policies, Strategies & Program and Lessons drawn from the implementation of the first GTP and the post-2015 “sustainable development goals” (SDGs). It has also taken into account global and regional economic situations having direct or indirect bearing on the Ethiopian economy.

GTP II aims, for the coming 8 to 10 years, to continue achieving an annual average real GDP growth rate of 11% within a stable macroeconomic environment, while at the same time pursuing aggressive measures towards rapid industrialization and structural transformation. To this end, concerted and coordinated effort will be made so that equitable economic growth translates into creating job opportunities accompanied by significant poverty reduction. Agriculture will be maintained as a major source of growth, while the development of industries by accelerating industrial development will be supplemented with the promotion of the service sector, so as to enhance growth. To this effect, coordinated and strong forward and backward production linkages will be strengthened. Private sector investment will be promoted through providing the necessary incentives and support, to enhance private sector participation in allowed investment areas.

Expansion of infrastructure development—such as road, railway, dry port, air transport, energy, telecommunications, water, and irrigation schemes—will have special consideration in GTP II.

Industry and Infrastructure Development

During GTP II, industrial development and structural transformation is expected to bring significant growth of the manufacturing industry, so that it plays the leading role in the overall economic development of the country. Implementation strategies mainly focus on implementation of projects and programs which are geared towards attracting quality investment, enhancing production and productivity, boosting export shares, accelerating technological learning, and strengthening the linkage among industries. To this end, establishing 12 industrial parks and clusters has been undertaken in the country, with 7 million square meters of land made available for investors engaged in manufacturing and related sectors. Four agro-industrial parks will also be established which will be linked with millions of smallholder farmers supplying input. Regional administrative areas, cities and towns will get the necessary support to develop standardized industrial clusters and parks for those investors promoting small to medium-size industries, and hence generate employment opportunities.

Expanding the manufacturing sector will focus on identifying new investment areas such as biotechnology, petrochemicals, electricity and electronics, information and communication technologies (hardware and software production industries).

In the infrastructure sector, the overall strategic direction is to ensure the creation of infrastructure that supports rapid economic growth and structural transformation. This direction will create mass employment opportunities, an institution having strong implementation capacity, ensure public participation and benefit, construct decentralized infrastructure development systems, solve financial constraints, ensure fairness and profitability, and ensure integrated planning and administration of infrastructure development.

Within infrastructure overall, rural roads are given high focus—to help reduce poverty by facilitating easy access of agricultural products, at low transportation cost, to the market, improving access to basic socioeconomic services, and strengthening rural-urban linkages.

Thus, the major strategic directions of the road development sector during GTP II will be ensuring the existence and sustainability of road infrastructure network with quality and safety, as well as to improve the provision of road infrastructure, by expanding the road network both in terms of quantity and quality, to sustain and ensure current and future economic growth.

The other area that has been given major emphasis is the energy sector. The main objective of the sector during GTP II is increasing national energy generation, transmission, and distribution capacity to fully satisfy domestic energy demand with production surplus ready for the export market. Implementation strategies are set, to increase electric power generating capacity through initiatives in hydro power, wind power, geothermal power, and solar power.

The other major project in the area of infrastructure building is railway development. The major strategic direction of railways infrastructure development during GTP II is to continue the network expansion started under GTP I, build capacity by establishing a modern railway industry academy, and make it operational; develop various railway industry standards; ensure that railway transport services are in accordance with standards, and conduct problem solving research on railway infrastructure building, operations, and service provision.

The objectives of the construction industry during the GTP II period are to build the capacity of the industry in a sustainable way, ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of construction procurement and contract management, develop internationally competent contractors and design & construction consultants, and improve the availability of construction raw materials and machinery for those engaged in construction and housing development programs.

Regional and International Development

We in Ethiopia believe that economic development in a secluded situation cannot be sustainable and attainable. To this end, Ethiopia, through the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), is increasingly collaborating with its neighbors—notably Kenya, Sudan, Djibouti, Sudan, and South Sudan—in the areas of trade, tourism, industry, infrastructure development, and energy, among others. The Ethiopian private sector is increasingly encouraged to invest in those countries and all these countries are thus enhancing their economic cooperation. We in Ethiopia are striving to bring regional economic integration to create a larger regional market for trade and investment and make use of the advantages of efficiency, productivity gains, and competitiveness. In recent years the Ethiopian government has taken steps to enhance non-trade aspects of economic cooperation, which could strengthen economic ties among the countries in the region.

IGAD’s focus on regional economic cooperation and integration is to create an open, unified, regional economic space for the business community—a single market open to competitive entry and well integrated into the continental and global economies. This focus requires both regional infrastructure as well as the gradual harmonization of policies for the removal of barriers to inter-state communications.

The European Union and other development partners are actively supporting and participating in economic development activities in Ethiopia. Through its development cooperation, the EU stands by Ethiopia in addressing its key challenges, such as food insecurity, rapidly growing population, environmental pressures exacerbated by climate change, low industrial output, and a range of governance issues. In recent years, the EU+ group disbursed annually around 1 billion euros in official development assistance (ODA), equivalent to roughly a quarter of the total external aid to Ethiopia, and it may reach up to 10% of the country’s annual federal budget in certain years. In this context, joint programming is not only about aid effectiveness, but most importantly, has a strong political dimension and is one of the instruments in support of the implementation of the wider EU-Ethiopia strategic engagement. The European Union supports the efforts of Ethiopia to eradicate poverty, and to foster inclusive and sustainable economic, social, and environmental development while promoting human rights, democracy, and other elements of good governance.

For the last three years, much focus has been given to the issue of migration and its management by European countries. Ethiopia is a key partner in the stability and management of migratory flows in the region, due to its role in hosting large numbers of refugees from neighboring countries, its proactive policy of fighting traffickers and smugglers, and the interest of Ethiopians in migrating to neighboring countries and regions in search of work. Ethiopia is one of the five priority countries identified in the Communication on Establishing a New Partnership Framework with Third Countries under the European Agenda on Migration. Through the EU Trust Fund for Africa, EU actions address the root causes of irregular migration in the most migrant-prone regions of the country, promoting economic and employment opportunities, particularly for vulnerable people, through vocational training, access to micro-finance, or by creating industrial parks. Actions also aim to strengthen resilience and combat the drivers of instability, to improve long-term development and protection needs of refugees and their host communities, and to better manage migration at regional level.

When we look at the role Germany is playing in the relationship of African countries with EU countries, in general, and Ethiopia in particular, we find that Germany has made cooperation with Africa a core element of its G-20 Presidency. The German government advocates for a G-20 Africa Partnership and has put in place the G-20 Compact with Africa, which aims to promote private investment, sustainable infrastructure, and job creation in African countries. Germany’s Minister of Finance describes the Compact with Africa as a “long-term, demand-driven process” in which “African countries will determine what they want to do to improve conditions for private investment, with whom they want to cooperate, and in what form.”

China and Africa

Last year, during its G-20 Presidency, China made Africa a prominent part of the G-20 agenda, with an unprecedented number of African leaders participating in the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou and with commitments to support industrialization and the proliferation of renewable energy in African countries.

According to data from China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the stock of Chinese direct investment in Africa was $32 billion at the end of 2014. Of course, direct investment is not the only form of foreign financing. The Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank have made large loans in Africa, mostly to fund infrastructure projects. In recent years, China has provided about one-sixth of the external infrastructure financing for Africa. In short, Chinese financing is substantial enough to contribute meaningfully to African investment and growth. However, the notion that China has provided an overwhelming amount of finance and is buying up the whole continent is inaccurate.

If we take my country, Ethiopia, as an example of Chinese cooperation and involvement in Africa, we find that what has been said above is false. According to the Ethiopian Investment Commission, Chinese companies, with close to 379 projects that were either operational or under implementation in the 2012-2017 period, are on top of Ethiopia’s investment landscape, both in number and financial capital. Among these companies, 279 were operational with projects that are worth over 13.16 billion Ethiopian birr (over 572 million U.S. dollars) during the reported period, while the remaining 100 are under implementation.

In terms of employment creation, Chinese companies have created more than 28,300 jobs in various sectors in Ethiopia during the reported period, of which over 19,000 were created in Ethiopia’s manufacturing, as it is the leading sector in attracting companies from China. China brings not only investment, knowhow, and transfer of technology, but also skills and entrepreneurship.

At this point, I would like to mention the initiative taken by His Excellency President Xi Jinping in 2013, the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) Initiative. This is President Xi’s “project of the century.” It is based on the legendary Silk Road, which connected Europe and China for one and a half millennia. The aim of China’s OBOR project is to open up and expand old Silk Road trade routes through Central Asia and on to Europe, as well as Southeast Asian maritime links through the Strait of Malacca and around India to the Middle East. Xi’s ambitious goals do sound inspiring indeed: “We should build the Belt and Road into a road of peace . .. of prosperity … of opening up .. . of innovation . .. connecting civilizations,” he said. The total trade between China and other Belt and Road countries has exceeded $3 trillion. China’s investment has surpassed $50 billion. Chinese companies have created almost 200,000 jobs and over $1 billion of tax revenue. China is generating mutual benefits by creating jobs and supporting the domestic economy of those countries in which it is investing.

The Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief stated this month (paraphrase):

OBOR will bring a greater effect on local and regional integration along the way, especially for Ethiopia and other countries in the region. The Maritime Silk Road will have a significant impact both because of economic integration on a local level, and by forging connections between East Africa and neighboring regions. It also connects regional centers to each other. OBOR could partly ease a problem that has bedeviled African development since the end of the colonial era. It also has the potential to facilitate trade and shared manufacturing between different East African economies. In this sense, the OBOR initiative has the potential to achieve a certain amount of regional integration—a long-held ideal of African development. OBOR presents an intriguing perspective on the sometimes highly unequal nature of south-south cooperation, and raises questions about the nature of African agency in the 21st Century.

German-Chinese-African Development

It is estimated that Africa needs to create about 20 million jobs per year to employ its expanding workforce. Africa’s demographics present both an opportunity and a challenge to the rest of the world. It is unrealistic to expect Europe or China to tackle the problems of African countries alone and bring a change overnight. Nor would it be reasonable to expect large volumes of Chinese or European manufacturing to move to the continent in the near future. Therefore, it is useful to have a long-term vision of economic relationship that very much centers on the utilization of natural resources of Africa and the shift over time to a greater focus on human resources development by creating jobs. To this end, trilateral cooperation would provide an ideal opportunity for Germany and China, as the current and previous G-20 Presidencies, to jointly demonstrate their commitments under the G-20 to increase support for African countries. This form of cooperation complements and brings together the traditional NorthSouth and South-South cooperation models. In line with the Compact with Africa, such cooperation needs to be guided by the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and African countries’ national development plans in order to be successful.

The launch of the Sino-German Center for Sustainable Development in Beijing in May is a promising step in this direction, as the center plans to support sustainable infrastructure development in African countries. This can, indeed, be an area in which African countries can benefit from joint cooperation between Germany and China. China has a comparative advantage in the provision of cost-effective infrastructure development, while the sustainability of such projects can be ensured by making use of Germany’s expertise in project management, social and environmental impact assessments, and quality assurance.

Germany and China should also foster trilateral cooperation with African countries on industrialization and renewable energy. The joint establishment of special economic zones (SEZs) in African countries would be a good starting point. SEZs were a key component of China’s economic development and are also starting to play an important role for industrialization in African countries such as Ethiopia. A trilateral SEZ project should utilize China’s profound experience in financing, developing, and managing SEZs, while Germany would contribute its expertise in preparing and delivering tailored technical vocational education and training programs for different sectors. Germany’s understanding of social and environmental standards and its international marketing insights would also help ensure that SEZs are attractive for investors and suitable for global supply chains.

There is also a huge potential for effective trilateral cooperation between Germany, China, and African countries on the proliferation of renewable energy in Africa. The African Union’s recently launched Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) provides a possible entry point, as both China and Germany have individually pledged their support for the initiative. Both countries are global leaders in renewable energy policy and technology, and have considerable experience working with African countries bilaterally in these areas. A trilateral project should focus on a so far overlooked, but crucial component in the establishment of the Africa Renewable Energy Institute, namely, to serve as the initiative’s backbone for research and training. Germany and China could build on the experiences from the establishment and operation of similar institutes in China, such as the China-EU Institute for Clean and Renewable Energy, and engage these institutes and their networks to build new partnerships.

Thank you.

Italy-China Alliance for Transaqua

This is an edited transcript of a presentation by Franco Persio Bocchetto describing the Transaqua project to the Nov. 25-26 Schiller Institute Conference.

Transcript

Good afternoon to everybody, and to Ladies and Gentleman. I’m very glad to be here at this very interesting conference. I was really amazed listening this morning, especially to the speeches of Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and the one of the enthusiastic Professor He Wenping. And also I was interested in hearing the speech of Professor Askary, who introduced the Transaqua project that I would like to show and present here.

The Transaqua Project

The Transaqua project is perfectly in line with the vision of this conference, which is “To Fulfill the Dream of Mankind.” Transaqua, as maybe you know, was conceived more or less about 30 years ago, by our firm Bonifica. Perhaps at that time, it was too innovative; maybe in that time nobody was really interested in developing Africa. But nowadays conditions are really different and maybe this is the time to revive the project: Maybe we can call it “Transaqua 2.0” in order to start the development of this great dream for Africa.

Maybe most people think Transaqua is only a problem of transferring water from the Congo Basin to Lake Chad, but this is not the vision of Transaqua. First of all, everything starts from the problems that are related to Lake Chad. We are going to show you the actual situation of Lake Chad.

Lake Chad was one of the largest endorheic lakes in the world, and maybe the largest in Africa. The lake is situated in the Sahel region, at the crossing of the borders of four countries: Niger, Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The total catchment area of Lake Chad is very huge: 2,434,000 sq km. Eight countries, including Algeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan are using the water resources from Lake Chad. The main inflows of Lake Chad are from the Chari River, and Chari and Longone River, and the main outflows are evaporation and infiltration. For this reason, it’s an endorheic lake, because it does not drain to the sea.

The Chari River and Longone River flow from south to north, and this is the actual Lake Chad. The lake basin has a very unstable equilibrium as there is no surplus water flowing to the sea. The only outflows are infiltration and evaporation. If water is used upstream, the lake cannot but shrink.

Lake Chad always had great oscillations, due to natural climatic fluctuations. Now, especially in this period of climate change, we must follow very closely what will be the future of Lake Chad. Lake Chad is suffering from the increase in population and subsequent water consumption, mainly for irrigation, and in addition, the decrease of rainfall. Lake Chad’s surface in 1973 was more or less 25,000 sq. km. As you see, in 2015, it decreased to 2,500 sq. km, while the population within the basin has grown from 8 million to 30 million people, more or less.

As a consequence of this drought and drying up of the lake, agriculture development increases pollution, ecological destruction, and extinction of rare species. The economy of the surrounding countries and region is severely threatened by reduction of the lake’s surface levels and volumes. Average food production and household purchasing power have been continuously reduced since the 1980s. Humanitarian, ecological, and economic crises are developing rapidly as the volume and surface of Lake Chad are drastically reduced at an alarming and accelerated pace.

Also, it’s important to show the evidence that in this region, the consequences of this are also all the problems related to Boko Haram, which is really active in this region due to the poverty of this region.

How to mitigate the Lake Chad drought: Well, thinking of the problems of Lake Chad, we have to think about the future. And the future in 30 to 50 years will be very, very dramatic for Africa in a certain way. As you see, it is forecast that real growth of the population, between today and the year 2200, will grow by 400%. So the problem is, what will happen when, within 30-40 years you will have the doubling of the population in Africa, and also in those Sahel regions.

We heard today in the earlier speeches, about the New Deal and the optimistic vision of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and we really hope that, due to the positive strength of China, they will really succeed in helping the world help to develop, and that these regions will have help from the Chinese for development. There are a lot of projects that are going on as Mr. Askary has showed us in the context for all of Africa. But, it is important, also to set up and improve the Transaqua project in Central Africa, in the middle of Africa, the part which is poorest and where the desert is continuing to make inroads.

The consequence of not doing this is a huge migration into the rich countries, and of course, Italy and Europe are suffering from these consequences. Most of the people come from the Sahel region, so I think that Europe has to help to improve the Transaqua project, in order to develop all these countries, and bring food, agriculture, and fisheries as a way to eliminate poverty in this region.

Over the years, the Lake Chad Basin Commission, created by the states around Lake Chad has really done great work in facing up to the shrinking of the lake, and for the realization of numerous national and transnational projects, to optimize the use of water resources and mitigate possible disputes between the states.

What to do next? What will the next challenges be for the Lake Chad Basin Commission? First of all, in the medium term, there are projects that are going on to mitigate the Lake Chad drought, of course, projects that tend to sustain the existence of people, improve the efficiency of water use, through new research, innovative organization, based on the use of smart technologies to improve the efficiency of system coordination and control. First of all, a very big monitoring system should be set up in order to control the consequences of climate change, control all the problems related to agricultural use, and control the consequences of national and transnational projects that are being done in this region.

We can be very optimistic, but due to the growth of the population, the long-term measures cannot be other than to think how to transfer large volumes of water from the Congo River Basin to Lake Chad.

Well, water transfer to drying up endorheic lakes is not merely a “nature conservation measure.” Environment and wildlife deserve to be protected—human beings, too. A drying endorheic lake is proof that the water resources in its catchment area are overexploited with respect to incoming run-off. Transfering water from adjacent river basins that have surplus water flowing into the sea, is a way of increasing water availability, especially for agriculture, in the context of the increasing population and declining rainfall, and to restore wildlife.

When water is in short supply in a given place, either you bring it there, or people will migrate elsewhere.

Near Lake Chad, there is an immense, scarcely populated river basin, which discharges into the Atlantic Ocean an average of 40,000 cubic meters/second—the equivalent to 1,250 billion m3 /year. That discharge is 200 times the discharge of the Main River [in Germany], or 14 times that of the Rhine at its mouth. How much of this volume could be possibly and safely diverted into Lake Chad has yet to be studied.

Can we think of a “win-win” project, where all countries involved have their advantages, which is perhaps, one of the basic conditions for developing this project?

Bringing water from the Congo River Basin to the thirsty Chad region and increasing irrigated agriculture, restoring the lake, producing hydropower and improving inter-African transport and commerce, is the vision of this Transaqua Project.

A canal would have to intercept part of the discharge of the right-hand tributaries of the Congo River, and convey them across the watershed between the Congo Basin and the Chari Basin. The diverted flow would reach Lake Chad through one of the Chari tributaries, properly reshaped. A very preliminary estimate gives an amount up to 100 billion m3 /year could be diverted. That this less than 8% of the Congo discharge, ensuring thus the restoration of Lake Chad and irrigation of up to 3 million hectares.

In its fall toward Chad, the diverted flow could be used for hydropower production. Along the canal, a road should be built which would become the backbone of inter-African land transport. The hypothesis that the canal could also be suitable for navigation has been made. Those ideas stemming from the early 1920s, have been studied by Bonifica, and are presently being considered by the Lake Chad Basin Commission as a possible project for the future.

The idea of Bonifica is to transfer about 100 million cubic meters of water per year from the Congo River Basin to the Lake Chad and Sahel district. This is the Congo Basin as you can see in red, which is the alignment more or less of the canal. You cross the watershed and you go into the water catchment area of the River Chari.

What is important to note is that the Transaqua formula is not simply to replenish Lake Chad, but to give access to drinking water, revive agricultural activity, irrigation, fish farming, a navigable waterway, trade, transport, regulate flows, produce electric power, river ports, commerce, and road connections—thus creating an economic development system along the Transaqua waterway.

With the regeneration of Lake Chad’s natural resources, we can show the shape of the lake in 2087. Characteristic of this project is that navigable infrastructure systems can be realized through modules. We don’t need to realize the whole project at the same time, so we start from the part which is most near to the watershed, and the development of the first 500 km of the canal.

The Transaqua water project is a combination of situations. In order to produce hydropower, we will construct small dams along the tributaries of the river, in order to catch some part of the water for the Transaqua canal. By connecting different lakes with canals, we can realize a waterway which will have a maximum extent of up to 2,400 km, reaching Lake Tanganyika on the east side of Africa.

Road connection: As you can see, the Transaqua corridor intersects the Lagos-Mombasa Road, which is one of the principal roads that was shown by Professor Askary in his speech. And as you can see, in the Mombasa-Nairobi link, it is one of the hubs of the One Belt, One Road project.

It is very interesting to think that this Transaqua Project can become one of the projects that can be developed within the One Belt, One Road project.

Some final considerations: Having for years pursued a dream, now is the time to take action. From this point of view, what is interesting and new is the fact that the Chinese have begun to get interested in the project. Last year, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Lake Chad Basin Commission, and ChinaPower, which is one of the big infrastructure companies of China. The scope of the MOU was to start the feasibility study of the water transfer project, by trying to construct one of the first elements of the project, which is the CIMA Project. I don’t have time now to explain this CIMA project, but it is certainly one of the modules of Transaqua, although it is only part of it, because the CIMA project, developed by the Canadian CIMA company, is a project to pump water from the Ubangi River over the watershed into the Chari River, which is a different vision from Transaqua, which is to construct a corridor crossing Africa, and bringing development to all the regions that are crossed by the project.

It is important at this point to show that Bonifica, in the context of the signing of this MOU, decided to go to China and to speak to ChinaPower, in order to offer the collaboration of Europeans, of Italians, to jointly develop the feasibility study. We found a great interest from the Chinese, so we signed an MOU and now we are taking action in order to jointly develop this feasibility project together with the Chinese. This may be the first break in the construction of this important infrastructure in the center of Africa.

Thank you. [applause]

Integration of Egypt’s Transportation Plan 2030 with the New Silk Road Project

This is an edited transcript of a presentation by Dr. Saad Mohammed Mahmoud Elgioshy, former Transport Minister, Egypt, on Nov. 25, 2017, in Bad Soden/Taunus, Germany. Subtitles have been added. Good Morning! I am Saad Eligioshy, a Ph.D. Doctor, a specialist in transportation, airports, and roads. I am the former Minister of Transport in Egypt (2015-16).

Transcript 

I’d like to thank Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her nice invitation.Also I’ll thank the organizer of this conference, the Schiller Institute, which really touches on some of the benefits for Egypt. The lecture I heard from you today was very interesting.

In my presentation I will speak about Egypt, a very old country—7,000 years—and how it will interact with the New Silk Road. You heard, before me, a very nice presentation by Prof. He Wenping, about the New Silk Road, how it will work in Africa. As I said, I represent one country in the north of Africa. I will speak about how we can interact with the New Silk Road.

I will focus on the integration of Egypt’s transportation development plans. I’ll discuss the transportation issue, which is an infrastructure issue, which affects the development of any country. So, transportation development plans and the New Silk Road Project.

In a very brief introduction, I’ll discuss the current transportation system in Egypt: its existing hierarchy, challenges, and opportunities, and how we can interact.

Then I’ll discuss the Egyptian Transportation Development Plan 2030—how an African country thinks about development; and also speak about the New Silk Road Development Corridor close to Egypt, Africa, the Middle East, and how we can integrate with this giant project, especially in the transportation sector, in Egypt.

The transportation sector in Egypt serves an area of 1 million km² and a population of 100 million by the end of this year.

Egypt has a road network consisting of about 30,000 km of rural highways, and 60,000 km of urban roadways, with about 1,800 bridges. We have a network of three subways lines in the capital, with a total length of 100 km, and are building another three lines.

Maritime transport. Realize Egypt is a coastal country situated between two main seas, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. We have 15 commercial sea ports.

I am speaking, just for a moment, about land water. We have about 3,000 km of land water river ways, with more than 43 land ports in Egypt.

Speaking briefly about the Egyptian Transportation Plan 2030 and its main features: Our vision is to increase the capability of the transportation sector to fund its plan to achieve its goals; to obtain a greater share in the volume of international and regional transportation; and to maximize and optimize the use of science and technology, and research and techniques in management.

We’re supposed to provide high quality transportation for persons and goods, securely and safely, at the lowest cost, while supporting national social economic development. Also we’re supposed to secure national security requirements.

We have big challenges to overcome to accomplish all this: An ascending increase in population with an annual growth equal to 1.85%; defects in the transportation service, which do not match and are inappropriate for the people; the mutual increase in freight from 1.51- 2.32 million tons; the increasing annual growth in land transport which affects the road network; the absence of private sector—and this is a very important point—partnership in infrastructure projects; the absence of a multi-modal transport system; the lack of technology applications and logistical services; and the lack of trained and skilled labor.We have an increasing number of transportation accidents, due to these factors.

We have a very old railway system. It is the second oldest in the world, after the United Kingdom. It was built in the 18th Century, with an extent of about 9600 km, and it serves about 540,000 pax [secure electronic payment terminal], with about 1,100 daily trips. I am speaking here about facilities and capabilities. You see the numbers: 750 stations, 3,100 passenger coaches, 11,000 freight cars, 808 locomotives, so and so.

If you go to the land water sector, [it’s] the same, as I mentioned before. We have 3,500 km of river lines, 43 active ports, and 15 controlling gates. We have seven dry land ports and seven logistic areas.

Looking at all of this, which I skimmed over quickly, I am speaking about opportunities. Does Egypt have opportunities in the transportation sector for the whole world to come and invest with us? Yes, we have! We have a lot! We have a lot of opportunities in Egypt for roads and bridges. We have already have about 8,500 km of new construction underway, as well as upgrading of existing roads. We have new construction of additional main arterial accesses over the Nile River, including twelve new bridges. I’m speaking about the 2030 Plan. And also construction of twelve bridges in the national road network, for a total of 21 new bridges, over the next 12 years.

The railway sector is also full of opportunities. A lot of companies from all over the world are asking to bid on these projects over the next 12 years. I’m speaking about supplying 600 passenger coaches (2nd class air-conditioned); 110 power unit coaches; upgrading and modernizing 300 locomotives; supplying 50 new locomotives (3,000 hp), supplying six complete trains, upgrading 2,700 cargo coaches, and supplying 1,530 new cargo coaches. You can read with me. Most of these investment opportunities are virgin, and need some kind of sharing by investors from all over the world: upgrading three main workshops (locomotive overall, locomotive renovation and maintenance); supplying two complete sets for railway maintenance; supplying four machines for railway compaction; upgrading and modernization of safety and control systems, including completion of 3,000 km of an electric signaling system, equipping 600 locomotives with ETCS-L (the European Train Control System—a central signaling and control component for the all-electric signaling system); construction of 500 km of new lines and upgrading 750 km of existing lines; construction of 1,200 km of high-speed service; and construction of nine cargo stations.

Then there’s also upgrading of the railway system itself. Upgrading the signaling system of cargo railways—many projects.

The land water sector is full of opportunities too. I am speaking about upgrading two navigation roads, CairoAswan (1,200 km) and CairoDamietta (200 km), and the construction of five new land water ports and upgrading four existing ones. I’m speaking about upgrading six dry ports and construction three new ones. I am speaking about more than 50 billion Egyptian pounds.

As for tunnels and metro (subway) service, we already have three main subway lines (Cairo Metro), each of them 40-50 km in our capital city. We’re looking to upgrade all of them. We want to upgrade the tram lines in Alexandria and in Cairo, and construct three new lines for Cairo. We have had many offers, starting from last year, to study the plans and to partner with us for these projects.

The maritime sector is a big sector, and full of investment opportunities. I am speaking here about the ports of Suez and Ras adabia in the north of Egypt, and the ports of Sfaga and Sharm El shikh in the south. All these ports have very nice opportunities to build cruise and container ship terminals.

That is what we have in Egypt.

Now, I would like for you to concentrate with me on the next part of my presentation, about what the New Silk Road brings to Egypt.To easily reach to the interaction between the two points, we can see that the New Silk Road, from its concept—and my colleagues will speak more about it—offers the possibility to overcome geopolitics once and for all. The Belt and Road Initiative, as my colleague mentioned, is based on the “win-win” concept.

I’d like to concentrate on the phrase “win-win concept,” because I’ll use it again. Cooperation among all nations of the world. All the individual nations should pursue the development of their own national transport networks, but adjust them to adapt to the continental networks, to benefit from them, to contribute to their quick implementation and development, and to avoid duplication of efforts. That’s also very important.

The New Silk Road has a new financial system, composed of three main entities: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank, the New Silk Road Fund, and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement. All that is exclusively designed to fund investment in the real economy, with the goal to awaken justified optimism, in particular in developing countries, to defeat poverty and underdevelopment in the near future, as mentioned before.

We have now reached the goal of this lecture: how the New Silk Road Project is touching Egypt in the transportation sector.

As planned, there will be a 56,500 km Trans-African Highway (TAH), the main routes being Cairo, Egypt to Dakar, Senegal (8,600 km); and Cairo, Egypt to Cape Town, South Africa (10,200 km). Now, that’s a highway!

As for rail, we find there are two giant lines. One of them is the African Integrated High-Speed Rail Network (AIHSRN), which will connect all the capitals of Africa together with a high-speed railway network (HSR). There is a plan to form a group for “Sino-Africa cooperation in railway and high-speed railway.” Financial institutions, railway construction companies, and railway operation management companies can work on that.

Inland water very important. As I mentioned,Egypt’s population today of over 100 million lives on a narrow strip of land on the banks of the Nile River and Delta, about 5% of the land. More than 95% of the land is vacant.Africa Pass will open the desert in the west of the country for development and habitation. We hope so. The project will also revolutionize the economies of the North African sub-Saharan nations.

For the Congo River Basin there is the Africa Pass program. I think it will be a good project. Flowing from the tributaries of the Congo River, Africa Pass envisions a 3,800 km long canal, paralleling the Nile to the east, reaching to the Qattara Depression in northwestern Egypt, opening millions of acres of land to be cultivated. This area will become a breadbasket, not only for the rest of Egypt, but also for other countries.

Construction of the Jonglei Canal would be a good sign for cooperation and for doing something for the connectivity of inland water between the South and North.

Integration between the Egyptian Transportation Development Plan 2030 and the New Silk Road Project, from my point of view, could consist of Egypt completing its National Road Network (MINTS 2010), now in Phase 3 of construction, which will add 5,000 km, and integration with the New Silk Road Project’s planned routes, which I mentioned earlier: Cairo-Dakar (8,600 km) and Cairo-Cape Town (10,200 km). If we did that, it would be a good job! Egypt is right now implementing a lot of upgrades to its National Road Network, mainly the Cairo-Aswan road, and the Cairo-Alexandria road. The NRN could be integrated with the AIHSRN and with the “Sino-Africa” program.

We are looking at Egypt’s upgrading of its main land water route Alexandria-Aswan, and working with the Nile Basin countries which are currently studying a route to connect Lake Victoria with the Mediterranean, to integrate that and the Congo Pass program and the Jonglei Canal (both mentioned earlier) with the New Silk Road. Egypt looks favorably upon all these projects.

I’d like to say something very important. We in Egypt from 1952 experienced many kinds of cooperation for development of our country. We can’t forget history. If you forget history, you will do nothing. We started in 1952 with many disciplines. We went to the communists in the Soviet Union; then we went to America—capitalism. We went to many, many countries seeking their help in development. Finally we went into the Arab Spring. What happened? We didn’t accomplish anything; we didn’t get anything, because, as my friend said, “Their feet don’t match our shoes.” All the time.

Egypt, as I said at the beginning, is a very old country. It has its own culture, its own understandings. The problem is how to match any country, any model, any development model with our culture. That is the problem; that is the real problem. That is the real challenge.

If this prestigious institute desires to propose development plans to Egypt, I suggest you plan a workshop in Cairo to allocate interaction areas, present the possibilities of interaction, and discuss how to enable such interaction. Don’t expect us to interact in all areas; we are supposed to interact with our plan. Remember, Egypt already has a plan. If China with their giant New Silk Road Project comes to Egypt, they must first study our plan, and then determine the areas in which they can locate their cooperation with the countries of Africa, before they can be accepted and not considered a new colonial power coming to Africa. The people are afraid of that, as she said. That is a very important point. We can avoid that through workshops in Cairo, Senegal, Nigeria—all the countries which lie in the route of the New Silk Road.

Exchanging plans between the New Silk Road Project stakeholders and the Egyptian Ministry of Transport, for example—I’m speaking about transportation infrastructure—is very important. When I was Minister of Transport, I was visited many times from representatives of China. We had many discussions. But nobody asked me about our plans. Nobody asked me about our plans for development of transportation in Egypt and how their plans could be integrated with ours. They asked all the time about individual projects, and these projects never fit in our shoes, as did our feet.

I’d like my colleagues and my friends in China to understand this point, and to exchange plans between the New Silk Road plan and the Egyptian plans. After that we can analyze the methodology of plan integration—how we can interact with each other, how we can work with each other to discover the methodological basis for such cooperation. This is very important.After that, we can easily implement recommendations for cooperative construction.

Again, the New Silk Road plan is a very giant plan. It is a very smooth and very friendly plan. We need to cooperate with the whole world—with China, with Europe, with America, with any country which matches our plans, which matches our dream. Egypt has a mankind dream, and needs to fulfill it by its culture and by its way. Thanks a lot!

Thank you very much! [applause]

The Belt and Road: China Shares Its Development with Africa and the World

Prof. He Wenping is the Director of African Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. This is an edited transcript of her address to the International Schiller Institute conference on “Fulfilling the Dream of Mankind,” Nov. 25, 2017, in Bad Soden/Taunus, Germany, which she presented under the title, “President Xi’s Perspective for the Year 2050 and the Perspective of African Development.” Subtitles have been added.

Transcript

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is a great honor for me to be here, to join in this wonderful conference. Thank you very much, Mme. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, President and founder of the Schiller Institute, for inviting me here. I am very impressed, first of all, by this opening music, the lovely song called “The Jasmine Flower.” Actually, when I hear the beautiful song, I have a kind of motivation to jump on stage, to sing together with this beautiful song. [applause]

This song I know is very famous in the Western society, seemingly like one of the Chinese dishes that is called Gong Bao Ji Ding, which I hear is also very famous in European countries, and especially in Germany. I think several years ago, when I spent my visiting fellowship in the German Development Institute, I had a very good friend—she’s a German—she invited me to her apartment to cook this Gong Bao Ji Ding. And she followed all the procedures, how to begin doing it from the first step, second step, so it’s amazing. Even me, I couldn’t do that Gong Bao Ji Ding from the beginning to the end. So, we tasted that delicious dish together.

So, like founder and President Helga said, now in China, the Chinese people eat very well, but not so healthy! We have to learn how to diet now! Before, during Mao’stime, we had a shortage economy, and when Deng Xiaopingmade reforms and thisreform, the “Opening Up,” and now the Chinese can feed themselves. But, now they’re learning how to eat healthily, how to do the diet. So, I want to speak over my dinner, and also do a diet in order to keep a good figure.

Today I think it’s a wonderful conference theme, called “Fulfilling the Dream of Mankind.” I have the honor of talking about President Xi Jinping’s perspective for the year 2050, and the perspective of African development. I have been told I have 20 minutes—I hope I can finish all my slides in 20 minutes.

First, the point in China is the roadmap and this development goal of 2050; 2050 is not too much further away, it’s just quickly, every year passes so quickly, so very soon we will reach 2050. His perspective, first, is in China, how to resolve the challenges we’re facing at home.

And then, in the world there is the peaceful diplomacy, also called One Belt, One Road. So, One Belt, One Road is something linking China and all of the world: It’s like our Confucian philosophers, and also like the Germans, with lots of famous philosophers coming from here, Schiller and so many! Those philosophers’ thinking also needs to be connected together.

And then, inAfrica:Africa is a wonderful continent, I think, unfortunately now still left behind. So from China and from the world, how should we work together to help the people in that continent? That’s the main point.

Two Pictures of China

First, in China, the roadmap development goal— you all know on Oct. 18 in Beijing we had the 19th Party Congress, and all those very important documents will be released from the Party Congress. During the Party Congress, President XiJinping spelled out a longterm roadmap for the Chinese people, and the goal is to establish a moderately prosperous society, which we call the Xiaokang society. Xiaokang is a Mandarin Chinese word which means now moderate well-being. It’s notso much a superpower yet, but just a moderate wellbeing society. So by counting, we should be out of poverty for all 1.4 billion population.

This is a tremendous job! Now we are entering into a new anti-poverty phase, called a “target anti-poverty phase.” What is the meaning of “target”? About a half year ago, I traveled to our poverty-stricken area in Shanxi province, and also I traveled to another, called Guizhou province, to see the poverty area, and I found that the local village heads will find out which households are still in poverty. So this is called the “targeting.” And the heads of the village and the village leaders,their job is to help those poverty-stricken households to help them to get rich in a certain amount of time.

To bring out of poverty all of our 1.4 billion population by 2020, is not an easy job. The per-capita GDP will reach $10,000. Now Chinese per-capita GDP is $8,000 in the year 2016; but back in 1978, our per-capita GDP was $156! So it was very, very poor, when this opening and reform was just starting. In Mao’s time, we had a very interesting phrase, to express Chinese people’s thinking about our three generations of leadership: The first generation of leadership, which is Chairman Mao—Chairman Mao helped the Chinese people “stand up,” which means, before we were lying on the ground, being colonized, semi-colonized by Japan, but Mao helped the Chinese people stand up, but not to be well fed, not well clothed, just to stand up: political independence.

Then Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up. Deng Xiaoping helped the Chinese people to eat well, now becoming rich, but only economically. But now, under Xi Jinping’s leadership, so they not only stand up and eat well, becoming rich, but we should make more contribution to the world, becoming people who really enjoy life, and the country also enjoys dignity in the world. That’s to establish a Xiaokang welfare society.

And then, how to reach that goal, the two stages from 2020 all the way to 2050. The first stage is to 2035, to realize the socialist modernization, per-capita GDP will reach $30,000; that’s the goal.And then GDP as a whole will reach $43.6 trillion, becoming the level of what’s called the middle-developed country. That’s the first stage.And then, from 2036 to 2050 to become a country of prosperity, democracy, civilization, harmony—the beautiful socialist modernization power. That’s the goal that’s been set up in this 19th Party Congress.

So, when we think about China, there are two pictures of China, that is, generally speaking. If you go into details, there are a thousand different pictures of China. Those general two pictures—one is a rising power, seems very strong; this is the second biggest economy already, but—let me show the picture here—here is the general picture about China, this is the Global Economy by GDP. When we see the top right, United States of America, accounts for 24.32% of total global GDP; and then, to the left top, that’s China, the yellow one—China accounts for 14.84% of global GDP. And then, a lot of others have double-digit percentages of GDP. So, in general, China is very powerful now.

But, when we go to the per-capita GDP, this is the picture. We talked before about the Xiaokang. We’re still struggling, heading forward toward Xiaokang, just to get to $10,000 per-capita GDP. Even recently,— let me share with you what the heated debate has been in recent days. Just a week ago in Beijing, there was a big fire; I think it was beyond the north Fifth Ring. That big fire cost around 28 lives. Eventually, after an investigation, we found that fire started in the basement, during the renovation of the building. And they found that there were a lot of people, migrant people living in that area, so fire safety measures hadn’t been taken, and eventually the municipal government made a decision that all those places below the standard of fire safety have to be demolished. And then we had lots of debating from the rich saying, those migrant people, now they have to go back to their home towns. So that is the real picture.

It’s another picture of China: Per-capita GDP is very low, and then the poor people, migrant people, are still struggling for their lives. In Beijing, winter season is very cold for those migrants. They have to leave Beijing and go back to their home towns with very short notice. That’s another picture of China, so not saying that “everything’s beautiful”; there are also very huge challenges.

So those two stages for 2050 are a huge challenge for China itself.

China Has Passed the Tests

So how to realize those beautiful goals? I think President Xi Jinping has done these things ever since 2013, when he took office. He has done things domestically, of course. Political development is to strengthen Chinese Communist Party, the ruling party’s leadership, through the anti-corruption and anti-poverty campaigns. Anti-corruption is to do the things from the party leadership, but anti-poverty is to resolve the people on the ground, so there are two ends of those campaigns. But both ends of those campaigns are intertwined with each other. We started with anti-corruption, otherwise you cannot re-collect the confidence of the people on the ground to the ruling party. Although we started to resolve this poverty issue, you cannot claim it for yourself; you are still marching on the socialist path.

Anyhow, how to re-collect the confidence of the people and build the party’s leadership? So three self-confidences have been put forward: those three, called the self-confidence, are the Development Road Confidence; the road we have chosen is called the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. So: Development Road Confidence, Theoretical Confidence, and Confidence in the State System—actually, the three things are the same thing, but have three different sides.

Maybe I should show the “shoe theory” President Xi Jinping mentioned, which means everybody wears our shoes, and the shoes should fit the feet, rather than the feet fitting the shoes. This is very simple knowledge, but when we deal with those very complicated theories, sometimes we lose sight of the simpler things.

So, we have this traditional story coming from this shoe theory. China has a 6,000 year history. Recently, U.S. President Trump mentioned this story: President Xi Jinping met President Trump and the First Lady to visit the gorgeous Forbidden City, the imperial palace, and he mentioned, China has 6,000 years of history, and President Trump answered, “Oh, yes, I know that! Egypt has a longer history—8,000 years.” President Xi Jinping said, “Yes, yes, Egypt has 2,000 years longer history than China, yet both are very civilized.”

So anyway, in our 6,000-year history, we have this phrase—when you learn Chinese, we have lots of beautiful phrases; all these phrases come from stories. This story mentions a guy who went to the market to buy shoes, but those shoes didn’t fit his feet. Maybe the shoe style was beautiful, but it didn’t fit his feet. And then, he immediately got out his knife, trying to cut his feet smaller, in order to fit into the shoes. This is the story: All our primary school students, they know this story when they write in Chinese writing; if you use a beautiful phrase you can get a higher credit, because you know the character very well.

So, it looks very simple, but it seems like our national condition is just like our feet: Our national condition, our character, our history, our population, our philosophy, all of that. Our feet cannot change, but those beautiful systems, liberal democracy, with some finger-pointing at China saying, “it’s a one-party system,” like you see a lack of transparency, and also maybe there’s no fixed election—blah, blah, blah. We know what’s better for China. At least those self-confidences are not naive belief! “I’m super, I’m super,” but in fact, you just have very poor performance. That’s not where self-confidence comes from. The self-confidence comes from your good performance.

What kind of things have we done that are good? Of course, from $156 per capita GDP, now becoming the second biggest economy, and also, we have gone through a lot of tests,such as the Arab Spring. When the Arab Spring took place in the year 2011 in Tunisia, there was lots of guessing, saying “China should be next,” to have an Arab Spring very soon. Things were happening from Tiananmen Square, lots of reporters, every day they go to Tiananmen Square just to “catch the picture,” to offer the picture to the newspaper and get it on the front page. But it’s very disappointing: There is no such thing happening.

And then, there was a lot of talk, after the 2008 financial crisis on Wall Street, with people saying “China will be next,” and all those economic things about Deng. Before, they were even talking about China breaking up. But all of those tests, now the Chinese people and the government have gone through. Still, the economy is good; in politics people are united. And even the issue of terrorism, you see Egypt has suffered from another terrorist attack just yesterday. China also needs to watch closely for all those potential terrorists, maybe they are coming back from Syria, from Iraq. All of these are the great, great challenges.

Therefore, the confidence coming from those things—we have passed through all those tests, it’s not just coming from empty things.

Also, put forward the Chinese Dream—I’ll move a bit faster now—achieving the rejuvenation. I don’t have the time to compare the Chinese Dream and the American Dream; there is a bit of difference from the American Dream.

Quality Matters

Secondly is combating corruption. President Xi Jinping mentioned power must be caged by the system, and the rule of law must be strengthened. Also there are several channels to anti-corruption. The first is to improve the Party’s conduct and strengthen Party discipline. Party discipline: Its power has been dramatically strengthened. A lot of tiger-level corrupted officials, and the mosquito-level corrupted officials—no matter whether you are tiger-level, like on the level of the Political Bureau, very high level those leaders; and the mosquito-level is the countryside, the village level, the heads of villages. With all levels of corrupt officials, there is no method.

Now, also we have the Party school. I will not go into detail for lack of time. But one factor in the anti-now,corruption campaign,— I visited from time to time different provinces, and the people in the provinces, especially grassroots level people, now feel happy, because before, whenever you’d go to see a doctor, or you send your kids to school, you have to go through the back door; otherwise there’s no chance for the poorer people, for their kids to get into a good school because corrupt behavior was everywhere, at all levels. But now, those people are saying, “Oh, thank President Xi Jinping, we no longer have these kinds of officials, bold enough to collect the ‘red envelopes.’ ” In China, the red envelope is where you put the money to give to the doctor, so he will maybe be careful in doing the surgery for you; if he doesn’t get the red envelope, you know, maybe he’s not as careful in your surgery.

Now, those things are no longer there, especially among officials. And we also have the anti-poverty campaign.

Economically developed green economy and ecological progress. So, from “speed matters” now to “the quality matters.” Before, in Deng Xiaoping’s time, we had a slogan, “Only development matters: Development, development, development; GDP, GDP, GDP.” All levels of officials, they just concentrated on how much GDP growth rate they achieved, otherwise there’s no hope for their promotion. But now, GDP no longer matters: quality matters! So our environmental protection ministry is very powerful. They will go to different provinces to check on pollution. So if you are not concentrating on quality, you will not get your promotion anyway.

In Deng Xiaoping’s time there was a very famous slogan—these are the words of Deng Xiaoping: “No matter whether it’s a white cat or black cat, as long as it catches the mouse, it’s a good cat.” He was referring to the fact that no matter whether it’s the capitalist way or socialist way, as long as it can make our GDP go forward, we’ll take it. But now, people are saying “Black cat or white cat doesn’t matter at all, we are far beyond that ideological thinking, but now it should be a Green cat.” We cannot suffer from this pollution, and there’s a lot of very bad air pollution.

One of our Party Congress documents talks about establishing the “beautiful China,” so you can see a blue lake, a blue sky, very clean water, fresh air—those things we used to have before. But, after “development, development, development,” you have money in your pocket, and you have to pay to put on your face mask [to protect against air pollution]. So, what’s the meaning of life?

It just like a person, people were saying, before you reach 40 years old, you sacrifice your health to chase after money; but after you reach 40, you spend all the money you accumulated, trying to get your health back! That’s the significance for China: Before we were sacrificing our sky, our blue sky, clean water, to chase after GDP. But now we have to use all the money in the GDP trying to get back the blue sky! That’s the vicious circle.

How to pay attention to this quality issue in economic development? We made another change, which is a a production-driven economy to the innovation-driven economy. The pollution comes from what kind of thing? Coming from “Made in China”—China serving as the world factory, where everything was “made in China,” so everything was spent in China, and pollution was left in China. So the world factory caused this pollution. We no longer want to be the world factory, we want to be the world’s office, like India. The India President for instance said his country is a world office. We also want to be the world office.

Now, the world factory is also OK, but we need to improve, from those polluting ones, to becoming a very clean industrialization. So that is how to balance this growth and development, and inclusive development. Not to have only GDP growth rate with poor people and migrant people being chased away from the capital city. So, we have to be inclusive. All of these environmental developments, domestically speaking, this world of 2050, and internationally, are in the China One Belt, One Road initiative.

On One Belt, One Road, I don’t think I need to go into detail, because when I entered this conference room, I saw lots of books over there [The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge]—maybe I’ll do some advertisement for those books—they are very rich for the world One Belt, One Road. So, I’ll skip over that.

The Three ‘No’s’

Earlier, we were talking about the peaceful rising of China, and then because maybe some American friend said “it’s very aggressive,”—“peaceful rising, it’s very aggressive.” And it’s not so nice to the ear, so we changed the name to “peaceful development.” So when our American friends put forward the Asia Pivot, we also thought it was quite aggressive, Asia Pivot. And so they also very nicely changed the name to the “Rebalancing Asia.” So you see, we both changed and could meet in the middle.

So, from “peaceful rising” to “peaceful development,” is the guideline for China’s diplomacy, but some people have noticed, saying in Deng Xiaoping’s time, Chinese policy seemed more or less to keep a low profile, and then in Xi Jinping’s time, it seems more becoming active somehow, making more contributions to the world. Probably, yes, that’s right. When you have the capacity, maybe you should make more contributions.

Let’s skip over and go to the “Three No’s,” the three things we will not do: One “No” is “no intention to rely on so-called new colonialism.” We have been labeled as the “new colonialists” in Africa, but not even our African friends have had the right to say whether China is the new colonialists or not. So I have no right to say that—our African friends have the right.

And secondly, the second “No,” is no intention for military expansion, and war like Germany and Japan did in the Second World War.

And no intention to ask for the “China model” or to pursue ideological confrontation.

So those are the Three No’s to explain why China’s policy is peaceful development.

The Industrialization of Africa

Let’s quickly go to the One Belt, One Road: This is just what I call—this is not official, it’s what I call it—I think this is a 1.0 version of One Belt, One Road, because all those things you see, the Maritime one and the Silk Road continental one, go through 64 countries. In this 1.0 version, only Egypt is from Africa, among these 64 countries. But now, I think One Belt, One Road is entering 2.0 version—that is, now facing all the countries in the world. As President Xi Jinping mentioned to the Latin American countries, “you are all welcome to join the Belt and Road.” In the Chinese “40 Minutes,” Xi said, all the African continent is now on the map of the One Belt, One Road, the whole African continent, especially after the May Belt and Road Summit in Beijing had taken place.

So now, its face is open to all the countries in the world, now it’s inclusive. Any country that would like to join, I would like to say. You see, these are two leaders in the world: People are saying “America First” is the idea. You see from abroad, Trump in the White House saying, “America First.” If anything is not too good for America, it’s not good at all. But, for President Xi Jinping, the One Belt, One Road is to make the world better. It’s not, “make China better,” because with all this Belt and Road, the Chinese foreign exchange reserves, we’re now enjoying the number-one highest foreign exchange reserves in the world.

So, we’re going to use those foreign exchange reserves to build all those roads—connectivity! Connect China and other countries to join together, to build trade. And there are three connectivities we are talking about: First is the policy connectivity, China’s One Belt, One Road initiative is relevant to countries, their own development strategy. For example, Ethiopia. Ethiopia has now been named as the “next China” on the African continent. It’s not my invention, these words—many scholars have been published talking about which country in Africa is going to be the China in Africa, which means, developing faster! Faster and leading other countries forward. Most of them refer to Ethiopia.

Ethiopia has now reached an GDP growth rate, last year, as high as 8%, but the whole rest of the continent, especially the oil rich countries, are suffering from lower oil prices. So they have developed an industrialization strategy; their strategy and the China strategy should be connected. One is called the policy connectivity.

One is to make the world better, another is to make “America First,” America better. So we look for the world, and America now looks for America only. That’s the difference.

This is the connectivity—“policy coordination,” our policy and the relevant country, not only in Africa, but policy connectivity first. And then, physical connectivity, to build infrastructure. Infrastructure to link the countries together. And then we push for trade, unimpeded trade. Allow me to share another number with you: In the world as a whole, there are 193 countries, but China serves as the number one trade partner with as many as 128 countries! So, we are based on economic growth, based on export, based on trade. Now Chinese President Xi Jinping is holding high the flag of free trade.

So free trade and also inclusive globalization. When he joined the World Economic Forum in Davos, earlier this year, this is the first time a Chinese President had joined the World Economic Forum; before that, the highest official was only the Prime Minister. When he joined that forum, he put forward two things that China wants to push forward: One is free trade, and the other is the inclusive globalization.

That is the trade we want to push for as global trade, and financial connectivity, financial integrity. China is pushing the One Belt, One Road to share its development with the world, and the way to push for such a major initiative was to establish what’s called the AIIB, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. This is a multilateral bank. And also the Chinese currency, the RMB, will also be widely used with those countries that are doing business with China.

And then, the people-to-people bond, that’s another connectivity. So we’re talking about five connectivities within this One Belt, One Road. People-to-people is very important. Before, China has been doing very well with the G2G, government-to-government, and then it has been doing very well with the B2B, business-to-business, but we have not been doing very well in P2P, people-to-people. Maybe Chinese people are very shy, so maybe that’s one reason they’re not very good at doing the P2P. So we should become more open and not so shy.

You know, in our education, like my son, all the way from primary school, kindergarten to the university, there’s no debate in the classroom, you just take notes, take notes, about whatever the teacher is teaching. Take notes, take notes; no challenging, debating, raising questions. And we don’t have political campaigns, so there are no such places for talking. There are lots of places for listening!

Anyhow, people-to-people contact, we need a lot of NGOs to go abroad.

Africa Is Rising

So very quickly, let’s move to Africa. In Africa, we have commitment, that is the FOCAC, the full name is the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. This forum was established in 2000, and every three years there is a FOCAC meeting. The FOCAC meeting in 2015 took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. In that meeting, President Xi Jinping joined the meeting, put forward ten cooperation plans, and pledged the money—as high as $60 billion—to cover all ten areas: industrialization, agriculture, infrastructure, finance, environmental protection, and more.

The Belt and Road is very good for Africa’s job creation. A lot of money has been earmarked to use for the industrialization of Africa. Let me just highlight in my last two minutes, the two areas, like two engines—like in an airplane, if you want to take off, you need two engines: One is industrialization, another is infrastructure. Without good infrastructure, there’s no basis for industrialization—short of electricity,short of power,short of roads, and then it’s very hard to make industry take off.

We have done a lot. Africa now is rising. Before, Africa was regarded as a hopeless continent, more than 15 years ago. But now, with kite flying over, now it’s Africa’s rising time. You see this map from the IMF, only in those deep blue places do they enjoy very high economic growth rates in the past decade—Asia, and Africa. So those two blue areas have above 6% GDP growth rates. They are mutually serving as the engines for each other—Asia’s growth coming from Africa, Africa’s growth coming from Asia. A booming future, industrialization creating jobs. I am sharing with you a lot of pictures of Ethiopia’s Oriental Industrial Zone. I visited that zone—there is a shoe-making factory, lots of jobs have been created. You see, I visited that zone at least six times; every time I saw more business there.

Just to show you another infrastructure map: the Mombasa to Nairobi railway that was just finished at the end of May. We are going to build the second phase, from Nairobi all the way to Malaba in Uganda, and then that’s an East African Community network. When this railway was finished—this is President Uhuru Kenyatta, saying this laid the foundation for industrialization. This shows people celebrating this railway connection, and this shows a man holding a paper saying “Comfortable, convenient, very soft, safe, and very beautiful.” And here, very beautiful at 100 years old, a grandmother. [applause]

Thank you very much.

»Jeg mener, at den Nye Silkevej er et typisk eksempel på en idé, hvis tid er kommet; og når en idé på denne måde først er ved at blive en materialistisk virkelighed, bliver den til en fysisk kraft i universet. Jeg har personligt haft mulighed for at se udviklingen af denne idé, der på mange måder reelt set begyndte med dette store menneske – min ægtemand, Lyndon LaRouche; der, for mange årtier siden – for næsten et halvt århundrede siden – fik ideen om en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden. Dette blev dernæst mere manifest i 1970’erne, ’80erne og især i 1991, da Sovjetunionen opløstes, og hvor denne idé om at skabe en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden blev meget fremtrædende.«

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Vært Matthew Ogden: Godaften; det er 1. dec., og dette er vores strategiske fredags-webcast fra larouchepac.com.

Vi har meget stof at gennemgå i aften, for vi bliver i øjeblikket vidne til indvielsen af en helt ny æra på denne planet. Det, vi bliver vidne til, især i løbet af den seneste uge, siden afslutningen af den ekstraordinært historiske Schiller Institut-konference, der fandt sted nær Frankfurt, Tyskland, i sidste weekend, er den kendsgerning, at den Nye Silkevejsdynamik – denne dynamik med store projekter og »win-win«-samarbejde, der er blevet initieret af Kina – denne Nye Silkevejsdynamik er nu den dominerende og virkelig uimodståelige dynamik på denne planet. Dette er noget, der fuldstændig er i færd med at omforme alle nationers politik på denne planet. Og tyngdecentret er skiftet væk fra det gamle paradigme, som vi har set i det transatlantiske system, og til dette Nye Paradigme, der nu har fået overtaget pga. de initiativer, som frem for alt Kina har taget.

Jeg vil gerne lægge ud med at afspille et kort uddrag af Helga Zepp-LaRouches ekstraordinære hovedtale, som hun holdt på denne konference, der var sponsoreret af Schiller Instituttet nær Frankfurt, Tyskland, i sidste weekend. Konferencens titel var »At opfylde menneskehedens drøm«, og titlen på Helga Zepp-LaRouches hovedtale var »Den Nye Silkevej; Den nye model for internationale relationer«. Her er et kort uddrag af Helgas tale:

(Se hele Helgas video og tale i dansk oversættelse her: http://schillerinstitut.dk/si/?p=22734)

(Her følger engelsk udskrift af resten af webcastet)

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE

:  So, let me start with an idea
of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.  He said that we are actually
living in the best of all possible worlds.  This is a very
fundamental ontological conception.  It’s the idea that we are
living in a developing universe; that what makes the universe the
best of all possible ones is its tremendous potential for
development.  It is in such a way created, that every great evil
challenges an even greater good to come into being.  I think when
we are talking about the New Silk Road and the tremendous changes
which have occurred in the world, especially in the last four
years, it is actually exactly that principle working.  Because it
was the absolute manifest lack of development of the old world
order which caused the impulse of China and the spirit of the New
Silk Road having caught on that now many nations of the world are
absolutely determined to have a development giving a better life
to all of their people.
Now, I think that the New Silk Road is a typical example of
an idea whose time had come; and once an idea is in that way
becoming a material reality, it becomes a physical force in the
universe.
Now the Chinese Ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai,
recently made the point, that there were 16 times in world history,
when a rising country would surpass the dominant country up to
that point.  In twelve cases it led to a war, and in four cases
the rising country just peacefully took over.  He said that China
wants neither, but we want to have a completely different system
of a “win-win” relationship of equality and respect for each
other.
Obviously, the most important question strategically, if you
think about it, is that we can avoid the so-called Thucydides
trap.  That was the rivalry between Athens and Sparta in the 5th
Century BC, which led to the Peloponnesian War and the demise of
ancient Greece.  If this were to occur today between the United
States and China in the age of thermonuclear weapons, I think
nobody in their right mind could wish that; and therefore, we
should all be extremely happy that Trump and Xi Jinping have
developed this very important relationship.  I stuck my neck out
in the United States in February of this year by saying, if
President Trump manages to get a good relationship between the
United States and China, and between the United States and Russia, he
will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents of the
United States.  Naturally, everybody was completely freaked out
because that is not the picture people are supposed to have about
Trump.  But I think if you look at what is happening, you will
see that Trump is on a very good way to accomplish exactly that.
So, he came back from this Asia trip with $253 billion worth
of deals with China.  I watched the press conference of the
Governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice, where he said that now,
because of China, there is hope in West Virginia.  West Virginia
is a totally depressed state; they have unemployment and a drug
epidemic.  But he said now we can have value-added production, we
will have a bright future.  So, the spirit of the New Silk Road
has even caught on in West Virginia.  Obviously the United States
has an enormous demand for infrastructure, especially now after
the destruction of all these hurricanes; which just to restore
what has been destroyed requires $200 billion, not even talking
about disaster prevention.  So, this is all on a good way that
China will invest in the infrastructure in the United States, and
vice versa; US firms will cooperate in projects of the Belt and
Road Initiative.
So, just think about it, because almost everything I’m
saying goes against everything you hear in the Western media.
But think:  From whom comes the motion for peace and development?
Is it coming from those who attack Putin, Xi, and Trump?  And
those who side with Obama?  It’s obviously time for people to
rethink how the Western viewpoint is on all of these matters.  Or
change the glasses which they have to look at the world.

OGDEN:  So, as you heard from Helga Zepp-LaRouche, that was
just a short excerpt from her speech, but she said we have to
change the glasses through which we look at the world.  That’s
what she did really with the entirety of her keynote address;
which was an hour long.  It is available on the
newparadigm.schillerinstitute.org website right now; but she
really did change the glasses, through which people should see the
world; both by reviewing what the strategic breakthroughs have
been in terms of the New Silk Road dynamic which has been
sweeping the planet and supplanting this outmoded and failed
geopolitical world order which has brought the world really to
the edge of what she said; this Thucydides trap and the danger of
thermonuclear war.  But she also did some very extraordinary; she
took the audience back through the history of the relationship
between the Confucianism of China and the Leibnizian philosophy
of Europe.  This was the best of European culture, and really the
consolidation of the Renaissance culture of Europe.  What
Gottfried Leibniz was able to do in his time, recognizing the
failures of European culture due to the kinds of rivalries
between these warring empires and what had really turned into a
corruption and a rot at the core of the European system at that
time; he said the future can be secured if we recognize the best
of European culture — the Christianity and the heritage of the
Greek philosophy which built European culture; but put this
together with the aspects of Chinese Confucianism which are in
fact harmonious with the best of the ideas of European
philosophy.  He pointed out, that the idea of an understanding of

the pre-established harmony between man’s creative mind and the
created universe is something, which indeed is recognized in
Leibnizian European philosophy; but is also at the core of
Confucian philosophy.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche said that in a very real way, Xi Jinping
has reflected a profound understanding of this kind of harmonious
relationship between man and the created world, and also between
the nations of this planet, and has given it a substance;
actualized this idea through the form of the New Silk Road.  She
also reviewed the history of her husband’s — Lyndon LaRouche’s
— role in creating the basis of the ideas that are now taking
their form in this New Paradigm of development coming out of
China and the Belt and Road Initiative.  She traced it all the
way back to a paper that Lyndon LaRouche had written in the 1970s
about the development of Africa, and the fact that his ideas —
which were at the core of that vision — are now what are
actually taking place in Africa and other nations that are being
touched by the Belt and Road Initiative.  Again, this is an
extraordinary keynote address, and we would encourage you to
watch the speech in its entirety.
But after Helga LaRouche’s keynote, the conference — which
was a two-day conference — unfolded; and it was a series of
extraordinary panel after extraordinary panel.  The first panel
was titled “The Earth’s Next Fifty Years”; obviously taking that
from the title of a wonderful book that was published by Lyndon
LaRouche over a decade ago.  But this panel began with a keynote
by Professor He Wenping, who’s the Director of African Studies at
the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.  The speech
was “President Xi’s Perspective for the Year 2050 and the
Perspective of African Development”.  That was followed by the
former Transport Minister of Egypt, who gave a speech called
“Integration of Egypt’s Transportation Plans 2030 with the New
Silk Road Project”.  Then, there was a statement from George
Lombardi, who is the former social media consultant to President
Donald Trump; and his speech was titled “The Trump
Administration: Impending Economic Policies and Media Discord”.
Then that panel concluded with a speech by Marco Zanni, who is a
member of the European Parliament from Italy.  His speech was
titled “A Future for Europe after the Euro”.
Panel I was followed by Panel II, which was the second panel
of the first day, which was titled “The Need for Europe To
Cooperate with China in the Industrialization of Africa and the
Middle East; Transaqua as the Rosetta Stone of the Continent’s
Transformation”.  This began with an extensive speech by Hussein
Askary, who is the Southwest Asia coordinator for the Schiller
Institute.  This was on “Extending the Silk Road into Southwest
Asia and Africa; A Vision of an Economic Renaissance”.  The bulk
of this is also actually included in a new Special Report that is
just been published by the Schiller Institute, that was jointly
written by Hussein Askary and Jason Ross.  He was followed by the
Foreign Director of the Bonifaca S.p.A., Italy, company, which is
actually involved with China in building this Transaqua project.
It’s called the Italy-China Alliance for Transaqua.  Then, the
General Consul to Frankfurt from Ethiopia spoke — Mehreteab
Mulugeta Haile.  The title of his speech was “The Need for Europe
to Cooperate with China in the Industrialization of Africa”.
Then that panel concluded with a speech by the Executive Manager
of Pyramids International called “Egypt’s 2030 Mega Projects:
Investment Opportunities for Intermodal and Multimodal
Connectivity”.
The third panel took place on the second day of the
conference, and that panel was titled “Europe As the Continent of
Poets, Thinkers, and Inventors: An Optimistic Vision for the
Future of Europe”.  It was keynoted by Jacques Cheminade, who’s
the former Presidential candidate in France.  His speech was
titled “What Europe Should Contribute to the New World Paradigm”.
Then, Dr. Natalia Vitrenko, who’s the chairwoman of the
Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, gave a speech — “China’s
Initiative from the Doom of Self-Destruction, to Prosperity and
Progress; A View from Ukraine”.  Then, a speech from a
representative from Serbia; an author and journalist named Dr.
Jasminka Simic.  Her speech was titled “One Belt, One Road — An
Opportunity for Development in the Western Balkans”.  Then that
panel concluded with a speech from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Professor Mariana Tian — “Bulgaria’s Contribution to the Belt
and Road Initiative”.
There were also two other speeches; the chair of the
Anglo-Hellenic and Cypriot Law Association, and the founding
Director of the China Africa Advisory.
Then, the concluding panel of the entire conference, Panel
IV; “The System We Live in Is Not Earthbound — Future
Technologies and Scientific Breakthroughs”.  This was keynoted by
Jason Ross, scientific advisor to the Schiller Institute.  His
speech was titled “The Scientific Method of LaRouche”.  He was
followed by Prof. Dr. Helmut Alt, from the University of Applied
Sciences in Aachen; who gave a speech — “Energy Transition; From
Bad to Worse”.  Then that concluded with Dr. Wentao Guo, from
Switzerland — “Current Situation of High Temperature Gas-Cooled
Reactors in China”.
Then there was an extensive Q&A period after that, in which
there was very important input from the audience.  The attendees
at this event — which you could see just from the speaker’s list
alone — represented countries from Western Eurasia, from Central
Europe, from Africa, from the United States, from Western Europe,
from Scandinavia, from really literally all over the world.  This
was an extraordinary conference.
There was a resolution that was adopted at the concluding of
the conference that I’d like to put on the screen here [Fig. 1].
The resolution is taking a note from what China has committed
itself to — eliminating poverty by the year 2020 in China.  So,
this is the resolution adopted by the Schiller Institute
conference in Bad Soden, Germany:

“At this conference, with the title ‘Fulfilling the Dream of
Mankind,’ we discussed the incredible transformation of the world
catalyzed by the Chinese initiative of the New Silk Road. The
Belt and Road Initiative, which is creating optimism in Asia,
Africa, Latin America, more and more states in Europe, and after
the state visit of President Trump in China, in several states
within the United States.
“The Belt and Road Initiative has the concrete perspective
on how poverty and underdevelopment can be overcome through
investment in infrastructure, industry and agriculture, based on
scientific and technological progress. The Chinese government
which uplifted 700 million out of poverty in the last 30 years,
has now proclaimed the goal to lift the remaining 42 million
people living in poverty out of their condition, and create a
decent living standard for the entire Chinese population by the
year 2020.
“Within the European Union, there are living approximately
120 million people below the poverty line, according to our own
criteria characterizing the costs of life. Given the fact that
Europe is still an economic powerhouse, there is no plausible
reason why Europe cannot uplift these 120 million people out of
poverty by the year 2020, as well. The best way to accomplish
this is for the EU, all European nations, to accept the offer by
China to cooperate with China in the Belt and Road Initiative on
a ‘win-win’ basis.
“We, the participants of the Schiller Institute conference,
call on all elected officials to join this appeal to the European
governments. Should we in Europe not be proud enough to say, if
the Chinese can do this, we can do it, too?”

As you can see here, newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com, that
is the location of the proceedings of this conference which will
be published as they’re prepared; but also, that resolution that
I just read to you, is available on that website
—newparadigm.schillerinstitute.com — and it’s collecting
signatures.  It’s something that you can add your name to and you
can circulate that.  Obviously, it applies not only to Europe,
but applies to the United States as well; this goal of
eliminating poverty by building infrastructure and high
technology projects to increase the living standards and the
productivity of our populations; as China is doing through the
Belt and Road Initiative.  This is what can be accomplished in
the United States.  We’ll review a little bit of that.
I do want to note that Helga Zepp-LaRouche made a special
notice of the statement by West Virginia Governor Jim Justice
after he secured $87 billion in joint investment into the state
of West Virginia; which is greater than the entire GDP of that
state.  This accomplishment is really the spirit of the New Silk
Road, which is now sweeping through the world and has even taken
hold in our very own state of West Virginia here in the United
States.
Now, let’s look at the extraordinary rate of developments
that have occurred since this conference happened in Frankfurt,
Germany last weekend.  This is part of putting on those new
glasses that Helga LaRouche talked about in order to see the
world as it really is; not to see the world through the kind of
spin and propaganda that you’re inundated with on a daily basis
by the media.  If you were following the media, you would think,
that the only issue on the table, are the series of sex scandals
that are coming out from celebrities and news anchors and so
forth and so on.  And you would miss the fact that we are
literally living in the absolute epicenter right now in history
of a total paradigm shift in the history of mankind.
So, let’s look at this extraordinary rate of developments.
This conference, obviously, in Europe — the Schiller Institute
conference — took place right on the heels of President Trump’s
extraordinarily successful trip to Asia; where he had his state
visit-plus visit with President Xi Jinping in China.  And the
$250 billion worth of deals that were signed there for joint
investments, the fact that President Xi Jinping put directly on
the table the idea of the United States and US businesses
collaborating with the Belt and Road Initiative, and the fact
that President Xi Jinping and President Trump solidified a very
close personal relationship and really ushered in a new era of
US-China collaboration.  After that, just during the course of
the last five days, you’ve seen what was just mentioned there in
the resolution from the Frankfurt conference; that nations of
Europe are now beginning to reach out and reciprocate the hand of
friendship that’s coming from China to participate in the Belt
and Road Initiative.
This is taking place most significantly in the more
impoverished countries of Eastern and Central Europe.  We have
the just-concluded 16+1 talks, which occurred in Budapest,
Hungary.  This is the meeting of the so-called CEEC, or the
Central and Eastern European Countries — those are the 16; and
then the +1 is China.  So, this is the 16+1, the Central and
Eastern European Countries plus China.  What was discussed at
this conference was the further coordination between these
countries of Eastern Europe and the Chinese, especially on the
idea of the Belt and Road Initiative; the New Eurasian
Land-Bridge as it was termed by Helga and Lyndon LaRouche back in
the 1980s.  The core feature of that proposal back in the end of
the 1980s, which gave birth to this idea of the Eurasian
Land-Bridge, was the idea of taking these Eastern European
countries — what had been formerly part of the Soviet Union or
the Soviet space — and taking what was an under-developed area
of Europe and developing it through bridging Western Europe with
Russia and then beyond through these kinds of transportation
corridors and high technology development grids.  That’s exactly
what China was discussing with these countries in Eastern Europe
during the 16+1 conference.  These are mainly countries such as
Hungary, Serbia, Poland, which really this is their conception of
themselves; they serve as Europe’s front door onto the New Silk
Road.  As the New Silk Road comes westward across Eurasia, the
front door to Europe are these Eastern European countries.  They
have gone from being on the margins of Europe with
under-development and poverty and prolonged unemployment and
these other crises, they’ve gone from being on the margins to
being at the very center of this new dynamic which is sweeping
from the East.
This is referred to in Hungary as their “eastward opening”;
that Hungary’s future is to orient towards this new era of
development which is coming from Eurasia, rather than orienting
towards the collapsing system of Western Europe and the failed
EU.  Zhang Ming, who’s China’s ambassador to the European Union,
published an article that was published immediately prior to the
16+1 meeting on November 27th, in which he emphasized the central
role of the Belt and Road Initiative in China’s policy towards
Europe.  He said, “As China and Europe work together to synergize
the Belt and Road Initiative, the 16 CEEC countries will play a
more prominent role as a hub which connects Asia and Europe.
Faster development in CEEC countries contributes to a more
balanced development across Europe and European integration.”
So, in other words, the faster development of these impoverished
countries in Central and Eastern Europe will be a “win-win” for
everybody involved.  He used these words, that these countries
will serve a “prominent role as a hub which connects Asia and
Europe.”
Then as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated a few
weeks ago — and he was the host of this meeting in Budapest,
Hungary obviously — but this was a statement that he made back
in October.  This is absolutely to the point of what we’re
discussing on this webcast today; this idea that the Belt and
Road Initiative is now the irresistible and dominant dynamic on
this planet.  This is a quote from Prime Minister Orban:  “The
world’s center of gravity is shifting from West to East.  While
there is still some denial of this in the Western world, that
denial does not seem to be reasonable.  We see the world
economy’s center of gravity shifting from the Atlantic region to
the Pacific region.  This is not my opinion, this is a fact.”
Now incidentally, that quote, that statement by Prime
Minister Orban, is exactly the point that Lyndon LaRouche made in
this book; this very prescient book that he published over a
decade ago called {Earth’s Next Fifty Years; The Coming Eurasian
World}.  In that book, Mr. LaRouche said the dominant dynamic of
the world is going to be the rising countries of Asia; these are
where the most concentrations of population are, this is the
fastest rates of growth.  And this is where the world’s center of
gravity is shifting economically; the coming Eurasian world, or
the Pacific-centered world.  So, this is a direct echo of exactly
what Lyndon LaRouche said way back when before any of this
economic miracle took place.  But Mr. LaRouche was very prescient
on that fact.
Now, while a number of leading European press outlets have
been doing exactly what Viktor Orban said — denying this fact;
trying to deny this inevitable fact that the center of gravity
has shifted from West to East.  You had, for example, the
{Financial Times} ran an extensive article headlined “Brussels
Rattled As China Reaches Out to Eastern Europe”; obviously just
hysterical that these Eastern European countries are now oriented
towards the Belt and Road Initiative.  Despite that fact, there
are some leading circles in Europe who are, indeed, recognizing
that Europe’s future lies in joining this New Paradigm.
Obviously, that could be seen from this extensive speaker’s list
at the Schiller Institute conference in Frankfurt; but there was
another very significant conference that occurred just a few days
later this week in Paris.  This was the first annual Paris Forum
on the Belt and Road Initiative; so it’s going to take place very
year.  This is the first annual event.  It was co-organized by
the Chinese embassy and the French Institute for International
and Strategic Affairs — IRIS is their acronym.  This is the
third largest think tank in Paris.  The founding director is
Pascal Boniface, who is very positive in terms of his attitude
towards this idea of France and Europe as a whole joining with
the Belt and Road Initiative.  There were some 400 people in
participation at this very important event.  There were think
tanks, there were civil servants, people from the French
government, there were heads of different French companies —
CEOs — retired military, there were cultural figures, and there
were media who attended.  Among them, the forum was addressed by
the Chinese Ambassador to France, Zhai Jun.  He put directly on
the table, France, Europe should join this new emerging paradigm,
this Belt and Road Initiative.  This goes directly along with the
attendance by Raffarin, the former Prime Minister of France to
the Belt and Road Forum that occurred this past Spring in
Beijing.  There have been other prominent figures inside France
who have done exactly what these people have done at this very
significant event, and said “Look, this is the future of the
world economy.  The center of gravity has shifted, and we better
get on board.”  This was also the subject, by the way, of Jacques
Cheminade’s speech at the Schiller Institute conference; and this
is something that he’s been in extensive conversation with, with
numerous leading figures inside France as part of his
Presidential campaign.  He even met with the former President of
France, Francois Hollande, while he was President at the Elysée
Palace and discussed exactly this idea.
So, as you can see, the movers and shakers behind this, the
ideas which are driving history, are really the leaders and the
collaborators of the LaRouche Movement worldwide.
Let me shift focus now.  We’re continuing to catalog the
extraordinary rate of developments that have occurred just over
the last five days since this extraordinary conference in
Frankfurt.  Let’s shift focus now to Latin America.  We had the
11th China-Latin America-Caribbean Business Summit, which
happened in Uruguay; actually it’s still happening.  It started
yesterday, and it’s going through this Sunday, so it’s a four-day
conference.  This was to discuss the idea of how Western
Hemisphere countries, especially countries in South and Central
America, can participate in China’s One Belt, One Road
Initiative.  Whereas this is the 11th annual conference between
the Central and South American countries and China, this was by
far the largest of these conferences to have taken place.  There
were over 2500 people in attendance, which included high-level
businessmen, government officials, and policymakers from all over
Latin America.  One of the plenary sessions which took place at
this conference was titled, “A New Vision of Collaboration Among
China, Latin America, and the Caribbean in the Framework of the
One Belt, One Road Strategy”.  So, that’s explicit; this is the
idea of Latin American joining the New Silk Road.
Just because we’re discussing Latin America, there was a
wonderful sentiment which was voiced by Chilean President
Michelle Bachelet.  This was a speech that she gave on November
23rd at the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding
of the Confucius Institute in Chile.  She said, “The world is
orienting more than ever towards China and the Pacific Basin.
Therefore, we know very well that our relationship with China and
the Asia-Pacific in particular, is crucial for us to fulfill our
destiny.”  She said, “Chile’s relationship with China goes well
beyond trade ties.  It is one of our primary political partners
on the path to opening integration and cooperation for progress.”
Then Michelle Bachelet said after she retires as the President of
Chile, she intends to study the Chinese language in depth.  So,
that’s a commitment that perhaps all heads of state should make,
as we recognize that the center of gravity of the world’s
strategic and economic reality is shifting towards China.  We did
see that from President Trump’s granddaughter, Arabella Kushner
— that’s Ivanka’s daughter — where she recorded the song in
Mandarin Chinese.  A video of her singing a song in Mandarin
Chinese, and sent that as a goodwill offering to President Xi
Jinping in China.
And one more item I should just note.  This is a
yet-unconfirmed report, but it’s very credible, that Japan — now
we’ve shifted from Europe to Central and South America, and now
we’re in the Asia Pacific.  Japan is actively considering joint
projects with Chinese companies on building the One Belt, One
Road.  This is hugely significant, judging by the historic
conflicts between Japan and China, which have been played on by
these Western geopoliticians for decades; to try to keep these
two extraordinarily significant countries from collaborating.  If
Japan and China collaborate on the Belt and Road Initiative, this
is a dynamic which is absolutely unstoppable.  There was an
article in a Japanese paper titled “Government To Help Japan,
China Firms in Belt and Road”.  It reports that the Abe
government is considering supporting companies to carry out joint
projects with Chinese companies along the Belt and Road.  I think
underscoring this fact, as I stated in the beginning of today’s
broadcast, that the Belt and Road is an absolutely unstoppable
and irresistible dynamic; which has now become dominant and is
something which cannot be ignored.  Underscoring that fact that,
indeed, this New Silk Road is the dominant irresistible dynamic
on this planet, here’s a statement from the {Global Times} which
is absolutely to the point.  It says “Generally speaking, Japan’s
economy has been always greatly dependent on overseas markets.
So, for the sustainable development of its economy, Japan needs
access to the business opportunities offered by the vast
infrastructure projects along the Belt and Road route.”
So, this is the sentiment that’s being expressed by
everybody.  We go from the hosts of this first annual conference
on the Belt and Road Initiative in Paris.  Look at what Viktor
Orban said at the 16+1 conference in Budapest, Hungary.  Look at
what Michelle Bachelet said in Chile at the Confucius Institute.
Look at the statements that were made at this Central and South
American-China Business Forum.  Look at what’s now being said in
Japan.  Look at the statements that were made at the Schiller
Institute conference in Frankfurt.  And look at what was done by
President Trump during his trip to China, and the summit that he
had with President Xi Jinping.  Everything is being shaped by
this initiative, by the New Silk Road; by this initiative which
is coming out of China for “win-win” mutually beneficial
cooperation on great project development for the entire planet.
This is the dominant of the future.
As Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, you need to put on the new set
of glasses to be able to see reality as it really is; not through
the skewed mirrors and the propaganda which is coming out of the
Western media.  I think that perhaps the best statement, and the
most candid statement of all — of all of these statements about
the reality of this future dynamic — and why the United States
and Europe and South America and Asia need to jump on board with
the New Silk Road, need to join with this new dynamic and catch
this spirit of the New Silk Road; probably the best and most
candid of those statements came out of Governor Jim Justice from
West Virginia during his press conference that he gave there at
the state capital, announcing this extraordinary $87 billion deal
between China and the state of West Virginia.  Here’s what
Governor Jim Justice had to say:

GOVERNOR JIM JUSTICE

:  And I would say to all of you
all that may be doubters that this could become a reality, “Don’t
get on the wrong side of it.”  Because, really and truly, it’s a
comin’.  It’s a comin’.”

OGDEN:  “It’s a comin’.”  I would say to all the doubters,
“this could become a reality, ‘Don’t get on the wrong side of
it.’  Because it’s a comin’,” he said.  “It’s a comin’.”   So,
that was actually from the conclusion of a really wonderful and
important video that was just put on the LaRouche PAC website
this week, all about West Virginia.  West Virginia, which as
Helga LaRouche said, is known across the country right now as the
epicenter of poverty, unemployment, drug epidemic overdoses, and
just general backward economic conditions.  West Virginia could
now become the cutting edge and the economic driver of the entire
Appalachian region here in the United States because of this
“win-win” investment that came from China.  So, I would encourage
you to watch that video in full on the LaRouche PAC website.
But let me just say, this is an extraordinary rate of
development of events that have occurred over the past five days.
I think that anybody who is looking at the reality soberly and
with clarity will see that, indeed, the efforts of the LaRouche
Movement over the past several years to put this question on the
table; to put this idea of a New Paradigm of economic cooperation
and “win-win” development, this New Silk Road — this Eurasian
Land-Bridge, this World Land-Bridge idea.  Put that on the table
and to shape all of the discussions that are occurring at the
highest levels of policymaking worldwide around that idea.  I
think that truly is becoming the dominant dynamic, and it’s a
testament to the fact that a small handful of people with very
powerful ideas, can indeed be very successful in shaping the
course of world history.
Now, I would say that what Helga LaRouche began, those
remarks that I played at the beginning of the show; this idea of
the greatest, the best of all possible worlds — what Gottfried
Leibniz had to say.  This is an understanding of how the universe
corresponds to the creative will of mankind.  That there is a
principle of good that is behind the creation, the creation of
the universe; and that principle of good corresponds with the
creative nature of mankind.  And when mankind acts on that
creative quality, and acts for the benefit of the greatest number
of possible people, the greatest possible General Welfare; acts
on the basis of this principle of good, that the universe
corresponds and, indeed, responds.  Because of this harmony, this
pre-established harmony which Leibniz discussed.  That was at the
core of his understanding of the best of all possible worlds.
So, with that axiomatic understanding of the philosophical
nature of what this effort is all about — to bring about a New
Paradigm of human relations on this planet — let’s conclude with
the concluding quote from Helga Zepp-LaRouche during her keynote
at that Schiller Institute conference in Germany.  Helga
Zepp-LaRouche said the following:  “If we revive the Classical
culture of all nations, and enter a beautiful dialogue among
them, mankind will experience a new renaissance and unleash an
enormous creativity of the human species like never before.
“So, it is very good to live at this moment in history and
contribute to make the world a better place.  And it can be done,
because the New Paradigm corresponds to the lawfulness of the
physical universe in science, Classical art, and these
principles.  What will be asserted is the identity of the human
species as {the} creative species in the universe.”
So, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche said, it is very good to live at
this moment, and to contribute to this New Paradigm which is now
emerging on this planet, and to contribute to the good of
mankind.
So, thank you very much for joining us here today.  We
strongly encourage you to not only watch Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s
keynote address in its entirety, but to stay tuned to that
Schiller Institute channel as all of these panels, all of these
videos, all of these presentations are produced and put up on the
website for you to watch in their entirety.  So, thank you for
joining in, and let’s continue to spread the spirit of the New
Silk Road.  Thank you and good night.

Tom Gillesberg: »Velkommen til vores første offentlige møde – i Danmark, vel at mærke – efter valget fandt sted. Vi kan jo begynde med at nyde synet af vore plakater her bagved, for de er desværre nu alle blevet taget ned; de hænger ikke længere i lygtepælene; København og de andre byer, hvor vi stillede op, er blevet lidt mere kedelige igen. Men vi kan begynde med at sige tak til alle dem, der stemte på os. Og jeg tror, jeg kan garantere, og de kan føle sig lidt som nogle små profeter, for de var i stand til at se det, som de fleste tilsyneladende ikke var i stand til at se; nemlig, at der er en ny, ustoppelig forandring i gang i verden, der også kommer til at svømme hen over Danmark, bare vent og se.

Nogle af os var privilegerede og fik en ekstra smag på det, i form af den konference, Schiller Instituttet netop har afholdt i Frankfurt, Tyskland, hvor vi havde en lang række talere – det vil jeg komme tilbage til – som faktisk befandt sig mere eller mindre inde i denne proces med at udbrede Bælte & Vej Initiativet til Asien, til Afrika; gøre det her til det Nye Paradigme, der regerer her på kloden…«

Hør hele Toms fremlæggelse:

https://soundcloud.com/si_dk/schiller-instituttets-konference-i-tyskland-realiser-menneskehedens-drom-med-den-nye-silkevej

Jeg mener, at den Nye Silkevej er et typisk eksempel på en idé, hvis tid er kommet; og når en idé på denne måde først er ved at blive en materialistisk virkelighed, bliver den til en fysisk kraft i universet. Jeg har personligt haft mulighed for at se udviklingen af denne idé, der på mange måder reelt set begyndte med dette store menneske – min ægtemand, Lyndon LaRouche; der, for mange årtier siden – for næsten et halvt århundrede siden – fik ideen om en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden. Dette blev dernæst mere manifest i 1970’erne, ’80erne og især i 1991, da Sovjetunionen opløstes, og hvor denne idé om at skabe en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden blev meget fremtrædende.

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Leder fra LaRouche PAC, USA, 28. nov., 2017 – Dette koncept om det fremvoksende, eurasiske, Nye Paradigme for hele menneskeheden, blev først præsenteret på den globale, strategiske scene tilbage i 1996 – for over to årtier siden – af den amerikanske statsmand og økonom Lyndon LaRouche, hvor der stort set ikke var noget synligt »bevis«, der pegede i denne retning. Og dog havde LaRouche ret. I sidste måned blev denne idé gentaget i næsten identiske vendinger af Ungarns premierminister, Viktor Orban, der netop har været vært for »16+1«-mødet for statsoverhovederne i CEE (Central- og Østeuropa) og Kina.

»Verdens økonomiske tyngdecenter er i færd med at skifte fra vest til øst«, erklærede Orban. »Alt imens der stadig er en del fornægtelse af denne kendsgerning i den vestlige verden, så synes denne fornægtelse ikke at være fornuftig. Vi ser verdens økonomiske tyngdecenter skifte fra det atlantiske område til Stillehavsområdet.«

Der er i dag rigeligt, der beviser, at Orban har ret. Der er faktisk en transformation i gang i de globale, økonomiske og politiske anliggender, som umiddelbart er et resultat af det faktum, at Kina og Rusland optrapper deres koordinerede bestræbelser og hævder det som en fysisk kendsgerning i hele Eurasien. På meget den samme måde, som hele situationen i hele Mellemøsten (og hinsides) er blevet transformeret af den fysiske kendsgerning med den russiskledede sejr over ISIS i Syrien, skaber det kinesiske Bælte & Vej Initiativ økonomiske faits accomplis, fuldbyrdede handlinger, som er i færd med at omslutte hele det eurasiske område.

Det britiske Imperium og deres Wall Street-makkere er blevet taget på sengen, og de bliver mere og mere hysteriske over både udviklingerne samt den kendsgerning, at de bliver udmanøvreret. Og de har ikke rigtig regnet ud, hvad de kan gøre ved det – bortset fra at forsøge at lancere krige og iscenesætte et kupforsøg mod præsident Trump.

Det skyldes, at de globale, strategiske skift, som Kina og Rusland har initieret, ikke vil kunne standses, hvis præsident Trump bringer USA fuldt og helt om bord. Trumps gode arbejdsrelationer med sine præsidentkolleger, Kinas Xi Jinping og Ruslands Vladimir Putin, og som begge blev konsolideret under hans Asienrejse tidligere på måneden, er City of Londons og Wall Streets værste mareridt.

Ind på scenen kommer atter Barack Obama, den vanærede ex-præsident for USA, som netop har annonceret, at han snart vil foretage en rejse til Asien, der vil følge i præsident Trumps fodspor og forsøge at ødelægge alt det, han har opnået, på vegne af sine britiske herrer. Obama vil mødes med den indiske premierminister Narendra Modi den 1. december og dernæst rejse til Kina for at mødes med Xi Jinping, før han rejser videre til Frankrig.

Men sådanne klodsede deployeringer, som tidligere måske virkede, vil mislykkes under nutidens omstændigheder. Verdens tyngdecenter er reelt skiftet fra Atlanten til Stillehavet, og denne kendsgerning hævder sig på en sådan måde, at den ene nation efter den anden kommer med på vognen.

I sin hovedtale på Schiller Instituttets konference i Frankfurt, Tyskland, 25.-26. nov., udtrykte Helga Zepp-LaRouche denne idé på en meget eftertænksom måde:

»Det var den gamle verdensordens absolut manifeste mangel på udvikling, der var årsag til Kinas impuls, og den Nye Silkevejsånd har nu grebet om sig i en grad, hvor mange nationer i verden er absolut fast besluttet på at få udvikling, der giver hele deres befolkning et bedre liv.

Jeg mener, at den Nye Silkevej er et typisk eksempel på en idé, hvis tid er kommet; og når en idé på denne måde først er ved at blive en materialistisk virkelighed, bliver den til en fysisk kraft i universet. Jeg har personligt haft muligheden for at se udviklingen af denne idé, der på mange måder reelt set begyndte med denne store mand – min ægtemand, Lyndon LaRouche; der, for mange årtier siden – for næsten et halvt århundrede siden – fik ideen om en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden. Dette blev dernæst mere manifest i 1970’erne, ’80erne og især i 1991, da Sovjetunionen opløstes, og hvor denne idé om at skabe en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden blev meget fremtrædende. Jeg havde personligt muligheden for at se, hvordan dette spredtes efter Xi Jinping i 2013, i Kasakhstan, annoncerede den Nye Silkevej… Dette har skabt et fuldstændig optimistisk perspektiv.«

Foto: Broen over Pingtanstrædet, med hovedvej og jernbane, under opførelse i Fuijan-provinsen i det sydøstlige Kina. 2017. (Xinhua/New China)

Jason Ross interviewer Harley Schlanger på den første dag af konferencen, “At opfylde menneskehedens drøm”.

17. nov., 2017 – På sidelinjerne af en international konference for tænketanke i Beijing sagde den tidligere, franske premierminister, Dominique de Villepin, til Sputnik: »Den Europæiske Union bør øge sin deltagelse i initiativet, ’Ét Bælte, én Vej’ (OBOR). Det kan opnås gennem den Europæiske Investeringsbank eller, for eksempel, gennem den franske Fond for Innovationer [Fonds Pour les Innovations]. Disse instrumenter bør samarbejde mere aktivt og gennemføre specifikke projekter inden for rammerne af OBOR.«

De Villepin fortsatte, »Den Europæiske Kommission og regeringerne i flere EU-stater er bekymrede over de kinesiske selskabers investeringer i strategiske sfærer af økonomien. Jeg er overbevist om, at den Europæiske Union ikke bør opgive andre lande ved at introducere endeløse kontrolforanstaltninger. EU-landene bør opbygge et samarbejde på basis af gensidig fordel, ligesom Kina gør.«

Han antydede, at disse spørgsmål ville blive diskuteret under den franske præsident Emmanuel Macrons forestående besøg til Kina, der forventes at finde sted i januar, 2018. De Villepin påpegede ligeledes spørgsmålet om Afrikas udvikling: »Det initiativ, som den [kinesiske præsident] Xi Jinping foreslår, gennemføres i Asien, bør vi gennemføre i Europa. Den Europæiske Union bør opbygge tættere partnerskaber og et tættere samarbejde med Maghreb-landene og Afrika i lighed med Kinas Bælte & Vej. Vi kunne udvikle infrastruktur i de afrikanske stater, som ville være meget fordelagtige for vore foretagender og give en impuls til disse landes økonomier.«

De Villepin, der var fransk premierminister fra 2005-2007 under præsident Jacques Chirac, sagde, at sådanne forbindelser ville være fordelagtige for både Afrika og Europa. »Afrika ses ofte som et spørgsmål om flygtninge og udokumenterede migranter. Jeg mener, vi skal af med disse fordomme. Vi kunne skabe projekter, hvor selskaberne og institutionerne både fra den Europæiske Union og de afrikanske stater deltager. Hvis ens naboer ikke har stabilitet, er der heller ingen stabilitet i Europa«, understregede de Villepin.

21. okt., 2017 – En rissort, der allerede med held er blevet hybridiseret af kinesiske agronomer til at kunne vokse i saltholdige omgivelser, er nu blevet yderligere forbedret til at give større afkast, op til 4,5 tons pr. hektar. Dette kan omsættes til at bespise 200 mio. flere mennesker, iflg. Kinas ekspert i hybridisering, Yuan Longping, der er kendt som »Hybridrisens Fader« for sit banebrydende arbejde siden 1970’erne. De seneste opdateringer rapporteres i Sputnik i dag.

Den nye sort af saltris kan vokse, hvor vandets saltindhold er op til 6 %; til sammenligning er havvand 4 %. Frøet giver samme sort som forældrene og er allerede til salg, men er meget dyrt. Der er planer i gang om at udvikle det til kommercielt salg til en fornuftig pris.

Yuan har ofte understreget, at over 60 % af kineserne er afhængige af ris som deres basis kornfødevare, og over halvdelen af verden. I oktober 2016 blev et forskningscenter for saltris etableret i Qingdao, Shandong Provins, med Yuan Longping som leder.

Kina udfører betydningsfuldt arbejde for at forbedre rishøsten i Afrika. For eksempel har Kina planer om at bygge et landbrugsteknologicenter i Burundi, hvor man skaber store vindinger inden for risens ydeevne.

I 2004 – som af FN blev erklæret internationalt »År for Ris« – fik Yuan Longping Verdensfødevareprisen (oprindeligt etableret af dr. Norman Borlaug), som samtidig også blev givet til den fremtrædende, afrikanske forsker i ris, dr. Monty Jones; Jones er den tidligere senioravler af ris ved Vestafrikas Center for Udvikling af Ris.

Foto: Den verdensberømte ’Fader af hybridris’, Yuan Longping.  

Vi befinder os ved en korsvej i menneskets historie, meget mere, end de fleste mennesker er klar over, for vi har lige nu to helt forskellige dynamikker i verden: Den ene er den, vi kender fra USA og de europæiske nationer, hvor vi har et kollapsende paradigme. Vi har et samfund, der tydeligvis ikke fungerer, hvilket reflekteres i mange symptomer, som Brexit, Hillary Clinton, der tabte valget, ’nej’ i folkeafstemningen i Italien for nylig, imod forfatningsændringer, det tyske valg, som er dramatisk, og nu folkeafstemningen i Catalonien – de er alle symptomer på, at der er noget fundamentalt galt. Og det er en kendsgerning, at bestræbelserne fra de neokonservatives side på at etablere en unipolær verden efter Sovjetunionens sammenbrud, gik ind for neoliberale politikker, der har knust mange millioner menneskers levebrød, og der foregår nu et oprør imod hele dette system.

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Fra LaRouche PAC Manhattan Project Borgermøde i New York City, 30. sept., 2017.

Nu har Kina udviklet en ny model for udenrigspolitik, og det er virkelig vigtigt, at amerikanere bliver bekendt med den; for det er ikke sådan, at Kina er ved at tage over, sådan, som Bannon siger. At Kina på en eller anden måde truer med at tage USA’s position. Nogle af jer husker måske, at der for et par måneder siden var et møde i New York, hvor den kinesiske ambassadør i Washington, Cui Tiankai, grundlæggende set fremlagde en præsentation, hvor han sagde, at der var 16 eksempler i historien, hvor et land ville overgå den magt, som frem til dette punkt havde været den dominerende. At det i 12 tilfælde førte til krig; og at, i 4 tilfælde overtog den fremvoksende magt simpelt hen den gamle dominerende magt. Ambassadør Cui sagde, at Kina hverken vil have de 12 tilfælde, hvor der blev krig, og ikke ville gentage disse eksempler; og heller ikke ville have de andre 4, for det, Kina tilbyder, er en helt ny model for relationer staterne imellem. Dette vil jeg gerne gennemgå, for jeg mener, det er absolut afgørende. Kina foreslår en ny model for stormagter, baseret på den absolutte respekt for de andre staters suverænitet, princippet om ikke-indblanding, princippet om accept af en anden samfundsmodel og et win-win-samarbejde mellem de to. Dette er selvfølgelig, hvad forholdet mellem USA og Kina bør blive til. Dernæst er et andet aspekt af denne nye, kinesiske model, en ny relation til Kinas naboer. Dette er allerede i kraft med ASEAN-landene, med Shanghai Samarbejdsorganisationen; det er i kraft i det Sydkinesiske Hav, hvor lande, der er naboer, indser fordelene ved gensidigt økonomisk samarbejde snarere end geopolitisk konfrontation.

Et tredje aspekt, som i et aspekt er det vigtigste, er, at Kina har udviklet en helt ny model for relationer med udviklingslandene. Dette er mest synligt i Afrika. Det, Bælte & Vej Initiativet, den Nye Silkevej, har gjort på fire år, siden Xi Jinping annoncerede det, har ikke alene ført til historiens største infrastrukturprogram, hvor folk blot diskuterer, om det nu er 12 gange eller 20 gange så stort som Marshallplanen i genopbygningen (i Europa) efter Anden Verdenskrig. Det er et åbent spørgsmål; det er det gode. Det har fuldstændig forandret karakteren af det afrikanske kontinent, fordi kineserne har bygget jernbaner fra Djibouti til Addis Abeba; de bygger nu jernbaner fra Kenya og Mozambique hele vejen til Rwanda. De har bygget mange industriparker, vandkraftværker, systemer til kunstig vanding; og nu planlægger de at gennemføre det største infrastrukturprojekt nogensinde – Transaqua-projektet – der med sikkerhed ville transformere hele det afrikanske kontinent.

Dette er en ny model for relationer, og den er ikke baseret på geopolitik. Den har ideen om en alliance mellem fuldstændigt suveræne nationalstater; det er faktisk, hvad John Quincy Adams havde foreslået, da han var præsident for USA.

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Leder fra LaRouche PAC, USA, 2. okt., 2017 – Historien om Imperium er historien om »del og hersk«. På et tidspunkt, hvor menneskets historie står over for en transformation sådan, som vi i dag oplever, med det store potentiale for et nyt paradigme for hele menneskeheden, baseret på den Nye Silkevejspolitik for global udvikling, skal man se på større destabiliseringer med en skarp lugtesans, der lugter det beskidte spor af Imperium.

Som Helga Zepp-LaRouche i dag mindede verden om: Nationalstaten er Imperiets fjende.

Det britiske Imperium har altid promoveret ideen om »Regionernes Europa«, der var baseret på etniske og religiøse forskelle, som var belejligt for destabiliseringer af nationalstater, der ikke var samarbejdsvillige. Hvem står bag krisen i Catalonien, der truer, ikke alene Spanien, men hele Europa? Hvem var det, der opdelte Cameroun i engelsk- og fransktalende sektorer efter Første Verdenskrig, og nu har aktiveret kravet om uafhængighed for den engelske sektor, som har ført til 17 dødsfald i dag og potentielt kaos i morgen? Bemærk, at Kina nu er Camerouns førende handelspartner, som det er tilfældet med nationer i det meste af Afrika, og nu er i færd med at bygge et undersøisk kabel fra Cameroun til Brasilien, som vil betjene alle nationerne i Afrika og Sydamerika.

Hvorfor har Israel så åbenlyst støttet den kurdiske folkeafstemning, der destabiliserer ikke alene Irak, men også Iran, Syrien og Tyrkiet, hvis regeringer har været et mål for London og Wall Street?

Det fuldstændig tossede, horrible mordorgie i Las Vegas må ikke afskrives uden at følge sporet, snarere end at acceptere historien om den »enlige morder«, der så ofte har været brugt til at skjule sandheden.

Det måske mest klassiske eksempel på britisk del-og-hersk er iscenesættelsen af den israelsk-palæstinensiske konflikt, der er blevet brugt til at opsplitte hele verden i det seneste århundrede. I dag er det et prøveeksempel for de to paradigmer, som menneskeheden står overfor. I dag mødes de to palæstinensiske bevægelser, Fatah og Hamas, i Gaza for at drøfte forsoningen af palæstinensisk styrelse. De fleste presserapporter og »ekspertanalyser« afskriver denne bestræbelse som værende dømt til nederlag, af samme grund, som lignende bestræbelser tidligere er mislykkedes.

Men, i dag er der en forskel – Bælte & Vej Initiativet. En palæstinensisk forretningsmand, Munib al-Masri, annoncerede søndag en plan for at skabe et selskab, der er helliget til udviklingsprojekter i Gazastriben til støtte for Kinas Bælte & Vej Initiativ. Al-Masri er viceformand for det Internationale Handelskammer for Silkevejen. Formanden for denne institution, Lu Jianzhong, der er præsident for CCCC International Holding Ltd. i Kina, har været involveret i byggeri af infrastruktur i hele Afrika og besøgte i sidste uge Vestbredden, hvor han mødtes med præsident Abbas og økonomiminister Odeh.

Det er netop den Nye Silkevej, der kan forandre historiens imperiegeometri, og som kan skabe fred gennem udvikling. Genopbygningen af Syrien, f.eks., er allerede begyndt gennem det internationale samarbejde mellem Rusland, Kina og andre, der er involveret i Bælte & Vej-processen.

Der er al mulig grund til at mene, at denne historiske Nye Silkevejsproces kan lykkes med virkelig at forene verden i det nye paradigme. Præsident Trump har sagt, at han ønsker at gøre Amerika stort igen gennem samarbejde med andre store nationalstater, der hver især sætter deres eget folk først, men samarbejder i harmoni med alle andre nationalstater. Dette var grundlaget for den Westfalske Fred i 1648, som afsluttede de religiøse krige i Europa og skabte den moderne nationalstat. Dette er den konfucianske harmoni, der har inspireret Kinas mirakuløse vækst ud af fattigdom i løbet af de seneste årtier, efter Kulturrevolutionens mareridt.

Det kupforsøg mod præsident Trump, der udføres af det forbryderiske slæng omkring Robert Mueller, kan og må knuses ved hjælp af EIR-dossieret, der er udfærdiget til formålet.[1] Det er netop samarbejdet mellem USA, Rusland og Kina i den Nye Silkevej, der adresserer alle nationers og alle folkeslags fælles interesser, og som har været EIR’s og Schiller Instituttets mission siden deres grundlæggelse. Nu er vores tid kommet.

Foto: Folkeafstemning i Catalonien; folk, der protesterer på Las Ramblas for uafhængighed fra Spanien. 2. okt., 2017. (Sasha Popovic / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

[1] Se også: LPAC Internationale Webcast, 29. sept.

Kære Vælger,

Mener du, at ideer er vigtige? Så er BüSo det rigtige parti for dig! For BüSo adskiller sig frem for alt fra andre partier derved, at vi forandrer verdenshistorien ved hjælp af ideer og ikke, gennem ’de små skridts politik’, pragmatisk forsøger at opretholde en verdensorden, der muliggør en udvidelse af privilegier for en lille elite og til gengæld berøver flertallet af menneskeheden et fremtidsperspektiv. Det program, som vi i 1991 foreslog som respons på Sovjetunionens opløsning, nemlig den økonomiske integration af Eurasien gennem den Eurasiske Landbro – en Ny Silkevej – som kernen i en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden, er nu i færd med at blive virkeliggjort af Kina og yderligere 110 nationer, altså flertallet af menneskeheden. Det, vi dengang udviklede som et udkast til en fredsorden for det 21. århundrede, og som vi i de 26. år, der er gået siden da, har præsenteret på hundreder af konferencer og seminarer i hele verden, er nu, i de seneste fire år, siden den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinping i september 2013 satte den Nye Silkevej på dagsordenen, med en fantastisk dynamik vokset til at blive en helt ny model for verdensøkonomien.

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16. sept., 2017 – Selv om der finder tektoniske forandringer sted i verden i dag, ville man aldrig gætte det ud fra de temaer, som de store partier i Tyskland rejser i opløbet til forbundsdagsvalget den 24. sept. En slående undtagelse til denne fornægtelse af virkeligheden er Borgerrettighedsbevægelsen Solidaritets (BüSo) kampagne, med Helga Zepp-LaRouche som formand, under sloganet, »Tyskland må tilslutte sig den Nye Silkevej«. Valget finder sted søndag, den 24. sept.

I en appel til vælgerne, udstedt den 15. sept., identificerer Zepp-LaRouche klart mulighederne. De kan »smide deres stemmer ud« ved at vælge et parti, der har støttet den nuværende verdensorden med sine interventionskrige – og den flygtningekrise, disse krige har skabt – og det voksende svælg mellem rig og fattig, skriver hun, og som ikke er lykkedes med at rette op på de fejltagelser, der førte til finanskrisen i 2008, og som har ført til et endnu mere dramatisk finanssammenbrud i dag.

Men, advarer Zepp-LaRouche, de vil også spilde deres stemmer, hvis de vælger et parti, der kritiserer de etablerede partier, men ikke tilbyder en løsning.

Alternativt »kan De vælge et parti, der ikke alene har en vision for en bedre fremtid for menneskeheden, men også har organiseret kræfter i hele verden og etableret relationer, der kan få denne vision til at blive til virkelighed – Borgerretsbevægelsen Solidaritet (BüSo)«.

I sin appel henviser Zepp-LaRouche til BüSos årtier lange kamp for en retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden, som senere blev sat på verdensdagsordenen af Kinas Nye Silkevej, eller Bælte & Vej Initiativet.

»BüSo er forpligtet over for at bringe Tyskland fuldt og helt ind i et samarbejde med dette initiativ, og til, sammen med Kina, Rusland og andre lande, at udvikle økonomisk de lande, der er blevet ødelagt af de nytteløse krige i Mellemøsten og Afrika.«

Samarbejdet i den Nye Silkevej ville ikke alene være med til at løse flygtningekrisen, fortsætter Helga Zepp-LaRouche, men er også i den tyske Mittelstands interesse, eftersom det ville skabe mange produktive jobs og mindske arbejdsløshed, især for unge mennesker.

Desuden er »en ny, retfærdig, økonomisk verdensorden den eneste måde at sikre varig verdensfred« i en tidsalder med atomar krigsførelse.

Helga talte polemisk til vælgerne og sagde, at, hvis de hidtil kun har hørt misinformation eller bagvaskelse om BüSo, skyldes det, at det transatlantiske establishment er »stiv af skræk over, at perspektivet om den Nye Silkevej er meget mere attraktivt end status quo«.

Måden, hvorpå mainstreammedierne har behandlet BüSo i denne kampagne – og derudover enhver, der udfordrer EU-bureaukratiet eller Wall Streets og City of Londons interesser – rejser mange tvivl, bemærker Zepp-LaRouche, om, hvor meget pressefrihed, demokrati og menneskerettigheder, der egentlig »er tilladt i vores land«.

Efter en gennemgang af hovedpunkterne i BüSos program, konkluderer Helga Zepp-LaRouche:

»Jeres stemme tæller. Smid den ikke ud, men investér den i fremtiden. Stem på BüSo.«     

Foto: Helga Zepp-LaRouche taler til en vælgermødeforsamling. I baggrunden BüSos valgplakat, med det eurasiske udsnit af Verdenslandbroen og maglevtog, og BüSos valgslogan, »Tysklands fremtid er den Nye Silkevej«.  

12. sept., 2017 – Med denne provokerende titel midt i den aktuelle debat om Kinas Nye Silkevej i den tyske valgkampagne, udgiver avisen Junge Welt i sin udgave af 13. sept. et interview med BüSo-lederen Helga Zepp-LaRouche (der opstiller til kanslerposten i Berlin-kredsen).

»Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität definerer sin rolle anderledes end andre små partier«, lyder avisens headline-kicker.

På spørgsmålet om, hvad BüSo står for, svarer Zepp-LaRouche:

»Vi ønsker et nyt paradigme i politik – væk fra geopolitik, og frem til menneskehedens fælles mål. Vi mener, at en fortsættelse af geopolitik i sig bærer faren for en konfrontation med Rusland og Kina. Det er én af grundene til, at vi støtter præsident Xi Jinpings initiativ for skabelse af en Ny Silkevej på basis af win-win-samarbejde blandt alle verdens nationer.«

»Men ’atlanticister’ ville opponere, at dette lyder som en Eurasisk Union!«, indskyder intervieweren, idet han her citerer denne, den mest kontroversielle »russiske« idé.

»Det går langt ud over dette«, svarer hun. »Denne nye model for økonomisk samarbejde er blevet vedtaget i Latinamerika, og frem for alt, i Afrika. Det sprænger selvsagt grænserne for en Eurasisk Union. I denne udvikling af Afrika ser vi en enestående chance for at løse flygtningekrisen på et humant grundlag: Vi besejrer langt om længe konsekvenserne af kolonialisme og IMF’s betingelsespolitik, der er vedhæftet tildeling af kredit, og som fulgte efter kolonialismen. Udelukkende kun udvikling af infrastruktur vil skabe forudsætningerne for en reel udvikling af hele kontinentet.«

Efter flere spørgsmål med relation til den tyske debat i valgkampen – flygtningekrisen, spørgsmål om skatter og beskæftigelsessituationen, samt uddannelse – stiller Junge Welt spørgsmålet, »Hvor realistisk mener du, det er, at dine ideer vil blive vedtaget?«

»Visionen om den Nye Silkevej var vores idé, en plan for en fredelig verden i det 21. århundrede. Vi har arbejdet på det i 26 år, og den kinesiske regering anerkender fuldt ud vores andel i dette perspektiv. Vi fremstilles på en meget mere fair måde i pressen dér, end i mainstreampressen her. Vi er således et parti, der opererer på et fuldstændig andet plan end andre såkaldte ’små partier’. Og jeg håber, at dette også vil give sig udslag i stemmer.«

»Er du opdraget som socialist?«, forsøger intervieweren.

»Jeg er opdraget som humanist, som en verdensborger«, konkluderer Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

(Redaktionens bemærkning: Jeg har ikke kunnet se ovenstående artikel udgivet i Junge Welts online-udgave af 13. sept. Søg de følgende dage: https://www.jungewelt.de/aktuell/)

15/9:

Ovenstående interview, vi har rapporteret om, blev alligevel ikke fjernet fra ’Junge Welts’ trykte udgave, se pdf. Den er dog fortsat ikke opslået på deres online-udgave. (Red.)

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Foto: Helga Zepp-LaRouche i BüSo’s valgspot. Se den her (dansk tekst). 

Fredag, 1. sept., 2017 – I en erklæring, der blev givet til EIR den 29. aug., besvarer direktør for Bonifica, Romina Boldrini, kritik og bagvaskelse, som for nylig er fremkommet mod Transaqua-projektet for infrastrukturudvikling og overførsel af vand fra Congoflodens bækken til Tchadsøens bækken. »Med hensyn til nyligt fremkomne rapporter om Transaqua-projektet«, lyder erklæringen, »har jeg, som juridisk repræsentant for Bonifica Spa, ment det opportunt at i det mindste fremlægge vore synspunkter om sagen.

At udtrykke sin egen mening og sit eget synspunkt er en menneskeret, selv, når det går imod en andens ideer og holdninger.

Jeg mener imidlertid, det er nødvendigt at undgå sterile polemikker for deres egen skyld, uden en løsning: Jeg mener, at en objektiv analyse af kendsgerninger er vanskeligere, men mere konstruktivt og etablerer de kontraktlige klausuler, og er det bedste tilbud til læseren og til dem, der er direkte involveret i processen.

I denne henseende har Bonifica merit: Vi har i nu over 30 år afsløret dimensionen af denne nødsituation, udforsket en myriade af mulige løsninger og identificeret én mulig, organisk løsning, efter, på et tidligt stadium, at have advaret om demografisk vækst i Nigeria og om den socialøkonomiske krise i et meget stort område. Dette gjorde Bonifica alene.

Lad os nu for et øjeblik glemme, at vi er ’Transaqua-projektets fædre’ og forsøge at tilbyde det mest muligt objektive synspunkt.

Kendsgerningerne:

Det er uomtvisteligt korrekt, at Tchadsøen er i færd med at undergå en irreversibel ørkendannelsesproces. Man behøver blot se på satellit-data med relation til Tchadsøens bækken. En sådan proces skabes af en række indbyrdes forbundne årsager og kan kun afbrydes gennem en ekstraordinær og permanent intervention;

Det er uomtvisteligt korrekt, at denne situation er i færd med at føre til klimaforandringer, der har indvirkning på både vegetation og dyreliv i området;

Det er uomtvisteligt korrekt, at befolkningen – og ikke kun befolkningen – trues af hungersnød pga. den progressive udtørring af Tchadsøen; de manglende muligheder for livsopretholdelse og jobs og den voksende fattigdom har tragiske konsekvenser, både mht. folkesundhed og rent samfundsmæssigt, med udviklingen af terroristfænomenet:

Det er uomtvisteligt korrekt, at befolkningen i dette område har en fortsat demografisk vækst; dette forværrer ikke alene situationen, men er i stigende grad årsag til strømmen af migration mod andre områder.

Konfronteret med disse kendsgerninger, er der følgende muligheder:

Muligheden for, mere end tidligere, at forlade sig på international hjælp. Immigration og terrorisme rammer voldsomt den såkaldte ’vestlige verden’, der, endelig og måske af dens egne, selviske grunde, i dag ser på Afrikas problemer, som var de dens egne;

Muligheden for at undersøge og udvikle nogle projektideer, heriblandt Transaqua, med det formål at overveje, hvad der er den bedst mulige løsning eller løsninger at vedtage, med det formål at være med til at løse ét af mange problemer i Afrika. Her må vi åbne et nødvendigt kapitel:

Transaqua er ikke et projekt, der blev udviklet uafhængigt af de involverede landes vilje;

Transaqua er ikke et projekt, der blev påtvunget afrikanske lande, der er involveret i selve projektet.

Transaqua er en projektidé, hvis forundersøgelser blev studeret og udviklet allerede i 1980’erne, og som den daværende præsident af Congo (tidligere Zaire) på det tidspunkt godkendte og var enig i.

Transaqua er et ambitiøst projekt, fordi nødsituationen i Afrika har en dimension, der er global, således, at det ikke kan adresseres af beskedne projekter eller, hvad der er værre, kortsigtede løsninger.

Transaqua er en mulig løsning ’på bordet’, der bør udvikles gennem forundersøgelser med det formål at forstå og vurdere en række aspekter:

Hvorvidt projektet rent teknisk kan udføres

Hvorvidt projektet rent økonomisk-finansielt kan udføres

Dets indvirkning på miljøet

Aftale mellem de berørte stater

Dets økonomiske og sociale fordele

Dets kritiske aspekter.

I øjeblikket er Transaqua ikke et udviklet og godkendt projekt, der, uden hensyntagen til landes og befolkningers vilje, blev påtvunget afrikanske lande: Det er en mulighed. Muligheden for at vurdere og udvikle en løsning, der kunne gøre det muligt for alle berørte parter omhyggeligt at kritisere, modificere, acceptere og blive enige om den foreslåede løsning – eller foreslå en anden løsning.

Muligheden; det er hjørnestenen. Uden muligheder er der ingen chancer, ingen løsninger.

Dette er, hvad vi ønsker at tilbyde afrikanske lande: muligheden for i deres hænder at have en forundersøgelse af projektet, finansieret af vestlige lande og / eller internationale organisationer, der kunne gøre det muligt for os at tilbyde en potentiel løsning.«

Foto: (Fra øverst venstre) Satellitfoto, 1973, 1987, 1997, 2001.

Udtørringen af Tchadsøen: »At forhindre, at Tchadsøen forsvinder og at genoprette den til sit 1963-niveau på 25.000 km², er ikke alene af stor betydning for Sahelzonens nationer og resten af Afrika, men er af strategisk betydning for planeten.«

Se også: EIR-artikel, 5. dec., 2014 (3 dele): EIR Brings Transaqua Plan, BRICS to Lake Chad Event http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2014/eirv41n48-20141205/28-36_4148.pdf

28. august, 2017 – Der er ingen, der ved, hvor mange mennesker, der i det forgangne år er druknet i Middelhavet eller er døde af tørst i Sahara – titusinder, måske flere. Arten og måden, hvorpå EU behandler flygtningekrisen, opfattes i hele verden som Europas moralske sår. Pave Frans har ret, når han sammenligner interneringslejrene for flygtninge med koncentrationslejre.

Men forslagene fra de andre partier, der deltager i Forbundsdagsvalget, reflekterer hele spektret af fremmedfjendtlig populisme, helt til de absurde forslag som skabelse af alternative arbejdspladser for menneskehandlerne. Forslagene rækker over afskærmning af EU’s ydre grænser, »solidarisk« fordeling af flygtninge i EU, forsyning af den libyske kystvagt med »det nødvendige udstyr», udskiftning af de libyske interneringslejre med FN-ledede lejre til legal indvandring for flygtninge med gode erhvervskvalifikationer, varslingssystemer til tidlig opdagelse af potentielle flygtninge osv. De reflekterer alle den uudtalte antagelse, at Afrika i al evighed vil forblive i en tilstand af underudvikling.

BüSo og Schiller Instituttet har længe foreslået en helt anden politik: et reelt, økonomisk infrastruktur- og opbygningsprogram for hele det afrikanske kontinent. Vi udgår fra det perspektiv, at fattigdom og underudvikling i Afrika – resultatet af århundreders kolonipolitik og, i de seneste årtier, af IMF’s betingelsespolitik – kan overvindes for altid gennem et integreret infrastrukturprogram, gennem industrialisering og gennem udvikling af et moderne landbrug.

Til dette formål har vi udarbejdet en rapport med titlen, Den Nye Silkevej bliver til Verdenslandbroen. Et centralt projekt i dette udviklingsprogram, Transaqua-projektet, bliver nu realiseret i samarbejde mellem Kina og Italien. Transaqua bliver det største infrastrukturprojekt i Afrika, hvor ikke-udnyttet vand fra Congoflodens bifloder i 500 meters højde over havoverfladen føres til Tchadsøen gennem et system af floder og kanaler. Gennem dette projekt bliver tolv afrikanske stater forsynet med et system med intern sejllads, elektricitet fra vandkraftværker og anlæg til kunstig vanding af landbrugsjorder, og Tchadsøen, der er indtørret til blot 10 % af sin tidligere vandmængde, bliver igen opfyldt. Dette projekt vil betyde en kvalitativ betydelig forbedring af levestandarden for 40 millioner mennesker

Vi appellerer til de europæiske regeringer om at skabe de rammebetingelser, der gør det muligt for mellemstore og andre firmaer at deltage i investeringer i byggeriet af Transaqua og de andre infrastrukturprojekter, vi har foreslået, og som hermed vil skabe produktive arbejdspladser til mange hundrede millioner mennesker i Afrika. Kina har, med byggeri af jernbaner, industriparker, vandkraftværker osv. allerede sørget for, at mennesker i Afrika for første gang har et berettiget håb om at overvinde fattigdom og underudvikling. Hvis Den Nye Silkevej bliver bygget i hele Afrika, kan Afrika endda i løbet af de næste årtier overgå Kinas økonomiske mirakel!

BüSo er det parti i Tyskland, der ikke blot har ideerne, men som også kan virkeliggøre dem. Artiklen om vores arbejde igennem årtierne i People’s Daily bør læses af alle, der vil være med til at overvinde flygtningekrisen.

Stem på BüSo-partiet, hvis De er interesseret i virkelige løsninger!    

Redaktionens bemærkninger:

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, der i Danmark er mest kendt som stifter og præsident af det internationale Schiller Institut, er også formand for det tyske parti, BüSo, (Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität, Borgerretsbevægelsen Solidaritet), og hun er spidskandidat til kanslerposten i Berlin-kredsen til forbundsdagsvalget, der finder sted den 24. september. Læsere, der er specielt interesseret i det tyske valg, kan holde sig løbende informeret på BüSo’s valgportal på BüSo’s hjemmeside. EIR’s 384-sider lange rapport Den Nye Silkevej bliver til Verdenslandbroen er nu også udgivet på tysk – interesserede bedes henvende sig til vores kontor. (Kan også købes som pdf for €35).

Se en udførlig introduktion på dansk, ved Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Se også Helgas video-valgspot:

Med næstformand Michelle Rasmussen:

»Man kan bruge en linje fra Charles Dickens, hvor han skrev om historien om to byer, men her har vi historien om to verdener, to verdenssyn; det ene er et kollapsende paradigme, hvor man simpelthen har forsømt at investere i moderne infrastruktur, i vedligeholdelse og modernisering af infrastrukturen og har udsultet infrastrukturen, med katastrofale konsekvenser, på den ene side; og så et nyt paradigme … jeg vil fortælle historien om Schiller Instituttets årtier lange kamp for at realisere nogle nøgle-udviklingsprojekter, som nu faktisk er ved at blive til noget, fordi en stor nation som Kina har besluttet at være med.

Så først begynder vi i Houston. I har alle sammen set billeder og nyhedsdækningen. I Houston har vi en kombination af naturkræfter, hvor orkanen Harvey i USA faktisk er blevet en storm, der har den største mængde regnfald for en enkelt storm, 52 inches (132 cm) – kombinationen af virkelig stærke naturkræfter plus menneskelige fejl, fordi Houstons vandkontrol-system er fra lige efter Anden Verdenskrig, og så har der været forslag om modernisering; det seneste forslag vil koste $28 mia., men blev ikke til noget. Og nu har de en storm, hvor det mindste beløb, de snakker om, er $100 mia. Deres system til oversvømmelseskontrol blev her for nylig vurderet og fik et C, som virkelig ringe. Nu er der 50 amter i Texas, som er påvirket. 33 af dem er i nødtilstand, og også 5 amter i Louisiana. Der skulle være 1,7 mio. mennesker, der måtte forlade deres hjem; vi har oversvømmede huse, forretninger, landbrug; ingen elektricitet i tusindvis af hjem; vi har en hel del raffinaderi-kapacitet, der er blevet lukket; vi har en meget vigtig både national og international havn, Houston, som virkelig har taget skade; jernbanenettet, man skønner, at 500.000 jernbanevogne er blevet ødelagt. …

Helga [Zepp-LaRouche] holdt en hovedtale, der er tilgængelig på dansk på vores hjemmeside, hvor hun sagde – og det var samtidig med, at orkanen Harvey ramte – hvor hun sagde, at kun ved, at vi gennemfører Lyndon LaRouches Fire Økonomiske Love, plus, at USA tilslutter sig Kinas Bælte & Vej Initiativ, kunne vi virkelig få gang i de nødvendige investeringer og moderniseringer.

Denne tragedie i Texas og Louisiana kan nu blive en opvågnings-alarmklokke til borgerne, til politikerne, om, at, nu skal der virkelig ske noget drastisk, og det kan kun lade sig gøre, hvis vi siger, at, nu skal vi ikke bare tale om LaRouches Fire Love; nu skal vi ikke bare tale om, hvor fremragende, det ville være, hvis USA tilslutter sig Bælte & Vej Initiativet, men nu skal det faktisk gøres.…«

Lyd:

Dias til mødet…

Jeg er meget glad for at tale for jer, for dette giver mig lejlighed til understrege for mit eget perspektiv, hvorfor jeg mener, at dette er det mest dramatiske øjeblik i historien, i vores levetid. Hvis dette går den rigtige vej, kunne vi være i et fuldstændig nyt paradigme, i en ny form for relationer mellem nationer på meget kort tid. Og, hvis det går den forkerte vej, ville vi meget hurtigt være tilbage i en kurs for konfrontation med Rusland og Kina, som vi havde med den tidligere administration. Og, i betragtning af alle krisepunkterne og situationens drama, kunne det føre til Tredje Verdenskrig og civilisationens udslettelse.

Så imellem disse to muligheder kunne spændingen ikke være større, og det sted, hvor denne kamp udkæmpes, er selvfølgelig USA.

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