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.

Se alle taler på Schiller Instituttets konference, »At opfylde menneskehedens drøm«, i Bad Soden, Tyskland, 25.- 26. nov., 2017, her.

Opdateres løbende.

I sidste måned besluttede vi, fordi den Europæiske Union forbyder diskussionen, at bringe diskussionen fra Italien til USA. På hvilken måde? Vi skrev et brev til præsident Trump for at minde ham om det løfte, han gav under valgkampagnen, om at genindføre Glass/Steagall-loven. Et hundrede treogtredive parlamentsmedlemmer underskrev brevet – fra det italienske parlament, det Europæiske Parlament, inklusive hr. Zanni, der indsamlede otte underskrifter fra parlamentsmedlemmer på dette brev, samt fra nationale parlamentsmedlemmer: regionale rådsfolk fra Lombardiet, Veneto og folk fra Syditalien.

Liliana Gorini: Mit navn er Liliana Gorini, og jeg er forkvinde for Movisol, LaRouches organisation i Italien og en nær medarbejder til fr. Helga Zepp-LaRouche og hr. LaRouche gennem 40 år. Jeg siger dette, fordi jeg af fysiske årsager ikke har deltaget i konferencer, og nu er jeg her endelig: Så mange mennesker kender mig måske ikke.

Jeg vil gerne kommentere, hvad Zanni netop sagde om situationen i Europa, og især i mit land, Italien, og fuldt ud bekræfte det, han sagde om virkningerne på befolkningen af den Europæiske Unions vanvittige politik, og især om bail-in. Der er allerede ofre i Italien for denne bail-in-politik og Bankunionen: To pensionister tog deres eget liv, fordi de mistede hele deres opsparing. Dette var ikke rige mennesker. Dette var almindelige mennesker, der havde sparet op i hele deres liv, og deres penge blev ganske enkelt stjålet med denne bail-in (ekspropriering af bankindskud). Det er ikke en løsning; der skaber faktisk flere problemer.

Efter problemet med bankerne i Veneto har vi nu også et problem med de væsentligste samarbejdsbanker i Genova, Carige, der er ved at gå fallit, og folk er bange. De ikke alene mister deres jobs, og økonomien synes at fortsætte udelukkende, fordi folk lever af deres opsparede midler. Italienere har tendens til at opspare penge; men hvis de også mister deres opsparinger, vil de ikke alene ikke have et job, men de vil heller ikke være i stand til at overleve. Så det græske mareridt er ved at komme meget, meget tæt på for alle italienere.

Men, i den Nye Silkevejsånd findes der en løsning, så jeg vil gerne overbringe de gode nyheder til alle i den optimistiske ånd, som fr. LaRouche gav udtryk for i sin åbningstale: I Italien har vi haft en diskussion, som vi begyndte for mange år siden, baseret på LaRouches Fire Love, og især den første lov, Glass/Steagall. Den debat, som Movisol – vi – skabte, har nu bragt otte lovforslag ind i det italienske parlament; i mellemtiden debatteres det i fire regionale råd. Der var for nylig en diskussion i Finanskomiteen om dette.

I sidste måned besluttede vi, fordi den Europæiske Union forbyder diskussionen, at bringe diskussionen fra Italien til USA. På hvilken måde? Vi skrev et brev til præsident Trump for at minde ham om det løfte, han gav under valgkampagnen, om at genindføre Glass/Steagall-loven. Et hundrede treogtredive parlamentsmedlemmer underskrev brevet – fra det italienske parlament, det Europæiske Parlament, inklusive hr. Zanni, der indsamlede otte underskrifter fra parlamentsmedlemmer på dette brev, samt fra nationale parlamentsmedlemmer: regionale rådsfolk fra Lombardiet, Veneto og folk fra Syditalien.

Mange andre mennesker underskrev dette: Betydningsfulde økonomer, journalister, ledere af aviser, jeg selv – jeg var selvfølgelig blandt de første underskrivere.

Vores idé er at bringe dette brev til Kongressen i januar måned for at fremme de tværpolitiske lovforslag, der er blevet foreslået i den amerikanske Kongres. Som I ved, har et par republikanere og mange demokrater introduceret [eller medsponsoreret] lovforslag. Glass/Steagall-loven var i partiprogrammet for både det Republikanske og det Demokratiske Parti, ligesom det også er i de fleste italienske partiers partiprogram. I Italien afholder vi parlamentsvalg, sandsynligvis i maj. Alle [forslagene] om bankopdeling og Glass/Steagall er i alle disse italienske partiers partiprogrammer, fra venstre til højre.

Dette skyldes alt sammen vores kampagne i Italien. Jeg vil særligt gerne introducere denne unge mand – der er årsag til, at jeg er her, for han kørte mig – Massimo Coldamassaron. Det var ham, der indsamlede alle underskrifterne, opsøgte politikere og slog dem oven i hovedet og sagde, »Jeg vil redde mine børns fremtid, og I må vedtage Glass/Steagall, ellers vil vi meget snart stå uden et land.« Han har denne samling appeller, og han spurgte – og jeg gør dette, eftersom vi er her – om der er nogen af jer, som helt sikkert Hussein Askary, Ulf Sandmark, Jacques Cheminade, alle, der har en position, en eller anden fremtrædende politisk rolle, og vi vil gerne tilføje flere navne til disse 130 italienere, et par mennesker fra Frankrig, fra Tyskland, fra Sverige, fra Danmark, således, at når vi tager til Washington, vil det stå klart, at, ikke alene Italien, men hele Europa, hele Europa ønsker LaRouches Fire Love og Glass/Steagall.

Så kom hen til mig eller Massimo, og vi vil tilføje din underskrift, og vi vil sørge for, at denne appel ender i præsident Trumps hænder: Vi vil sørge for det. Mange tak. [applaus]

Zepp-LaRouche: Jeg vil gerne fuldt ud støtte denne idé. Jeg mener, det er et meget nyttigt forslag, så alle fra alle lande, der ønsker at støtte dette initiativ, bør kontakte Liliana og Massimo. Jeg mener, at europæerne ikke har forenet deres stemmer, og jeg mener, at det, MP Zanni udtrykte, at der er denne diskrepans mellem den Europæiske Unions politik og så de europæiske landes evne til at forsvare deres egen interesser, er meget klar. Jeg mener, at denne konference kan være et godt udgangspunkt for at optrappe et sådant krav.

Jeg vil opfordre jer alle til at henvende jer til Liliana og hjælpe med i denne kampagne, ikke blot ved at levere en underskrift, men ved at forpligte jer til at gøre det, Massimo gjorde. Vi kan alle sammen henvende os til politikerne, til borgmestre, til parlamentsmedlemmer og kræve, at de forsvarer det almene vel.

For blot at styrke det, der blev sagt om finanskrisen: Vi sidder på en total krudttønde. Tegnene på, at krisen i 2008 gentager sig i langt større skala, er overvældende. Gældskrisen er større end i 2008; alle parametrene – derivaterne, de forgældede stater, selskaber, studenters gæld, krisen på ejendomsmarkedet – alle parametrene er omkring 40 – 80 % værre end i 2008. Og den Europæiske Union har netop udstedt retningslinjer, der går ud på, at de ikke har nogen værktøjer ud over at stjæle borgernes penge. Dette er virkelig et meget farligt øjeblik, som vi bør bruge som udgangspunkt for at gå ind i en regulær mobilisering for at få disse Fire Love gennemført.

Foto: Forkvinde for Movisol, den italienske LaRouche-bevægelse, Liliana Gorini.

»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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Tiden er således i dag inde til, at en ny, europæisk, politisk klasse tænker over, hvad der kunne være et alternativt projekt for Europa; som kunne stille spørgsmålstegn ved den eksisterende ramme for den Europæiske Union. Som jeg sagde, så stiller vi – og jeg selv personligt, som repræsentant for det europæiske og italienske folk i Europaparlamentet – spørgsmålstegn ved denne TINA-retorik (There is No Alternative – der er intet alternativ). For vi har behov for en alternativ, institutionel ramme for det europæiske folk.

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Det følgende er en af mange internationale hilsener til Schiller Instituttets konference, »At opfylde menneskehedens drøm«, der fandt sted i Tyskland 25.-26. nov., fra mange fremtrædende personer i hele verden:

Yemen: Fouad al-Ghaffari, stifter af Kontoret for Koordinering med BRIKS (Brasilien, Rusland, Indien, Kina og Sydafrika) og præsident for Yemen BRIKS Ungdomskabinet, præsenterede en smuk, 15 minutter lang video

med en rapport fra stedet og sender sine hilsener og hilsener fra mange af sine medarbejdere, der, på trods af de barske forhold i selve Yemen, arbejder ihærdigt for det fulde LaRouche-program i samarbejde med det kinesiske initiativ for Ét Bælte, én Vej (OBOR), den Nye Silkevej.

Fra Yemen afspillede han videobudskabet og sagde til publikum, der var forsamlet i Tyskland, »med en hel del smerte, blandet med håb, indspiller vi dette fjerde budskab på afstand, i dag, 17. okt., for at hilse jer, Schiller Instituttet, på jeres konference. Jeg hilser jer fra Sana’a Internationale Lufthavn. Den er lukket pga. saudisk aggression og har forhindret mig i at deltage i jeres konference, og ligeledes forhindret titusinder af yemenitter i at rejse for at få lægebehandling eller tage deres uddannelse eller udføre deres arbejde. Dette er en forbrydelse, som hele verden er vidne til.«

Hilsenen sluttede med en appel om »et nyt kapitel i bogen for de nye, internationale relationer«, som er blevet meget fremmet af præsident Trumps besøg i Kina. Dette besøg, sagde han, indeholder håbet om at »erstatte en doktrin for internationale relationer, der bragte sorg og ødelæggelse til verden, og som aldrig burde have eksisteret«, således, at menneskeheden nu kan bevæge sig »fra systemet for regimeskifte til det mere naturlige system for suveræne nationer, der forenes omkring drømmen om én menneskehed«.

(Se også video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRDgTc2vHg4)

 Se også: RESOLUTION:
»For en afslutning af krigen og den humanitære krise i Yemen«.
Vedtaget på Schiller Instituttets internationale konference, 25.-26. nov., 2017

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.

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I den Europæiske Union lever omkring 120 millioner mennesker under fattigdomsgrænsen, ifølge vore egne kriterier, der karakteriserer leveomkostningerne. I betragtning af, at Europa stadig er et økonomisk kraftcenter, er der ingen acceptabel grund til, at Europa ikke også skulle kunne løfte disse 120 millioner mennesker ud af fattigdom frem til år 2020. Den bedste måde, hvorpå dette kan opnås, er ved, at EU og alle europæiske nationer tager imod Kinas tilbud om samarbejde med Kina om Bælte & Vej Initiativet på en »win-win«-basis.

RESOLUTION: »Europa må ende fattigdom for sine 120 millioner fattige frem til år 2020«

Resolution vedtaget på Schiller Instituttets internationale konference i Bad Soden, 26. nov. 2017.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Hvis der ikke er flere spørgsmål, vil jeg gerne oplæse mit forslag til denne resolution, som jeg gerne vil have, I vedtager – eller én af dem.

På denne konference, der havde titlen, »At opfylde menneskehedens drøm«, drøftede vi den utrolige transformation i verden, der er blevet katalyseret af det kinesiske initiativ for den Nye Silkevej; Bælte & Vej Initiativet, der skaber optimisme i Asien, Afrika, Latinamerika, flere og flere stater i Europa og, efter præsident Trumps statsbesøg til Kina, i flere stater i USA.

Bælte & Vej Initiativet har det konkrete perspektiv for, hvordan fattigdom og underudvikling kan overvindes gennem investering i infrastruktur, industri og landbrug, baseret på videnskabelig og teknologisk fremskridt. Den kinesiske regering, der i løbet af de seneste 30 år har løftet 700 millioner mennesker ud af fattigdom, har nu bekendtgjort målet om at løfte de tilbageværende 42 millioner mennesker, der lever i fattigdom, ud af denne tilstand og skabe en anstændig levestandard for hele den kinesiske befolkning frem til år 2020.

I den Europæiske Union lever omkring 120 millioner mennesker under fattigdomsgrænsen, ifølge vore egne kriterier, der karakteriserer leveomkostningerne. I betragtning af, at Europa stadig er et økonomisk kraftcenter, er der ingen acceptabel grund til, at Europa ikke også skulle kunne løfte disse 120 millioner mennesker ud af fattigdom frem til år 2020. Den bedste måde, hvorpå dette kan opnås, er ved, at EU og alle europæiske nationer tager imod Kinas tilbud om samarbejde med Kina om Bælte & Vej Initiativet på en »win-win«-basis.

Vi, deltagerne på Schiller Instituttets konference, opfordrer alle folkevalgte personer til at tilslutte sig denne appel til de europæiske regeringer. Skulle vi i Europa ikke være stolte nok til at sige, at, hvis kineserne kan gøre dette, så kan vi også? [applaus]

RESOLUTION: »For en afslutning af krigen og den humanitære krise i Yemen«

26. nov., 2017 – Deltagerne på Schiller Instituttets internationale konference i Bad Soden, Tyskland, vedtog enstemmigt følgende resolution om krigen i Yemen:

»I betragtning af den dokumenterede kendsgerning, at krigen mod Yemen, der er blevet ført af den saudiskledede koalition siden marts 2015, har været årsag til en humanitær krise uden sidestykke i dette land som resultat af bombardement af landets infrastruktur og den totale blokade til lands, til vands og i luften, der er gennemført, kræver deltagerne på Schiller Instituttets internationale konference i Bad Soden, Tyskland, den 25.-26. nov., 2017:

1. En øjeblikkelig våbenstilstand mellem alle parterne;
2. Ophævelse af blokaderne mod landet, især mod havnen i Hodeida og den internationale lufthavn i Sana’a, og som muliggør omgående humanitærhjælp til landet;
3. En tilbagevenden til den nationale forsoningsproces og dialog, som var i gang, men som blev afbrudt af krigen. (Denne forhandlingsproces må føres under FN-regi og udelukkende mellem nationale, yemenitiske grupperinger uden indblanding fra regionale eller globale magter, men sponsoreret af Rusland, Kina og USA som garanter for gennemførelse af det sluttelige resultat af dialogen.) Formålet med sådanne forhandlinger er at finde en politisk løsning på krisen i Yemen.
4. At hjælpe Yemen med en hurtig og storstilet genopbygningsproces, der fokuserer på infrastrukturprojekter for at genvinde nationens levebrød og Yemens integration i Bælte & Vej Initiativet.«

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

Schiller Instituttet og den rolle, dets stifter Helga Zepp-LaRouche spiller, optrådte på en konference den 12.-13. juli, »Den Nye Silkevejs initiativer – resultater og udfordringer«, i Beograd, Serbien. Konferencen var arrangeret af Instituttet for International Politik og Økonomi (IIPE) i Serbien, og af det Kinesiske Samfundsvidenskabelige Akademis Institut for Europæiske Studier (CASS), som en opfølgende begivenhed til instituttets første konference ved Donau sidste år i juni, under den kinesiske præsident Xi Jinpings besøg.

Konferencen blev åbnet af professor, dr. Vladimir Popoviċ, statssekretær for Ministeriet for Undervisning, Videnskab og Teknologisk Udvikling; prof., dr. Žarko Obradoviċ, præsident for den Serbiske Nationalforsamlings Udenrigskomite, og Kinas ambassadør til Beograd, Li Manchang, samt Huang Ping, direktør for 16+1 (16 central- og østeuropæiske lande plus Kina). Der blev fremlagt rapporter fra serbiske regeringsfolk, netværk af tænketanke plus 50 andre eksperter fra Kina, Serbien, Bosnien- Hercegovina, Polen, Bulgarien, Rumænien, Rusland, USA og Tyskland. Ambassadør Li beskrev Bælte & Vej Initiativet (BVI) som et hus, bygget af Kina, med interiøret designet af husets beboere.

I begyndelsen af den første session introducerede konferencearrangør Duzsko Dimitrijevic Elke Fimmen fra det tyske Schiller Institut og EIR, der talte om »Den Nye Silkevej – dens strategiske betydning for verdensfred«. Hun satte fokus på Helga Zepp-LaRouches deltagelse i Bælte & Vej Forum for Internationalt Samarbejde i Beijing, 14.-15. maj, og Helgas beskrivelse af det som en »meget harmonisk begivenhed«, der eksemplificerede et nyt, globalt paradigme for win-win-samarbejde, der erstattede geopolitik. Fimmen illustrerede sine bemærkninger ved at vise et verdenskort fra den netop udgivne, tyske oversættelse af den berømte EIR Specialrapport, Den Nye Silkevej bliver til Verdenslandbroen.

Fimmen fokuserede på opsvinget i samarbejde i opløbet til G20-topmødet i Hamborg 7.-8. juli, på hvilket møde vi så det historiske møde mellem præsidenterne Vladimir Putin og Donald Trump, og begge disses fortsatte samarbejde med præsident Xi Jinping. Hun sagde, at samarbejdet mellem disse tre åbner døren for et nyt paradigme for fred og udvikling, der kan forvise sult, fordrevne befolkninger og farerne ved krig og finansiel ulykke til støvede historiebøger.

Blagoje Babic, fra det Serbiske Videnskabs- og Kunstakademis Komite for Økonomisk Videnskab, talte om »Den Nye Silkevej – respons til den kinesiske økonomis udfordringer«, hvor han talte stolt om at følge fr. LaRouches 26 år lange kamp for at etablere den Nye Silkevej som den globale politik, den nu er blevet til. Andre talere forklarede, hvordan BVI åbner for fremgang for alle, og hvordan dette kan ekspandere i takt med, at Silkevejen i rummet fører den menneskelige ånd hinsides vor Jords begrænsning.

Foto: Elke Fimmen fra det tyske Schiller Institut. Elke Fimmen er desuden næstformand i det tyske, politiske parti BüSo, der har Helga Zepp-LaRouche som formand. Foto fra 2012.

U.S.-China Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative – Summary

Mike Billington, Executive Intelligence Review magazine

Benjamin Deniston, 21st Century Science and Technology

Jason Ross, 21st Century Science and Technology magazine Editor-in-Chief

Prof. Nie Lei, Dean, School of Traffic and Transportation, Beijing Jiaotong University

Dr. Hal Cooper Jr., Chairman, Seattle Freight Transport Advisory Board

Richard Trifan, Vice President, Government Relations and Trade, The Eurasia Center, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Liu Qiang, Director of Energy Economics Division, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Mr. Faiyaz Murshid Kazi, Counsellor, the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations

VA Senator Richard Black (R-13)

Ms. Meifang Zhang, Deputy Consul General, the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China

Mr. Petr Iliichev, Chargé d’affaires, Permanent Mission of Russian Federation to the UN

Dr. Patrick Ho, Deputy Chairman & Secretary General, China Energy Fund Committee, Hong Kong, China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8ApUo6f96w

Lige fra begyndelsen havde Schiller
Instituttet den idé, at vi måtte have en
retfærdig, ny økonomisk verdensorden;
men at det aldrig ville fungere, hvis det ikke
blev forbundet med en renæssance af
klassisk kultur. 

Det, jeg vil tale om, er ideen om den højeste menneskehed, det fælles filosofiske grundlag for vestlig og asiatisk kultur … Præsident Xi Jinpings håbefulde vision for det, han altid kalder et fællesskab for menneskehedens fælles fremtid … er blevet vedtaget som en resolution i FN’s Sikkerhedsråd. … Med dette koncept er et strategisk initiativ, som kan erstatte den krigsskabende geopolitik med idealet om en forenet menneskehed, sat på dagordenen

Download (PDF, Unknown)

… LPAC’s mål  stadig er det samme. Et meget klart mål, der har to sider:

1) At befri USA fra det britiske imperie-systems forsøg på at bruge USA til at bulldoze verden ind i Tredje Verdenskrig; en fare, der netop nu er særdeles reel, med situation i Syrien, der er ved at blive hed efter Trumps-administrationens meget ukloge angreb mod den syriske regering dér, og som var baseret på ukorrekt efterretning. Samt den krigeriske, aggressive optrapning omkring situationen i Nordkorea.

2) Men på den anden side, også at fortsætte kampagnen for at bringe USA ind i det Nye Paradigme, der netop nu vokser frem i hele verden.

Indledning:

Matthew Ogden: Godaften, det er den 21. april, og dette er vores fredag aften webcast.

For blot nogle få timer siden havde vi en diskussion med både Lyndon og Helga LaRouche; og de understregede begge, at vores mål, som LaRouche Politiske Aktions-komite (LPAC), stadig er det samme. Et meget klart mål, der har to sider:

1) At befri USA fra det britiske imperie-systems forsøg på at bruge USA til at bulldoze verden ind i Tredje Verdenskrig; en fare, der netop nu er særdeles reel, med situation i Syrien, der er ved at blive hed efter Trumps-administrationens meget ukloge angreb mod den syriske regering dér, og som var baseret på ukorrekt efterretning. Samt den krigeriske, aggressive optrapning omkring situationen i Nordkorea.

2) Men på den anden side, også at fortsætte kampagnen for at bringe USA ind i det Nye Paradigme, der netop nu vokser frem i hele verden.

Vi befinder os naturligvis i nedtællingen til Bælt & Vej-konferencen, der afholdes i Beijing i maj, om under tre uger; Kinas præsident Xi Jinping er vært for konferencen, men tæt ved 28 forskellige statsoverhoveder fra hele verden vil deltage. Vores kampagne er selvfølgelig stadig, at præsident Donald Trump personligt bør deltage i dette topmøde; og bør gengælde præsident Xi Jinpings tilbud om, at USA går med i Bælt & Vej-initiativet og bliver en del af dette Nye Paradigme for økonomisk udvikling og fred, versus det gamle, døende paradigme med Det britiske Imperiums geopolitiske del-og-hersk-strategi, der har bragt verden på randen af Tredje Verdenskrig.

Kineserne handler nu, har optrappet deres organiseringskampagne, for at organisere verden til denne forestående begivenhed. Det er af stor betydning, at der i USA vises øget opmærksomhed over for dette, i kølvandet på Schiller Instituttets konference, der fandt sted sidste torsdag og fredag, den 13. og 14. april, med titlen: »USA og Kina: Samarbejde om Bælt & Vej-initiativet«.

Der er nogle meget betydningsfulde citater, som vi vil afspille for jer her. Det begynder med et besøg, som formanden for den Nationale Kinesiske Folkekongres’ Stående Komite, Zhang Dejiang, havde, da han rejste til Moskva for at mødes med præsident Putin i onsdags, for at lægge fundamentet for præsident Putins besøg i Beijing. Han sagde:

»Under præsident Xi Jinpings strategiske lederskab har vore bilaterale relationer og omfattende strategiske partnerskab nået et meget højt punkt. Kina ser frem til, og byder velkommen, Deres besøg i maj i år, for at deltage i Ét Bælt, én Vej Internationale Samarbejdsforum. De vil være den højeste æresgæst dér. De vil mødes med præsident Xi Jinping på sidelinjen af forummet, og dette har stor betydning for styrkelse af venskabet og samarbejdet mellem vore lande, og for promoveringen af bilateralt samarbejde inden for alle områder, i særdeleshed i dagens situation.«

Zhangs besøg i Moskva er en del af et større organiseringsfremstød for Bælt & Vej-topmødet, som også inkluderede bemærkninger af præsident Xi Jinping under en turné i Sydkinas autonome region, Guangxi Zhuang, i onsdags. Han sagde:

»Bælt & Vej-initiativet har fået stor anerkendelse i det internationale samfund, siden det blev fremsat; hvilket viser, at det er i overensstemmelse med folkenes vilje. Vi vil fremme Kinas store politik for åbenhed og udvikling inden for rammerne af Bælt & Vej, og vi vil yderligere fremme virkeliggørelsen af Kinas mål gennem to hundrede år, og den kinesiske drøm om den kinesiske nations store foryngelse.«

Sidste del af udskriftet på engelsk:

(Se også: Helga Zepp-LaRouches tale på konferencens første dag: (Fuld dansk tekst.)

»Samarbejde mellem Kina og USA om Bælt & Vej-Initiativet«. 

Together with this, there has been a press conference which
was sponsored by the Transportation Ministry of China, and the
spokesman stated that “Transportation connectivity is the
founding priority of the implementation of the Belt and Road
Initiative.”  This press conference was hosted by the
Transportation Ministry in order to highlight the growing scope
of the Belt and Road projects.  The Transportation Ministry
spokesman stated that more than 130 regional and bilateral
transport agreements have already been signed; 56 international
road routes have been opened.  He said that 4200 direct flights
now connect China with 43 different Belt and Road Initiative
countries.  And finally — and most significantly — 39
China-Europe freight train routes are now currently in operation.
So, this is clearly highlighting the extraordinary scope and
growing magnitude of the Belt and Road Initiative as the paradigm
which is sweeping the planet.  Also, just this past Wednesday,
Xinhua.net published an interview with the President of Greece,
where he said, “The upcoming high-level forum on the Belt and
Road Initiative is of global significance.  The forum is
important not only to China, but also to the rest of the world.
The forum will prove that in the new historical era, China will
play an important role in promoting the harmonious co-existence
of countries in the world.”
Now this theme of the “harmonious co-existence of countries
in the world” is a theme that the Chinese President and the
Chinese government have highlighted on multiple occasions;
comparing the Silk Road Initiative to a kind of symphony
orchestra, where not one voice is more prominent than another;
but the voices of all the instruments mix together in one
harmonious co-existence.  This is a metaphor for the New
Paradigm; not a unilateral world where one country’s, or one
bloc’s, values and system are imposed on another country; but
that the best of what every country has to offer is brought to
the table in dialogue — culturally, economically, strategically.
And that the New Paradigm is based on this kind of “win-win”
cooperation.
Now this was a theme that Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder
of the Schiller Institute, took up in multiple ways in both her
keynote on the first day of the international Schiller Institute
conference which I referenced, up in New York City, on US-China
cooperation; but also in a very beautiful way in her speech on
the second day of that conference.  We’re not going to play the
full speech for you here; it’s available on the Schiller
Institute website.  But the theme that she brought up was a very
beautiful theme of the cultural dialogue between the best of what
Western European culture has to offer, and the Confucian
tradition in China.  She compared the writings of Friedrich
Schiller, who is obviously the namesake of the Schiller
Institute, and one of the leading thinkers of revolutionary
Europe at the time of the American Revolution — he was called
the Poet of Freedom; compared to the writings of the thousands’
year old philosopher of Chinese civilization, the philosopher
Confucius.  Both of these two philosophers’ writings converge on
the idea that it is the aesthetical education and the aesthetical
development of the citizens of the country, which allows for
peace and prosperity to become the reigning order of that nation,
or of that land.  She read several extensive quotes from
Confucius in which he developed the idea that the music reflects
and reciprocively reflects back on the state of development of
the mind of the people.  An organized and developed form of music
reflects and organized and developed form of society.  She
compared this to the writings that Friedrich Schiller had in his
writings on {The Aesthetical Education of Man}, which he
published in the wake of the failed French Revolution.  Schiller
elaborated that a republican form of government must make as its
number one priority the aesthetical development of its people.
She said that it’s not a surprise for a country such as China,
where President Xi Jinping has put a premium on the revival of
this Confucian idea.  She said that there’s a renaissance of
Confucian ideas and Confucian philosophy that is now taking place
inside China.  That this metaphor of a symphony orchestra, or of
a chorus of voices joining together, should be one that the
President of China uses in his discussion of what this new
international paradigm of “win-win” mutually beneficial
relationships between countries should be; that this is what is
now organizing the world as an almost gravitational force towards
this upcoming Belt and Road Initiative that’s going to be hosted
in Beijing by China in May.
Now obviously, many countries around the world are now
realizing what time it is; that in fact, China is emerging as the
world’s leading economic power and economic leader, and is
bringing that kind of development perspective that it has already
applied domestically for its own people, to countries around the
world.  Former colonial countries in Africa building trains,
building water projects there.  Bringing this as part of a
dialogue in South America for canal and rail projects there; and
obviously, along the entire Belt and Road Initiative corridor.
What is happening is that many countries are now saying, “We’re
on board!”  The latest is Belarus.  President Lukashenko there is
saying that Belarus is going to become a hub of the One Belt, One
Road Initiative inside Europe.  Helga Zepp-LaRouche joked that
Germany is now being surrounded by countries that wish to become
a part of the New Silk Road.  Whereas those countries are hubs of
development, Germany is a hole of development right now.  But you
have also the announcement in recent weeks that many countries
are now joining the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank.  This
was an offer that President Xi Jinping directly put on the table
during the APEX summit years ago in a joint press conference with
President Barack Obama.  Obama rejected it.  Xi Jinping offered
that the United States could enter into the Asia Infrastructure
Investment Bank as one of its founding investors.  This obviously
remains an offer which is open, and these offers have been
reiterated in the recent weeks surrounding President Xi Jinping’s
trip to the United States during his bilateral summit meeting
with President Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.  Very significantly,
this was reiterated during the LaRouche Movement’s Schiller
Institute conference in New York City by the Deputy Consul
General representing the Chinese Consulate in New York City.
We’re going to play a very short clip from her speech.  It’s
very clear; she says “President Xi Jinping offers the United
States to join China in cooperation in the Belt and Road
Initiative framework.  This is an opportunity that should be
seized, and it’s an opportunity that will be mutually beneficial
to both countries involved.”  So, here’s that clip:

CHINESE DEPUTY CONSUL GENERAL:  “Last by not least, I want to
quote President Xi as saying that China welcomes the United
States to participate in cooperation within the Belt and Road
framework.  President Xi stressed that both countries have become
each other’s first largest trading partners, and both peoples
have benefitted a lot from it.  China’s economy will maintain a
sound development momentum and enhancement of economic and trade
cooperation between the countries enjoys broad prospects.  Both
countries should really seize the opportunities.”

OGDEN: During that conference, it was very significant that
this representative of the Chinese government attended that
conference, which was on the subject of US-Chinese cooperation
around the Belt and Road Initiative; and again formally extended
the offer to the United States and to President Trump to join
this initiative and to cooperate with China around this New
Paradigm of economic development for the planet.  As the Deputy
Consul General stated during the rest of her speech, and as Helga
Zepp-LaRouche reiterated, this upcoming mid-May meeting of the
Belt and Road Initiative that’s being hosted in China is the
opportunity.  This is the inflection point for the United States
to change its policy.
Very provocatively, at that conference, Helga Zepp-LaRouche
began the entire conference with her keynote presentation that
she has stated that if President Trump were to decide to join
this New Silk Road and to join this New Paradigm, he could become
one of the greatest Presidents in the history of the United
States.  She said that shocked a lot of people when she said that
several weeks ago; and despite the fact that a very ill-advised
action was taken by President Trump to enter into this
confrontational stance with North Korea and also to take the
initiative the Syrian air base in Syria, she said that statement
and characterization still stands.  Because if he were to make
that choice, that would mean that he was deciding to abandon the
British geopolitics of unilateral imperial war and confrontation,
and to become a part of this New Paradigm; which would mean an
end to the British imperial system once and for all.  Since that
point, it’s been very clear that the British Empire has been
involved directly in trying to bulldoze Donald Trump into this
kind of World War III confrontation and away from the kind of
cooperation that was clearly part of his campaign.
At the same time that the Chinese representative at that
conference in New York City made that statement, that formal
offer once again for the United States to join the Silk Road;
also in attendance was the chargé d’affaires for the Permanent
Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations.  He made
a very significant point which was similar.  He said the Russian
people do not wish for confrontation with the United States of
America; but wish instead for bilateral cooperation, a
relationship of friendship, of mutual understanding and mutual
development.  And that this is, in fact, the opportunity which is
posed by the types of initiatives that were being discussed at
that conference in New York City; this Schiller Institute Belt
and Road Initiative conference.
Unfortunately, as we’ve documented and as we’ve continued to
document, the Trump administration has been taken in by the kinds
of false propaganda drumbeat that is now being propagated from
many of the leading media organizations in the United States, and
very profoundly from the British government.  From Boris Johnson,
from the military layers inside Great Britain, and so forth.
However, since the time that President Trump made the decision to
launch the airstrikes against the Syrian government, based on the
supposed intelligence that Assad had used chemical weapons
against his own people, increasingly there has been evidence that
has been coming out from very credible sources, that in fact that
intelligence was flawed; and perhaps was even faked as a false
flag initiative in order to pull Trump into this war.  Very
similar to the type of lies that came out of Tony Blair in 2003
in order to pull the United States into the war against Iraq with
the so-called “weapons of mass destruction”.  There was a very
significant interview that was delivered by President Assad to
Sputnik News just yesterday, which is now being circulated today.
We’re going to read a few clips from that interview for you.
What President Assad had to say in this interview, as you
can see on the screen, with Sputnik News, was that this was a
false flag.  He said, “We formally sent a letter to the United
Nations, asking in that letter to send a delegation in order to
investigate what happened in Khan Sheikhun.  Of course until this
moment, they didn’t send anyone, because the West and the United
States blocked any delegation from coming.  Because if they come,
they will find out that all their narratives were a false flag.
So for us, there was no gas attack and no gas depot.  It was a
false flag play, just to justify the attack on Syria.  That’s
what happened.  The attack was already prepared.  They didn’t
want to listen; they didn’t want to investigate.  They only
wanted to launch the attack.  We believe it was a false flag for
one reason and a simple reason.  If there was gas leakage or an
attack, and you’re talking about 60 dead in that city; how could
the city continue its life normally?  They didn’t evacuate the
city.  Even if you look at the pictures, you can see the
rescuers, the presumable rescuers were rescuing people without
masks, gloves.  They were moving freely; how?  This is against
all specifications of sarin gas.  You can fake this image; it’s
very easy.  So you cannot just base your judgment on images and
videos, especially made by al-Qaeda.”
Now this was also reiterated by the Russian Defense Ministry
spokesman, General Igor Konashenkov on April 20, in a similar
argument where he points to the fraud that’s being perpetrated.
He said, “In the past two weeks, not a single OPCW representative
was seen there” at the site of the supposed attack in Syria.
“Where do these samples come from, that the OPCW claims prove
that there was a sarin gas attack?  Who of the OPCW members was
able to study them so fast, while standard procedures stipulate a
complex research which requires time; as we can see in the case
of the mustard gas use in Aleppo.”  Konashenkov ironically then
went after the “charlatans from the White Helmets organization,
who were hustling and bustling inside sarin gas clouds with no
protective gear on. Although independent experts do not believe
that anyone could have remained unharmed in a sarin gas attack,
nevertheless, maybe the head of the OPCW,” he said, “has created
his own periodic table of the elements instead of Mendeleyev’s
one.”
Then over the course of this week, a qualified source, a
professor emeritus from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, the former professor Ted Postol, released a series of
very detailed exposés on the facts surrounding this Syrian sarin
gas attack; which prove, according to him, that the White House
intelligence assessment blaming the Syrian government is simply
false.  Professor Postol, who — as I said — is a professor
emeritus at MIT, received his PhD in nuclear engineering from
MIT; and he’s worked at the Argonne National Laboratory; he’s
worked in the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment; he’s
worked as a scientific advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations;
and also at Stanford University to train scientists studying
weapons technology.  He stated in this exposé about the alleged
Syrian sarin gas attack, he said first of all, the details of the
location being cited, the weather patterns at the time, other
things conclude “Without a doubt, the sarin dispersal site
alleged at the April 4, 2017 sarin attack in Khan Sheikhun, was
not a nerve agent site.  It also shows beyond a shadow of a doubt

that the only mass casualty site that could have resulted from
this mass attack, is not in any way related to the sites, which
are shown in video following a poisoning event of some kind at
Khan Sheikhun.”  He continues by saying, “The allegedly high
confidence intelligence assessment issued on April 11th that led
to the conclusion that the Syrian government was responsible for
the attack, is not correct.  For such a report to be so
egregiously in error, it could not possibly have followed the
most simple and proven intelligence methodologies to determine
the veracity of its findings.”
So there you have from several different sources, a
qualified questioning of the facts of the attack on the ground.
None of these obviously is conclusive one way or another, and as
has been stated, an independent, non-biased, United Nations
investigation should take place; and OPCW personnel should be on
the ground.  But the point is, as was realized after the fact,
the lies that came out of the British Empire and from Tony Blair
in 2003, which brought the United States into a completely
unjustified and aggressive war in Iraq, are being repeated at
this point.  There was a story earlier this week which we will
cover more extensively, that in fact, the Chilcot Commission
report which found that Tony Blair was at fault in those lies
that were perpetrated around the 2003 attack; a lawsuit has been
brought against Tony Blair.  But the UK Attorney General has
determined that although aggressive warfare might be against the
law in international law, might be illegal in international law;
in fact, there are no laws on the books in the United Kingdom,
inside England, that say that aggressive war is illegal.  That
aggressive war is a crime.
There you can see that in fact, the British do not believe
that the crime of aggressive war is actually one that should be
prosecuted.
To conclude, there has been an initiative this week from
{Executive Intelligence Review} to begin producing a series of
video shorts which expose the crimes of the British government at
this point to try to steamroll the United States into this kind
of World War III; and to prevent the United States from
participating in the kind of international cooperation that you
see around the New Silk Road.  There is definitely a countdown, a
showdown in these 21 days between now and this Belt and Road
Initiative conference in China; and it should be seen as such.  A
fight for the soul of the United States — what direction with
the US go?  What direction will the Trump administration go?  As
the inaugural video in that short video series, {Executive
Intelligence Review} published a 90-second clip from the
conference presentation by Helga Zepp-LaRouche from last week in
New York City; where she lays out very clearly that what is
happening here in the United States is, in fact, a British
intelligence coup against the Trump administration.  The point
has got to be made: Americans should know their history and
realize that over the course of our entire history, ever since
the American Revolution, the British have been trying to
reconquer the United States to use the United States as its dumb
giant in these wars; in order to assert this imperial agenda.
Now is the time for the American people to recognize this
history; to recognize what is happening, to know who the enemy
actually is; and to say that we will no longer be a tool of this
imperial system.  We are now deciding to become part of this New
Paradigm and to return to our roots — Alexander Hamilton,
Abraham Lincoln, Henry Carey, Henry Clay — and the American
System of Political Economy that Donald Trump, less than three
weeks ago was talking about his model for economic policy for the
United States.
So, I’m going to conclude with this short clip from Helga
Zepp-LaRouche, and encourage you to please tune in to this new
video series that is coming from {Executive Intelligence Review}.
It can be found on the EIR YouTube channel, which you can
subscribe to.  We are also going to be sharing some of these via
social media.  So you can subscribe to these social media pages
— Facebook, twitter, and so forth.
So, thank you very much; and let me conclude with this clip
from Helga Zepp-LaRouche:

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE:  What happened is, de facto, a coup d’état
inside the United States; which has two elements.  One is the
false flag operation in Syria, combined with what one could call
a palace coup inside the administration.  Now, this coup is a
British intelligence operation; and it must be recognized as such
in order to liberate President Trump from this great danger.
Remember that the American War of Independence, that which
created the United States, was made against the British Empire;
and the British Empire never gave up the idea to reconquer the
United States.  The first time they did that was in the War of
1812; then the British Empire allied with the Confederacy —
British banks financed the Confederacy in this war through their
affiliates in Boston and Philadelphia and so forth.  The British
Empire totally got upset when Trump announced that he wants to go
back to the American System of economy — Alexander Hamilton,
Henry Clay, Lincoln.      

Denne nyhedsorientering er en redigeret udgave af en briefing, Schiller Instituttets danske formand Tom Gillesberg gav den 10. april om situationen, vi står i efter det dramatiske kursskifte den 6. april, hvor Donald Trump blev overtalt til at sende Tomahawk-missiler imod en syrisk luftbase. Talen kan ses og høres på www.schillerinstitut.dk. Udover at sabotere et samarbejde mellem USA og Rusland bliver angrebet på Syrien også brugt til at tale en militærkonfrontation mellem USA og Nordkorea op. Hvis Trump skulle lade sig besnakke til noget så tåbeligt, vil det få endnu mere katastrofale konsekvenser (se side 3). Som en modpol til dette britisk anførte pres for konfrontation og krig afholdt Schiller Instituttet, bl.a. sammen med kinesiske og russiske repræsentanter, en konference i New York den 13.-14. april, der præsenterede det utroligt store potentiale Kinas Bælt- og Vej-Initiativ udgør, særligt hvis USA og Europa ville gå med (se midtersiderne).

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Folk tager fuldstændig fejl, når de tror, at Det britiske Imperium ikke længere eksisterer. Der skete det, at, efter Sovjetunionens kollaps, gik Storbritannien og de noekonservative i USA i gang med bestræbelser på at etablere en unipolær verden. Man kan også sige, at det er det samme som globalisering: det er et forsøg på at etablere et verdensimperium, baseret på den angloamerikanske relation; for tidligt erklærede Fukuyama historiens slutning, dvs., at hele verden ville blive forvandlet til demokratiske stater, og de opfandt sådanne ting som »retten til at beskytte« (eller ansvaret for at beskytte, R2P, -red.), »humanitær intervention«, »regimeskifte«; ’farvet revolution’ imod enhver regering, der ikke ville underkaste sig. …

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Ruslands politik var meget klar fra begyndelsen: Vi ønsker ikke at have nogen særstatus på verdensarenaen. Vi ønsker ligeværdig behandling, fair behandling, ikke kun for os, men for alle andre stater. Og hvis vi kan yde denne fair behandling i alle sfærer, ligeværdig sikkerhed, ligeværdigt økonomisk samarbejde, ligeværdige udvekslinger mellem folkeslag, så vil vi alle vinde en masse, i stedet for at forsøge at opbygge nye mure, forsøge at bygge nye skel, forsøge at bygge, genopbygge eller styrke disse militære alliancer, der findes.

Konferencier Dennis Speed: Jeg vil gerne introducere vores sidste taler. Vi er alle klar over en særlig omstændighed, der er brudt ud, og de af os, der er virkelige amerikanske patrioter, indser, at en stor uretfærdighed er blevet begået. Vi er påtvunget denne uretfærdighed, og vi er glade for at have den næste taler her, med os: Her er hr. Petr Iliichev, chargé d’affaires ved den Russiske Føderations permanente mission til FN. [Stående klapsalver].

Petr Iliichev: Mange tak, mange tak kolleger for en meget varm velkomst, og jeg er taknemmelig over for madame LaRouche for at arrangere jeres konference, som er meget relevant for det, vi diskuterer. Jeg undskylder, at jeg kommer for sent, men vi havde to møder i dag i Sikkerhedsrådet, to vigtige spørgsmål, der ligger langt væk, men som beviser, at vi lever i en globaliseret verden, og denne globaliserede verden bevæger sig i to retninger. Undertiden har vi meget anstændige, meget gode konsekvenser af globalisering, og undertiden har vi negative virkninger. I dag diskuterede vi Haiti, det ser mere eller mindre ud til at være i en positiv retning: men igen, det, som præsidenten netop har sagt, at massemigration af mennesker skaber flere problemer, men med en politisk [gave?] eller med en geo-kollektivistisk opmærksomhed kan vi forsøge at vende dette negative fænomen til en fordel, både for værtssamfundene, men også for de mennesker, der rejser.

Det andet spørgsmål, vi diskuterede, var Somalia og Eritrea, og I kan også forestille jer, at dette er et meget vigtigt spørgsmål, ikke kun pga. somaliernes skæbne, hvor de i mere end 25 år er blevet berøvet et statsskab, virkelig at have en nation. Men de har overlevet, og desværre er deres beliggenhed i en sådan strategisk position, som alle udnytter – vestlige magter, forbrydere, al-Shabab-terrorister, men nu er der en klar forbindelse til Islamisk Stat, men der er også pirateri.

Vi ser, at denne globaliserede verden også fordrer en globaliseret reaktion, et globaliseret svar.

Men for at vende tilbage til denne konferences tema, vil jeg gerne sige, at international, økonomisk udvikling og internationalt, økonomisk samarbejde nu om dage i høj grad er en drivkraft i den verden, vi lever i. Det ville være korrekt at sige, at et af målene for hvert land er at udvikle forskellige økonomiske, videnskabelige, teknologiske bånd, ikke kun mellem de individuelle lande, men også mellem grupper af lande, og disse bånd, dette samarbejde, bør baseres på principperne om uafhængighed, ligeværdighed, gensidig respekt for hinandens interesser; hvert land har sit eget strategiske projekt, og vi er stolte af det initiativ, som vore kinesiske kolleger har fremsat. Det er deres politik at genoplive den historiske Silkevej, og etableringen af to korridorer, en over land og en over havet, vil forbinde Asien via Centralasien, via Mellemøsten, og ind i Europa. Dette Ét bælt, én Vej-initiativ er et meget lovende projekt, der vil styrke økonomisk samarbejde, men også få en meget positiv indvirkning på den geostrategiske situation i dette område.

Men herudover har mit land, Rusland, været i gang med at udvikle relationer med lande i det Asiatiske Stillehavsområde. Vores strategiske partner er selvfølgelig Kina: Vi er i færd med at udvikle vore særlige relationer med Folkerepublikken Kina. Kina er vores største, økonomiske handelspartner; det er vores nabo. Vi har fælles interesser, ikke kun inden for økonomisk politik, men også inden for andre, humanitære spørgsmål, såsom sundhed, kulturel udveksling, og vi forsøger at komplementere hinanden, både i politiske og økonomiske dimensioner.

Faktisk er det samarbejde, vi har med Kina, et samarbejde omkring et strategisk partnerskab. Sluttelig nåede vores økonomiske samarbejde et meget højt niveau; vores indbyrdes handel nåede op på $40 mia.; planerne er, at det skal komme op på $0 mia., og vi er godt på vej. Dette strategiske partnerskab mellem Rusland og Kina er ikke kun i den politiske sfære; vi er naturligvis to permanente medlemmer af FN’s Sikkerhedsråd, og vi samarbejder meget tæt i denne ophøjede organisation. Men vi har også andre organisationer, hvor vi forsøger at samarbejde; først og fremmest Shanghai Samarbejdsorganisationen, men også andre, som ASEM, som BRIKS. Rusland forsøger at fremme harmoniseringen af økonomiske arrangementer, som eksisterer, og denne harmonisering bør finde sted på baggrund af principper om gennemskuelighed og respekt for hinandens interesser. Fra vores side forsøger vi at opbygge den Eurasiske Økonomiske Union (EAEU), og vi anvender disse principper på dette økonomiske arrangement. Det, vi forsøger at gøre, er ikke blot at skabe denne nye union, men også at udvide dens bånd, udvide dens samarbejde med andre økonomiske enheder, som eksisterer, og vi mener, at det er en god mulighed, at vi forsøger at sammenflette privilegier, fordele, som den Eurasiske Økonomiske Union giver, med dette initiativ for Ét Bælt, én Vej, som kineserne forsøger at gennemføre. Vi forsøger i realiteten at fremme et udvidet, eurasisk partnerskab, således, at andre omdrejningspunkter, andre centre i det eurasiske integrationsområde, kunne bringes sammen.

Vi er begyndt at gennemføre denne udvidede dagsorden. Vi har indgået en aftale med Vietnam, mellem den Eurasiske Økonomiske Union og Vietnam, i et frihandelsområde. Nu forhandler vi med Kina. Så hvis det er rigtigt at alliere dette initiativ for Ét Bælt, én Vej med den Eurasiske Økonomiske Union, så ville dette være en enorm tilskyndelse til skabelse af, ikke alene eurasisk, økonomisk handel, men et rum, der vil fremme frie relationer for gensidig forståelse inden for dette store, store rum, som vi har. Vi arbejder ikke alene med Kina og med Vietnam, men Indien er imødekommende, Pakistan; alle stater, som er med i Fællesskabet af Uafhængige Stater (SNG; på engelsk CIS).

Præsident Putin har sagt, at han vil deltage i topmødet om Ét Bælt, én Vej, som afholdes i Kina i maj måned. I dag mødtes han med Kinas Statsråds vicepremierminister og lovede, at han ville deltage og lovede at være meget opmærksom på og se meget favorabelt på dette udviklingsperspektiv.

Så vi ser frem til en strålende fremtid med Ét Bælt, én Vej, og vi mener, at jeres initiativ er meget relevant, og vi forsøger med vores diskussion at promovere det.

Mange Tak. [applaus]

Dennis Speed: Eftersom vi indser, at repræsentanten fra Rusland først nu har været i stand til at komme, vil jeg benytte det privilegium at stille ham et spørgsmål, som jeg mener, er vigtigt for hele forsamlingen.

Sir, vi er her mennesker, der mobiliserer for en meget specifik vision af verden, og De har refereret til det. Deres nation har naturligvis ikke været i stand til at tale direkte til det amerikanske folk. De har talt i FN, De taler med diplomater og andre. Men her er der et bredt udvalg af det amerikanske folk, der er folk her fra mange forskellige dele af landet. Og siden De nu har en mulighed, vil jeg gerne spørge Dem, om De kan tale til, De ser her en repræsentation af det amerikanske folk, og give dem et budskab med hensyn til, hvad De mener, de bør vide om Rusland, og hvad De mener, de bør have tillid til, skal vi sige med hensyn til Ruslands hensigt over for det amerikanske folk, hvad ville De sige?

Iliichev: Tak. Tak for dette meget vanskelige spørgsmål [latter], men jeg vil sige, at, vi bør ikke være bange for hinanden. Vi bør tale med hinanden. Det er meget vigtigt, og udenrigsminister Tillersons forhandlinger i går, både med minister Lavrov og præsident Putin, beviste, at to stormagter, to af de mest magtfulde atommagter, vinder mere, når vi taler sammen, men ikke, når vi reagerer og forsøger at opbygge alliancer og mod-alliancer imod hinanden.

Ruslands politik var meget klar fra begyndelsen: Vi ønsker ikke at have nogen særstatus på verdensarenaen. Vi ønsker ligeværdig behandling, fair behandling, ikke kun for os, men for alle andre stater. Og hvis vi kan yde denne fair behandling i alle sfærer, ligeværdig sikkerhed, ligeværdigt økonomisk samarbejde, ligeværdige udvekslinger mellem folkeslag, så vil vi alle vinde en masse, i stedet for at forsøge at opbygge nye mure, forsøge at bygge nye skel, forsøge at bygge, genopbygge eller styrke disse militære alliancer, der findes.

Jeg ved ikke, om jeg har besvaret Deres spørgsmål, men jeg vil være mere end villig til at udvikle dette mere med andre. Tak.

Speed: Tak. [applaus]

Foto: Den russiske chargé d’affaires Petr Iliichev, i FN.         

I disse meget urolige tider er evnen til at koncentrere sig og fokusere på, hvad menneskehedens sande mål er, og hvad menneskehedens fremtid er, af yderste vigtighed. Det er især vigtigt for amerikanere at høre dette perspektiv, set med de amerikaneres øjne, der anser sig selv for at være amerikanere af natur, og i princippet. Det har været Schiller Instituttets tankegang, lige fra dets start; og det har, fra dengang og frem til i dag, altid været mig en stor ære, ved enhver lejlighed, hvor det behøvedes, at introducere grundlæggeren og lederen af Schiller Instituttet, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Læs hele Helgas tale på dansk.

Denne tradition i europæisk filosofi, som vi kalder humanisme, er fuldstædig i opposition til liberalisme, og den er langt, langt mere i overensstemmelse med konfucianisme, end det generelt antages.

Problemet med vestlige bøger og vestlig universitetsuddannelse er, at det i meget lang tid har været optaget af de mennesker, der vandt krigene, af oligarkiet; af de mennesker, der forsøger at undertrykke denne kreativitet i befolkningen. Jeg mener, vi ville gøre den Anden Renæssance en meget stor tjeneste ved at arrangere et symposium, der skulle udarbejde disse paralleller i langt højere grad. Jeg mener, at dette faktisk er afgørende for forståelsen af folk fra de forskellige kulturer.

(Her følger først en opsummering af dr. Patrick Hos præsentation på konferencen, som efterfølges af Helga Zepp-LaRouches respons, inkl. et spændende forslag.)

Patrick Ho er leder af China Energy Fund, der er anerkendt i FN, og han har været en fremtrædende person i at bringe Bælt-og-Vej-politikken til FN, men også til den amerikanske befolkning. Dette er anden gang, han taler for Schiller Instituttets i løbet af den seneste to en halv måned. Første gang pointerede han, at han var glad for at tale for et publikum med forskellige slags amerikanere. Denne gang fokuserede han mere på de kulturelle aspekter; han sagde, at han ønskede at kommunikere, hvad det vil sige at være kineser … »kinesisk-hed« …; dens mere end 5000 år gamle historie. Han mente, at det, der definerede landet, var folkets kulturelle sammenhæng; fælles sprog; civilisationens kontinuitet. Han dækkede en meget lang periode, men fokuserede især på de tre ’bank på døren’; da Kina bankede på Vestens dør, og de reaktioner, de fik, gode og knap så gode; de tre perioder med Silkevejen – den ene i det andet århundrede f. Kr., da Zhang Qian rejste til Vesten; dernæst foretog admiral Zheng He rejser, hvor han nåede østkysten af Afrika og den arabiske verden i det 14. århundrede og bragte aspekter af vestlig kultur med tilbage (inkl. giraffer, som gjorde et stort indtryk!). Dette blev lukket ned. Dernæst, efter Det britiske Imperiums angreb i det 19. århundrede med to opiumkrige, besluttede kineserne at gå i gang med en vis modernisering, så de kunne bevare en nation. Han gennemgik hurtigt Sun Yat-sen; revolutionen i 1911; Nixons møde med Mao i 1972; Deng Xiopings »Socialisme med kinesisk karakter« i 1979; og Xi Jinpings Ét Bælte, én vej-initiativ.

I en anden del diskuterede han især relationen til Vesten gennem nogle jesuitermissionærers forsøg på at bringe kristendommen til Kina; igen gik det godt på et bestemt tidspunkt, men brød så sammen. Disse missionærer var i kontakt med Leibniz. I Ching havde en stor virkning på Leibniz: det binære system, som er basis for computersystemerne i moderne tid, og også DNA-koden.

Han satte kinesiske værdier i disse perioder op i kontrast til vestlige synspunkter. For eksempel: vægt på det individuelle i Vesten som vigtige værdier, men som gav diverse problemer. Hvorimod vægten i Kina ligger på familie, sociale relationer, kultur.

Der var en hel del mere, det ikke giver mening at forsøge at opsummere, men det var del af en dialog mellem dr. Ho og Helga Zepp-LaRouche og publikum.

(Efter dr. Hos powerpoint-præsentation gav fr. Zepp-LaRouche et svar, der omfattede et vigtigt forslag.)

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Dette er et meget spændende perspektiv, men jeg vil faktisk foreslå, Patrick, at vi arrangerer en stor begivenhed, måske en international konference, for jeg mener, at kendskab til kinesisk kultur, men også til vestlig kultur, faktisk ikke er tilstrækkelig kendt af den anden part.

Jeg var f.eks. en gang i Kina, og jeg søgte efter lærde (akademikere), der kendte Nicolaus Cusanus (Nikolaus von Kues), som er den vigtigste lærde person og store tænker fra det 15. århundredes Europa.[1] Jeg fandt en enkelt professor, der var bekendt med Nicolaus Cusanus. Dette er typisk, for det, du sagde om forskellen mellem vestlige værdier og kinesiske værdier, for jeg mener, at, på grund af den britiske indflydelse i universiteterne – i hele verden, men, mener jeg, også i Kina på et tidspunkt – så, mange gange, tager folk fejl af humanisme og liberalisme. Og det er virkelig ikke sandt.

Vi taler ikke om Aristoteles-traditionen. Vi taler ikke om visse traditioner i Europa, som dernæst førte til visse former for Oplysningstiden, den franske oplysningstid, den engelske oplysningstid, der, som du rigtigt sagde, er stærkt centreret om individets rolle og liberalisme og så fremdeles.

Men det er netop den tradition, der blev afvist af det, vi anser for at være den positive, præ-sokratiske tradition; Platon; Augustin; Cusanus; Kepler; Leibniz; Schiller; og inden for videnskab, Riemann; Einstein og ligesindede tænkere. Så der har foregået en langt større kamp i den europæiske traditions civilisation, end de fleste mennesker faktisk ved. Hele fremskridtet inden for videnskab, kultur og klassisk kultur kommer som følge af afvisningen af den liberalistiske tradition. Oligarkiet har benyttet sig af en bevidst krigsførelse i forsøg på at få folk væk fra ideen om menneskelig kreativitet.

Jeg og også nogle andre i Schiller Instituttet sammenlignede ideerne hos Konfucius og Mencius med visse ideer og filosoffer i vesten, og dér finder man langt større enhed. For eksempel har denne Nicolaus Cusanus, som jeg nævnte, ideer, der absolut stemmer overens med Li og ideen om Ren hos Confucius[2]; såsom, han har denne idé – hvis Li er »at gøre det rette på rette tid og rette sted [som dr. Ho tidligere havde nævnt], så har Nicolaus Cusanus denne idé om, at hvert mikrokosmiske element, hvert menneske, kun fuldt ud kan udvikles, hvis man bidrager til harmonien i det makrokosmiske element gennem at udvikle alle de andre mikrokosmiske elementer, og vice versa. Dette er præcis [ideen om] »win-win-samarbejde« blandt mennesker. Det er ideen, der lå til grund for den Westfalske Fred: denne fred er kun mulig, hvis man respekterer den andens interesse.

Og Leibniz var jo så lydhør over for kinesisk filosofi, fordi han selv var fortsættelsen af denne Nicolaus Cusanus, og Leibniz havde denne idé om, at hvert menneske er en monade (enhed); hvert menneske indeholder sit eget, skabende intellekt i universets helhed, og overensstemmelse er kun mulig, hvis der er en harmonisk udvikling af alle disse evner; og dette førte til [USA’s] Uafhængighedserklæringen og ’stræben efter lykke’, som ikke er »lykke« i betydningen held, men som netop er opfyldelsen, udviklingen, af alle potentialer, der er indlejret i det menneskelige væsen. Så dette er altså indlejret i mennesket.[3]

Denne tradition i europæisk filosofi, som vi kalder humanisme, er fuldstædig i opposition til liberalisme, og den er langt, langt mere i overensstemmelse med konfucianisme, end det generelt antages.

Problemet med vestlige bøger og vestlig universitetsuddannelse er, at det i meget lang tid har været optaget af de mennesker, der vandt krigene, af oligarkiet; af de mennesker, der forsøger at undertrykke denne kreativitet i befolkningen. Jeg mener, vi ville gøre den Anden Renæssance en meget stor tjeneste ved at arrangere et symposium, der skulle udarbejde disse paralleller i langt højere grad. Jeg mener, at dette faktisk er afgørende for forståelsen af folk fra de forskellige kulturer.

Nicolaus Cusanus sagde, at, den eneste grund til, at folk fra forskellige kulturer kan forstå hinanden, er, at de hver frembringer videnskabsfolk og kunstnere, der udvikler universelle principper, som man kan videreformidle. Det er grunden til, at musikere fra forskellige nationer kan være i samme orkester; eller grunden til, at videnskabsfolk kommer til de samme konklusioner i en videnskabelig opdagelse, præcis, som man udviklede det binære system. Jeg mener, at der er langt flere skatte at finde både for Vesten ved at lære fra Kina, så vel som også, at det kinesiske folk forstår, ikke den liberale undervisning af historie og idéfilosofi, men ved virkelig at gå til de originale kilder, som de var, og som de var drivkraften bag Vestens fokus. Så dette er meget spændende, og jeg håber, vi kan arrangere noget langs disse retningslinjer. [applaus]

​(Video og engelsk udskrift af Helgas hovedtale vil snarest blive udlagt her på hjemmesiden).

Foto: Helga Zepp-LaRouche på Kinas kyst, »Den Eurasiske Landbros Terminal Øst«, 1996. 

I en tid, hvor der er alt for meget politisk splid i verden, og verdens lande i stedet burde arbejde sammen om menneskehedens fælles mål, er det ekstra vigtigt, at vi på alle måder bygger bro mellem verdens nationer og de mange forskelligartede kulturer. Når vi oplever det skønne i andre kulturer, skaber det gensidig forståelse og et grundlag for samarbejde og fred. Klassisk kunst er derfor en vigtig nøgle til en sådan dialog mellem kulturer, og det er grunden til, at vi afholder denne koncert!

Fredag den 17. februar, 2017, kl.19.

Gratis adgang.

Sted: Russisk Center for Videnskab og Kultur, Vester Voldgade 11, København.

Kinesiske forfriskninger i pausen.

Invitér også din familie, venner og kollegaer, og hæng gerne plakaten op forskellige steder.

Information: 25 12 50 33 

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