The following is an interview with Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche by reporter Zhang Qiaonan of Guang Hua Media. The interview appeared in the Chinese-language newspaper European Times on Friday, Oct. 24, 2014
Schiller Institute founder Mrs. LaRouche:
“New Silk Road will build a new world order of peace.”
In State President Xi Jinping’s trip to Central Asia in 2013 he proposed the idea of the “Silk Road Economic Belt.” By strengthening communications, roads, communications, trade improving currency circulation, China and Central Asian countries can build emerging economic cooperation zones.
In Germany, the Schiller Institute, founded 30 years ago, called for the establishment of the Eurasian Continental Bridge and the world land-bridge. China’s “Silk Road Economic Belt” and the Schiller Institute ideas coincide. Recently, this reporter interviewed the founder of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.
Q: Schiller Institute on Eurasia Bridge—where did the idea come from?
A: Back in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, my husband and I (co-creators of the Schiller Institute) advocated a “Paris-Berlin-Vienna Triangle” of construction projects to promote collaborative development of science in Western and Eastern Europe. When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, and the “Iron Curtain” came down, this brought Asia into the original vision. Located in Europe and Asia, the two continents’ population and industrial centers, connected through the Land-Bridge, would become more closely integrated, sharing together in the region’s superior development. Later, the idea of the Eurasian Bridge has been further deepened and called the new Silk Road, providing not only all Eurasian countries huge economic benefits, but also helping to build a 21st Century New Order of World Peace.
Q: Today, the “Chongqing-Europe” train runs through China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. Who do you think will be the beneficiaries of the “new Silk Road”?
A: I have been to Lianyungang, in 1998, the end of the Eurasia continental bridge, but now just one of many lines. In the future we will also see the Worldwide Land-Bridge developed. The New Silk Road will then only be one constituent part of the world’s continental bridge, each continent with its own collection of railways, public roads and waterway transportation networks and connected to each other. In coming years, a high-speed rail system will more quickly than ship transport go from Mexico up through Alaska and then, by way of the Bering Strait, reach Beijing or Mumbai. The Old Silk Road opened for mankind an age of mutual understanding, The new Silk Road, through cooperation in modern science and technology, bringing to all mankind even greater achievements of civilisation, will open a new era of development for mankind.
Q: The Silk Road at the same time promotes economic and trade cooperation, whether in the political, cultural Or educational level—is that also of concern?
A: The old Silk Road promoted the best commodity circulation of its time, not only in silk, porcelain, paper and publications, but music, technology, knowledge and other new aspects of culture. The New Silk Road also is not merely the present-day transportation line for ordinary commodities, but also includes modern technology, such as thermal nuclear fusion technology, which makes possible security in energy and raw materials. It also includes joint research in space for all countries, such as a program for defense against asteroids and comets; it includes the ability to overcome diseases that have been difficult to eliminate, and will even help mankind create new flourishing cultural renaissance. The New Silk Road will bring a more human era compared to our present-day world, with great progress in understanding between peoples and nations. We can no longer use war to settle disputes, but must bring about closer communication in order to achieve our common goals.
Q: You said in a visit to China a few months ago that in Third World countries, many people still suffer from hunger, and the countries along the New Silk Road will help solve the hunger issue. Will others draw on the China model?
A: That is it, of course! This is a magnificent conception. The UN Human Rights Council’s anti-corruption division has put a new man in charge, Mr. [Jean] Ziegler, who denounced hunger, saying the problem is a cannibalistic economic order, organized violence, which brought the inevitable result. If the government has the will to solve the problem, belonging to the World Silk Road sector will provide such development experience—hunger and malnutrition must be resolved in the near future.
Q: Do you think that the causes of war are extreme imbalance in world economic development? Why did you say that the new Silk Road could create a new order of peace?
A: I think the root of the contemporary threat of war is that after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, London and Washington did not establish a commitment to a peaceful international order, but rather consistently expanded the system of globalization. Globalization is merely another form of the idea of a U.S.-British empire. Therefore, pushing “color revolutions” to force a policy of regime change is a part of that system, for instance, in the 2003 Georgia Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, the 2010 Arab Spring, and again since last November in Ukraine, and including what happened recently in Hong Kong. Behind these shenanigans you will find the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Meanwhile, there are many cautious people world over, such as the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. He has repeatedly reminded people that the United States should not fall into the “Thucydides trap”—the theory that a new rising Great Power will inevitably challenge the existing power, and that the existing power must therefore respond to that threat. The ancient Greek historian Thucydides believed that the rise of Sparta would inevitably bring war to Athens. Therefore, since a policy of containing China would have serious consequences, Dempsey has urged people to be on guard against it. If mankind wants to avoid a new world war, all thinking people must be aware that we have to reject the notion of geopolitics. All mankind must make unite their efforts in realizing our common goals. As Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly underlined, the new Silk Road is an open concept in which each country can participate. The so-called higher level of development is to allow all major powers to develop their own interests, but also for all the youth to have hope for the future, so that they will not be desperate, to join religious extremism or terrorism.
Q: As a territory of Eurasia and the world’s largest country, what is the attitude of Russia to the new Eurasian continental bridge, the Silk Road? How do you see the current Sino-Russian relations?
A: I have the impression that Putin does not yet have a firm position, but at least he would not oppose it. For now, with Western countries pushing their political lies, and Russia under unjust sanctions, the “BRICS” collaboration and integration with other developing countries needs an acceleration. I think that the current Sino-Russian relations are the best they have been in history.
Q: Let’s move to look farther East—the fuse is also protruding, potentially, in East Asia. The unstable factors, such as North Korea, such as China’s complex relationship with Japan and the United States. But many people think, like in the Middle East, also in East Asia there could be the outbreak of conflict. How do you look at the problem in Eurasia, with the New Silk Road?
A: Recently on Oct. 4, a North Korean high-level delegation visited South Korea, with the meeting of Korean Prime Minister Jung Hong-won and the D.P.R.K. delegation, which shows that reconciliation between the two countries is a topic of discussion. Negotiation, naturally, is the best way to eliminate the threat of war. And if South Korea moves ahead to join the Eurasian Land-Bridge and the new Silk Road construction, I believe, this will make the potential conflict avoidable. How relations between China, Japan and the United States will go depends on the situation in the United States, the willingness of the U.S. and British imperial policy makers. Only when the superpower United States joins with the rising “BRICS” to achieve cooperation, will we be able to ensure world peace for the future.