'The New Silk Road
Will Change the World'
[PDF version of this transcript]
The following interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche was conducted by Xinjuanet, in Wiesbaden, Germany, and published on Aug. 7. The article, in Chinese, has been circulated by Xinhua, and picked up by several other Chinese publications, including China Daily.
The Silk Road Is the Hope for Peace in the World
Xinhuanet, Aug. 7—"Just like the ancient Silk Road, the Silk Road Economic Belt is not only capable of bringing people together economically, but also of enhancing cultural and other exchanges among peoples, becoming a completely new concept of peace order of the 21st Century," says Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute, a German [and international] thinktank dealing with international political affairs and economics.
For a number of years now, Mrs. LaRouche and the Schiller Institute she founded have been persistently calling for the establishment of a Eurasian Continental Land-Bridge, as well as a worldwide land-bridge, and when China announced its proposal for a Silk Road Economic Belt, Mrs. LaRouche was very excited about it. A few days ago in Wiesbaden, the capital of the German state of Hesse, our reporters interviewed her.
"I'm very happy, because this is exactly what the world needs today. You know, under the present economic structure, many countries are suffering misery, and the New Silk Road provides the world a golden opportunity to change this."
As [Zepp-]LaRouche and her colleagues view it, the New Silk Road is not only a transportation link that brings together Europe and Asia, but it also has a much deeper significance.
"I believe that the New Silk Road should not simply be limited to Central Asia, but that the concept of the Silk Road can help eliminate poverty, and change the world."
[Zepp-]LaRouche first visited China at the beginning of the 1970s, and in 1996, once again visited China to attend a conference. This year, in visiting China, she took the high-speed rail from Beijing to Shanghai. She was amazed at the rapid economic development she saw. She tells our reporters: "These changes are unparalleled. I have never seen any country go through such a period of development as this one," she sighed with amazement. "Many countries of the world have the urgent need of going through such a Chinese-style transformation." [Zepp-]LaRouche believes that the new Silk Road manifests, in the present international situation, the win-win concept of cooperation among nations for the realization of their common development.
In May of this year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, on his visit to Africa, mentioned that China and Africa would cooperate on construction of high-speed rail, expressways, and civil aviation as a major three-faceted transportation network. Regarding this, [Zepp-]LaRouche said, "This goes far in explaining the philosophy behind the New Silk Road. It's a question of how to implement a vision for the next stage in the evolution of mankind. There is a need in the entire world for building infrastructure to the point where all the nations of the world may benefit."
[Zepp-]LaRouche believes further that within the framework of the New Silk Road, one could prepare and formulate a plan for a new economic order which could overcome ethnic and historic conflicts and in which all participating countries could benefit.
The New Silk Road brings hope to the world economy, and at the same time, with countries facing the danger of terrorism and similar problems, it provides a plan for helping them solve these problems. [Zepp-]LaRouche says that in order to eliminate terrorism and drug abuse, you must develop a serious plan of economic development. If you can let people know that if they worked together to achieve a better life, nature would solve the problem of terrorism.
[Zepp-]LaRouche sees that different countries and different regions of the world are facing different problems and that regional conflicts are capable of exacerbating tensions even to the point of bringing about the threat of general war. Therefore, there is a need to create an economic development platform, one which conforms to the common interests of human civilization.
"In this sense, the New Silk Road is the most important initiative for peace initiative in the world," she said.
[Zepp-]LaRouche also appeals to people to thoroughly abandon the stale and rotten notion that some countries are forever condemned to be subject to poverty, while others are always going to be wealthy and prosperous, and to create a new world order where the peoples of all nations are able to achieve a dignified existence. "I think the new Silk Road is exactly what is needed to help people reach that goal," she said.
Translated from Chinese by Bill Jones
