This article appears in the December 13, 2024 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche Delivers Keynote
Maritime Silk Road Conference in Guangzhou: Advancing ‘New Quality Productive Forces’
[Print version of this article]
Nov. 30—On Nov. 22, the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies (GIIS), located in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, held its 8th annual Maritime Silk Road Conference. With Chinese policymakers and international high-level think tanks and scholars in attendance, the theme of the conference was, “New Quality Productive Forces and High-Quality Development for the Belt and Road Initiative.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, had the honor of being the invited keynote speaker and, subsequent to the conference, had an opportunity to speak with students at the Institute. The authors were part of the Schiller Institute delegation.
Guangdong Province is a flourishing example of China’s economic development policy of using fundamental scientific progress as a driver for continuous increases in per-capita productivity. It is home to more than 75,000 high tech companies, with $65 billion in annual spending in research and development and 1.3 million research personnel, which, in 2023, created 665,000 patents. The Guangzhou metropolitan area, with 14.6 million people, is a world powerhouse.
Development Projects, Strategy
Among those from many nations who spoke at the conference were Lu Kang, Vice-Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee; Bhokin Bhalakula, former President of the National Assembly of Thailand; and Adrian Severin, former Deputy Prime Minister and former Foreign Minister of Romania. The discussion covered China’s achievements to uplift the nation and transform it into the center of world economic and scientific development, and the transformative role of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a platform to share this model for the benefit of partner nations.
Bhokin Bhalakula praised the legacy of progress and cooperation brought about by projects of the Belt and Road. He emphasized especially the importance of the China-built 414 km railway connecting Laos and Thailand. Besides this, he also emphasized the value of people-to-people relations, which he sees as a core value of the Belt and Road.
Severin emphasized that China has no imperialistic tradition and is gaining influence around the world through peaceful and constructive means. This stands in contrast to the West which, according to him, is suffering from a “culture of war.” He said that today’s conflicts are, in the end, conflicts between geoeconomics and geopolitics.
Zepp-LaRouche Proposes Collaboration
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in her keynote address, focused her remarks on the absurdity that China’s success of lifting 870 million people out of poverty, and now helping 150 other developing countries to do likewise through the Belt and Road Initiative, is seen as a threat by certain powers in the West. She said:
The Greater Bay Area is clearly the motor of the world economy, the most diversified cluster of innovation-driven production in the world, the flagship for the Chinese economic miracle. The transformation of one of the first four Special Economic Zones to the region of superlatives of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the incarnation of the change from rapid growth to High Quality Growth which, because of the constant innovation-driven increase of productivity, has overridden the phenomena of cyclical crises of the economy.
It is this not-so-hidden secret of the Chinese economic miracle, which has provoked the ire of the collective West, which is why China in the security doctrines of Western countries in the recent years has been called a “systemic rival,” “threat,” “opponent,” etc. The Deputy Secretary of State of the Biden Administration, Kurt Campbell, identified this very principle of the Chinese model to be the reason why China would be “the most significant challenge in our history.” As Campbell told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “It’s not just a military challenge; it’s across the board. It is in the Global South. It is in technology. We need to step up our game across the board.”
She proposed collaboration between the West and the BRI for development in the Global South as the solution to the migrant crisis and as a way to overcome geopolitical tensions, a type of collaboration outlined in the new pamphlet of the Schiller Institute titled, “Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War.” Zepp-LaRouche presented her “Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture” as being complementary with the Three Initiatives of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Optimistic Outlook
The atmosphere at the conference was optimistic through and through. Presentations were organized with a problem-solving mindset. For example, Professor Zhong Weiyun, a staff member at the Contemporary World Research Center of the International Liaison Department of the CPC Central Committee, gave a presentation on how African nations can, with long-term economic planning, leapfrog like China from a backward economy into high-tech production.
One could clearly see that China and the Global South are determined to never again be bullied by the West, which has lost much of its moral standing through its arrogant policies. This optimism was only dampened by the news of Western military provocations, with deep missile strikes into Russian Federation territory by the NATO-controlled Ukrainian military, which led many speakers to warn about the danger of World War III.
As a complement to the conference, a number of additional activities were organized by the GIIS. On Nov. 23, participants had the opportunity to tour the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, a city built from scratch on previously undeveloped land starting in 2010. The city now has a population of one million, and is home to advanced production and innovation, ranging from tires and autonomous vehicles to video display and breakthrough biomedical research.
The tour visited sites including the Guangdong Free Trade Zone (GFTZ), an area devoted to China’s Free Port for International Talents policy intended to attract innovators from around the world, and thus home to thousands of significant patents; Biosyngen, a cutting edge biomedical research facility which has attracted top researchers from Europe and elsewhere to work on immuno-oncology, a technique for genetically customized cancer treatment; and the Guangzhou Shiyuan Electronic Technology Co. (CVTE), a leading developer and producer of liquid-crystal display (LCD) intelligent interactive panels, computer main boards, medical devices and related intelligent hardware.
A greater historic and cultural appreciation of the region was gained by touring the Guangzhou Old City, and the Bai’etan Greater Bay Area Art Center, which brings together ancient Chinese artistic traditions and their modern reflections. The detailed carvings and magnificent porcelain works were stunningly beautiful.
Lyndon LaRouche’s Economics at GIIS
On Nov. 24, Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche was presented a certificate formally recognizing her as a Special Advisor to the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies by Prof. Sui Guangjun, President of that institution and former President of Guangdong University. She then had the opportunity to discuss with 50 to 60 graduate students at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies the history of her husband Lyndon LaRouche’s fundamental economic discoveries, and historical interventions against the policies of Empire.
Using a series of slides, she challenged them to understand energy-flux density and potential relative population density as the only true measures of development. Along with that, she laid out the decades-long battle by her and her husband to end colonialism, from the International Development Bank (IDB) and fights against Malthusian policies, to the Productive Triangle and the World Land-Bridge—as opposed to end-of-history delusions promoted by the neocons. The importance of Great Projects, like the World Land-Bridge, Transaqua, and the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project—projects to ensure not just economic growth, but fundamental economic transformation—were discussed.
Zepp-LaRouche ended her presentation with a sharp reminder of the stakes today. The Empire’s current threats to unleash the annihilation of mankind are intended to block the ongoing shift in the direction she and her husband had been fighting for, represented now by the BRI and the BRICS.
The day concluded with a wonderful visit to the top of the Canton Tower, which at 600 meters is the second-tallest building in China, and an impressive boat trip on the Pearl River, whose banks are graced with great numbers of illuminated high-rises, the river’s shining pearls.
