PEI HUA
The Silk Road as a Bridge of Friendship
[PDF version of this transcript]
Ms. Pei is the Director of Research Division, China Soong Ching Ling Foundation (CSCLF). Her speech was translated from Chinese.
Let me begin by thanking Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche for inviting the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation to the Schiller Institute’s 30th Anniversary Conference. I feel deeply honored to have this opportunity to listen to the invaluable insights, and to speak and exchange ideas with you at this enlightening conference.
As Confucius said, “At 30, I stood firm.” For a person or an organization, 30 years of age is of great significance. So, on behalf of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation, my colleague, Mr. Chen Bo and I have come from Beijing to you, to express warm congratulations on the Schiller Institute’s 30th Anniversary Conference, and pay tribute to the Schiller Institute for its relentless efforts in safeguarding the right of mankind to progress and development.
We are here to learn from the Schiller Institute and the participating colleagues, experts, and scholars from various countries and NGOs. Yesterday and today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the participants have shared views on the “New Silk Road and China’s Lunar Program,” world peace, and the new era and new paradigm of human society. The discussions have not only benefited us with stimulating ideas, but also inspired us with new perspectives.
With such new perspectives, we will think further about the historical and cultural values of the ancient Silk Road that originated in China and extended all throughout the world, and about the “One Belt and One Road” proposal made by President Xi Jinping (the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road”), its far-reaching historical significance and great relevance for the development of China and the world, and the huge contribution it will make to peace and well-being of mankind.
We are here also for enhancing mutual understanding and friendship through the bond of the Silk Road. As an ancient Chinese saying goes, “though born a thousand li [an infinite distance—ed.] apart, souls which are one shall meet.” At the end of last August, the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation invited Helga Zepp-LaRouche to attend the Cultural Roundtable Conference on “One Belt and One Road,” and to visit the Jiayuguan Great Wall and the Mo Kao Grotto at Dunhuang along the ancient Silk Road. And the day when the Roundtable was closed coincided with Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s birthday. We had the honor of spending a wonderful and unforgettable time with her at Lanzhou University.
In early September, she traveled to Beijing, where she visited the former residence of Mrs. Soong Ching Ling and talked intensively with leaders of our Foundation on “One Belt and One Road” to explore possible cooperation areas.
Now in mid-October, less than two months after Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s visit to China, the Schiller Institute is holding the conference on “the New Silk Road and China’s Lunar Program” in celebration of its 30th anniversary, which will bring together the world, Germany and China, match ideas to music, and link the classics with modernity. A highlight of the 30 years’ excellence of the Schiller Institute, this conference represents how Helga Zepp-LaRouch connects her deep thinking on human development with her China Silk Road experience, and also continues the bond between the Schiller Institute and the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation forged through the Silk Road.
Thanks to this conference and the Silk Road, we are gathered here to meet friends, old and new, for enhanced mutual understanding, contacts, and friendship.
The Music of the Ancient Chinese
To celebrate the Schiller Institute’s 30th anniversary conference and pay tribute to the Schiller Institute’s efforts to promote the brilliant pearl of culture—German Classical music—the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation has prepared this model of an ancient Chinese chime as a gift for the Institute. This Chime is a percussion instrument of the ethnic Han Chinese in ancient China, with its origin in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC-771 BC), and its prime time in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770 BC-221 BC) (including the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period), the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), and the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).
China was the first country to produce and use chimes, which speaks to the achievements of Chinese bronze craftsmanship and tonality in ancient China. It embodies the great wisdom of ancient Chinese and the splendor of China as an ancient civilization. The second part of Wanzhang of The Mencius has this: “In Confucius we have what is called a complete concert.” A complete concert is when the large bell proclaims the commencement of the music, and the ringing stone proclaims its close. The “large bell” refers to chimes.
We hope that the Schiller Institute at the age of 30 will make comprehensive achievements, like a complete concert, in promoting ancient music and traditional culture, advancing cooperation among countries and regions along the Silk Road, and facilitating scientific and technological progress. It is also our hope that our two organizations will work together to enhance exchanges between the Chinese and German civilizations, and between Eastern and Western traditional civilizations, including Classical music.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche and her husband Lyndon H. LaRouche, together with the Schiller Institute they founded, have long been committed to today’s world economic restructuring and reconstruction of international order. They attach great importance to the position and role of Asia and China, in particular, in realizing their proposed new global governance paradigm.
That’s the philosophical foundation behind Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s high appraisal of the New Silk Road and China’s lunar program, and her efforts to promote global understanding of these two remarkable projects. She once said something to the effect that to enhance win-win cooperation among countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, China proposed the New Silk Road, presenting a completely new perspective, and like the ancient Silk Road, the New Silk Road will facilitate flows of ideas, goods, culture, and science, and more importantly, it is open and invites all countries in the world to participate.
The China Soong Ching Ling Foundation deeply endorses her perspective and understanding of the new Silk Road.
The Schiller Institute’s 30th anniversary conference presents a good opportunity for people of vision to get together, exchange views, and share wisdom, with a shared interest in world peace, human progress, and the building of the New Silk Road. We are fortunate to get acquainted with you, and wish to take this opportunity to tell you something about Soong Ching Ling and the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation. We have some slides to show you with some pictures to help you know about Soong Ching Ling, and walk you through the Foundation and the former residence of Soong Ching Ling.
