PANEL 2

First Discussion Session

Harley Schlanger (moderator): Let me start with one question for Ambassador Huang. This is a question from Justin K. Price, a state representative in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He says, “Before asking my question, Mr. Consul General, let me express my embarrassment and regret that officials of my government, in the U.S., have undertaken what I consider to be an ugly and divisive path of conduct toward China.”

And he asks the question: “Rhode Island and other states seek to increase the role played by manufacturing industries in our future employment profile and economic activity. Can you speak to China’s ability to address the interest that many of our American states have in cultivating a growth export market to China for U.S.-produced products? Thank you for your comments.”

Ambassador Huang Ping: Yes, as a Consul General here in New York, I have ten states as my consular jurisdiction, or we call it a consular district, and Rhode Island is one of them. We do a very good business with Rhode Island. China is Rhode Island’s fifth largest exporting market. We buy lots of things from Rhode Island. I have a few figures: In 2019, Rhode Island exported to China [products] worth $156 million. Mainly, basic chemicals, metal products, and marine products, and also household appliances. This is not all the trade, because Rhode Island is very strong in services. In 2019 Rhode Island exported to China more than $200 million in services like education, like tourism; like maintenance, especially royalties from industrial processes, consulting, and many others.

All those exports to China support a lot of jobs, more than 2,000 jobs there. So I believe China and the U.S., we are highly complementary, and we could do a lot of things to benefit both sides. China is right now a healthy market. China’s economy is developing very quickly. We already have 400 million middle-class, middle-income class [people], which means they have the money to buy a lot of things, important things; they have the money to send their kids to come out to study, and many things. And this will create a huge, big market for American business to share.

I would like to encourage more companies from my consulate, including Rhode Island, to exploit these chances and opportunities, by going to China, by producing more products to export to China, and do business with China. I think that’s very good for both sides.

One thing I want to mention is the Import Expo in China. We already successfully hosted two Import Expos in Shanghai. We will do this every year. That’s a very good chance, you know. Companies from all over the world are going there to sell their products. It’s an Import Expo, which means a way to welcome all the companies’ offices to come to join us, to come to Shanghai to show their products, so we can buy! Every year in November, the beginning of November; this is a very good chance. I hope you know companies from Rhode Island who participate in that actively. If you need anything in detail, about this expo, or about how you should go to China to do business, this consulate will be very much willing to help. I thank you.

Schlanger: Thank you. The second question is for Secretary Boguslavskiy, and it is from a music teacher, a concert pianist from Framingham, Massachusetts, which has a sister-city relationship with a city in Russia, Lomonosov.

She writes: “It alarms and saddens me that our President Biden and members of his administration are confronting President Putin and the Russian government in such an adversarial way. Many American private citizens, especially musicians, have great appreciation and admiration for the cultural and musical heritage of Russia. I’m fully aware of the love that the Russian people hold for this truth.

“How might we defuse the current situation, and bring about greater tolerance and understanding between our respective governments? I think our peoples in general are more receptive to friendship and understanding, than our governments may be at this time. To quote the great poet, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, ‘What is to be done?’ ”

Secretary Alexey Boguslavskiy: It’s a very good question, for 1 million dollars, so even more.

Russia always supports cultural diplomacy. There are different representations of Russia cultural centers all around the world. As far as I know—I’m not personally involved in this activity; I’m mostly about UN issues—but as far as I know, there is a Russian cultural center in Washington, which promotes Russia culture. There are different recitals organized there, different concerts, including musical ones in Washington with Russian musicians.

People-to-people, P2P diplomacy, is a very big issue now. I hope the importance of it will increase in the future, and here, even at the United Nations, we support that. It is like an intergovernmental body. We attach great importance to people-to-people interaction here. And there are different exchanges on the basis of UN cooperation. I hope we can capitalize on that, and in the future, people will really influence, in terms of improving relations between our nations. Thank you.

Schlanger: This question is directed to Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche, but also to Ambassador Huang and to Secretary Boguslavskiy.

“The question of vaccine diplomacy was brought up in a somewhat derogatory way in the meetings going on with the so-called Quad nations. Whereas Russia and China appear to be very willing to cooperate with other nations on delivering vaccines, in the European Union in particular, we’ve seen an absolute catastrophe with the delivery of vaccines. What should be done to remedy this? And what role will China and Russia play in the future in providing medical care and overall healthcare to address the pandemic?”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: The reason why the European Union was such a disaster is because they were first privatizing the health system for several decades, so they were not prepared, despite the fact that it was clear that pandemics could have erupted at any moment. So they were not prepared to get masks in time or other medical supplies. Then they didn’t order the vaccine, because it was done by an EU Commissioner from, I think Cyprus, who is an interpreter—she has no background in medical issues. And then the ideology came in ahead of the common good, because the pro-EU ideologues said, “Oh, this is a perfect opportunity to further the integration of the EU.” So they all did nothing to care for their own people, but basically said this is a good opportunity to further the integration.

Now, people are so upset in every country because of the failure of the EU Commission, which cost many lives! People don’t know this, but in all of Europe, 870,000 people have died. Now that’s a lot of people, and a lot of it was completely unnecessary.

Now it’s changing, because people say, “Maybe we should buy Sputnik V from Russia, and the Chinese vaccines.” But that’s coming more from the people and minister-presidents of the different states and provinces. I think what needs to be done is the entire, full program that the Schiller Institute has been advocating from the beginning: The only way to stop this pandemic or other pandemics coming, soon—it’s clear that new ones are already being studied for being a potential danger—is to create a modern health system in every single country. Each country, as poor as it may be, needs to have a modern standard like in Wuhan China, where the government proved that they could contain the pandemic within two months, and as Ambassador Huang was saying, China is the only major country which had a significant growth rate in the last year as a result.

So we need to have a modern health system—in Haiti, in Mali, in Niger, in Yemen—in simply every country; because if you don’t have this, the danger is that the virus is mutating and will come back. And we already see it, in that there is a big question mark if some of the original vaccines will be effective, once you have these variants and mutations. So, you’re not doing something smart by not helping the poor!

The other thing that needs to be done while we are in a pandemic, is that the patents need to be lifted and there has to be an international cooperation to develop the most efficient vaccines together. If the pharmaceutical companies demand compensation, then the governments, if they want to stick to this principle, they can compensate them, but that should not prevent the production of the maximum and optimal amount of vaccines, because, every life matters, because it’s human beings who live or die.

So that needs to be done. And, there must be international cooperation: The common aims of mankind. One of them is to protect all people against disease, pestilence, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The idea is to have a world health system for every country, a modern system on the standard of the Wuhan hospitals, or as the German system was before privatization, or the Hill-Burton standard in the United States. That has to be done for every single country. And I really would like that this becomes a major issue at the UN General Assembly, and that G20 makes a decision to do exactly that.

Schlanger: Consul General Huang, do you want to comment on the Chinese policy of distributing vaccines and working on healthcare?

Amb. Huang: Yes. We have developed two different kinds of vaccines: one is Sinovac, and one is Sinopharm. China is the first country, as you said, to promise, once we have the vaccine, to use it as a public product for everybody, globally. We especially want to help the developing countries to get the vaccine. Right now, how to distribute the vaccines already developed is a big question. Some countries are buying in larger sums, but in storage.

But for the developing countries, in the meantime, it’s very difficult for them even to buy these vaccines. How do we solve this problem? The “vaccine divide” is a big issue right now. And China, as I said in my remarks, we already joined in the COVAX program with WHO, and we promised to provide more than 10 million vaccine [doses] for the developing countries, and we are donating to 69 developing countries for emergency use. And we’re also cooperating with 43 other countries to provide vaccines to them. We will keep our promise and do more to help everybody in the world to get these vaccines. I think that’s very, very important. It is the only way, as I said in my remarks, to build the community with a shared future. We will continue to do this. Thank you.

Schlanger: Secretary Boguslavskiy, the question of Sputnik Five being made available in Europe and elsewhere: What is the view from Russia on proceeding with this?

Sec. Boguslavskiy: Thank you very much. We usually call it “Sputnik V,” I believe, Sputnik Victory over this coronavirus pandemic. In Russia we have three vaccines now, and definitely we’re against any politicization of the vaccine issue. Vaccines should belong to the whole world, and there should be no nationalism in terms of distributing vaccines. We are providing these vaccines in different countries, including developing countries; as far as I know, European countries also expressed their desire to receive Russian vaccines.

Here in the United Nations we are providing support and strategies that will safeguard that vaccines will be distributed fairly and equally all around the world. Thank you.

Schlanger: Two more questions. The first are for you, Dr. Happer. You obviously struck a chord with some of our viewers. One writes: “You put a nail in the coffin of the climate change hysteria. Would you debate those who promote carbon as a killer?”

Related to that, someone asked, “Why do so many scientists go along with the climate scare?” Another writes, “Do you consider the models used on carbon as a danger? Fraudulent?”

Dr. William Happer: I don’t think you can put a nail in the coffin of this movement, because it’s really not a movement that’s based on logic or facts. As I alluded to in my presentation, it’s a religious crusade—that is, for many people. Of course, there are other motives, too. There are people who profit tremendously, green energy people love climate hysteria. It lets them sell electric cars, windmills, solar panels. But the average citizen has been brainwashed from childhood that the world is coming to an end. You know you can see that with poor AOC [U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]. She’s probably a nice, intelligent person, but she’s never been told the truth, the facts about how climate works. It’s admirable that she wants to save the planet, although it doesn’t need saving at all!

Moving on to the second question, why do so many scientists support the hysteria? Many of them do not. I’m certainly not alone. There are many people like me: I’m a pretty good scientist, I’m a member of the Academy of Sciences, I have some important inventions to my name, and there are many like me who are alarmed at the potential damage that this climate hysteria will do to science itself. Hopefully people will forget, when it finally becomes clear that it wasn’t true. But I don’t know—people have long memories, so it probably will be damage that will last a long time.

There was a movement very much like this in the Soviet Union, in the ’20s and ’30s. Trofim Lysenko was a county agricultural extension agent from somewhere down near Odessa. He convinced everyone in power that you could repeal [Gregor] Mendel’s laws of inheritance, and that genes were an invention of the capitalist bourgeoisie. And just leave it to us proletariat scientists and we’ll grow apples in the North Pole, and wheat along the Arctic Ocean. Of course, it was complete nonsense, and it was supported because the government supported it—very much like the U.S. government is supporting climate change today.

When you’re up against a government, the easiest thing to do as a scientist is just go along. Just keep quiet even if you don’t believe it, and don’t make waves. If you’re working in a related area, it’s a wonderful way to get money: You write a proposal to Washington to address this area or that area of climate change, and this alarming problem and that. And you get a lot of money coming in; your dean loves you, the president of your university loves you because of all the money you bring in. It’s a real factor, a worrisome factor, which is very similar to that under Lysenko.

I don’t know what the answer to this is. I’ve often thought that maybe the best solution would be for some country or some state to go whole hog, and do everything green, do everything demanded of them: Of course, it would destroy this particular society, but if we do it in one small part of the world, at least it’s a limited round of damage and other people can learn from the experience. So when California proposes yet another crazy thing about climate, I’m all for it—I feel very sorry for my friends in California who all have to suffer from it, but it might be good for the whole world for some major political unit to do everything that the climate alarmists demand that they do.

Thank you.

Schlanger: We have a final question from Maram Susli, who’s also known as “Syrian Girl.”

Maram Susli: Thanks for allowing me to ask the question. I just take my hat off to Professor Happer for saying that science is not by consensus, and for Helga LaRouche’s comments on the risks of tactical nuclear weapons, which I think is very important.

My question is directed toward Ambassador Huang and Secretary Boguslavskiy: During the Cold War the U.S. pursued a strategy of dividing Russia and China, and never targetting both countries at the same time. And perhaps we can view the Trump administration as focussing its saber-rattling on China, while the Biden administration is now focussing its rhetoric against Russia.

How will Russia and China confront this divide-and-conquer strategy and specifically how can they cooperate to end the U.S. occupation of Syria, where I come from, and perhaps rebuild the country?

I’m asking about the fact that now the Biden administration seems to want peace with China and war with Russia, whereas the Trump administration wanted war with China and maybe peace with Russia. It seems that the U.S., no matter which administration takes over, is always trying to divide Russia and China, and focus its attack on one country and not the other? Is there a strategy to confront this? And perhaps is there a strategy for China to cooperate with Russia to end the occupation of Syria?

Amb. Huang: If you follow China’s foreign policy towards the U.S., you would find out that it is to find stable consistency. We always want to build a relationship with the U.S. that’s non-conflict, non-confrontation, and with cooperation and win-win result. It has never been changed. We would hope that the U.S. will have a constructive and a positive attitude towards China. When we’re talking about solving the problems, I think we should work together as big countries, really—U.S., China, Russia, those are the big countries. We all have responsibilities to maintain world peace and prosperity. We will work with all the major countries to help to solve the problems, whether it’s in Syria, or other countries, for a political settlement.

Sec. Boguslavskiy: Thank you. First of all, I’d like to comment to Dr. Happer about the Soviet professor who proposed to plant fruit in Siberia, somewhere in the North Pole. Maybe he was prescient: Now, our Siberia is getting warmer, so we can already plant some oranges, or I don’t know, apples! [laughter] It’s been 100 years since that time; the planet is changing a bit.

In terms of Russian-American relations, I hope that the new American administration doesn’t want to have war with us. It was said by President Biden that he’s ready for some cooperation in fields of mutual interest. As far as we know, this agreement on strategic arms, the New START agreement, was renewed with the Biden administration, and that’s very good. And here, in my capital, we also like the agreement to continue and to restart cooperation with the United States in many fields. Because we are quite big countries, we have common interests about the whole planet, and our cooperation, as well as cooperation between the United States and China is beneficial to the whole planet. So I hope it will be understood here in Washington. Russia is always ready and open to strengthen cooperation with the United States.

In terms of Syria, Russia continues its support to the government of Syria, the fight against terrorism, and it will continue to do so in upcoming years, to also continue the support for rebuilding the country.