Schiller Institute Delegation in China

A Commitment for Peace: History
Is Being Made in the Global South

by Tobias Faku

[Print version of this article]

Oct. 28—From September 19 to 21, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament held a high-level event in Jinan and Weifang, hosted by the Shandong Provincial People’s Government for the Commemoration of the International Day of Peace, titled, “Upholding a Shared Future to Build a World of Peaceful Coexistence.”

A four-member delegation of the Schiller Institute from Germany and France, led by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, including this author, was present to make sure Western Europe was represented in the chorus of 80 countries that gathered for this special event.

The official conference concept referenced Chinese President Xi Jinping’s observation that the world is undergoing “changes, the likes of which we have not seen for 100 years,” and called on the delegates to work together for a common destiny of mankind.

Among the many attendees of the event were important political and academic leaders from around the world including: Han Zheng, the Vice President of the People’s Republic of China; Kgalema Motlanthe, the former President of South Africa; Samper Pizano, the former President of Colombia; Ueli Maurer, the former President of Switzerland, and many international representatives of academic institutions as well as peace movements. The Global South was well represented.

The keynote address by Han Zheng set the tone and the goal of the conference, which can be encapsulated as “building a world of pacific coexistence” instead of geopolitical competition, at a time when the world has become a “global village.” Hence, the world has to be understood as a “community of shared future” that we have to build through the promotion of solid development. In that respect we must consider “peace as the basis for development and development as the basis for peace.”

Kgalema Motlanthe referenced Zhou Enlai’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence as well as the need for “equitable and inclusive growth.” Most importantly, given the present danger of nuclear confrontation, he raised the issue of the non-proliferation treaty and the urgent need for a commitment to this treaty as such, to nuclear non-proliferation, and to peace, underlining that “peace means far more than the absence of wars and conflicts.”

Coming from a war-crazed Europe, where our political leaders are trying to outdo each other in their militaristic rhetoric, it was a breath of fresh air to hear politicians discussing the common aims of mankind. In discussions with attendees from all over the world, it became clear that there is a monumental break occurring in our time. Western governments have truly lost any standing, due to their selective disregard for human rights, and now their total disregard of the increasing deaths of civilians in Gaza.

The forum discussed in depth the three initiatives by put forward by President Xi Jinping: the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilizational Initiative, which present a very holistic approach that seeks to overcome the geopolitical rivalries and seeks, as Xi calls it, a Community of Common Destiny for Mankind.

Story Sharing and Art Performance

The international peace day commemoration included a musical program with choral performances and beautiful real-life stories about Chinese international peace and poverty-alleviation efforts. There also was a colorful multi-cultural musical program to the great joy of the international delegations. It was a beautiful combination of music, dance, and acrobatics in combination with video presentations, all telling the story of the Chinese contribution to international peace and poverty alleviation.

The first presenter was Lin Dongmei, daughter of Lin Zhanxi, the inventor of “Juncao technology,” a protein- and sugar-rich Giant Napier hybrid grass, used as a substrate for mushroom cultivation, animal feedstock, and desertification control. She has worked with her father all over the world, especially in Africa, to build education facilities to teach the local farmers how to cultivate Juncao. President Xi Jinping, when he was Governor of Fujian Province in the 1990s, helped build up the Juncao science laboratory.

A Chinese medical doctor presented the work of his team in Tanzania, which, against the odds in the most adverse circumstances, made complex surgeries possible. A Chinese teacher who educated young adults in Tonga (an island country in Polynesia) in agricultural techniques also spoke.

Visits to Factories

The conference participants also witnessed for themselves the incredible ongoing technological transformation in China, during a visit to an engine plant of China’s leading industrial equipment group, Weichai, showcasing automated manufacturing in which China today is the world leader and where half of all new robots are installed. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology tracker, China is leading the world in 37 of 44 fields. For example: advanced robotics, continuous flow chemical synthesis, smart materials, and also supercapacitors and photonic sensors. These last were of relevance for our next visit to the Goertek technology center. Goertek is a world-leader in microelectronics for acoustics technology and sensors, as well as virtual- and augmented-reality technology, in which it controls up to 80% of the global market.

Our third visit was to the Weifang Modern Agriculture Exhibition Area, where we visited an intelligent greenhouse that features: substrate farming; a computerized environmental monitoring and regulation system; and bumblebee pollination. The exhibition operates under the guidance of the Weifang Academy of Agriculture Science, which aims to set a new standard in intelligent farming. The Weifang Model was praised by President Xi Jingping for the integration of trade, industry and agriculture, as well as agriculture industrialization. The region also shows a positive trend in the reduction of urban-rural income disparity.

China’s dedication to advancing high-quality development, and a knowledge-based economy, are the exact opposite of western media portrayals, slandering China as a “slave labor economy” or as an “intellectual property thief.” Kurt M. Campbell, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, exposed himself when he said: “Frankly, the Cold War pales in comparison to the multifaceted challenges that China presents. It’s not just the military challenges. It’s across the board. It’s in the Global South. It is in technology.”

Western elites are terrified by the new self confidence and unwillingness of the Global South to be subjected to bullying and economic exploitation by the West. This was truly noticeable in all the discussions held at this year’s conference for the Commemoration of the International Day of Peace. The dictum of the late Henry Kissinger, that “Nothing of importance can come from the South; history is not made in the South,” was proven utterly wrong.

China and the nations of the Global South in general are clearly on the way to realizing the dream of the 1955 Bandung Conference, of building a world free of colonialism and economic exploitation.