October 18, 2013 EIR International 37
Oct. 11—The recent trips by China’s President Xi Jinping
to Central and Southeast Asia and Premier Li Keqiang
to Southeast Asia, have served to illuminate aspects
of what has been called China’s “Grand Strategy”
in confronting the international financial crisis. The revival
of this two-pronged “Silk Road diplomacy,” encompasing
the creation of an economic belt stretching
eastward through Central Asia to Europe and beyond,
and southward, on a Maritime Silk Road to Southeast
and South Asia, is an attempt to bring development to
China’s regional neighbors, and to fend off, as much as
possible, the effects of the global financial blow-out.
Focused on utilizing China’s economic strength to
build the needed infrastructure, roads, railroads, and
power generation in the overall region, the diplomacy
also creates an essential trajectory toward development
in a world otherwise characterized by growing economic
chaos. As the Chinese themselves realize, this is,
at best, something of a holding action. The reality is,
that only a change in the international financial system,
through a global Glass-Steagall policy, would place the
world economy firmly on this path.
But the potential created by the Chinese policy represents
an auspicious development in the Asia-Pacific
region, from which any sane U.S. administration
(unlike our present one) might benefit.
Addressing the APEC Summit
President Xi began his comments at the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit Oct. 8 by noting
the seriousness of the world financial situation. “The
world economy is still in the throes of a deep readjustment,”
Xi said. “While there are signs of recovery, the
economy is still faced with fundamental instability,
uneven development, and sluggish motion. . . . The major
structural problems of the developed countries are far
from resolved and . . . reviving the world economy will
be a lengthy, and by no means smooth, process.”
While noting the difficulty that China itself is having
in its own readjustment after the loss of much of its
export market, Xi nevertheless expressed confidence
that the Chinese economy has retained a certain vibrancy.
In spite of the slowdown, China has a more than
7% growth rate, which is far better than the rest of the
world. He pointed to the relative success of the last quarter’s
results, which were primarily based on an increase
in domestic consumption, rather than on the traditional
export market; he further noted the shift by China toward
higher quality products, the advancement of the skills of
its labor, and the progress of the urbanization drive,
thereby increasing investment and consumption.
The Chinese President called for greater coordination
among the APEC countries, and the creation of a
network of “connectivity” region to bolster the construction
of “economic corridors” in various sub-regions.
He called for investment and financing partnerships
among the APEC nations, which would involve
governments, the private sector, and international institutions,
and in which the more developed nations should
make a greater effort in helping the less developed ones.
China’s Silk Road Diplomacy:
Lifeline for U.S. Economy
by William Jones
EIR International
38 International EIR October 18, 2013
Xi also called for the establishment
of a development bank to
help finance the needed infrastructural
projects.
Development, the New
Name for Peace
The Chinese diplomatic
initiative is aimed at maintaining
peace and stability in the
region. Reflecting that important
political principle expressed
so eloquently by Pope
Paul VI in the 1970s, that “the
new name for peace is development,”
China understands
that the various tensions over
the numerous maritime border
disputes, disputes which have
been seriously exacerbated by
the Obama “pivot” to Asia, can only be dealt with in a
climate in which the various nations are working together
for their common benefit. China, which still has
the means to finance great projects, is taking the lead in
the infrastructural development. And it is felt that such
projects, which will benefit their neighbors, will also
create the climate in which any disputes can be resolved
peacefully.
In his speech to the APEC Summit, Xi stressed the
absolute necessity of maintaining peace in this all-important
region: “I mentioned this year at the Boao Forum
and on other occasions that peace is like air and sunlight.
You benefit from it without noticing it, but when it’s
gone, difficulty sets in. Without peace, development has
no basis, like a tree without its roots. Harmony in the
family is the basis for success in any undertaking. China
is a member of the Asian family, we want to get along
with all the members of the family, to provide mutual help
and protection, and hope that each member can treasure
the aspect of peace and stability, and that we can together
promote the building of a lasting peace and the common
flourishing of a harmonious Asia-Pacific region.”
Of particular concern for China is the U.S. attempt to
create the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a
free-trade agreement that sets a a very high bar for the
degree of “liberalization” required of those countries
wishing to join, criteria which China and some countries
in Southeast Asia do not meet. The TPP is an obvious
ploy by the Obama Administration to organize the other
countries of Asia against China.
While the TPP does not openly
exclude China, the general
feeling that this author picked
up after discussions in Beijing
recently, is that no one really
believes that China would be
invited to join, even if it wanted
to—which it doesn’t.
The TPP, however, is meeting
some difficulties from some
of the other Asian countries because
of the draconian nature
of its conditions. While the
U.S. was hoping it would be in
force by the end of the year,
Malaysia, which is deemed one
of the key targets for TPP, made
very clear that it would not be
rushed into some arbitrary endof-
year timetable. Resistance to the TPP’s demands
from the population could well quash the deal entirely.
And the fact that China is prepared to engage in the construction
of the great infrastructure projects that these
countries so desperately need, carries far more weight
than the vapid promises of the Obama Administration.
The absence at the APEC event of the U.S. President,
who remained in the White House in the midst of the
ongoing government crisis, no doubt aided the Chinese
President in setting a more serious tone at this APEC
event than had been the case on previous occasions. Although
Obama’s stand-in, Secretary of State John Kerry,
did a certain amount of carping about the TPP, it never
reached the level of disturbing the serious issues that had
been placed on the agenda by President Xi.
It is indicative of the mood, that Chinese Premier Li,
who is following up Xi’s successful visit to the region
with a series of bilateral meetings, was asked to address
the Thai parliament, the first foreigner to do so in ten
years.
A Proper U.S. Response
No doubt the Chinese initiatives will soon be met
with warning signals from Washington about the Chinese
“hegemon,” or cries for more attention to be paid
to the Asia-Pacific. The Administration may even dust
off the sundry, rather dilapidated, schemes for the U.S.-
promoted New Silk Road, which were primarily aimed
at putting Central Asian oil revenues into the coffers of
YouTube
Chinese President Xi Jinping addressing the APEC
Summit Oct. 8, 2013.
October 18, 2013 EIR International 39
the multinational oil companies, and limiting Chinese
and Russian influence in Central Asia.
But contrary to the mainstream media, what is happening
in the Asia-Pacific is not some sinister Chinese
plot aimed at undermining the United States. Chinese
leaders have no desire to replace the the U.S. role on the
world political stage, nor even of limiting the influence
of the United States in the region. They just wish that
the U.S. would stop being such an arrogant bully, stirring
up discontent in the neighborhood. As President
Xi’s comments indicated, there is great concern about
the global financial situation, and about how it is being
handled by the governments of the developed countries,
particularly the United States.
But there is no Chinese Schadenfreude over the situation
that Europe and the United States is now facing.
The Chinese leadership is keenly aware that the world
is inalterably interconnected, and, as Chinese Ambassador
to the United States Cui Tiankai noted recently in
a speech to students at Johns Hopkins School of International
Studies, in referring to the new type of “major
relationship” that is being mooted between China and
the United States in dealing with the economic crisis,
“Here there are no 100% winners or 100% losers. If we
fail, we fail together. If we win, we win together.”
The developments in Asia clearly indicate a serious
commitment on China’s part to address the global economic
crisis by investing in infrastructure
projects throughout the Asia-Pacific
region—even at a certain cost to itself.
If the United States were to dump its current
President, who has shown himself
intent on bankrupting the nation on behalf
of the Queen of England and her Wall Street
minions, this republic could again become
that beacon of hope that it was meant to be,
and could itself begin developing the thermonuclear
NAWAPA XXI project of bringing
water from the Arctic rivers of Alaska to
the parched regions of the American West
and linking the development of that section
of our nation to the fate of the Asia-Pacific
through a Bering Strait tunnel.1
This was sharply underlined by Lyndon
LaRouche in reply to a question on the
Chinese project from this author at a La-
RouchePAC webcast on Oct, 11. “If we increase
the productive powers of labor in
China, by doing things to facilitate the increment
of their intentions [of raising the technological
level of production in China], that will be a great help,”
LaRouche said. “It also will be a way, because of China’s
importance, because of the very size of its population,
its needs, its role in the Pacific. All of these considerations,
which go into South and Southeast Asia and so
forth, mean that the success of China would mean success
for neighboring countries to the north—Japan included,
if Japan could get back on its feet, as it had been
before—and Russia. Those regions in Asia, depend
upon China’s success. And then you go to the south, and
you find a similar effect.
“So therefore, what I have envisaged, and what my
associates have immediately envisaged, is that this
area, the development of the trans-Pacific area, reaching
from the Mississippi River, across deep into Asia, is
the hope for the future of mankind.”
The realization of LaRouche’s vision by a sane U.S.
President would transform the Pacific Ocean region
into what its name implies, a Sea of Peace—a peace
based on development, which would radiate throughout
the world.
To reach the author: cuth@erols.com
1. See “The Nuclear NAWAPA XXI & The New Economy” at
larouchepac.com.
Creative Commons/Constantine.nicky
President Xi has committed China to investing in the economic and industrial
power of its Asian neighbors. Its advanced industries, like this railcar factory,
are leading the way.
Oct. 11—The recent trips by China’s President Xi Jinping
to Central and Southeast Asia and Premier Li Keqiang
to Southeast Asia, have served to illuminate aspects
of what has been called China’s “Grand Strategy”
in confronting the international financial crisis. The revival
of this two-pronged “Silk Road diplomacy,” encompasing
the creation of an economic belt stretching
eastward through Central Asia to Europe and beyond,
and southward, on a Maritime Silk Road to Southeast
and South Asia, is an attempt to bring development to
China’s regional neighbors, and to fend off, as much as
possible, the effects of the global financial blow-out.
Focused on utilizing China’s economic strength to
build the needed infrastructure, roads, railroads, and
power generation in the overall region, the diplomacy
also creates an essential trajectory toward development
in a world otherwise characterized by growing economic
chaos. As the Chinese themselves realize, this is,
at best, something of a holding action. The reality is,
that only a change in the international financial system,
through a global Glass-Steagall policy, would place the
world economy firmly on this path.
But the potential created by the Chinese policy represents
an auspicious development in the Asia-Pacific
region, from which any sane U.S. administration
(unlike our present one) might benefit.
Addressing the APEC Summit
President Xi began his comments at the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit Oct. 8 by noting
the seriousness of the world financial situation. “The
world economy is still in the throes of a deep readjustment,”
Xi said. “While there are signs of recovery, the
economy is still faced with fundamental instability,
uneven development, and sluggish motion. . . . The major
structural problems of the developed countries are far
from resolved and . . . reviving the world economy will
be a lengthy, and by no means smooth, process.”
While noting the difficulty that China itself is having
in its own readjustment after the loss of much of its
export market, Xi nevertheless expressed confidence
that the Chinese economy has retained a certain vibrancy.
In spite of the slowdown, China has a more than
7% growth rate, which is far better than the rest of the
world. He pointed to the relative success of the last quarter’s
results, which were primarily based on an increase
in domestic consumption, rather than on the traditional
export market; he further noted the shift by China toward
higher quality products, the advancement of the skills of
its labor, and the progress of the urbanization drive,
thereby increasing investment and consumption.
The Chinese President called for greater coordination
among the APEC countries, and the creation of a
network of “connectivity” region to bolster the construction
of “economic corridors” in various sub-regions.
He called for investment and financing partnerships
among the APEC nations, which would involve
governments, the private sector, and international institutions,
and in which the more developed nations should
make a greater effort in helping the less developed ones.
China’s Silk Road Diplomacy:
Lifeline for U.S. Economy
by William Jones
EIR International
38 International EIR October 18, 2013
Xi also called for the establishment
of a development bank to
help finance the needed infrastructural
projects.
Development, the New
Name for Peace
The Chinese diplomatic
initiative is aimed at maintaining
peace and stability in the
region. Reflecting that important
political principle expressed
so eloquently by Pope
Paul VI in the 1970s, that “the
new name for peace is development,”
China understands
that the various tensions over
the numerous maritime border
disputes, disputes which have
been seriously exacerbated by
the Obama “pivot” to Asia, can only be dealt with in a
climate in which the various nations are working together
for their common benefit. China, which still has
the means to finance great projects, is taking the lead in
the infrastructural development. And it is felt that such
projects, which will benefit their neighbors, will also
create the climate in which any disputes can be resolved
peacefully.
In his speech to the APEC Summit, Xi stressed the
absolute necessity of maintaining peace in this all-important
region: “I mentioned this year at the Boao Forum
and on other occasions that peace is like air and sunlight.
You benefit from it without noticing it, but when it’s
gone, difficulty sets in. Without peace, development has
no basis, like a tree without its roots. Harmony in the
family is the basis for success in any undertaking. China
is a member of the Asian family, we want to get along
with all the members of the family, to provide mutual help
and protection, and hope that each member can treasure
the aspect of peace and stability, and that we can together
promote the building of a lasting peace and the common
flourishing of a harmonious Asia-Pacific region.”
Of particular concern for China is the U.S. attempt to
create the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a
free-trade agreement that sets a a very high bar for the
degree of “liberalization” required of those countries
wishing to join, criteria which China and some countries
in Southeast Asia do not meet. The TPP is an obvious
ploy by the Obama Administration to organize the other
countries of Asia against China.
While the TPP does not openly
exclude China, the general
feeling that this author picked
up after discussions in Beijing
recently, is that no one really
believes that China would be
invited to join, even if it wanted
to—which it doesn’t.
The TPP, however, is meeting
some difficulties from some
of the other Asian countries because
of the draconian nature
of its conditions. While the
U.S. was hoping it would be in
force by the end of the year,
Malaysia, which is deemed one
of the key targets for TPP, made
very clear that it would not be
rushed into some arbitrary endof-
year timetable. Resistance to the TPP’s demands
from the population could well quash the deal entirely.
And the fact that China is prepared to engage in the construction
of the great infrastructure projects that these
countries so desperately need, carries far more weight
than the vapid promises of the Obama Administration.
The absence at the APEC event of the U.S. President,
who remained in the White House in the midst of the
ongoing government crisis, no doubt aided the Chinese
President in setting a more serious tone at this APEC
event than had been the case on previous occasions. Although
Obama’s stand-in, Secretary of State John Kerry,
did a certain amount of carping about the TPP, it never
reached the level of disturbing the serious issues that had
been placed on the agenda by President Xi.
It is indicative of the mood, that Chinese Premier Li,
who is following up Xi’s successful visit to the region
with a series of bilateral meetings, was asked to address
the Thai parliament, the first foreigner to do so in ten
years.
A Proper U.S. Response
No doubt the Chinese initiatives will soon be met
with warning signals from Washington about the Chinese
“hegemon,” or cries for more attention to be paid
to the Asia-Pacific. The Administration may even dust
off the sundry, rather dilapidated, schemes for the U.S.-
promoted New Silk Road, which were primarily aimed
at putting Central Asian oil revenues into the coffers of
YouTube
Chinese President Xi Jinping addressing the APEC
Summit Oct. 8, 2013.
October 18, 2013 EIR International 39
the multinational oil companies, and limiting Chinese
and Russian influence in Central Asia.
But contrary to the mainstream media, what is happening
in the Asia-Pacific is not some sinister Chinese
plot aimed at undermining the United States. Chinese
leaders have no desire to replace the the U.S. role on the
world political stage, nor even of limiting the influence
of the United States in the region. They just wish that
the U.S. would stop being such an arrogant bully, stirring
up discontent in the neighborhood. As President
Xi’s comments indicated, there is great concern about
the global financial situation, and about how it is being
handled by the governments of the developed countries,
particularly the United States.
But there is no Chinese Schadenfreude over the situation
that Europe and the United States is now facing.
The Chinese leadership is keenly aware that the world
is inalterably interconnected, and, as Chinese Ambassador
to the United States Cui Tiankai noted recently in
a speech to students at Johns Hopkins School of International
Studies, in referring to the new type of “major
relationship” that is being mooted between China and
the United States in dealing with the economic crisis,
“Here there are no 100% winners or 100% losers. If we
fail, we fail together. If we win, we win together.”
The developments in Asia clearly indicate a serious
commitment on China’s part to address the global economic
crisis by investing in infrastructure
projects throughout the Asia-Pacific
region—even at a certain cost to itself.
If the United States were to dump its current
President, who has shown himself
intent on bankrupting the nation on behalf
of the Queen of England and her Wall Street
minions, this republic could again become
that beacon of hope that it was meant to be,
and could itself begin developing the thermonuclear
NAWAPA XXI project of bringing
water from the Arctic rivers of Alaska to
the parched regions of the American West
and linking the development of that section
of our nation to the fate of the Asia-Pacific
through a Bering Strait tunnel.1
This was sharply underlined by Lyndon
LaRouche in reply to a question on the
Chinese project from this author at a La-
RouchePAC webcast on Oct, 11. “If we increase
the productive powers of labor in
China, by doing things to facilitate the increment
of their intentions [of raising the technological
level of production in China], that will be a great help,”
LaRouche said. “It also will be a way, because of China’s
importance, because of the very size of its population,
its needs, its role in the Pacific. All of these considerations,
which go into South and Southeast Asia and so
forth, mean that the success of China would mean success
for neighboring countries to the north—Japan included,
if Japan could get back on its feet, as it had been
before—and Russia. Those regions in Asia, depend
upon China’s success. And then you go to the south, and
you find a similar effect.
“So therefore, what I have envisaged, and what my
associates have immediately envisaged, is that this
area, the development of the trans-Pacific area, reaching
from the Mississippi River, across deep into Asia, is
the hope for the future of mankind.”
The realization of LaRouche’s vision by a sane U.S.
President would transform the Pacific Ocean region
into what its name implies, a Sea of Peace—a peace
based on development, which would radiate throughout
the world.
To reach the author: cuth@erols.com
1. See “The Nuclear NAWAPA XXI & The New Economy” at
larouchepac.com.
Creative Commons/Constantine.nicky
President Xi has committed China to investing in the economic and industrial
power of its Asian neighbors. Its advanced industries, like this railcar factory,
are leading the way.
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