EDITORIAL
‘Now It All Starts To Make Sense’
Dec. 3 (EIRNS)—A foreign enemy of the United States—the British Empire’s intelligence services and their allies in the FBI and on Wall Street—has de facto invaded the U.S. with the stated intention of staging a coup d’état against the elected President and the Constitution, in order to reverse his policies of constructing peaceful cooperation with Russia and China, and marching the world back from the brink of war. The British cannot stand for any deviation from the war trajectory of their Bush and Obama administrations, because the survival of their entire system of global geopolitics and financial looting depends on it. Since President Trump was elected by the American people to reverse the Obama policies and do just that, the British et al. are now trying to impeach and jail him, and the truth be damned.
The approach they are taking, and even the cast of characters involved, is nearly identical to the “Get LaRouche” taskforce they deployed some 30 years ago to unjustly jail Lyndon LaRouche and numerous of his associates, in their unsuccessful effort to silence his voice.
Those simple facts, known for months to the LaRouche movement and its supporters, and circulated far and wide in our Mueller Dossier (now going into its second printing), have now emerged into full public view over the last 72 hours. As President Trump himself tweeted today: “Now it all starts to make sense.”
It is that international strategic battle, and not anything to do with “domestic politics” or other hot-button issues, right or left, that is at stake.
What most threatens the British Empire’s grip, is the unceasing drive of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is pulling nation after nation into its orbit, as well as the unique role that the LaRouche movement is playing in that process—as reflected, yet again, in Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s participation as a keynote speaker at the Nov. 29 conference in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China, on The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Forum.
Exemplary of the rapidly changing world dynamic are the comments of the Chairman of the Bank of China, Chen Siqing, who spoke on Dec. 2 at a forum in Rome, “The Third Mediterranean Dialogue:”
“The Belt and Road Initiative has created a new platform for international cooperation… The Mediterranean’s position is unique and of strategic importance, at the crossroads of the land Silk Road and the maritime Silk Road… In the future, we should accelerate industrial capacity cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road, promote regional development and peaceful coexistence among peoples.”
That future is now, and it includes the United States. It does not include the British Empire.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
There the Parallel Is Again: The LaRouche Case and the Suspended Fake Newsman, Brian Ross
Dec. 3 (EIRNS)—EIR issued the following press release today:
On December 1, 2017, as the anti-Trump media mob was in full throat in the United States over Michael Flynn’s plea to lying to the FBI, ABC Chief Investigative Reporter Brian Ross let loose a “bombshell.” According to his sources, Ross proclaimed, Flynn had already told Special Counsel Robert Mueller that a “high level” official of the Trump campaign had told Flynn to contact the Russians during the 2016 election campaign. The stock market promptly dropped 300 points, as traders digested whether or not the long lost proof of Russian collusion in the U.S. election had finally come to light.
The problem is that Ross’s claim was completely and totally false. Flynn’s plea deal specifies that Flynn was asked to contact the Russians—a completely legal activity—after the election. An extremely embarrassed ABC News issued a full retraction and suspended Ross for a month, without pay.
Ross has a history of outright lies and fabrications on behalf of the U.S. intelligence community sources whose leaks of gossip, lies, and fabrications to him form the bulk of his journalistic oeuvre. Like special prosecutor Robert Mueller, Ross cut his teeth on assassination by media falsehood and the U.S. criminal justice system, in the case of Lyndon LaRouche.
Then a reporter for NBC News, Ross played a major role in a campaign of media defamations against LaRouche originating in a salon of journalists run by John Train, a spook long associated with President George H.W. Bush and the CIA. The goal of this salon was to create pariah status for LaRouche through the news media, in order to facilitate a manufactured criminal prosecution against him. LaRouche had terrified the Anglo-American elite by proposing an alternative to their bankrupt system which was catching on with the U.S. population and with significant foreign leaders. A similar terror today is presented by President Trump’s desire to ally with Russia and China to end perpetual war and engage in systemic physical economic development of the world.
In the LaRouche case, among other outrageous defamations the Train crew and Brian Ross invented, in conjunction with U.S. agencies, was that LaRouche plotted to assassinate President Jimmy Carter by remote controlled bomb, and that LaRouche was involved in the assassination of Olof Palme. The latter fabrication was actually planted on Ross and his fellow hacks by the East German Stasi with collaboration from Mueller’s Boston U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The full story of the parallels between the LaRouche case and the present coup against the President, and the British intelligence origin of both cases, can be found in the EIR Dossier, Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Assassin, He Will Do His Job If You Let Him.
Like Robert Mueller’s well-known prosecutorial excesses and illegalities on behalf of the Anglo-American establishment, Brian Ross has a long and ugly prior record of fake news reporting. ABC has previously been forced to retract and apologize when Ross claimed that Colorado shooter James Holmes belonged to the Tea Party. In 2001, Ross claimed Saddam Hussein and Iraq were behind the deadly anthrax mailings in the wake of 9/11, juicing the skids, with completely fake reporting, for the disastrous invasion of Iraq. ABC News had to retract again when Ross claimed that a former prisoner from Guantanamo Bay masterminded the underwear terror bombing. The problem with that one, is that the prisoner in question was in full Saudi custody. Then there was the Toyota malfunction story, in which Ross got caught editing and splicing video tape in a fabricated scene of an out-of-control car.
Has the Greek Nemesis principle finally struck in the coup beleaguered United States? We have yet to see.
Rep. Nunes Charges FBI and DOJ with ‘Obstruction,’ Prepares Contempt Citations
Dec. 3 (EIRNS)—House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) issued a statement yesterday which rips into the months-long stonewalling and “obstruction” by the FBI and the Department of Justice, in refusing to answer questions and hand over materials demanded by the Committee, relating to the relationship of the FBI to the scurrilous dossier prepared by British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, and the brazen conflict of interest of Robert Mueller and his team with their assigned mission.
The statement begins by noting the “press reports that Peter Strzok, the top FBI official assigned to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of collusion between Russia and Trump officials, had been removed from the probe after exchanging anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages with his mistress, who was an FBI lawyer working for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.”
The Nunes statement charged that “the FBI and DOJ engaged in a willful attempt to thwart Congress’s constitutional oversight responsibility. This is part of a months-long pattern by the DOJ and FBI of stonewalling and obstructing this committee’s oversight work, particularly oversight of their use of the Steele dossier.” Nunes added: “The DOJ has now expressed—on a Saturday, just hours after the press reports on Strzok’s dismissal appeared—a sudden willingness to comply with some of the committee’s long-standing demands. This attempted 11th-hour accommodation is neither credible nor believable, and in fact is yet another example of the DOJ’s disingenuousness and obstruction. Therefore, I have instructed House Intelligence Committee staff to begin drawing up a contempt of Congress resolution for DOJ Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Unless all our outstanding demands are fully met by close of business on Monday, December 4, 2017, the committee will have the opportunity to move this resolution before the end of the month.”
President Trump tweeted this morning about the Strzok revelations: “Now it all starts to make sense,” adding that the FBI’s reputation “is in Tatters—worst in History!”
Washington Post: What Flynn Violated Was Obama’s War Policy
Dec. 2 (EIRNS)—A day after former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pled guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI, the Washington Post, in its lead Saturday editorial, revealed the real issue involved succinctly in the headline to the editorial: “The Russia Affair Expands: Mr. Flynn’s Guilty Plea Shows Coordination with Moscow To Undermine Mr. Obama’s Foreign Policy.” The text of the editorial continues: “The plea reveals that senior transition officials were guiding Mr. Flynn as he sought help from the Russian Ambassador in undermining the Obama administration’s policies.”
That is, the “crime” alleged is that of “undermining” Obama’s policy of war confrontation against Russia, a policy Obama coordinated with David Cameron’s U.K. government and the City of London, and which President-elect Donald Trump had told the American people he would change.
It should be remembered, also, that Flynn agreed to the interview in question with the FBI in the White House on January 24, 2017, in the midst of media hysteria following the Obama administration’s illegal unmasking of his name by Obama administration officials as a result of NSA surveillance. No lawyer was present for that FBI interview: a perfect setup! Since that time, Flynn and his son have been investigated to death by Mueller in an effort to concoct criminal offenses. Various articles about his plea deal point out that Flynn was deeply dismayed by the prospect of his son spending years in prison and about his family being bankrupted by his enormous legal fees.
Houston Mayor Heads Delegation to China, Speaks of Friendship and Investment for Recovery
Dec. 1 (EIRNS)—It is now official. On Dec. 2, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner leaves with a delegation to China. According to the Dec. 1 press release from the Mayor’s office, “The Houston delegation of business leaders and government officials will conduct ‘Houston Business and Investment Seminars,’ and visit with their counterparts, in the dynamic cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. Shenzhen is a Houston sister city and a major financial center with ties to nearby Hong Kong; Shanghai is the most populous Chinese city and a major port location; Beijing is the nation’s center for government and development. Their combined municipal population is 58 million.”
In addition to the mayor and business leaders, it is reported that the Houston delegation includes two City Council members, community college representatives, and Texas State Rep. Gene Wu.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has requested $61 billion from the U.S. government for infrastructure recovery and for new, critical, flood- and hurricane-protection infrastructure projects in Southeast Texas. It is an open question, widely debated throughout the region, whether such money will be forthcoming.
In an interview with Xinhua, published Dec. 1, Mayor Turner was asked how China can participate in rebuilding Houston after the Hurricane Harvey disaster. Mayor Turner responded, “Investment and other forms of financial support, as well as good wishes and friendship, would play a positive role in our recovery.”
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Helga Zepp-LaRouche Participates in Zhuhai ‘21st Century Maritime Silk Road Forum’
Dec. 3 (EIRNS)—Immediately following the very successful international Schiller Institute Conference in Bad Soden, Germany, Schiller Chairwoman and founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche was one of the keynote speakers in a Nov. 29 conference in Zhuhai, Guangdong, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Forum, on International Communication and Chinese (Guangdong) Companies Going Global. The Forum was organized by the provincial government of Guangdong and addressed by national and regional government representatives, leaders of the business community, and various institutional speakers from China, Asia, the U.S., Europe, and Africa. The conference was clearly inspired by the “Spirit of the New Silk Road” and an atmosphere of optimistic take-off, so almost totally lacking in the West.
Zepp-LaRouche’s speech, with the title “The Belt and Road Initiative and the Dialogue of Cultures Based on Their Higher Expressions,” was well received.
Part of the Forum program was the visit to the Zhuhai City Planning Center, an exhibition of the grand design behind the industrial zones of Zhuhai and the surrounding region, “city-planning at its best,” as one of the participants commented. The exhibition reflects exactly the principles outlined by Lyndon LaRouche concerning modular principles, uniting maximum efficiency with humane conditions and architectural beauty.
The highpoint of the trip was the visit to the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, connecting Hong Kong on the east bank of the Pearl River Delta to Zhuhai and Macao on the west bank. The HKZMB is the longest sea-crossing highway in China, and at 55km in length, it includes the Main Bridge Project of 29.6 km, three Boundary Crossing Facilities at Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao, and three Link Roads to these three regions. The Bridge is almost finished after only eight years of construction and elicited 120 patents in groundbreaking engineering skills. “We are standing on a crucial part of the World Land-Bridge,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche commented.
Another leg of the trip included Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, about which the delegation of the Schiller Institute agreed that it demonstrates that the most modern architecture can be beautiful, and this is a very stunning case, where the new part of the city is more beautiful than the old one, reflecting an orientation towards the well-being of the population.
Xi Opens CPC Dialogue with World Parties, for ‘Community with a Shared Future for Mankind’
Dec. 1 (EIRNS)—Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered an eloquent opening address on the second day of the four-day Communist Party of China (CPC) Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting being held in Beijing.
“I’m delighted to see that the friendly cooperation between China and other countries is increasingly expanding and the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind is gaining support and endorsement from an increasing number of people,” President Xi told the more than 600 representatives from nearly 300 political parties from 120 countries on Dec. 1. The Belt and Road Initiative, Xi said, is the practice or action of the concept of a shared future, and has become a huge cooperation platform for countries to realize their common development, Chinese media report.
President Xi explained that with the initiation of the BRI, he was introducing a new model of relationship between nations and peoples, a model of relationships oriented to the well-being of all nations and all peoples. He called on the representatives of all the parties to devote themselves to realizing this new model and to work together toward that goal, in spite of the differences they may have in their political and views.
The conference was organized at the request of foreign political parties, which were interested in a briefing on the Oct. 19-24 CPC 19th Party Congress in China. Along those lines, the theme of the conference is, “Working Together Towards a Community with a Shared Future for Humanity and a Better World: Responsibilities of Political Parties.”
Building a community with a shared future for mankind, President Xi said, is to connect the prospects and destiny of every nation closely together, share weal and woe, and turn planet Earth into a harmonious family, reported by China Radio International. Efforts should be made, he said, to build a safe world free of fear, and that a country cannot gain security at the cost of others. Countries should jointly eliminate the root cause of war and rescue people from pains brought about by war, and strive to eliminate poverty and promote common prosperity.
President Xi proposed that there be a new model for party-to-party relations, in which parties seek common ground and shelve differences. He assured the representatives that China will neither “import” foreign models of development, nor “export” the Chinese model. He stressed that the CPC strives for both the well-being of the Chinese people and human progress, and that more opportunities for the world are created by promoting China’s development.
President Xi met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who both spoke at the forum’s opening session.
To move the process forward, in the next five years, President Xi said, the CPC would like to invite 15,000 members of foreign political parties to come to China for exchanges. He also suggested that the CPC Dialogue be institutionalized and develop into a high-level political dialogue platform of broad representation and international influence.
Of interest, will be the reaction on the part of the U.S. participants. During the conference, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, a member of the CPC Politburo, met with the representatives of the U.S. Democratic and Republican Parties who attended, calling for long-term, steady and healthy China-U.S. ties. He stressed the importance of implementing the consensus reached between presidents Xi and Trump, to deepen mutual cooperation, respect each others core interests, and properly handle differences, Xinhua reported. “Both sides agreed to strengthen party-to-party exchanges and make good use of dialogue platforms between political parties to consolidate the political foundation of bilateral ties,” according to Xinhua. The full list of the American participants is not known to this news service at this time.
Chinese television network CCTV included an interview with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in their round-up of world reactions to the CPC Dialogue with World Political Parties. Zepp-LaRouche “followed with interest the dialogue between the CPC and fellow world political parties at a high-level meeting,” CCTV told its Chinese audience. “Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, a well-known German think-tank, thinks that ‘the idea put forward by President Xi, of a common destiny for mankind, is very important.’ LaRouche also highly praised the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative]. She believes that the BRI eliminates the root cause for wars between countries, and constructs a safe world of ‘fairness and justice’ through ‘mutual benefit and collaboration.’ It provides a very good platform, through which to achieve a shared community for mankind.” The video interview showed her reading the Institute’s new special report, “Extending the New Silk Road to Southwest Asia and Africa.”
New Austria Ruling Parties Endorse National Role in New Silk Road
Dec. 2 (EIRNS)—In their ongoing talks on forming a coalition government, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) agreed on an infrastructure investment program which, according to media reports, explicitly endorses an active role of Austria in the New Silk Road in cooperation with China’s investments in projects in Asia, Europe, and Africa.
This involves ports, roads and railroads. Austria also wants to build a wide-gauge link from the Slovakian city of Kosice to Vienna. These investments will pay off, because they will shift freight off the highways and roads to the railways, the likely new Transport Minister of Austria, Norbert Hofer (FPÖ), said in Vienna on Friday. The new Austrian government is expected to be sworn in before Christmas.
Uruguay’s President: China ‘Occupies a Central Place’ in Latin American/Caribbean Future
Dec. 1 (EIRNS)—In his opening remarks on Friday to the first session of the China-Latin America-Caribbean Business Summit (China-LAC 2017) in Punta del Este, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez set the tone for the day’s discussion when he identified China as “the champion of international trade and a motor of global economic growth.”
Speaking before approximately 3,000 attendees, Vázquez said that because of its growing trade, economic, political, scientific, and cultural ties to Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), China now “occupies a central place in the affairs of Latin America and the Caribbean … [and] a central place in the future of the region.” That future, he underscored, “is not predetermined, but is rather built in the present, because the future can be shaped among us all, as no country, no matter its size, [defines] its fate by itself.”
The two-day event, which included businessmen, government officials, policymakers, and other experts from all three regions, is unprecedented in its size and has generated enormous enthusiasm and debate about the prospect of Latin America joining the Belt and Road Initiative. The vision for an alliance among the three regions in the framework of the Belt and Road was the central subject of the first plenary session.
An indication of the policy discussion now underway was Vázquez’s report that “we have received and are evaluating an interesting Chinese proposal which includes audacious and transformative ideas” such as promoting a free trade zone between China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), which will be taken up in January at the group’s next annual conference in Santiago, Chile.
Other speakers at the opening session included Ma Peihua, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference, who said that China’s main goal is to establish cooperative associations with countries, especially to promote unity and collaboration with LAC countries, and push the world economy toward a more open and inclusive path that will offer universal benefits. China-LAC relations have now entered a “new historical phase,” he said, with good results, recalling that over a period of four years, President Xi Jinping toured the LAC countries three times, the last time in 2016.
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Lavrov Blasts Rhetoric on Korea; Zepp-LaRouche Insists Only New Paradigm Can Solve Crisis!
Dec. 2 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took aim on Friday at both the U.S. administration and North Korea for the most recent escalation over North Korea’s nuclear program. Lavrov, who was in Rome where he met with Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, said that Moscow believes Washington’s references to a military solution in relations with North Korea are a big mistake, TASS reported. Referring to the Nov. 29 tirade of U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki in the UN Security Council, Lavrov stated: “If somebody is very eager to use force to wipe out North Korea, as the United States’ UN envoy has said, I believe that it was a big mistake and an attempt to play with fire. We will do our utmost to not let this happen and to ensure the problem be resolved exclusively by peaceful political and diplomatic means.”
Interviewed by the Belarusian STV television channel on the same day, Lavrov dished out blame to both Washington and Pyongyang. “We condemn North Korea’s nuclear recklessness; but we cannot but condemn the provocative behavior of our American colleagues. There is a feeling that they deliberately provoked [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un to make him break the pause and take the bait,” he said, referring to North Korea’s pause in missile and nuclear tests over two months.
Schiller Institute founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche reiterated on Dec. 2 that the now extremely serious Korea crisis could be solved only by a new paradigm of relations among the United States, China, and Russia. She said that at any moment, the crisis could now turn the wrong way and trigger even global war; North Korea is now a full nuclear power. Or, it could lead to serious negotiations of the United States, Russia and China with both Koreas. But the latter solution, Zepp-LaRouche emphasized, requires that real cooperation be established among those three great powers, under a new paradigm of international cooperation taking shape around China’s New Silk Road initiatives. Therefore, she concluded, “There is no alternative to this new paradigm, if you want to continue to exist!”
Strategic Command Chief Charges Russia, China Building Weapons against Pentagon Satellites
Dec. 3 (EIRNS)—Speaking at the annual Reagan Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten accused both Russia and China of building weapons that are capable of targeting U.S. military satellites in orbit. Hyten’s wild remarks were only one of various statements promoting the neo-con drive for war from the participants at that forum.
“They’ve been building weapons, testing weapons, building weapons to operate from the Earth in space, jamming weapons, laser weapons, and they have not kept it secret,” he declared. “They’re building those capabilities to challenge the United States of America, to challenge our allies, and to change the balance of power in the world,” continued Hyten. “We cannot allow that to happen.” He specifically cited this as a threat to U.S. missile warning satellites. “Every missile that comes off the planet is seen first by one of our overhead missile warning capabilities,” Hyten said, and stating that the satellites are “not easy to defend.”
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Labour Party’s Corbyn Tells Morgan Stanley, ‘You’re Right, We Are a Threat’ To Speculators
Dec. 1 (EIRNS)—British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn responded to the report by Morgan Stanley claiming that the biggest threat facing the British financial system is a Labour Party government, by releasing a video in which Corbyn declared, “You’re right, we are a threat,” and charging that Morgan Stanley is part of the same “speculators and gamblers who crashed our economy in 2008.
“Nurses, teachers, shopworkers, builders, just about everyone is finding it harder to get by, while Morgan Stanley’s CEO paid himself £21.5 million last year and U.K. banks paid out £15 billion in bonuses,” Corbyn charged.
“Labour is a growing movement of well over half a million members and a government-in-waiting that will work for the many. So when they say we’re a threat, they’re right. We’re a threat to a damaging and failed system that’s rigged for the few.”
He charged that the greed of bankers had plunged the world into crisis a decade ago and that the U.K. is still paying the price, because the Conservative Party had “used the financial crisis to push through unnecessary and deeply damaging austerity. That’s meant a crisis in our public services, falling wages and the longest decline in living standards for over 60 years.”
Corbyn pointed to Morgan Stanley’s $3.2 billion settlement with U.S. authorities for its role in the creation of flawed mortgage-backed bonds, and the bank’s four meetings with senior government figures, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, last year.
According to the Guardian, Corbyn said Labour would be publishing policies on the financial sector and how it planned to transform the economy.
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Portugal and China Agree on Jointly Building Infrastructure in Third Countries
Dec. 2 (EIRNS)—Chinese and Portuguese public companies last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a joint partnership to build rail and road projects in Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, with the possibility of doing the same in Brazil.
The MOU protocol was signed in Lisbon on Nov. 24, at the headquarters of the Portuguese Agency for Foreign Trade and Investment (AICEP), between the IP Engenharia/Grupo Infra-estruturas de Portugal and the China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group/China Railway Engineering Corp.
According to Shao Gang, vice-president of China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group/China Railway Engineering Corp., a joint commission of Portuguese and Chinese companies will meet in January next year to draw up a timetable for the implementation of joint projects in Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, São Tomé and Principe, and Guinea-Bissau, “in the projects that each country will most need to develop and stimulate the local economy,” Jornal de Angola reported on Nov. 27.
Shao spoke also of possible Chinese loans, on advantageous terms, to “financially weaker” African countries, but he said that this would have to be approved by both the Portuguese and Chinese governments.
The Angolan paper reported that during its visit to Lisbon, China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group/China Railway Engineering Corp. also signed a MOU with the big Portuguese construction company, Teixeira Duarte, on identical terms.
Shanghai Cooperation Organization Agree to Close-Knit Road, Rail, Telecom Networks
Dec. 3 (EIRNS)—At the end of the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) heads of government, in Sochi, Russia, member states unanimously agreed to bring the Eurasian countries closer by closely knitting road, rail, and communication networks crossing the large landmass of South Asia, Central Asia, and up into Europe, reported the government news agency Associated Press Pakistan (APP).
Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that, for future development and prosperity, economic cooperation among the SCO states should be strengthened, and suggested multilateral border connections through the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Belt and Road Initiative.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang viewed the complicated changes in the world as resulting from regional hot spots. He said China was ready to advance security of the region with other countries through intense cooperation. He particularly referred to the Belt and Road project, mentioning Pakistan and South Asia as massive economic markets for the SCO due to its huge population and potentials, APP reported.
Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, representing her government, emphasized that global economic challenges still persist, and stressed that regional connectivity among SCO members is vital.
Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev said that landlocked countries of Central Asia must streamline their efforts for close cooperation through road networks. He, too, referred to the Belt and Road Initiative.
In an earlier session, Prime Minister of Belarus Andrei Kobyakov also stressed “the establishment of transcontinental transport corridors, including their transport, energy, communication, and customs components,” as promising avenues for “multilateral trade, economic, and investment cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union and the SCO,” BelTA reported.
According to Xinhua the SCO final communiqué addressed the international financial situation: “Facing the unstable financial and raw materials markets, fluctuating foreign exchange rates and rising protectionism, the SCO members need to take coordinated actions and improve international monetary and financial system.”
