MONDAY, MARCH 18, 2019

Volume 6, Number 53

EIR Daily Alert Service

P.O. Box 17390, Washington, DC 20041-0390

• Geopoliticians Fire at Italy Over China; They Aim at LaRouche’s Legacy
• Zepp-LaRouche Tells ‘Italy on New Silk Road’ Conference, We Need a Renaissance of Scientific Thinking
• China ‘Wants To Combine Its Know-How’ With Western Firms on the Belt and Road
• China’s CCTV-13 Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Jacques Cheminade

• British Spy Christopher Steele Admits He Used CNN Viewers as a Source for Anti-Trump Dossier!
• Kudlow on U.S.-China Trade Negotiations, Far From Great-Power Cooperation
  
• Russia Will Not Deploy Missiles in European Part of Russia if U.S. Does Not Deploy Missiles in Europe
• Russia-U.S. Science Collaboration Trumps Russiagate
• Feasibility Study for Panama High-Speed Railway Released
• No ‘Quantitative Easing,’ Li Keqiang Says, But Government Will ‘Energize the Market’
  

EDITORIAL

Geopoliticians Fire at Italy over China; They Aim at LaRouche’s Legacy

March 17 (EIRNS)— The importance of the progress in G7 member Italy, of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Lyndon LaRouche’s “four economic laws,” is shown by the fire it keeps drawing from geopolitical circles, not only in Europe and Washington but also in Asia. Again, on March 14 such sources as The Diplomat (its motto: “Know the Asia Pacific”) chose to single out Italy’s Undersecretary of State in the Economic Development Ministry Michele Geraci for attack, in a vain attempt to split Italy’s government.

The Diplomat says that its primary expertise is “Geopolitical trends throughout the Asia-Pacific.” Geopolitics as invented by British Empire “thought leaders” has always meant the art of keeping other powers and potential economic powers at each other’s throats. The magazine’s March 14 “Italy’s Risky China Gamble” was virtually echoed two days later in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, in claiming that Geraci, knowledgeable about and well-disposed to China, is leading astray a naive Italian government—which does not see the terrible dangers of great nations cooperating for economic development.

The magazine begins by piling lie upon panicky lie: “Claims that Italy has decided to sign an agreement for official participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) led to a rebuke by the U.S. Trump administration, which in turn brought to surface divisions within Italy’s populist coalition government.

“As the first G7 country to sign a memorandum of understanding on the BRI, Italy’s participation would carry large symbolic weight for China. But this would hardly be enough to legitimize the BRI amid a global backlash against it and Beijing’s own struggles with piling debt and a slowing economy in the throes of a trade war with the United States. Instead, U.S. diplomats correctly warn that it would harm Italy’s own reputation.”

Italy’s government is not divided on this step. That it is a step “of historic importance,” was made clear by Helga Zepp-LaRouche at the March 13 conference “Italy on the New Silk Road” of the MoviSol movement and the Lombardy Regional Government in Milan. It is opening up to a “new paradigm” of mutual economic and cultural benefit of major nations, which will benefit developing nations as well, particularly in Africa.

So the geopolitician takes aim: “The change of course is largely the work of Michele Geraci, undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Economic Development. Geraci, who has himself spent a decade in China, has largely sidelined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by establishing his own China Task Force and by taking four trips to China in the second half of 2018 alone, including with Economy Minister Giovanni Tria and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio.”

Even more frightening to the geopoliticians is the history behind this epochal move, as detailed by Liliana Gorini, chair of the LaRouche movement MoviSol in Italy, speaking to a webcast LaRouchePAC meeting in New York on March 16 (“Win-Win Cooperation: Why the World Must Exonerate LaRouche”).

The policy of the “World Land-Bridge” of infrastructure great projects, published and presented internationally by Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Schiller Institute; a “New Bretton Woods” international credit system; cooperation with and credit to developing countries; Glass-Steagall bank separation: All these ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, and more, have been under discussion among Italy’s political, religious, and cultural leaders for decades. The force of LaRouche’s forecasts, writings, presentations and interventions there since the 1980s, are widely recognized and remembered.

And then there was the impact of the bitter austerity medicine doled out to the country, and many others in the European Union, by the EU’s London-centered geopolitical elite. So soon as Italy had a government not directly imposed by blackmail of London, Brussels and the European Central Bank, economic sanity would emerge.

Now add the potential of a bridge of ideas, through Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, China’s President Xi Jinping—visiting Italy this week—and President Donald Trump, who already have a strong mutual respect and general friendship. Member of the European Parliament Marco Zanni, entrusted with foreign relations in European Parliament by Italy’s Lega party, spoke to LaRouchePAC’s weekly Friday webcast March 15 and noted that this possibility is now alive.

THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER

Zepp-LaRouche Tells ‘Italy on New Silk Road’ Conference, We Need a Renaissance of Scientific Thinking

March 15 (EIRNS)—At the conference “Italy on the New Silk Road,” co-hosted by MoviSol and the Lombardy Region of Italy and held in Milan March 13, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed a hotly discussed issue in Italy, the Turin-Lyon high-speed rail (TAV) infrastructure, which one part of Italy’s government wants to block. Moderator Claudio Celani, speaking to Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche, joked: “You praised the Italian government, but I will criticize it,” and asked for her views on the Turin-Lyon TAV, given that this important infrastructure, with a 57 km base tunnel under the Alps, is an essential part of the Lisbon-Kiev Corridor 5 and would integrate with the Belt and Road Initiative.

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche pointed out that German media are havingschadenfreude over the Italian government’s postponing a decision on the TAV in order to avoid a crisis, and she invited instead for a look at the larger picture. At the beginning of the BRI, Central Asian countries debated whether one should build the east-west or the north-south connections, and she insisted that with the progress of the BRI, both ways would be built and the entire continent would be integrated. And that is now what is happening, she said.

“This is exactly how to look at the Lyon-Turin tunnel question, because the lack of infrastructure in Europe is gigantic,” with a backlog of 1.7 trillion euros alone in Germany. If Europe wants to be in any manner at a level similar to China, where all major cities are connected by really fast trains and the so-called “slow maglev” systems are being built in urban areas, “we have to integrate our infrastructure in Europe and modernize it, and completely revamp the way of thinking we had so far.”

In this context, she exposed the lack of scientific basis behind the green ideology that is affecting not only parts of Italy, but all of Europe. “On Friday in 60 nations we will have schoolchildren go on strike [to protest for climate change], and this is not based on science. It is a suicide movement. Many of these young children have no basis to understand what is the source of climate change. They say it is not worth to living anymore; [and asking] why should I learn [anything] if the world ends in 12 years?

“We need a Renaissance of scientific thinking and the question of infrastructure is absolutely the precondition for any industrial development.”

China ‘Wants To Combine Its Know-How’ with Western Firms on the Belt and Road

March 16 (EIRNS)—Bloomberg reported March 14 that China’s National Development and Reform Commission is calling on American and European firms to cooperate with Chinese firms in development projects along the Silk Road around the world. “China wants to combine its manufacturing and construction know-how with the advanced technology of Western firms on the global trade and infrastructure program,” said Zhou Xiaofei, the Deputy Secretary General of the Commission. “Projects could also benefit from partnerships with U.S. and European enterprises on professional services, management, and financing,” Zhou said on March 14.

“The Belt and Road Initiative is not a private path of one party, but an avenue of sunshine for everyone to go forward hand in hand,” Zhou told a seminar in Zhengzhou, Henan. “China is not singing solo, but in a chorus of countries along the Belt and Road.”

The two-day event is taking on the attacks against the BRI which are now filling the Western press and government statements. The forum comes a month before the second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, which is expected to have representatives from 100 countries. Countering charges that the BRI projects are all Chinese controlled, Zhu Lintao, a construction executive involved in the Yenbo fuel power station in Saudi Arabia, characterized the project as a “mini-United Nations involving a Chinese contractor, German consulting firm, Spanish design company, and General Electric Co. equipment.” GE has cooperated with Chinese partners on 37 GW of power generation projects since 2013, said Hu Jingmiao, commercial general manager of GE Powers China EPC Steam Power Systems. Hu said the company has provided equipment for projects in places such as Brazil, Kenya, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

China’s CCTV-13 Interviews Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Jacques Cheminade

March 16 (EIRNS)—Interviews with Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Jacques Cheminade appeared on a Chinese-language newscast by CCTV-13 reporting on U.S. reactions to the just-concluded National People’s Congress. CCTV journalist Wang Guang reported on the reaction of U.S. think tanks to the ideas presented during the Two Sessions with regard to U.S.-China trade and the Belt and Road Initiative.

The broadcast then shifted to an interview with Helga Zepp-LaRouche at the Feb. 16 Schiller Institute conference in Morristown, New Jersey. Zepp-LaRouche said: “I personally think it is the most important strategic initiative, because it is a concept with which you can overcome geopolitics. Geopolitics has been the cause of two wars in the 20th Century, and the idea that you can not have blocs of countries or nations against nations, but that you have what Xi Jinping always calls the ‘community of the shared future of humanity,’ that you put the one humanity first, is a strategic concept which allows to overcome the divisions which existed in previous centuries.”

Her interview was followed by Cheminade at the same conference, who told Wang: “The Chinese way leads to a world integration through common development, what President Xi Jinping calls a ‘win-win’ system. So that’s a future. The Chinese want a world development. They don’t want to impose their model, but they don’t want the other models to impose upon them.”

A shorter clip with just the two interviews was aired by China’s English-language CCTV+ network, under the headline “Foreign Experts Applaud China’s Development Concepts.”

U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

British Spy Christopher Steele Admits He Used CNN Viewers as a Source for Anti-Trump Dossier!

March 17 (EIRNS)—Christopher Steele, the “former” British MI6 agent whose dossier against Donald Trump, commissioned and paid for by the DNC, fed the Justice Department/FBI Russiagate operation for the purpose of bringing down the elected President of the United States, admitted during a lawsuit deposition last year that he relied for his information on a more-than-unverified source—CNN iReport. CNN iReport was a “user-generated” news site, which ran stories by “citizen journalists” which were not edited, fact-checked, or screened before being published. Conveniently, it is now defunct, ZeroHedge and RT report today.

Steele acknowledged under questioning in a 2018 deposition that he had reused a July 28, 2009 report published on iReport to substantiate claims about Webzilla and its alleged links to the Kremlin. When asked if he understood that the content was not generated by CNN reporters, he said, “I do not,” Asked again, if he understood that CNN iReports are or were nothing more than any random individuals’ assertions on the Internet? Steele replied, “No, I, obviously presume that if it is a CNN site that it has some kind of CNN status. Albeit that it may be an independent person posting on the site.”

March 17 at 9:23 a.m., President Donald Trump tweeted: “Report: Christopher Steele backed up his Democrat & Crooked Hillary paid for Fake & Unverified Dossier with information he got from ‘send in watchers’ of low ratings CNN. This is the info that got us the Witch Hunt!” In December 2018, Michael Isikoff, one of the first journalists to report on the dossier’s allegations, conceded that Steele’s central claims were “likely false,” RT reported.

Steele made the revelation during a 2018 deposition in a case involving Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, who claimed his companies Webzilla and XBT Holdings were defamed by Steele after the dossier was published by BuzzFeed.

Kudlow on U.S.-China Trade Negotiations, Far from Great-Power Cooperation

March 17 (EIRNS)—White House National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow appeared on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program Sunday and spent 15 minutes discussing the ongoing U.S.-China trade and economic negotiations. Kudlow conveyed great confidence that the two nations will reach an agreement for discontinuing the new tariffs soon, but the American negotiating strategy he described is far from opening up economic cooperation between America and China to bring about general economic progress. And it is possible the negotiators, led by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, are asymptotically approaching a “deal” axis which they will not reach.

Citing approvingly China’s new law on intellectual property and joint ventures and a settled agreement on currency movements, Kudlow made the usual comments, “We’re getting closer…. We’re not there yet…. Lighthizer is a very cautious man…. Deeper, broader than any other discussion with China in our history…. Liu He, in my opinion, is a man of great integrity….”

But he clearly acknowledged the remaining problem: “We need final sign-off on enforcement.” Kudlow described enforcement as the potential for any American corporation’s complaint to trigger three levels of a kind of arbitration process and then the possibility of unilateral U.S. tariffs to which China must have agreed not to respond. China can hardly “sign off” on this, and has stated emphatically that it will not.

Waxing to his subject, Kudlow—self-described hard-core free trader and Wall Street economist—tried to include President Donald Trump in what he called the goal of the three zeroes: ““We would love to see a world that had zero tariffs, non-tariff barriers or subsidies.” His implication was that by “economic pain” the United States was pushing China toward such a world.

Such a world would have zero development potentials, contrary to what China now represents internationally with its Belt and Road Initiative. And it would have zero United States of America, since Hamiltonian industrial policy and subsidies (“bonuses”) built the nation, including appropriating and using inventions from collaborations abroad: Steam engines, canal-building techniques, water wheels, cotton gins are among many, many others.

The “enforcement” plank has reportedly held off agreement for weeks already, and may be the persistent gap between hyperbolic claims of progress, and a final agreement by Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping.

STRATEGIC WAR DANGER

Russia Will Not Deploy Missiles in European Part of Russia if U.S. Does Not Deploy Missiles in Europe

March 16 (EIRNS)—Russia will not deploy missiles in the European part of Russia if the U.S. does not deploy missiles in Europe now that Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty has been suspended, reported Sputnik.  “We will take all the necessary reciprocal and symmetrical measures in order to ensure balance in the INF sphere. However, we do not plan to deploy our missiles, including in the European part of the country, as long as there are no U.S. facilities of this kind in Europe,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in an interview with Russian journal International Affairs published today.

He urged Europeans to prevent Washington from deploying its missiles in Europe, saying, “If the interests of providing security prevail and the Europeans do not wish to turn the continent into a lodgment for deploying American forces and the complete military-political and geopolitical submission to the U.S., they should oppose these plans [on the deployment of American missiles in Europe,] if there appear any,” reported TASS.

SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Russia-U.S. Science Collaboration Trumps Russiagate

March 16 (EIRNS)—The presidents of the Russian Academy of Sciences Aleksander Segeev and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Marcia McNutt, C.D. Mote, Jr., and Victor Dzau, respectively signed a five-year agreement on March 12 in Washington to continue their cooperation on studies, workshops, and other activities in “areas of mutual interest.” The agreement renews the collaboration which began 60 years ago, then “as a way to keep dialogue open and ideas flowing between Soviet and American scientists during the Cold War,” the RAS explained in a press release.

The agreement outlines a wide range of areas of potential cooperation to be taken between 2019 and 2023, including research in astrophysics, and lunar and planetary studies, with the use of space equipment. Other areas include analysis of energy issues, natural disaster response, and basic and applied medical research.

Stepping from the purely scientific to the diplomatic and political, the academies state they “will devote special efforts to increase the scientific and policy impact of cooperation, and to continue to decrease impediments to cooperation.” Specifically, the two nations’ academies agree to continue to promote progress in “the timely consideration of visa applications for persons involved in scientific cooperation.”

According to Sputnik, the two sides were also to discuss the opening of the Russian Academy’s office in the United States. Reportedly, over the past two years the Russian Academy has repeatedly called for such ongoing representation of the two leading space powers to improve coordination with foreign academies.

Over the past decade, the independent U.S. Academy has increasingly spoken out against political agendas having an impact on scientific cooperation, registering an objection to the State Department when Chinese scientists were denied visas to attend an international space conference in Houston.

The National Academy of Sciences was established by Abraham Lincoln as a non-governmental institution to advise the President. The Russian Academy of Sciences was established more than 100 years earlier, in 1724, by Peter the Great, under the advice and counsel of Gottfried Leibniz.

Feasibility Study for Panama High-Speed Railway Released

March 16 (EIRNS)—President Juan Carlos Varela presided over a ceremony yesterday for the release of China Railway Design Corp.’s feasibility study on the Panama City-David high-speed railway line agreed upon as part of Panama’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative. The study found that building the proposed 391.3 km railway from the capital to David, a city near the Costa Rican border, is economically and, as the President emphasized, socially viable—and that it is feasible to extend it into Central America.

The railroad will provide “unprecedented integration of the country, and will empower the country’s logistical platform,” Varela said at the ceremony. The study took into consideration its future extension into Costa Rica, which would “facilitate trade of products between our [Central American] countries, which face great challenges in the area of logistics,” he stressed.

“Such a railway has been the dream of Panamanian leaders for 100 years, and therefore I hope that future leaders will take it up and make it a reality, always thinking of Panama first.”

Panama will elect a new President on May 5, and Varela had previously announced that it will be up to his successor to undertake the project. By ensuring the feasibility study was released with proper promotion now, Varela is placing Panama’s participation in the Belt and Road, with the great potential it represents for transforming the country’s poorer regions, at the center of that campaign. (He cannot run again because of term limits.)

The CRDC, assisted by Panamanian government agencies, universities and private consulting companies, estimates that it will take six years to complete the railway, at a cost of $4.1 billion, involving 6,000 employees, direct and indirect, to build it, and 2,900 to operate and maintain it once built.

COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM

No ‘Quantitative Easing,’ Li Keqiang Says, But Government Will ‘Energize the Market’

March 16 (EIRNS)—Speaking for two-and-a-half hours at a press conference yesterday following the conclusion of the National People’s Congress, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang answered a flurry of questions from international media attending the Congress, on its results and on China’s policy moving forward. While admitting that the development of the Chinese economy had been slower this year (a combination of a global slowdown and the U.S. tariffs), Li said that the Chinese government was not going to move towards a policy of “quantitative easing.” It would, however, initiate a broad program of tax cuts and fee cuts, aimed in particular, at promoting small- and medium-sized industries. Li indicated that the policy was one of “releasing the energy” of the economy through such measures.” In addition, the new Foreign Investment Law, which would open up more areas for foreign investment and make it easier for companies to set up businesses in China, would lead to greater foreign direct investment and also serve the purpose of stimulating economic activity, Li said.

The subsequent loss of revenue would be accompanied by stricter control of government spending and making it more streamlined, Li said. There would also be a push to make sure that all the state agencies, including the state-owned enterprises were compliant with their obligations. “The job of government,” Li stressed, “is not to direct but to energize the markets.” At the same time, he noted, there must be increased regulation to make sure that the companies adhere to Chinese law. “We will make sure that the rules are transparent and that there is no arbitrary regulation.”

Li indicated that there would be further regulations coming out soon which would further clarify the law. Li also made clear that there would be no loans to “zombie” companies—major state-owned enterprises that have long ceased showing any profit—and that any issues of non-compliance by SOEs would be dealt with.

OTHER

Youth Walk-Outs for ‘Climate’ in 120 Countries

March 16 (EIRNS)—The “Fridays for Future” rallies reached a new peak on March 15, on the international day of action for the “climate,” with school-age youth taking to the streets skipping school classes in 120 countries and some 2,000 cities. A heavy focus was put on Germany, with 220 protest actions there alone and up to 300,000 youth taking part. The biggest rallies occurred in Berlin with 20,000, in Munich with 10,000, and in Frankfurt with 6,000. A slogan being spread internationally was “Make the World Greta Again!” a reference to 16-year-old Swedish girl Greta Thunberg, who has been used as the poster child for these mob actions since August.

In Germany, all political parties except the BüSo, the FDP, and the AfD, endorsed the protests, and the Green Party and Linke youth organizations of were active in the mobilization. The Linke’s opportunism went so far as to blame anthropogenic global warming on the capitalist system.  FDP chairman Christian Lindner denounced the protests, arguing for youth and the teachers to “include more natural science in school lessons” to return to the real facts.

Only Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s BüSo has consistently since its founding published scientific demonstration disproving anthropogenic climate change, and indicating the galactic and universal causes for climate phenomena in the Solar System.

Greenie academicians have founded a “Scientists for Future” organization which hails the youth protests as “courageous” and is said to have gathered already 12,000 signatures from scholastics in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

China Offers Venezuela To Help Reconstruct National Electrical Grid

March 15 (EIRNS)—Most power had been restored in Venezuela as of March 14, but the situation in the country remains highly chaotic and dangerous. There are still intermittent blackouts across the country; some areas have been without electricity for 150 hours and counting; and a new explosion at a large oil storage facility in the Orinoco region occurred, which the government characterized as sabotage. Furthermore, there remains a terrible shortage of clean water in the country, threatening to unleash major health problems.

Earlier this week Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he would request technical help from China, Russia, Cuba, Iran and the UN to investigate the problems at the Guri dam, which he claimed was sabotage. The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded on March 12 that Beijing was prepared to help Venezuela restore its electricity system. This is a highly significant offer from China, which can punch a big hole in the entire regime-change operation being run against Venezuela. So far, there is no official response from the Venezuelan government to the Chinese offer.

A gigantic continental refugee crisis has also been created by Venezuela’s meltdown. EIR in Lima reports that there are about 1 million Venezuelan refugees now in that city—many living in the streets, begging, or working for half of what Peruvians charge for menial labor. There are probably double that number of refugees in Colombia, which borders on Venezuela, whose total population is 33 million. It should be noted that the Venezuelan crisis has been in the works for many years, as a result of: a) bad economic policies under Hugo Chávez and Maduro; followed by b) the collapse of international oil prices; followed by c) a nasty economic embargo begun under Obama and which continues; and then d) all out regime-change economic warfare launched over recent months under the guiding hand of the neo-cons surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump (Pence, Pompeo, Bolton, Abrams, et al). The March 7 national blackout, most likely the result of sabotage at the Guri dam, was meant to be the last straw.

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