It’s the Belt and Road or Blowout

The reality facing the trans-Atlantic financial system has a way of asserting itself.

On the one hand, there are thoughtful statesmen such as former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Macron government’s envoy to this year’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, who told Xinhua Sept. 16 that “Europe should join the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative as soon as possible,” in Xinhua’s paraphrase. “Let’s grasp the opportunity and make more profits. I believe we’ll achieve win-win results through cooperating with our Asian partners,” Raffarin said. “France as well as other European countries need rapid growth. We should get involved instead of just discussing it, because we will lose a lot of time then. The initiative is very important for Europe…. China is offering a helping hand.”

Similarly, the government of Panama, which just established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, having had relations with Taiwan instead for decades, is getting totally on board with the Belt and Road Initiative. During a visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to the country, President Juan Carlos Varela emphasized Panama’s importance as a logistical, port and air platform, and urged China to use Panama as its staging area for the Belt and Road Initiative for all of Ibero-America. Panama Canal Authority Economics Unit member Eddie Tapiero emphasized an additional crucial point: the Belt and Road “is a new business model of globalization in the world and Panama should not be alien to it. The U.S., as the main partner of all countries in Latin America, needs to be part of the initiative. With all the players working towards the same goal, the countries will achieve a balance in their strength and stability in the long term.”

Even the Rajoy government in Spain seems to have figured out which way the wind is blowing. After participating in the May Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, Rajoy’s government hosted a highly successful visit to Spain of China’s State Councillor Yang Jiechi, in which China’s further integration with the Belt and Road was discussed.

On the other hand, there are Wall Street’s supremely opportunist schemers, such as Jim Rogers, the Baliol-trained co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, who has now gone his own way as an “investor and financial commentator,” whose views, he admits, are best described as those of Austrian School monetarism. In an interview published by RT on Sept. 16, Rogers said that if the U.S. launches full-scale trade warfare against China, this would monumentally backfire and likely lead China and Russia to step in and promptly replace the current international financial system. “If they put sanctions on China in a big way, it brings the whole world economy down. And in the end, it hurts America more than it hurts China, because it just forces China and Russia and other countries closer together. Russia and China and other countries are already trying to come up with a new financial system. If America puts sanctions on them, they would have to do it that much faster.”

What these developments reflect, Lyndon LaRouche emphasized today, is that what is coming into being is the development of a new system that will work. LaRouche was the original designer of that new system, to replace the bankrupt British Empire, and many of the personalities that were involved with LaRouche in promoting that policy over the years, in every part of the planet, are coming back to play greater roles. This can be seen from Thailand, to Europe, to Panama. It is the influence of LaRouche, of his ideas, that is the driving force behind this dynamic.

Something is happening, LaRouche elaborated. The whole field is opening up; fresh water is coming back. Various people and political forces will come on board, and will get the job done. These are the people we must organize to that end, he said.