On July 24th, French Economics Minister Michel Sapin and Governor of the Banque de France François Villeroy de Galhau gave a press conference in the context of the preparations for the G20, in which they gave full approval of China’s New Silk Road.

“Fifteen years ago, France was the first European country to open a strategic dialogue with China. In that dialogue, we explored several questions and created a solid basis for trust. Many exchanges, especially on political, economic and cultural questions, were carried out. In the economic domain we have constructive cooperation in sectors such as nuclear energy and other energy sources, as well as aviation. ‘With its New Silk Road, China is opening today a new historic opportunity,’ stated Central Bank Governnor François Villeroy de Galhau. He mentioned new opportunities of cooperation between China and the Western countries in terms of railway and highway infrastructure. He noted France’s enthusiasm for this initiative, and the positive effect it will have on the process of globalization in China. France must seize the new opportunities of cooperation opened by that process, he said and underlined in particular the development possibilities between France and the Szechuan province, and the fact that Chengdu is one of the crucial cities for the new Silk Road. Chengdu is already connected by a direct flight to France and by railroad to Europe. Fields of cooperation already exist in the areas of health, services to seniors, pharmaceutical research, agricultural goods, and safety in food products.”

Strong nuclear cooperation has long existed between France and China: the French built the Chinese nuclear program and proceeded to engage in technology transfer in exchange for joint development of the Chinese international market and for joint interventions into third markets, as attested by the joint EDF/China deal to build two EPR’s in Great Britain. Other such areas of collaboration exists in anti-pollution programs in water, air and soil, etc.

This cooperation, however, is one of big deals between France and China in high technology of the very large CAC 40 companies, which often have no impact on the French economy because the companies have been outsourced and no longer pay taxes in France. This is not exactly our idea of the New Silk Road policy, which is that Europe needs to go back to the Franklin Roosevelt, and today rather LaRouche policies, which generated the European miracle of the postwar reconstruction, the very same policies that allowed China to develop massively in the last three decades. 

Brazilian Judge Marcelo da Costa Bretas Thursday issued a preposterous 43-year prison sentence against Vice Admiral Othon Luiz Pinheiro da Silva, the 76-year-old military scientist who initiated and oversaw the development of Brazil’s cutting-edge scientific and technological nuclear programs since the late 1970’s.

Adm. Pinheiro was serving as Executive Director of the state nuclear company, Eletronuclear, when first arrested in July 2015, on charges stemming from the 16th phase of the British-Obama “Lava Jato” bankers’ attack on the Brazilian nation, called “Operation Radioactivity,” because it was directed at the nuclear industry. While others of the accused capitulated to the judicial witchhunt, the admiral denied the charges and refused to accept a plea bargain.         

In two years, “Lava Jato” has driven Brazil’s legitimate president out of office, paralyzed and nearly bankrupted the national oil company (Petrobras) and every significant private construction and engineering company in the country, and jailed many of its top leaders, civilian and military alike, on the pretext of “fighting corruption.” But the sentence against Admiral Othon is decades longer than any yet meted out against the victims of Lava Jato. And his daughter, who worked with him in the nuclear industry, was given a 14 year, 10 month jail sentence on the same alleged “corruption charges.”

By all accounts, Adm. Pinheiro was one of Brazil’s most creative and audacious leaders of the past four decades. In 1974, at age 35 and a captain in the Navy, he asked his superiors to send him to MIT to study nuclear engineering, a field in which he had no prior background. Brazil began constructing its first nuclear plant in 1972, but it was subjected to Anglo-American attacks and obstruction of its nuclear industry from the outset. When Pinheiro returned from his studies in 1979, he became known as “the crazy one,” for his championing the need for Brazil to master the full nuclear-fuel cycle, and develop its own uranium enrichment technology and industry to secure its nuclear industry. He convinced his superiors of the project, and set out to create Brazil’s centrifuge uranium enrichment program from scratch. Developing an autochthonous naval nuclear propulsion capability—i.e., a nuclear submarine—was likewise his idea. He convinced the Brazilian government to give the go-ahead, and he led its execution. The Navy’s nuclear program he created has been the backbone of Brazil’s civilian nuclear industry up to the present.

The die-in-jail sentence issued against the Admiral was for charges ranging from money-laundering, obstruction of justice, and participation in a “criminal association” for allegedly taking some $1.2 million in bribes for the construction of the Brazil’s third nuclear plant. The “Lava Jato” apparatus charged that Admiral Pinheiro’s crime was particularly heinous because he had maintained contact with the leadership of Eletronuclear.

There will be a backlash. Prominent nationalist journalist Mauro Santayana wrote today, in an article published in Jornal do Brasil, that in any sane country, Admiral Othon Pinheiro, “one of the best Brazilian scientists,”—awarded the Grand Cross of National Scientific Merit in 1994, among other prestigious awards—would be held in honor. Referencing earlier incidents when the CIA was found to have planted a spy next to the Admiral’s apartment, Santayana wrote that the same “foreign power” which did that, is behind the judges of Lava Jato. But he warned that the judgment of History will have its day, and stated: “Like a majority of patriots, nationalists, legal scholars, [and] constitutionalists, the Brazilian military has tolerated in dignified silence … the threats which, like vultures, hover over the numerous defense projects begun in the last decade, and against the companies responsible for them… in the name of a hypocritical pseudo-battle against corruption.”