|
|
A Tale of Two Cities: Halifax and Beijing
23 November 2014
(CRC)—The sixth annual Halifax International Security Forum wrapped up its 3 day conference on Sunday afternoon with Canada’s Ministers of National Defence and of Justice holding a joint press conference. Over the weekend, “several hundred senior politicians, military officials and security experts from around the world gathered to talk about war, security, weapons, power, threats and terrorism”. Among the speakers and attendees were some of the more hawkish elements of the U.S. Congress: Senators John McCain, Tim Kaine, Ted Cruze, John Barrosso, Senator-elect Tom Cotton, and Congressmen Mike Pompeo and Adam Schiff, Adam Kinzingel and their trans-Atlantic counterparts in Western Europe. Halfway around the world and a universe apart, the fifth Hiangshan Forum in Beijing, organized by the China Association of Military Science brought together defence officials from 47 countries, four international organizations, and over 270 defence scholars to discuss defence issues in the Asia-Pacific region. In an address to the Forum on November 21, China’s Defence Minister General Wang Changquan referred to President Xi Jinping’s proposal at the CICA conference in May calling for a new security architecture in Asia. More recently at the APEC Summit in Beijing, President Xi had invited President Obama, the United States and other relevant nations, to join the New Silk Road policy initiative of China as a mutually beneficial, a win-win policy, and also an efficient war-avoidance policy. As a recent LPAC item stressed: “the simple fact is, that, if Canada, the United States and Europe do not join with the BRICS new world economic order, the planet is on a fast track for war – a global thermonuclear war of extinction". In the November 21 international webcast, Lyndon LaRouche’s thinking on this matter was summarized as follows: "The United States, NATO and Europe are trying to present Russia and China with provocations, provocations that are intended to outflank them, and stop their drive with the BRICS and the other development projects they have launched. But, it won’t work. Russia and China actually have superior power, logistically and strategically, over the trans-Atlantic alliance, the trans-Atlantic system, because their policy is centered and based on a science-driver program, with China’s Moon-based space project going in the direction of the concepts that Johannes Kepler originally outlined. And, it is the strength that comes from that, which puts them actually in a superior position. It’s what LaRouche refers to as the ’Kepler Principle.’ "The torment that is being delivered to China and Russia, is intended to disorient the core of the BRICS, both among the nations of Asia and also their allies in South America, and to try to provoke a mistake on their part. But that is not likely to happen. A challenged power has to be prepared for suffering losses, but lesser losses than those would be indicated by the defeat, coming from an existential threat to their very existence. That is the way that President Putin of Russia clearly thinks; China and India are also prepared to take this position, because it is the only one that makes sense. "Think of the position that the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians and the leadership of humanity generally, are actually in. When you take responsibility for all humanity, you have to be prepared to take certain risks, in order to minimize the long-term losses to humanity. Not taking the risk, under those circumstances, is actually recklessly insane. The guiding concept is the long-term survival of humanity, and humanity means the unique Keplerian principle of man’s willful creativity, as the dominant force of the Solar System—and beyond". [GG, WCJ, DNS] |