This article appears in the May 6, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
AMID GLOBAL NATO’S THREATS
China’s Xi Proposes ‘Global Security Initiative’ at Boao Forum for Asia
[Print version of this article]
May 1—The Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), an annual conference of top political and business leaders, was held from April 20 through 22 in Boao, in south China’s Hainan Province. This year’s conference theme was, “The World in COVID-19 & Beyond: Working Together for Global Development and a Shared Future.” The expected impact of this yearly conference, which focused on advancing Asia-wide understanding and cooperation, was highlighted by the attendance of many world leaders, including Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
In a major keynote policy speech titled, “Rising to Challenges and Building a Bright Future Through Cooperation,” delivered via video link, President Xi Jinping called for the formation of a Global Security Initiative. Emphasizing the concept of universal security—whereby each nation is assured of its own security only as it refrains from threatening the security of others—President Xi invoked “The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and the Bandung Spirit,” a reference to the historic Asia-Africa Conference of 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. Observers could not have failed to notice that President Xi delivered his address only 10 days after Helga Zepp-LaRouche and her associates had organized the widely attended Schiller Institute Conference titled, “For a Conference To Establish a New Economic and Security Architecture for All Nations.” That earlier video teleconference featured presentations by government leaders and non-governmental strategists from Russia, China, India, the U.S., South Africa, and many nations from the Global South and Europe.
The Principles of Development and Security
President Xi stressed several themes in his address:
1. Economic Development. China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI), offered at the 2021 UN General Assembly debate by President Xi, has been supported by the UN and nearly 100 nations. However, “a widening development gap” is worsening “the North-South divide. Science and technology transfer, development financing and, industrialization must be the growth driver(s)” for poverty reduction in the Global South.
2. A New Security Architecture. Based on the UN Charter, and precluding “the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.” The replacement of imperial geopolitics with a method to guarantee security universally.
3. The Asian Miracle. Asia has lived through hot and cold wars in the last century, but it has persevered “to sustain rapid growth which benefits the whole world.” President Xi proposed: “Make Asia an anchor for world peace, a powerhouse for global growth and a new pacesetter for international cooperation.”
4. Revive the Bandung Spirit. First advanced by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in discussions with the leaders in India and in Myanmar in 1954, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence have been both the basis of the Asian Miracle, and are the key today for the economic development and security of the world as a whole. For Asia and for world civilization, choose “openness and inclusiveness over closed-door and exclusive approach[es], and [choose] exchanges and mutual learning over a sense of superiority: this is the only choice worthy of the broadmindedness of Asians.”
A New, Balanced Security Architecture, or War
At a moment when the Wall Street and City of London powers have thrown a blitzkrieg of illegal sanctions against Russia, and loudly announce military and economic threats against China, President Xi clearly rejects the arrogance of unilateralism. Expanding on his proposal for a Global Security Initiative, he explains: “It is important that we stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to maintain world peace and security; stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, uphold non-interference in internal affairs, and respect the independent choices of development paths and social systems made by people in different countries; stay committed to abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, reject the Cold War mentality, oppose unilateralism, and say no to group politics and bloc confrontation; stay committed to taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously, uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security; stay committed to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises, reject double standards, and oppose the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction….”
As Western nations provide unlimited tonnages of heavy weapons, advanced military training, and satellite battlefield intelligence to Ukraine, as the Wall Street Journal prints articles explaining the feasibility of NATO winning a nuclear war against Russia, and as ranking U.S. Senators fly to Taiwan with weapons sales and support for Taiwan’s so-called “independence,” China is making clear that world war will be the inevitable alternative to the implementation of President Xi’s call for a new worldwide security architecture.
The war party in the U.S. and the UK could not be more explicit. This week, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss delivered a wild rant, titled, “The Return of Geopolitics” to the Lord Mayor of London’s Easter Banquet. She called for a new “architecture of war.” Speaking to the assembled oligarchs and their servants at the Easter event, she directly attacked China’s economic success as a casus belli: “By talking about the rise of China as inevitable we are doing China’s work for it. In fact, their rise isn’t inevitable. They will not continue to rise if they don’t play by the rules....”
Making clear China’s current view, China’s semi-official Global Times wrote about these current threats to Asian development during its first day coverage of the Boao Forum: “Looking at how the Russia-Ukraine conflict has brought chaos in Europe and beyond, the only way forward for Asia is peaceful development. There is a growing consensus among many Asian countries that the region’s development cannot follow the path of Europe to fall into the trap and structural conflicts of the so-called security threats hyped by Washington and some of its allies… It is no secret that the U.S. never gets tired of instigating misunderstanding, confrontation and insecurity in Asia, with the aim of dragging the region down to the same path as Europe….”
A Turning Point
Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, writing in the German weekly newspaper Neue Solidarität for May 5, 2022, sharply underscored the two alternative pathways which also had been the focus at the Boao Forum for Asia: “We are indeed living through a turning point, but not in the way the ‘narratives’ of mainstream politicians and media would have us believe; rather, the attempt to maintain a unipolar world in which only the U.S. and UK are in charge, has failed. The majority of nations in the world are in the process of building a world order based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and enabling the economic development of all.… We must work now for real peace, for a diplomatic solution, and beyond that for a new international security and development architecture that guarantees the survival of humanity. Become active with us to make that happen!”
