EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 2022

China Promotes Development Paradigm in Central Asia, as NATO Bloc Orders More Sanctions, More War

March 24, 2022 (EIRNS)—Early today in Kabul, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a surprise visit to meet with Taliban government leaders, discussing the Belt and Road Initiative, in particular connecting Afghanistan to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship of the BRI. Next week Beijing will host Afghanistan and its neighboring nations at a third regional meeting on promoting connectivity for stability in Afghanistan and development throughout Central Asia. The concept involved is economic activity for the mutual benefit of all nations, the very principle now desperately required on a world scale.

In contrast, dozens of heads of state and government of major Western nations met today in person in Brussels in a series of three emergency meetings—the 30 nations of NATO, the nations of the Group of Seven, and the 27 nations of the EU’s European Council, and came up only with commitments for more armaments in Eastern Europe, more accusations against Russia, threats to China to refrain from aligning with Russia, and truly delusional notions about the European and world economy.

“What is going on in their minds?” was the response posed by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche today, opening her weekly webcast. She was referring specifically to the most dangerous of all the notions going into today’s failed emergency meetings, namely, that fighting a nuclear war is now on the table as a possible “contingency” according to top leaders in the West.

Stopping this, and making way for a new world security and development architecture is the focus of the Schiller Institute’s April 9 international conference and its global petition drive.

Even without nuclear annihilation, the stakes of letting the provoked strife and economic breakdown devolve into more chaos and suffering, guarantee we will have world famine. Before the pandemic, as of 2019, more than 800 million people lacked enough food, and 125 million of them were in extreme stages of hunger. Since then, with hyperinflation, and now the impact of the provoked Ukraine crisis and sanctions, the food crisis and agriculture disruptions have become worse to the realistic prospect of 1 billion people suffering from lack of food, and 400 million in extreme want.

The catastrophe is entirely man-made, and many nations are ready to buck the blackmail and bullying that forced them into line with the axioms causing the economic breakdown in the first place. Who wants to starve their people for the “freedom” of NATO’s “rules-based” world order?

Today, a vote took place in the UN General Assembly on the topic of backing humanitarian aid in Ukraine, but specifically including condemning Russia. Once again, as happened March 2 in a UNGA vote, a significant number of nations abstained—38 this time as against 35 on March 2, rather than get in line with global NATO’s commands.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said yesterday, in an address to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), speaking of the unprecedented sanctions against Russia, and NATO deployment, “This is all about removing the obstacle in the form of Russia on the way to building a unipolar world.... This is not about Ukraine, this is about a world order in which the United States wants to be the sole sovereign and dominate....”

Mobilize for the Schiller Institute’s petition and conference to create a new world order for peace and development for all.