EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY JULY 29, 2022

Xi Jinping: ‘Those Who Play with Fire Will Perish by It’

July 28, 2022 (EIRNS)—Today President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping spoke for over two hours, at the request of Biden, which is all to the good, given the dangerous state of the world. In the context of their discussion of Taiwan and Western actions, President Xi warned, as translated in the official China readout, “Those who play with fire will perish by it.” This was not identified in the U.S. readout on the call, which stated with deliberate ambiguity, “On Taiwan, President Biden underscored that the United States policy has not changed and that the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

The geopolitical arsonists are, indeed, playing with fire. Still pending, with no date set, is the visit to Taiwan by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, from Biden’s party, which would be the first visit since 1997 by a House Speaker, and under belligerent circumstances. The most extreme anti-China war hawks, such as Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), are beating the drum for Pelosi to go. U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, in Sydney, Australia, pledged protection if a Pelosi delegation goes to Taiwan. “We will do what is necessary to ensure a safe, safe conduct of their visit.” U.S. Navy Secretary Carlos del Toro, currently in the Philippines, added his threats.

And from Britain came the advice to not shrink from the nuclear option. U.K. National Security Adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove said July 27, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum, that Beijing is building its nuclear power, and there is a danger of “miscalculation” between the West and China, but this must be faced.

Against this are two counter elements of historical significance, in the shift away from this madness, and toward a new economic and security architecture for the world. Firstly, international diplomacy for a new paradigm is gathering force by the day, as seen in Asia and Africa this week. In Tashkent today, the foreign ministers of the eight member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan—are meeting on many matters, including in preparation for their September 15-16 heads of state summit. Discussion includes lists of dozens of concrete infrastructure projects, reviewed at the SCO finance ministers’ pre-summit meeting last week. Also, there is a line-up of many new member nations, in various phases of pre-membership protocols. Those with “observer” status are Belarus, Afghanistan, Iran, and Mongolia. And another six with “dialogue” status are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey, and Sri Lanka.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Russia’s Sergey Lavrov are meeting with each other bilaterally and with their other counterparts.

In Africa, Lavrov just completed a four-nation tour of Egypt, the Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia, Uganda over July 24-27, which ended yesterday with in-depth briefings to representatives of the 55 member nations of the African Union and the accredited diplomatic corps in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The trip began July 24 with a briefing in Cairo to the representatives of the 22-nation Arab League, 10 of which are in Africa. In these high-level sessions Lavrov has provided a detailed history of what led up to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and a strategic report on the world situation.

Secondly, there is a gathering, powerful response to the opportunity to expose and bust up the entire Western geopolitical narrative that Ukraine is an innocent, democratically pure victim of Russia’s “unprovoked aggression.” The July 14 posting by the “Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation,” officially part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, of an enemies list of 78 people, targeted for shunning as purveyors of alleged Russian propaganda, is now a springboard for exposing the truth about the extent of the Global NATO operation, going back to the 2014 Maidan coup, and further back, which these networks perpetrated.

Individuals on the Ukrainian blacklist have already issued statements exposing this, including Jan Oberg (Denmark) and Alessia Ruggeri (Italy). Issued today, Oberg’s statement is titled, “Ukraine Smears People Around the World as Part of the Disinformation War.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, issued her personal response July 27, denouncing the “Ukrainian enemies list” operation.

She pointed out, “The so-called ‘Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation’ ... has released a list of 78 individuals—the first 30 were all speakers at conferences of the Schiller Institute—whom it accuses of having promoted ‘Russian propaganda.’ ” After explaining more about the pedigree of the Center and the historical context, Zepp-LaRouche concluded, “Otherwise, the poor authors of the Center seem to suffer from the syndrome of belief in conspiracy theories, since they assume that such a wide array of speakers representing top institutions from around the globe are all Putin agents and can’t think for themselves.”

This is the perfect moment to sign and circulate the Schiller Institute’s “Call for an Ad-Hoc Committee for a New Bretton Woods System.”