EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR THURSDAY AUGUST 4, 2022

The Pelosi Trip to Taiwan: ‘Creating a Flashpoint Out of Thin Air’

Aug. 3, 2022 (EIRNS)—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan today, less than 48 hours after arriving, leaving strategic wreckage in her wake in the all-important U.S.-China relationship, wreckage that may hasten the world’s rush towards thermonuclear war. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov captured the stark reality, in response to a journalist’s question regarding the U.S. motive behind Pelosi’s trip:

“It was the drive to prove to everyone their impunity and to act accordingly. ‘I do whatever I want’, something like that. I can hardly imagine any other reason to create a flashpoint out of thin air, despite knowing what it would mean for China.”

In response to the clear affront to the One China policy and the country’s sovereignty which the Pelosi visit represents, the Chinese military launched extensive live-fire military drills around Taiwan even before Pelosi landed, which will continue through Sunday, Aug. 7. The Chinese government also began to apply economic sanctions against Taiwan, while making it clear that it will not fall into the trap of responding with a tit-for-tat military reaction to the Pelosi trip, which could be used as an excuse for further military and economic escalation. Rather, China will speed up its drive for Taiwan reunification with the mainland.

But simply avoiding provocations will not be enough to stop the rush towards war. The U.S.-U.K.-NATO establishment will continue to stick their collective thumb in China’s eye, much as they did with NATO’s march eastwards towards Russia, until China has no choice but to respond. Global NATO will then use that response to justify full-scale economic warfare and decoupling against China—which has been their intended policy all along—exactly as they have done with Russia. The economic havoc wreaked on Europe and the developing sector by the Russian sanctions policy will seem like a pleasant picnic compared to the global impact of the intended economic warfare against China.

With Pelosi’s trip, the Taiwan gambit is now fully locked and loaded. It is slated to become the next Ukraine. And when China is forced to take measures to defend its sovereignty, those actions will be loudly described as “unprovoked and unjustified” throughout the international media. U.S.-China relations are now on the same trajectory as U.S.-Russian relations.

Unless, of course, the financial collapse that is driving the Western Establishment towards war with Russia and China is dealt with first, by applying Lyndon LaRouche’s policies for the system’s forced bankruptcy reorganization and replacement by a New Bretton Woods—the policy outcome that the financial Establishment most fears.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche today emphasized that the Schiller Institute has been at the center of the international fight for those policies, and for stopping the drive towards war and financial collapse, meeting with increasing success in the effort to rally such a global alliance for a new security and economic architecture. That is the reason why the Schiller Institute has been singled out for deadly threats emanating from London and the U.S. State Department, and channeled through Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), which has accused Zepp-LaRouche and others on their 70-odd-person hitlist of “international terrorism” and “war crimes.”

The CCD and its international sponsors have to be fully investigated and exposed, and their fascist attempt to silence policy discussion defeated. To that end, the joint statement issued earlier this week by the initial group of 25 prominent individuals in “Response to the Ukrainian Blacklisting” has to receive broad, vocal public support. The LaRouche movement is now circulating a statement to that effect for signing, which reads:

“I fully support the joint statement issued in response to the July 14 posting by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation accusing 78 prominent individuals from around the world as supposed promoters of ‘Russian Propaganda.’ This is not only a direct security threat to those named individuals, but it also is a threat to free speech and civilized discourse everywhere in the world among those seeking solutions to the world’s crises that do not coincide with the dominant ‘narratives.’ For that reason, I call on the legislature and other elected representatives of the people in my country to open an investigation of these threats, and of those that are behind them.”