By Harley Schlanger
The 2017 BRICS Summit held from September 3-5 is concluding today in Xiamen, China. Several hundred miles away across the Yellow Sea tensions on the Korean peninsula continue to escalate, with President Trump's fire-breathing UN Ambassador Nikki Haley declaring the Kim Jong Un regime to be "begging for war".
For Washington, avoiding a horrific second Korean War is impossible without cooperating with China and Russia. Yet the Trump Administration in a bid to appease neocons, legacy media critics and the deep state for whom it can never be tough enough on Moscow, continues to antagonize the Russian Federation through closures and FBI searches of diplomatic properties from San Francisco to Washington. Such diplomatic escalations cannot be sustained, unless the deep state's objective is to ultimately force Moscow into breaking off relations -- something that didn't even happen, thank God, at the height of the Cuban Missiles Crisis in October 1962. If that goal can be achieved, it would drastically heighten the risks of global thermonuclear war. -- JWS
“Sept. 3 (EIRNS)—North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test earlier today (Saturday night U.S. Eastern time). North Korea’s state media claimed, in a “critical announcement” issued at 3:30 p.m. local time, that the test was a “complete success of a hydrogen warhead for an ICBM.” The test took place hours after North Korea claimed that it had completed its thermonuclear technologies, and was now capable of producing “powerful nuclear weapons at will.” The seismometer readings from China and South Korea measured 6.3 and 5.7 magnitude tremors, respectively, resulting from the blast—substantially greater than North Korea’s earlier nuclear tests.
U.S. President Donald Trump declared that “appeasement with North Korea” will not work. “North Korea has conducted a major nuclear test,” Trump said. “Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States.”
China’s Foreign Ministry said that China “expresses its firm opposition (to the test) and strongly condemns it.” North Korea “has ignored the international community’s widespread opposition, again carrying out a nuclear test. China’s government expresses resolute opposition and strong condemnation toward this,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.
The Russian Foreign Ministry called the test
”yet another example of Pyongyang’s outright disregard of the demands of respective UN Security Council resolutions and international law [and] deserves absolute condemnation.”
At the same time, the ministry advised restraint and a return to dialogue.”
— http://larouchepub.com/pr/2017/170903_nkorea_nuke_test.html
This article originally appeared at LaRouchePAC.com on Monday, September 4, 2017 and is reposted courtesy of our friend and frequent RogueMoney radio guest Harley Schlanger. -- JWS
A world threatened with the present danger of nuclear war, as newly accentuated by North Korea's sixth nuclear weapon test this weekend, and with economic devastation wrought by failure to invest in needed infrastructure and scientific advance, as in Texas and the entire Gulf Coast, would do well to rivet its attention on the Sept. 3-5 BRICS Summit, which has begun in Xiamen, China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, the summit's host, stated that "peace and development," and not "conflict and confrontation," are the policies the planet needs. He pointed to the "rising financial risks" the world faces under the current system, and urged instead that "we should pursue innovation-driven development." To achieve that, he held up the example of China's Belt and Road Initiative, and blasted the gossip that this is just one more geopolitical scheme for domination:
PRESIDENT XI AND HIS WIFE PENG LIYUAN GREET WORLD LEADERS AT THE 2017 BRICS SUMMIT IN XIAMEN, CHINA, INCLUDING MEXICAN PRESIDENT ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETO AND HIS WIFE, ANGÉLICA RIVERA HURTADO
“Let me make this clear: The Belt and Road Initiative is not a tool to advance any geopolitical agenda, but a platform for practical cooperation. It is not a foreign aid scheme, but an initiative for interconnected development which calls for extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits. I am convinced that the Belt and Road Initiative will serve as a new platform for all countries to achieve win-win cooperation.”
And for the Doubting Thomases, there is China's phenomenal, and ongoing, achievement in pulling over 700 million of its own people out of poverty, and their efforts to do the same in the planet's most challenging impoverished areas—Africa, Haiti, etc.
Russia under Vladimir Putin fully shares that win-win policy commitment of Xi Jinping's—and the underlying concept of Man's creativity which drives it forward. In a Sept. 1 dialogue with more than one million Russian youth in school classrooms in 24 regions across the country, Putin made the point with eloquence and simplicity:
““Your goal is not just to do something new. That goes without saying. It will, indeed, be something new based on what was created earlier. Your goal is to take a new step forward.... You who are entering a new life, need to bear this in mind, be aware of it and not just do better than previous generations, but do better on a new level.... For us to be able to maintain our sovereignty, and to make the lives of our people and future generations, your children and grandchildren, better than today, it is imperative to make qualitatively new advances.””
There is, thus, a reason that Lyndon LaRouche continues to point to the global leadership role being provided today by Russia and China, and to the need for the United States to fully integrate with the Belt and Road Initiative. Just as there is a reason that the British Empire is hell-bent on targeting those two nations for annihilation, and on also targeting the Trump administration in Washington for destruction, lest he follow through on his commitment to improve ties and cooperate with China and Russia. Because the concept which Putin presented to those million Russian youth, is the very cornerstone on which the United States itself is founded.