The following is an edited transcript of the April 30, 2025 weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Subheads have been added. The video is available here.
Diane Sare: Good morning, and welcome to the Helga Zepp-LaRouche English webcast. Today is Wednesday, April 30, 2025. I am Diane Sare, president of The LaRouche Organization. I have to say, it’s an honor and a pleasure to be able to have this conversation with Helga, who is the founder of the Schiller Institute, and the convenor of the International Peace Coalition dialogue.
Today is not remembered in the United States for the rather ignominious end of the Vietnam War, where, similar to the exit from Afghanistan, we were rescuing people off the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon 50 years ago today. I think people might reflect on the difference between that anniversary and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe which is about to be celebrated.
But before we go to those matters, I know Helga has recently traveled to a very important conference in Qufu, China, the birthplace of Confucius. Helga, why don’t you tell us about that?
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: My best advice would be that everybody who watches this program should go to Qufu, because it is amazing. Not only is it the birthplace of Confucius, who is the most important thinker in Chinese history, who has influenced Chinese life for 2,500 years in a very profound way, including the present political system, but it is a beautiful place. It is located in Shandong Province near the coast of China, between Beijing and Xiantao. There’s a beautiful, gigantic lake, and also a gigantic statue of Confucius; and many, many things around it, like a beautiful ancient palace which is the birthplace of Confucius, which was then enlarged to be a very long and large palace over the centuries.
Then also, there is an incredibly well done modern museum, which has all the artifacts and writings and sculptures and paintings and so forth—including, by the way, a picture of the American Founding Fathers discussing Confucius. That’s a part of the history which I think deserves to be much more well known, because Benjamin Franklin was an absolute fan of Confucius. He actually modeled his own education system on the moral and ethical teachings of Confucius. So, this for sure could be a bridge in the present admittedly tense relations between the United States and China. But I think if one would go back to the roots of the American Revolution and the American Republic, showing the closeness of some of its most important thinkers—especially Benjamin Franklin, but also some of the other Founding Fathers—it could actually help to lay the philosophical foundation for a better understanding.
Because if one looks at the whole thing, it is quite amazing that there are many more similarities between what China is doing today in terms of its economics, and the economic theory of the American System as it was developed by Alexander Hamilton. That’s a fantastic, totally intriguing story, and in general I can only tell people to go to China; build your own opinion if you have never been there or only read what some of the Anglo-American think tanks are writing about China. I promise you—and I am not saying this lightly—but I promise you that you will have the biggest positive culture shock of your life. Because it’s nothing like what you have been told; you find enormous progress in terms of economic development. The train system for example: They have about 48,000 kilometers (30,000 miles) of modern train systems where the trains can go up to 450 kmh (280 mph). They are fast, they are clean; it’s all functioning. It’s amazing! Then you have enormous construction, enormous modern buildings; China is now the leader in 57 out of 64 high-tech areas. That’s amazing!
In any case, I can only say, go there and form your opinion with your own eyes and your own discussions with the people there. You will come back transformed, and you will recognize that China could be the best friend of the United States if the United States just wants to be that.
Progress Against Malthus
Sare: That's very exciting. I want to come back to this American Revolution question. But before I do, I believe the conference you addressed was on the topic of “green” energy, etc. And I think your approach to that was very important, and also informed the other participants. Perhaps you’d like to say something about the nature of the conference and your thinking on this matter?
Zepp-LaRouche: The conference was actually not on that topic; that was just the topic on one of several panels. The conference overall was sponsored by the China Media Group, and they had invited leading media from all over the world: from Europe, from Africa, from Asia. So, there were many CEOs of national media organizations of their respective countries attending. It was just a clear effort to increase the communication about important conceptions. My panel was just one of several, and the topic was indeed on the greening of the economy and similar issues.
It is quite clear that China now is the leader in building solar panels and windmills and so forth—but they are also the world leader in nuclear energy. So, in a certain sense it’s not that the green in China is an alternative for nuclear or fossil fuels; it is part of the mix. The issue of “green” [renewable energy] in China in any case is very much different than, say, in Europe, and in Germany in particular, where “green” is an ideology; it’s a Malthusian idea of population reduction or population containment. It’s anti-science and anti-technology. But in China, it has a completely different meaning, because, in the beginning of the industrialization in China about 30 to 40 years ago, because this was mainly done by multinationals from international corporations, a lot of damage was done to the environment. They did have a pollution problem for quite some time: dirty air, contaminated groundwater, and similar side effects.
So, the Chinese leadership at a certain point decided to remedy that, and they did an absolutely remarkable job. For example, they took all the heavy industry from Beijing—which was huge, given the fact that Beijing is a city of between 20 to 30 million inhabitants. They took all the heavy industry and relocated it to another city about 150 km away. Now the sky in Beijing is blue; the air is clean. They have basically managed to get these real environmental problems under control.
Nevertheless, the discussion was on greening the economy and so forth. I thought I could bring into the discussion an important idea: namely, that if you look at energy, you don’t just look at the apparent costs. If you look at the apparent costs, you can say that it’s cheaper to build a solar panel than to build a nuclear power plant. But if you look at the efficiency, you realize that nuclear power is much more cost-efficient than solar power, because it has a much higher energy-flux density. And as my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, had developed a very important theoretical basis for that, there is a correlation between the energy-flux density in the production process and the number of human beings who can be maintained on that level.
Since solar and wind are extremely low in energy-flux density, they have a low corresponding population density. So, I brought into this discussion that if you want to maintain the presently living 8 billion people on the planet, and hopefully soon more, you cannot rely only on “renewable” energy, because it does not have sufficient power to do so. That actually caused some of the other panelists to pick up on the issue; and also, naturally, the issue of the just world economic order was becoming a big topic in the discussion. So, I think it had a good impact.
Blackout Is the New ‘Green’
Sare: On that question of energy, we just had this massive blackout in Europe, with Spain supposedly leading the world in renewable energy—which doesn’t seem to be working very well. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Zepp-LaRouche: That’s really an irony if I ever have seen one. It was on the 16th of April that Spain proudly proclaimed that they have now everything on renewable energy. Their entire grid is fed by solar and wind; a little bit of hydropower. Then, just a few days later—literally less than two weeks later—you had this blackout of Spain, Portugal, and even parts of France. For many hours, the entire Iberian Peninsula was without energy. The minimum cost is $5 billion in damage just from that one day.
Naturally, there is a big push to figure out what was the cause. The eternal propagandists immediately said this must be a cyber attack; Russia must be behind it. Nothing of that sort is the case; and it’s also becoming more clear that it is the inherent flaw of renewable energy. If you have an entire grid fed by renewables—solar and wind—the energy is being produced when the wind blows and the sun shines. It stops when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing. But in all other economies where this is being used, there is some kind of a back-up, where you have power plants which are fed by coal, or gas, or nuclear power. That way, you can compensate for the sudden surge in superfluous energy or the sudden lack of energy. Those other power plants can kick in and make sure that there is stability in the grid.
If you don’t have that, and you only have solar and wind, like Spain, then if you have too much all of a sudden, you cannot compensate and the grid blows out. This is basically an overstretching of the grid, because the power has to be constantly more or less at 50 Hertz. In this case, the frequency only dropped to about 49.86 Hz. That looks like a very tiny margin, but it was enough to bring down the entire national grids of Spain and Portugal. Power from France could have balanced the grid, but the connection to France is very poor because the Pyrenees mountains are in between, with very few power lines going over the mountain range. That’s why there was no balancing of it.
This incident could happen anywhere you have a heavy reliance on renewable energy. Naturally, the experts in Germany came out very quickly to say this could never happen here; but other experts have been warning for a long time that exactly the same thing could happen in Germany and other countries that are in a similar situation. So, I’m pretty sure that this will be reviewed, and once the causes become clear as a result, I’m absolutely sure there will be a rethinking. What will happen if entire European countries all of a sudden have blackouts? That’s a catastrophic case, and I think it may take a little bit, but it will lead to a rethinking of this matter.
Sare: I would hope so. We had this experience in Texas just a few years ago. This is the oil-producing state of the United States, and we had these crazy blackouts in which hundreds of people died, and the energy companies used it to gouge the cost. We don’t seem to have learned much, but I’m hoping that we’re becoming smarter.
I want to shift now, because it is the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, May 8 and 9, 1945; the end of World War II in Europe and the defeat of fascism. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has said the tangible results of the U.S.-Russia dialogue may be seen in the near term. He said, “There is hope that the promising trajectory of Russia-U.S. dialogue will become reality. I anticipate a solid confirmation of the reciprocal interests between Moscow and Washington in the near term.” He said this speaking at the conference of BRICS foreign ministers in Brazil just recently. I would like your thoughts on this; I think this may be perhaps the most important initiative of President Trump to try and restore normal relations between the U.S. and Russia. So, what are your thoughts on this dynamic?
Learning from History
Zepp-LaRouche: I hope that President Trump’s impulse is leading to a result in doing exactly that—to restore the strategically most important relations, because after all, Russia and the United States are the two nuclear powers which have the largest contingent of nuclear missiles, which could eliminate mankind 20 times over. So, if they would come back to normal relations, I think this is the number one strategic question, because without that, there is nothing. Therefore, I am very unhappy with some of these Europeans, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer from Great Britain and President Emmanuel Macron from France. Unfortunately, there is such a thing called the Coalition of the Willing, who are trying very openly to sabotage any such effort by Trump and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to not only restore relations, but to bring a peaceful end to the Ukraine war, which de facto has ended because of a lack of soldiers in Ukraine. It’s just a continuous carnage which is going on, and anybody in their right mind who is trying to prolong this is just a cynical person who does not care at all about the Ukrainian people or the soldiers on both sides.
So, I think that that is very important. The so-called Coalition of the Willing are just mad; there is absolutely nothing to gain. The very idea that Europe could replace the United States in the war against Russia is just megalomania and stupidity. The population, unfortunately, is being barraged by a lot of propaganda, so only a certain portion of the people can see how dangerous this is.
Since you mentioned the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, there is such a reversal or, one can almost say, revanchist rewriting of history. So, the probable new Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, does not go to Moscow for the anniversary, he goes to Kiev. And Kiev already changed the topic; they are no longer celebrating the end of World War II. They are now celebrating on May 9 some ominous Europe Day, or some new title they have given to it. Oliver Stone, for example, in my view correctly blasted that and said these people are revanchists, because they side with the wrong side of history.
Sare: Let me just ask, is it also the case that they are not inviting Russian leadership to celebrations in Europe? After the Soviet Union lost 27 million people, without their input this war would not have been won. Is that still the case?
Zepp-LaRouche: It’s worse than that, because the outgoing government of German Chancellor Scholz and this unspeakable foreign minister—who fortunately made her last trip in her function as such a foreign minister, because it was unbearable how she would go around the world and really damage the image of Germany wherever she would put a foot on the ground—but together they put in some legislation or some decree, whereby nobody in an official position—this is also the case for the European Union—is allowed to participate in the Moscow celebrations, or else they will be hit with sanctions. In the case of Germany, it’s also planning to punish people if they go to the Russian Embassy in Berlin on that day to express their appreciation for what the Soviet Union did in World War II. So, it’s really a shame; it’s an absolute abomination. It obviously can only be explained by the extreme ability of people to forget history; to just live in the here and now.
That’s one of the present cultural campaigns, to make people forget history and just think of pleasure in the here and now; everything else does not count. If you look at the popular culture, there are many pop songs where people sing “drinking wine, feeling fine, you live only once.” That kind of absolute low mental state is being propagated from all channels—from TV, from movies and whatnot. It's a real shame, because if you forget history, there is a saying that you are sometimes forced to relive it, either as a farce or as a bigger tragedy. I hope that we can prevent that from happening, but it is an absolute abomination what is happening around that anniversary in Europe.
Sare: I would say, in the United States we have a welcome change, because for the last few years there has not been a march of the Immortal Regiment, where people’s forebears who were involved in World War II—American and Russian—marched together and laid flowers and released white balloons and celebrated the end of that war in Europe. We were unable to hold such celebrations. But this year again, finally, there will be an Immortal Regiment March in Washington, D.C. on the 3rd of May. I think that’s really a welcome change, and indicates the possibility of a new direction.
Also, I wanted to bring up—and you already touched on the American Revolution—the Russian Intelligence Service website had a lengthy statement with a rather unflattering cartoon of Ursula von der Leyen promoting this fascism. They talked about the historical relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, or Russia, going back to the so-called Civil War—the British pro-slavery-instigated war—where the Russians sent the Russian Navy to New York and San Francisco on the side of President Lincoln. They talked about the Suez crisis, when the Soviet Union worked with President Eisenhower to put Israel back in its place. And they talked about this kind of dynamic. It seems to me this would be a really natural basis for relations, just as Confucius gives us a basis to have relations between the U.S. and China. The relationship between the United States and Russia, if we revive this tradition, could also be very important. What are your thoughts on that?
Zepp-LaRouche: It is the philosophy of myself and therefore the Schiller Institute that if you want to have peaceful relations among nations, you should always focus on the positive contributions of each. If you go and talk to somebody and just emphasize the negative points— I could start World War III with you if I say your nose is ugly, your dress is disgusting, your hairdo is miserable. If I would keep this up and escalate, I’m sure that after some half hour, we would be enemies. On the other hand, if I say, “Diane Sare, you are such a gifted musician; you have a sense of poetry. You are a worldly leader,” then you would respond and we could find out what our common interests are and so forth. So, that same principle should be applied to nations, because in every nation’s history there are ups and downs. As long as you have oligarchical political leaderships, it unfortunately happens that countries do bad things. But if you want to repair a relationship, you emphasize that which is bringing mankind forward. In that sense, everything from the League of Armed Neutrality and other points of cooperation, it’s a very good sign that Russia is emphasizing these positive elements. It would be very good if the American side would do something similar.
Asian Development or More British-Driven Conflict?
Sare: I agree! Now, on exactly this example you just gave, I have to bring in the conflict between India and Pakistan. These are two very large nations in which the British Empire has had a major destructive role. I fear we are really on the brink of war. I just want to read you the latest statements from Indian Prime Minister Modi and the information minister of Pakistan. Modi has now said that “the armed forces have full operational freedom in choosing the means, targets, and dates of India’s retaliation measures.” This is for the terror attack on April 22nd that killed 26 or so tourists. Then Modi said further—and it sounds a bit like certain of our neocon war people—“I say to the whole world, India will identify, trace, and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”
Then, Pakistan's Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Attaullah Tarar wrote yesterday on X, “Pakistan has credible intelligence that India intends to launch a military strike within the next 24-36 hours using the Pahalgam incident as a false pretext. Any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response. India will be fully responsible for any serious consequences in the region.”
I know you and your late husband, Lyndon LaRouche, visited India many times. You had a good friendship with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Executive Intelligence Review published the letters of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the murdered former prime minister of Pakistan. So, I really want to get your thoughts on this new effort, I think, by the British. And I want to add something: The Chinese response was to say, we should investigate what happened before responding. This is quite different than the American response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. (9/11)—investigations be damned, we’re going to invade this country, that country. And the same thing with the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on Israel; there was never an investigation; there were just actions. So, I sort of appreciate the Chinese radical approach to find out what’s going on first, but what are your thoughts on this?
Zepp-LaRouche: Unfortunately, I think the situation is extremely dangerous, because Pakistan and India are both nuclear powers. There was already one Pakistani minister who had mentioned that all the Pakistani nuclear weapons are trained in the direction of India, making a very bellicose threat to use those nuclear weapons. Obviously, Modi’s response is very harsh and bellicose as well. I just hope that what he said is not true, because if it were, in one to three days we could be in a nuclear catastrophe in no time. I can only say that the previous concerns of people internationally about non-proliferation and that the danger of nuclear war could come from elsewhere than the major nuclear powers, but some of the others, is very real.
The defense minister of Pakistan, Khawaja Asif, however, said something else which I think is also extremely important. He said that all Pakistani involvement with terrorists in the last decades were the result of being instrumentalized by the British and the United States—including the backing of terrorism coming from Pakistani soil after 9/11. So, that is definitely something to be aware of, because now, with the Trump Administration, that is not the apparatus which did that. That was former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and his Islamic card, which he had given as an order to the Trilateral Commission in their infamous Tokyo meeting in 1975—which then led to the Western backing of the radical Islamic schools and the building of the extremist Islamic jihadi for Afghanistan, first in the war against the Soviet Union.
But then, after that war was lost, these terrorist forces did not vanish; they spread through the entire region, through parts of the Soviet republics, to Chechnya, to the Uighurs in Xinjiang, and other areas. They infested the whole region, and then as U.S. General Michael Flynn was pointing to and trying to communicate to President Obama in 2012, these forces—al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, however they changed—were instrumentalized by the West, by the United States and other Western forces. So, I think the reference by the Pakistan defense minister to that history is extremely important. Only if you have a clear view and do not attribute that to nations, but to other forms of interest, can you have a policy to defuse the danger.
I can only say that the hope is that there are several neighbors who immediately got active and tried to mediate between Pakistan and India, such as Iran very importantly, and also China. They are talking, and they have positive relations with both sides. One can only hope that their mediation will prevail and that we will not be looking at nuclear Armageddon over that crisis in the short term.
Sare: Thank you, that’s a very important answer. We have many questions, but very little time. So, I’m just going to pick two of them. One is from a German businessman who writes, “I just read about your Industrial Triangle program from 1989-90 for improved relations between Germany and post–Soviet Russia when the Wall came down. Assuming peace is achieved in Ukraine, would something similar to that work today? Have you drafted a proposal for today that would work and take into account the changing needs of both countries?”
Zepp-LaRouche: I think the best outcome under the present circumstances—which are unfortunate, because we are now three years into the war, and Russia’s special military operation could have ended in March 2022. At that time, the losses would have been minimal compared to the horrendous destruction which has occurred in the intervening three years, due to the sabotage of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson primarily, but also some elements of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Administration. The best that can happen now is to go to, first, a truce, then a ceasefire, and then enter real peace negotiations in which the reconstruction of Ukraine would be the incentive for the Ukrainians to agree to such a policy.
I think if one were to go back to the idea as it existed before the war broke out—namely, that the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative could be extended all the way into Europe—then Ukraine would be a bridge between the European parts and the Asian parts of Eurasia. That is absolutely still a perspective, because I have believed for a long time that one has to have concrete solutions for local problems and regional crises, but that we will only get out of this geopolitical confrontation by a global solution. I have called for a global security and development architecture which must take into account the interests of every single country on the planet in order to work; sort of a modern Peace of Westphalia approach. Then, one could really think in terms of cooperation between the countries of Eurasia, taking care of all the problems which exist, which includes an Oasis Plan for Southwest Asia, the reconstruction of Ukraine, but also the building of modern infrastructure in all of Europe and connecting it to the rest of Asia and in that way, making them two continents of peace.
I’m absolutely certain that the Chinese are already thinking in this direction, and I can only hope that the Ukrainians realize that if they want to have a country, and if they want prosperity and a future, they should absolutely demand that such a solution be put on the table.
A Tale of Two Universes
Sare: I’m going to slightly amend the last question, and you may want to address the upcoming conferences of the Schiller Institute both in the United States and Europe. You had mentioned to some of us yesterday something that I think put things in a very clear perspective, which is that you spoke about the entropic nature of this British liberal-imperial system, which is bankrupt—the warmongers, the NATO war drive, etc.—as opposed to the new dynamic which is emerging, which is growth-oriented and is actually becoming stronger by the day. Of course, I think we have a very important role to play in that, both here in the United States and in Europe, because we are inside the entropic system, although there’s clearly a shift going on in both places. What would you like to say about the conferences or your thoughts on this potential crossroads for humanity?
Zepp-LaRouche: I don’t know how to get this across in appropriate terms, but when I compare the mood, the outlook, the understanding of people in Germany with those I just came back from on this trip to China, it is amazing. It is as if you are in two completely different universes. When you are talking to people in Germany, they are all miserable, afraid, depressed, pessimistic, just horrible. If you are in China, everything is completely different. Everybody, including the Chinese but also the international guests, are in a completely different mindset. They are thinking about constructing things, solving things, a positive plan for the future; just an enormous positive and optimistic outlook. That is the result of the fact that, in my view, you cannot divide the present political line-up with the old categories of left and right and according to the seating order of the French parliament at the time of the French Revolution. That does not fit anymore. There are people who are supposedly left, but they are progressive; and there are people on the right who are also progressive. So, how do you unify that view?
I think the better way is to say that the world is divided between those forces who are absolutely determined to keep the privileges of a few, and for the sake of these privileges they are willing to go in the most destructive direction possible. Then on the other side, you have people who are well-meaning, good-hearted, and task-oriented; and they’re trying to make everything better. To have countries function together; to have economies function; to have elevated, poetical ideas. They are basically anti-entropic in their mindset. I think the overwhelming trend of our times is the latter. The vast majority of people—the Global South, those who are actually the Global Majority—are in a very constructive mood. This is why if we in the West would just pick up on that and say let’s collaborate and solve the most important problems of our time—poverty, under-development, the migrant question—by building up the countries from which people are running away, we could solve all problems so easily.
That will actually be the topic of our conferences, where we will try to make the people in the West understand that the narrative which is the bellicose narrative is not desired. It will lead to a catastrophe. On the other side, the historic trend of mankind in this particular historic juncture, is to overcome geopolitics and find a way of cooperation.
So that, in short, will be the topic of both conferences. I can only advise you to register to participate, either in person or, if you cannot travel, by Zoom. But be a part of that; that’s where history is being shaped right now in the most advanced way. So, don’t miss it.
