Chinese Economist: LaRouche as a Precursor of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Professor Ding Yifan, Deputy Director of the Research Institute for World Development of the China Development Research Center, participated in Panel 1 of the Schiller Institute’s Sept. 10-11, 2022 conference, titled “Inspiring Humanity To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History” (cf. SAS 37/22). In his presentation, reproduced below, he brought up Lyndon LaRouche’s invaluable contributions to the science of physical economy.

I’m very pleased to be invited to say a few words about Lyndon LaRouche’s contribution to understanding today’s world. I was first introduced to Lyn’s work when I met with Jacques Cheminade in France. He presented me with Lyn’s book So, You Want To Know All About Economics?. That’s the first time I heard about physical economics.

By reading his work, some new concepts just struck me, such as entropy in an economy. If an economy is entropic, it will ultimately run out of development energy. Technological and technical innovation is key to maintaining development momentum, and is an important anti-entropic factor.

What Lyn had taught us about entropic factors in an economy could also apply to today’s financial sector, because instead of providing needed funding to the real economy as it should do, today’s financial sector has invented a lot of products that it spends on itself. So, that becomes entropic, depleting a lot of resources.

Lyn had correctly predicted many financial crises, because when he discovered a deviation of financial investments from the real economy, he could see the danger arriving. Lyn had correctly forecast many financial crises in Latin America and in Asia. That’s why he had broad influence in those regions.

In Washington, D.C., I had been introduced to Lyndon LaRouche by Mike Billington. Lyn taught me a lot about the evolution of synarchism in Europe and also in the world. Lyn taught me that those people who seek to have control over every country, by meddling with financial crises, may overlook the danger of financial gain. By inducing other countries into financial crises, those synarchists may succeed at the beginning. They may succeed in sheep shearing. But, ultimately, they will kill all the sheep. So, they will also lose the opportunity of further sheep shearing in the end. That’s why, after several runs of financial crises — in Latin America, in Asia, in Europe –the financial crises came home to roost in the United States.

Lyn believed firmly in investing in infrastructures. He said that infrastructure investment could help economic development in the long run, and that infrastructure investment would lay the foundation for healthy development. Lyn always preached for strengthening cooperation among China, the United States, and Russia, especially in the field of infrastructure construction. In this sense, Lyn could be also considered as a precursor of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Today, as we are commemorating Lyn’s centennial, we should consider Lyn’s political legacy seriously, for it has told us that we can only make progress for mankind by promoting technology innovation, by promoting international cooperation, but not by confrontation.

If we let today’s world [be] controlled by those who can find their interest behind the wars and escalation of geopolitical tensions, we will be dropped into a vicious spiral, and end up with our planet’s destruction. So, we should stand up and say, “No,” to those warmongers.