I am extremely happy, that all of you are engaged in creating these new ideas. What is critically important, is the move away from the dominance of Cold War ideas, towards a new international structure, conducive to the current era.

The Cold War-era ideas are increasingly inadequate to deal with the very different challenges that the world now faces: the emerging tensions in America's relations with China; the huge economic uncertainties in the advanced capitalist economies of Japan, the United States, and Europe; the financial meltdowns that have hit many of the new industrial economies such as that in East Asia in 1997; the internal conflicts that are ravaging states such as Indonesia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or parts of Africa; the rise of fundamentalist political movements; and the myriad challenges of economic reform facing the large developing economies—Russia, China, India, Mexico. This is a historical point from where the international system could take several directions, depending on the kind of political forces and ideas that emerge as the dominant vision of the era.

This struggle over ideas to reconceptualize and reconfigure the international system—and the political, economic, and security institutions that are critically important for its stability and well-being—has been a defining feature of the new era. While globalization, unipolarity or multipolarity, clash or cooperation of civilizations, end of history, Asian values or general human rights, etc., have been among the more prominent issues in this debate, the fundamental issue has been to find the principles that will ensure a peaceful, stable, secure, and increasingly prosperous global community of peoples and states.

India is in many ways at the center of this struggle for the shaping of the structures and dominant ideas of the emerging global order. This is not normally understood in many countries. From the very beginning, the kind of ideas that the Schiller Institute is discussing and proposing, have had a strong resonance in India. They have been there since the 1950s, and the combination of a developmental strategy linked to Non-Alignment and castigation of the Cold War, meant that India has produced some of the very interesting ideas and movements internationally. The Group of 77, the struggle for a new international economic and political order: Many of these, were movements which were born in India, and had strong resonance through Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

These ideas did not succeed, because the global institutions and the major powers, did not back them. These ideas cannot come to fruition, without solid backing of Europe, Japan, and the United States, and other countries which dominate institutions.

However, the fact is that today, as these institutions face a crisis, there is a possibility that the ideas that are discussed here, can succeed. Therefore, what is absolutely important, is pragmatic notions of building this alternative model of globalization, on structural linkages, infrastructure, and new ideas of economic development.

The largest state, along with China, in terms of population, India has been organized by its post-independence nationalist leadership as a democratic, secular, federal republic. With its heterogeneous linguistic, caste, and religious composition, and the complex identity-formation of its people over 4,000 years, the notions of secular values, cooperation and coexistence among cultures, and rule of law, are crucial to its statehood and form the core of its Constitution.

India's worldview is therefore rooted in universal political values that are increasingly shaping a united Europe in particular.

For some 40 years after Independence, India followed an inward-oriented industrialization policy and a non-aligned foreign policy that abjured the power politics of the Cold War. This achieved great success. Like China, we started off from scratch—the British had built some things, but the country was left with a huge, extremely challenging economic situation. Levels of illiteracy and poverty were huge, infrastructure was poor, the educational system was poor. All that had to be developed.

In collaboration with the Soviet Union and some other European countries, and even with the United States in the agriculture sector, we built a very diversified and extensive economy over the past 50 years.

It is critical to understand, that this was a policy that enabled India to build a large industrial and scientific base covering all areas—steel, machine tools, nuclear energy, aerospace technology, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, metallurgy, telecommunications, shipbuilding, railways, automobiles, textiles, fertilizers, cement, computer software and hardware, electronics. Today, the world software industry heavily relies on India for its well-being, and India has been very badly hit by the crisis in the software industry.

Since the 1980s and especially from 1991, the inward-oriented strategy has been gradually given up, as India has sought to speed up its growth rate, enhance investments in infrastructure, and modernize its industrial, technological, educational, and agricultural sectors.

This is combined with a new international involvement in international affairs, made possible by the end of the Cold War. The last era of our international involvement, was largely focussed on moving away from the Cold War, and keeping co-existence. Now, it's possible to build new linkages with Europe, Japan, and the United States, which earlier had been prevented. In this new situation, Indian policymakers have been deeply divided over the issues of globalization, and what kinds of policies are exactly beneficial for maintaining rapid economic growth.

India has been the fastest growing economy outside East Asia through the past two decades. It grew at 5.5% in the 1980s and 6.5% through the 1990s. Unlike East Asia—which grew at very fast rates largely on the basis of globalization, linked to integration into the global economy, and foreign trade- and investment-led labor-intensive exports going to the U.S. market—India has not had that integration. Until 1990, India's economy was essentially internally led.

As we have opened up, we find that the world economy is also going through a critical stage. Therefore, it is of great significance that these new ideas coincide with India's search for a globalization model: a model of economic development in an increasingly integrated international system.

These ideas of physical economy, of the Eurasian corridors, and restructuring the international economic and financial institutions, are critically important from our perspective. We have made repeated efforts in international institutions, the IMF and so on, to come forward with alternative views, of keeping alive global cooperation, and keeping a different orientation from that normally supported by the IMF and World Bank.

The national goal is to grow at 8-9% over the next 25 years, in order to eliminate poverty, create enough jobs for a growing labor force, reconstruct cities, and emerge as a global economic and political force. In fact, much of the world's growth in the coming decades will depend on the rapid modernization and expansion of the Indian and Chinese economies.

If India is to attain its economic and political goals, it needs to develop three key strategies. One, an internal strategy that will create large agro-industrial bases throughout the country, interlinked through a network of modern highways, railways and airways, and telecommunications. It will also need large investments in power, ports, and education.

India urgently needs an expansion of infrastructure, and the government is very concerned about this. We are rapidly expanding a network of national highways and railroads, and airports. This will integrate central India into the coastal and other zones.

Two, we will need an international strategy of technological, trade, and investment ties with the advanced techno-industrial states—Europe, the United States, Japan, and Russia—to accomplish modernization.

Three, India will be heavily energy-import dependent, especially on the Gulf and Central Asia. It is therefore concentrating on nuclear energy, as well as developing thermal, hydro, and solar power internally, and externally to develop access through pipelines to natural gas from Iran, Central Asia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and perhaps Indonesia. As we move towards an integrated, globally oriented strategy, the ideals of building energy and road and rail-network corridors, become extremely important for the success of the Indian economy. To interlink energy routes and energy supplies, with modern transportation corridors, this overall developmental approach is a very important one.

The Southeast Asia linkage, as well as the Iran linkage, are critically important. The kind of Eurasian rail network being proposed, has three dimensions. From our perspective, the southern Asian dimension is a vital area, to link Southeast Asia to India, and then to Iran, and then move on to Central Asia, Russia, and Europe. This will go through the bulk of the population of Asia.

The link to China is already a proposal: the Kunming to Calcutta route, to link eastern India to southern China, via Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Thailand. On the Indian side, this route already exists. We are building some of the routes in Myanmar. The Chinese have also built up to Yunnan, so it is possible, in the coming years, to complete this route.

The rapid development of India is increasingly tied to a stable, secure, and increasingly cooperative global and regional order. Creation of strategic transportation and energy corridors in Eurasia and Southern Asia are of immense significance to India. In terms of ideas, these at once address the issues of peace, stability, economic, and security cooperation across Eurasia.

However, current efforts to create these corridors face significant obstacles: political instability and conflict in regions such as the Talibanized Afghanistan-Pakistan belt, that threaten to spread into Central Asia; the lack of requisite backing from Europe and Japan; and absence of strong ties among key Asian states—India, China, Iran, Indonesia.

It is critically important in Asia, to build inter-state relations that move away from conflicts, and to expend efforts to build confidence and understanding. Nations must realize the necessity for such projects and such cooperation, in order for their own states to survive: that it is in their own self-interests, to build larger cooperative ventures and political stabilization in this area. There are big problems: Indonesia is going through a major crisis; Burma is not yet ready for many of these efforts; the Gulf area internally remains in tensions; the Pakistan-Afghanistan area has gone into absolutely backward civil war conditions; and fundamentalist Islamic trends are of deep concern, and are affecting India very badly.

Second, there is a need for Europe, Japan, and the United States to support this process. I am given to understand here, that the Maastricht process [in Europe] and others, really are a problem, in terms of providing the kind of state backing from Europe and elsewhere, which would make low-[interest] credit-driven new ideas to fund this kind of infrastructure construction. It is very important, that the U.S., Japan, and Europe, are strongly committed to develop these kinds of new ideas, and move away from the other globalization model.

This can only take place, if these ideas win out in European governments, and Germany, France, and other leading countries here, support and bring forward, new, innovative ideas for funding and financing and providing credits for these kinds of processes.

The second element, is the global cooperative policymaking changes, in the institutions of Europe, Japan, and the U.S., that can bring about this large-scale structural change in the globalization model.

Finally, there is an absolutely important demand, for the countries of Asia, for India and China, for Indonesia and Iran, and Russia and Japan, to work together to build a more stable, peaceful Asia. What is needed is much greater cooperation in terms of leadership exchanges, economic ideas, and cooperative stability and security models, to bring this about.

India is deeply interested in this. Its own proposals, for a united Asia, and an Asian relations conference, go back to 1946. The Afro-Asian movement was triggered in Delhi. These kinds of ideas have a great sympathy in India, and we expect, as we move into our own development in the coming years, to play an important role in bringing about, in cooperation with all of you, the successful change in strategy in globalization.

It is important, therefore, that key Eurasian countries focus on the political, economic, security, and technological factors that would make possible a unified developmental strategy. India has great interest in such an outcome, and would play an active role in bringing this about.

Thank you.

To Bad Schwalbach Conference Page

Dr. Mohammed Al-Sayed Selim is the Director of the Center for Asian Studies in the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in Cairo University, Egypt. He delivered this address on May 5 at a conference of the Schiller Institute in Bad Schwalbach, Germany. Subheads have been added.

It is very difficult to speak at this late hour of the session, after four elaborated, marvelous presentations. So, it's a tremendous challenge for me to keep you interested in my presentation.

I would like to start by thanking the Schiller Institute for inviting me to this seminar, especially Muriel [Mirak-Weissbach]. She has done a lot to make sure, that I am here. I met her for the first time in Turkmenistan in 1996. And this was the first time to hear about the notion of the "Eurasian Land-Bridge," although at that time I was the director of the Center for Asian Studies—which I still am. But it was a very interesting idea for me, and we developed in the Center an interest in this idea. And we held a conference on the Eurasian Land-Bridge in Port Said on the Mediterranean last year, the proceedings of which will be published very soon. So I thank Muriel for alerting us to this notion in 1996, and for all the literature that she has been sending us since then.

My presentation is related to Egypt and how Egypt can serve as a link between the Eurasian Land-Bridge and Africa. I don't want to speak on Africa itself, my Sudanese colleagues will deal with that, but I going to deal with the notion of Egypt and how Egypt is planning to connect with the Eurasian Land-Bridge. So, I am dividing my presentation into four parts.

The first part will review briefly the development projects on the Eurasian landmass, using the various transportation concepts and evaluating them from the prospect of Mr. LaRouche's vision of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. Number two is to review briefly the Egyptian projects to connect with the Eurasian Land-Bridge. Number three is to assess the impact of the Eurasian Land-Bridge and the Egyptian connection with it on the Egyptian economy—Will it have a positive or negative impact? And finally, how Egypt could be a link between the Eurasian Land-Bridge and Africa—leaving the rest of Africa to the next session.

The transportation projects on the Eurasian landmass can be divided into two major components: those which were established during the Cold War, and those which were established mainly after the end of the Cold War—or were begun shortly before and are still continuing.

Those which began during the Cold War are mainly the Trans-Asian Railway and the Trans-Siberian Railway, or what is called sometimes the "first Eurasian Land-Bridge." Those which began after the Cold War are mainly the "second Eurasian Land-Bridge," that is a Chinese project; the TRANSECA project, which is [a link] between the European Union, the Caucasus states, and the Central Asian states; the pipeline transportation systems, which are mainly conducted by the transnational projects; and the trans-Eurasian fiber-optic cable system projects.

The Trans-Siberian Eurasian continental bridge is the oldest of them. It is still functioning, as has been reviewed by my Chinese colleagues. It is functioning below capacity. But there is an increasing interest in that project at the moment, and I have noticed that the Russians have visited Korea recently, in order to connect Korea with the Eurasian Land-Bridge, and that [Russian President Mr. Vladimir] Putin and [South Korean President] Mr. Kim Dae-jung have met in the United Nations. And they agreed to connect North and South Korea—through the railway link, which is still missing so far—with the Eurasian Land-Bridge.

The Trans-Asian Railway started in the 1960s under the United Nations Commission for Economic and Social Development of the Asia-Pacific, connecting Istanbul and Singapore. Most of it was built, except a few parts—between Iran and Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burma. But recently I have noticed that in the East Asian Forum that was held in Singapore last November, there was a decision by the ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries, that these nations, in addition to Japan, China, and South Korea, are reviving the Trans-Asian Railway. They took the decision to complete the Trans-Asian Railway within six years—that is the deadline set in November 2000 in the East Asia Forum, to extend it to Vietnam, to southern China, to Korea, and to be connected to the Chinese railway system, with another extension to Indonesia.

The conclusion from this is, there is a tremendous interest in these older projects, to revive these projects, whether the first Eurasian Land-Bridge or the Trans-Asian Railway. Those projects which started after the end of the Cold War, such as the "second Eurasian Land-Bridge" connecting eastern China to Europe, which is mainly a Chinese proposal, suggested to extend the rail networks from eastern China to Rotterdam, with a total extension of something like 11,000 kilometers, through Central Asia. Already this line crossed the Alataw Pass from Kazakstan to Central Asia. The Iranians have also built the Mashhad-Tejan link, and there is a project going on now to connect the Iranian proposal with the Chinese proposal. This would be a great step in the second Eurasian Land-Bridge.

The idea is to have three connections: north-bound, south-bound, and a connection in the middle, linking this project to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Eastern and Western Europe. As I said, the Chinese railway network crossed the Alataw Pass in 1992 to Kazakstan. And in 1996, the Chinese held a conference in Beijing, where they promoted this project, and which really created tremendous interest in linking this project with the Chinese project, to develop the inner parts of China.

The other project which we have to be alert to, is the TRANSECA project, which is not only a rail network project, it is a project comprising now 11 states—five Central Asian states, three Caucasus states, and Ukraine, Mongolia, and Moldova—done in cooperation with the European Union. It is not restricted to rail networks, but includes roads, maritime transport, and facilitation of trade. It does not include building new railways; it focusses mainly on renovating the present railway network and connecting the railway networks of these countries with the Trans-European network, with an idea to connect them with Europe, mainly.

This project is the only project with an institution supervising its implementation. They established the criteria in Azerbaijan recently, and it's done basically under the European Union—in addition to the other projects which I indicated, such as the oil pipeline projects and the fiber optic projects, etc.

All these projects, in my judgment, fall short of the proposal submitted by Mr. LaRouche. When I looked at these projects, and I am quite sure that you are all aware of the components, they fall short of the Eurasian Land-Bridge proposal, which mainly focusses on building railway networks with the idea of building development corridors. It is not only building railways, but also building development corridors around the railways, with the idea of expanding the development process. And he views this as the major strategy to prevent a global economic collapse, and I agree with that completely.

Furthermore, are these projects not part of a "grand strategy" to prevent that global collapse, or a grand strategy for development? So what we need, is to assess the complementarities between these projects: How can we coordinate them as well as possible? We need also to move a little step ahead and to assess only the feasibility of these projects and to conduct feasibility studies of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, so as to convince various countries of the viability and feasibility of these projects. Some parts of this Eurasian Land-Bridge are just desert. How can you build this in a desert? It is a very important idea, but what we will need to do now, is to step ahead towards the submission of feasibility studies.

Now to Egypt: This is the second part of my presentation. Egypt is planning to connect with this Eurasian Land-Bridge through three main strategies: the connection through 1) railways, 2) natural gas pipelines, and 3) electricity grids.

Let me take them one by one. The first step is the connection through the railway networks. At the moment, Egypt is building a rail line, which is called in Egypt the "Orient Express." This begins—I am sorry that I don't have a detailed map of the Suez Canal—from the western bank of the Suez Canal, at a city called Verdem, crossing the Suez Canal on a bridge, and the bridge has been already built. As a matter of fact, I was coming on Egypt Air from Cairo—this is the Egyptian newspaper Al Akhbar, there is a picture of the bridge, which was established already on the Suez Canal to enable the trains to move to Sinai, and it will go north-bound something like 50 kilometers, and then will turn to the east, parallel to the Mediterranean Sea until the city of Raffah. Raffah is the city which is divided between Egypt and Israel. The total length of this railway will be 225 km. There will be a link between this line and the city of Port Said on the Mediterranean, because they are building there a development zone on the east of Port Said, called in Arabic "Sharkh," or eastern branch of the Suez Canal. So, it will be connected with the development projects of Port Said.

This project has now reached the city of Varish, which is in the middle of the line, and they are now building the second part of it to the city of Raffah. I was in Sinai last week and I had the chance to see this project being implemented. The idea is to connect this railway network with the Arab east railway network, when the peace process is completed. And this is a very important condition, that Egypt cannot continue extending this line to Israel, and from there to Jordan, Syria, and Turkey and other Arab countries, unless the peace process is completed. Which leads us to a main conclusion: that the completion of the peace process is a crucial step, if we are to move ahead with this network.

There is another movement in the Arab Orient to revive the old railway network. There is an agreement between Syria and Turkey to revive their railway network, an agreement beween Syria and Jordan, and between Syria and Turkey as well, to revive the old railway, which used to connect Istanbul to Medina in Saudi Arabia. Egypt hopes, that when the peace process is completed, it will be connected with these proposals through Israel. Of course, Egypt can go through Aqaba, can avoid the Israeli route by going through Aqaba, through the Sinai, but the cost will be tremendous, even prohibitive for Egypt.

The second strategy is the connection through the natural gas pipelines. This project has already begun, and the idea is to build a natural gas pipeline with a total length of 950 km, beginning at the city of Varish on the Mediterranean in the Sinai, to the city of Tabaa, and from there under the sea to the city of Aqaba in Jordan, then to Amman in Jordan, then to Damascus, Tripoli in Lebanon, and to Turkey, then to Europe. It will pump something like 4-6 billion cubic meters of natural gas a day. And the idea is to expand that network later on. This project is already in progress, and an agreement has been signed among these countries.

When the idea first appeared to establish this natural gas line through the Mediterranean, Egypt found that the total cost would be high, something like $1 billion, compared to the cost of building it via Jordan-Syria and Turkey, which would cost only $700 million.

This project is already in progress, and it is not connected to the peace process; however, Egypt has decided to give Israel a link, which would be separate from the Arab link to the natural gas pipeline. But, of course, these links could be connected together later on, when the peace process is completed.

The third strategy is to connect the electricity grids, and this has already been completed. The electricity grids in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon are already connected, so whenever electricity is not available in Jordan, then Egypt can compensate Jordan for that. The idea is to expand that to later include Iraq and Turkey.

Of course, this all depends as well on the continuation of the present state of no peace. If war erupted in the Middle East, then all these projects—of connecting the electricity grids, national gas pipelines, and the rail lines—will collapse.