Xi-Trump Meeting Puts Into Focus a Changing World | EIRNS

Stewart Battle - Presidents Trump and Xi meeting Oct. 30 in South Korea. Credit: Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok

There has been an undeniable shift taking place in the world, one which challenges the rules and assumptions previously thought to be everlasting. The latest display of this was seen in the Oct. 30 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, where Trump was forced to walk back almost the entirety of his trade war and tariff policies against China since his second term began earlier this year. Unlike during Trump’s first term, when China accepted unilateral measures to purchase more American products, today China is standing firm in its demand for reciprocal treatment in all trade practices with the United States. The message was clear: No one is seeking to replace the United States as a leading global power, but the days are gone when you can dictate the rules to everyone else.

Perhaps also sensing this shift, the new Prime Minister of Japan Takaichi Sanae met with President Xi on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea. Takaichi recently made waves when she announced she would not join in Washington’s trade war policies against China, and the meeting with Xi potentially indicates a move to strengthen the relationship between these two nations. Xi also met with the President of South Korea, the Prime Minister of Thailand, and the Prime Minister of Canada.

When taken together with the recent successful tests of Russia’s Burevestnik and Poseidon missiles, both nuclear-powered delivery vehicles that represent dramatic technological improvements over anything existing previously, this shift increasingly comes into focus. Russia’s breakthroughs show the limits of the West’s military supremacy, and China’s advances show the limits of the West’s economic supremacy. Any attempt to force the old status quo onto these new realities—such as Trump’s call to restart nuclear weapons testing—risks a dangerous escalation that can only end in disaster.

At the same time, new realities are taking shape in Europe. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seeking to restart the Visegrad Group with Slovakia and the Czech Republic, now that Andrej Babis has become Czech Prime Minister. These three countries are increasingly representing an alternative faction in Europe opposed to the war insanity and mindless bureaucracy coming out of Brussels—an alternative whose attraction is growing amidst the glaring collapse of much of Europe. Not insignificantly, there are reports that the British Monarchy is “at a tipping point” following the scandal with Prince Andrew, with support for the royals at its lowest level in decades.

In such a situation, the needed ingredient is that made recently by Pope Leo XIV and heartily endorsed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, namely that of Nicholas of Cusa’s “coincidence of opposites.” Zepp-LaRouche told the Oct. 31 meeting of the International Peace Coalition:

”[Cusa’s] conception of the Coincidence of Opposites … gives hope, because it points to being able to see something which is not yet in existence, but that we know will come into existence. Some of you may remember that we have been mentioning the importance of Nicolaus of Kues for decades … we started to use the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa not just in an academic way, but to apply them for the solution of political crises. That’s exactly what Pope Leo XIV is doing as well. He said Nicholas of Cusa came up with the idea in equally turbulent times in the 15th century, as a method of approaching problems which are giving hope. Indeed, what this Coincidence of Opposites method means is that the human mind, being the imago viva Dei—the living image of God, not just the image of God—in other words, gifted with creative power, man can always conceptualize the higher One. The solution on a plane which is of a completely different magnitude than the level on which the problem arose. Einstein later made the same demand, saying the solution can never be on the same level where the problem started. The method of Nicolaus of Kues is exactly that. He argued from a theological standpoint—the higher One is God. But it is a method by which you can train the mind to always come up with such an idea that you can find a unity where all the contradictions are overcome.”

Today, this means the creation of a new security and development architecture out of the contradictions and inadequacies of the current system. The time is now to make this into a reality.