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Interview: The BRICS Development Paradigm and Canada’s Noble Task
Reviving the CANDU Spirit
21 November 2014
Ramtanu Maitra is a nuclear engineer and the New Delhi Bureau Chief for Executive Intelligence Review who has played a central role with Lyndon and Helga LaRouche for over thirty years to bring about what has now emerged with the BRICS development paradigm. He was interviewed on November 21, 2014 by Robert Hux for the Committee for the Republic of Canada. Robert Hux - There is a dramatic change around the world with the emergence of a New Just World Economic Order associated with the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). What do you have to say about this? Ramtanu Maitra - Well, I think that this is a natural evolution of things which, in fact, should have happened before. Failure of the old international economic order, steered by the trans-Atlantic nations, has created a situation in which there was absolutely no incentive, or cash, available to the developing nations to develop. In the meantime, the population was going up, the requirements were becoming larger. The BRICS really is the name coined by a Goldman Sachs fellow. His name is Jim O’Neil, I think. But it consists of five nations —Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Now what was already happening before, is that within the Eurasian landmass, the Chinese were already developing since 1980. Then they reached a point whereby to continue with their growth, they needed to interlink Asia with Europe, through what they call the New Silk Road. Now, they have added an additional item, which is the Maritime Silk Road, which is by going to Africa, Ibero America and North America, etc. by sea. But before the BRICS came to life in 2014, China had already started doing this. Then, a couple of things happened. The first, to begin with, particularly in Brazil in July of this year, Dilma Roussef of Brazil, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi, and China’s Xi Jinping got together. All five of them seem pretty dynamic. They wanted to go ahead and develop their areas, and they also made evident that the old international economic order is completely bankrupt, because it has been looted by the financial districts and the bankers and speculators of western nations. So, I would say that the BRICS were around for a few years. It came to life at Fortaleza in Brazil, when these five leaders, of which Modi was the newest one, and Xi Jinping was pretty new too, came together, and Putin came to realize from the kind of operations that were being carried out by the Western nations to undermine and even to break up Russia, by coercing Georgia, Ukraine, to act against Russia; and through various operations inside Russia in places such as Chechnya, Dagestan, Ossetia, and so forth. Putin came to realize that from the security point of view, and also from every other point of view, his alignment with China and India - which are practically congruent to each other - will be a strategy which will allow him to secure and develop Russia. Stabilize Russia, and stabilize Russia’s borders. So this thing happened in mid-July. This is where they started the formation of the New Development Bank and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA), and then later, in early November, China announced along with many other Asian countries formation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. So, it seems the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is specifically set up for Asia’s development, infrastructure development in Asia. The New Development Bank of the BRICS and the CRA are for any nation that wants to have an access to them. That is basically what has been said. These banks have not been set up as yet. They will be set up in 2015. But the secretariats of these groups are now working out various formulations. What is expected is that these development banks will be making available financing money for developmental purposes. Unlike the conditionality-based loans of the World Bank and the IMF which never allowed the developing countries to secure enough money to independently develop their countries, these loans will not have those kinds of conditionality-strings attached. So, there was an enormous requirement for this. And these five leaders came together, and said that it is time now to make fresh efforts to develop the world. And there was no exclusion policy. Every nation is allowed to come in. The West is allowed to come in, and all that. Importantly, these five countries also considered that the security and development should go hand in hand, and of course, infrastructure development is very important. But, let me tell you something else. That long before this Jim O’Neill fellow came out with his BRICS name, in 1995, Mr. Lyndon LaRouche had mentioned to Indian leaders, when he met them subsequently a number of times, telling these leaders that it is time to look at Russia, India and China— three together— as an engine for growth. Now, that was when the thinking started. But at that point in time, Russia was still going through the dismantling of the Soviet Union. And what followed after that was outright looting of Russia, by the speculators in Russia, the oligarchs and the various other forces. Russia was very weak. India had not yet started to grow at a rapid pace. China was growing, but China’s financial reserves were not sufficient enough at that time for this thing to flower. In 1999, I attended in New Delhi an international conference, in which the Russians were there, the Chinese were there, and of course the Indians were there. With the help of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Rybakov, who was then head of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies; and then from China there was one of the leading scholars from the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), Professor Ma Jiali; and from India the Chairman of the Maulana Azad Institute of Asian Studies of Calcutta, Dr. Devendra Kaushik, who was also heading the conference. Following the conference, I formed a triangular association: China, India, and Russia. I was the convenor. In 1999 this happened. The conference sponsored by the then-Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. We got it (the triangular association) registered in India. I think it got registered in Russia as well. But the Chinese participant from CICIR, Ma Jiali, told me it is very difficult to register anything in China which is foreign-based. So, it didn’t get registered there. But subsequently, I held a press conference in New Delhi and a lot of people came, including the Russian embassy press officer. A number of press people came. But they started looking at me with peculiar eyes, you know. They asked: “What are you talking about? Russia and China are at loggerheads. India and China are going in two completely different directions. They think in two different ways. How do you think that this thing will work out?” My answer was: It is not because I am pushing them to form this union. This is an obvious thing that they have to adopt, simply because, the old monetary international order is bankrupt. The leaders of this monetary order are now entirely involved in helping the looting that is taking place in the form of speculation and funny money. All of us will soon find out that there is no other alternative, but we have to do it. And the problem was, I would like to point out, that in this period of time between 1999 and 2014, a number of things were beginning to happen. One of those was that the U.S. became even weaker and had got involved in a number of wars, and its credibility went down further. And in 2007 the economic collapse came, the crash from which we haven’t recovered, nobody has recovered. Those things happened. And now China has become a very major source of cash, because it has at its disposal foreign exchange reserves of over $3.9 trillion. India has still $350 to $360 billion in reserve. Russia has about $400 plus billion in reserve. Now after this thing, BRICS, that is, I think, the Chinese initiated this new monetary order, and Russia, and India’s leaders have realized that now is the time to do this. So, I think that it is a very opportune time now. It is a very opportune time for the world to develop. All it needs is that these three fellows, along with the Brazilians and the South Africans, should move forward. None of them by themselves can develop. Brazil represents just only one country in a huge sub-continent of Ibero America that needs a huge amount of development. Africa, of course all of us know, has been completely devastated over the years by the colonial powers. So, with these five, and then there are many others in Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and Indonesia - will surely be coming into this, all will be pitching in. If the West comes in with Europe, the United States, and Canada, then there is a shot that within the next generation or the generation after, say about 30 years later, you may see a world which is a sort of world that we, Mr. LaRouche and us, were always hoping for, praying for, and working for. So, this is an opportunity which exists today. Would you say, Tanu, that when the financial crisis hit in 2007, that China and perhaps other of these countries decided that they would not do what was done in Europe and the United States with the “quantitative easing”, the massive government-backed bailout of the bad speculative debts of the “too-big-to-fail” banks? By 2007, China had already developed to the point - developed its reserves and manufacturing ability - that they did not feel immediately threatened. They didn’t create the kind of funny money and looting of the real economy that was done to the people of the richer nations, and which brought about the collapse. But China was looking beyond protecting itself from collapse. China saw that now is the time to move ahead and develop the region. China can bring in various reserves and continue to grow. Because China still needed to grow. But in 2007 and 2008 they were very clear headed about it. “We need to grow. And we can do it, provided that we follow the basic economic principle that the fundamental of economic development adopted by the Americans in 19th and 20th century under Lincoln and Roosevelt.” They knew nothing else could protect an economy. So that was their realization, as was the realization of Japan in the post-World War II period. The Japanese also had the same understanding. They have moved away from that since. But that realization, I think, is the seed which eventually led to what you see today as the tree— BRICS. So, the essential change required in the United States, Europe and Canada must begin with the Glass-Steagall Act that separates commercial banking from investment banking. That would simply eliminate all those speculative debts that have no value. Then we could actually collaborate with these BRICS nations. Absolutely! That’s what Franklin D. Roosevelt did, and the United States was rebuilt into a magnificent power over the next 30 to 35 years. I will tell you something which most Americans don’t talk about. But, between 1955 and, say 1978 - if you take these 23 years and look at the United States, you’ll see some fascinating things. And you would wonder where this came from. It came from Roosevelt’s policy of the Glass-Steagall Act that allowed the Banks to invest in real physical economy. In these 23 years, the United States built about 90 nuclear power plants. In the next forty years since 1978, it has only built 10 or so. They built the entire highway system, in Eisenhower’s period, within 12 years, starting from 1955 to 1967. And then, almost from scratch the space program started. And they landed people on the Moon by 1969. If you look at that period, this is all the fruits of the tree which was based on infrastructure. Infrastructure was magnificent, at that point in time. But we have moved away from all that, and now everything has collapsed. Now is the time for the West to rebuild all these things. In some ways, conditions are better now. Whereas in the 1950s and the 1960s, you didn’t have Russia, you didn’t have China and you didn’t have India who could contribute to this venture in a significant way. But now, they can contribute in a significant way. So, you consider the part of the world which is undeveloped and the other part of the world, that is Russia, China and India, since they are contiguous, Asia, Central Asia, Eurasia all the way to the Middle East. So, this is a wonderful opportunity, as far as I can see, provided we, and everybody else, could move the Western leaders to see the light. That is the problem that needs to be resolved. What kind of time-frame are we talking about here Tanu? Is this something that would play out over, say, 3 to 5 years, or are we talking about a much longer generational perspective? Things like this are very difficult to forecast. How long would it take to put all things in place? What is important in all this is the momentum. If you really go gung ho, and do it with full focus, and full realization that this is what is to be done in order to build a better future, then the time period can be cut down to say 25 to 30 years. But, between today and this 25 years that I’m talking about, a whole lot of things will begin to develop. And millions and millions of people, if not billions, will get start getting benefit out of those developments. In order to do the development without disparity, it will take 25 to 30 years. That should be the minimum. But, within 4 or 5 years you will see some benefits are emerging for millions and millions of people. So, there is really no end point, but there is only a starting point. The process of development will do more than what meets the eye. One of the things that Lyndon LaRouche has pointed to a couple of years ago is the irony that on a recent anniversary of the birth of Franklin Roosevelt, this occasion was celebrated much more in Russia than in the United States. Which, I guess may indicate that they are looking much more at the need to maintain the growth of the physical economy than the United States and Europe have in the period since the Roosevelt and Kennedy Presidencies. Would you say that there is a similar appreciation of the ideas of Franklin Roosevelt in India and China over this recent period? Not if you go by names. But, they do recognize that the U.S.’s infrastructure development, the successes that they achieved between 1940s going into the 1960s. They know that these are the examples that they must follow. This is what is needed. You have to develop your infrastructure. Because, you should know that Asia was the worst victim of colonization. Not the worst. I should not say that. Africa was the worst. But Asia was a major victim of colonization by the European countries and during this long colonization period they really didn’t build any infrastructure. Their fear always was: infrastructure means development, and development means the locals will be pushing us out of the colonies. So they kept the development of infrastructure to the minimum, for their military movement, taking resources through ports and such kinds of things were done They did the minimal amount of infrastructure that was needed to bring back the looted minerals and reserves. But, virtually every contiguous country in Asia was kept separate. There was no integration. If you look at the South East Asian nations, starting with Myanmar, South of Myanmar is Thailand, south of Thailand is Malaysia. Then East of Thailand is Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. But you won’t find a single railroad that connects one to the other. Each one was kept as a separate entity by one colonial power or the other. The same thing was done in India. There is no connection between India and Afghanistan. It never was built. There is no connection between Afghanistan to all the way to Kazakhstan, in Central Asia - to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia. It didn’t exist! The Soviets did a lot in Central Asia, in terms of infrastructure. But, the understanding that infrastructure is the key to economic development, that the Asians understood from, I would say, American System economists like Alexander Hamilton, Peshine Smith, Henry Carey, Matthew Carey. Those were the great economists of the United States, who, of course, were the sources of inspiration for Lincoln and for Roosevelt, as well. So, if you talk to these people they will say, the American tradition of developing infrastructure is what we realize is necessary for Asia and Eurasia as well. So, Roosevelt, not by name, but anybody and everybody will tell you that Roosevelt was a great leader. World’s Nuclear Plants in August 2005
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 Advanced CANDU Reactor, ACR-1000 is a Gen III+, 1200 MWe CANDU reactor with online refuelling and heavy water moderation, but new features such as light water cooling and the use of low enriched uranium (1.5% U-235) for greater fuel burn-up, lower heavy water inventory and a more compact core. |
Canada has 19 operational CANDU reactors domestically and has exported these reactors to, or built them in technology sharing agreements with: Pakistan (1 unit), India (2 units), China (2 units), South Korea (4 units), Argentina (1 unit) and Romania (2 units).
Canada is also the only country which has a design for a large capacity (1000 megawatt plus) heavy water reactor, the Advanced CANDU Reactor, ACR-1000.
The only other country which really has developed heavy water reactors in a
major way is India. From the two CANDU reactors which India obtained from Canada, India has developed their own heavy water reactors. They presently have 18 operational heavy water reactors with 4 more under construction. But India has not scaled it up beyond 500 megawatts.
So as you can see, the heavy water reactors have not been adopted as widely as the pressurized light water reactors, so far. Many countries do not want to do it because heavy water by itself is another industrial sector. You have to manufacture heavy water. You cannot get heavy water from outside. A lot of countries do not want to get into that. But the bigger countries see that it is no big deal for them to manufacture heavy water. And if it is going to be the source for power generation, then it is a simple little task to perform.
So, India is going to go very big on the heavy water reactors. Canada, of course, can contribute in a very significant way by not only producing a large number of these large capacity heavy water reactors and then exporting them to India and China, and whoever else has the heavy water manufacturing capability, but they can also contribute by helping India and China, in particular, to make large capacity heavy water reactors.
 India-Proposal High Speed Rail, Economic Corridors Coastal Nuclear-Desalination Plants |
That’s one part of it.
The second part of it, this world needs an enormous amount of desalination. Desalination in coastal areas would solve an enormous amount of problems that many of these large countries face because of lack of fresh water. They have to divert river water used for agriculture to meet commercial and domestic demands. In coastal areas, instead of doing that, desalination can take over all these responsibilities. But, for desalination, you don’t need a huge reactor. You need small reactors.
You can put them in clusters. You can make 50 megawatt reactors, and put, over a period of time, 8, or 10, or 12, or 20 of them together as the population in the area grows, and the demand increases, as activities increase. Now nobody is going to make these 50 or 75 megawatt reactors because the mood in India and China that I see is to meet the demand for large scale electricity consumption. So they will go for larger reactors. And in the meantime the desalination process, which is almost as important as the power generation process, will remain vastly neglected. Now, in this Canada can play a very significant role by creating an assembly line of 75 megawatt, or 50 megawatt, or even 100 megawatt heavy water reactors, which don’t need very much heavy water. And then roll them by, like you make cars.
As far as I’m concerned between India, Pakistan and China, they will need anything between 500 to 1000 of these reactors for their coastal desalination purposes. They have long coastal lines. I think this is the task that Canada is perfectly capable of doing. They have all the technologies. And they could make good money out of this as well, and be happy that they have performed a very noble task.
Okay. I think that is a good picture for what Canadians have to do. So thank you for your time Tanu.