Chinese Davos: Beijing makes global leadership at the World Economic Forum

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These days, the 47 World Economic Forum is taking place in the Swiss resort of Davos. The name “Worldwide” and the status of the most important discussion and negotiation platform for the business forum received exactly 30 years ago. Initially, the leaders of leading European companies gathered in Davos at the initiative of the Swiss professor Klaus Schwab. They discussed the prospects of the world economy, developed a common strategy - how to improve the position of Europe in the competitive struggle. Since 1979, the forum specialists began to compile the annual report “Global Competitiveness”. It more than 100 countries in the world are estimated by two main indicators - the index of potential growth and the index of competitiveness.





From globalization to protectionism

It can be said with confidence that the ideology of the current global economy and global world was shaped on the discussion platforms of Davos. The forum has become a center where current economic and political trends are determined. This time, the organizers of the WEF had to break their heads to choose the leading topic for discussion.

After all, the past year brought many new challenges to the global economic elite. The very idea of ​​globalization has come under threat. The first blow to her was Brexit. The referendum in the United Kingdom showed the British desire to isolate themselves from the problems of Europe and focus on their own economy.

On the rise of the US economy tuned elected President of the United States, Donald Trump. Not so long ago, Trump said in a video message that one of his first steps as president would be withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. The TTP was the first global association that put its internal rules above national laws and stipulated the right to sue any government that violated the terms of the partnership agreement.

Donald Trump, apparently, is not eager to sue American and other multinational companies on their terms. For the same reason, he intends to halt negotiations on the establishment of the Transatlantic Trade Partnership. Finally, the elected president of the United States demanded that American companies return the production of goods to the country and threatened prohibitive import tariffs for those who disobeyed.

All these actions, as well as anti-Russian economic sanctions, were a serious blow to the ideology of globalism and demanded that the organizers of the forum in Davos seriously adjust their agenda. So a topic emerged that became the leader in the current WEF, “Open and Responsible Leadership.”

At first glance, it is fully consistent with the nature of the event, and the composition of its participants. More than 50 heads of state and government came to Davos. However, today there is no forum of leaders of the United States, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain ... The European Union and the latter are represented by the vice-presidents of the European Commission and commissioners.

It seems that the heads of the leading states of the planet took a pause to comprehend new processes in the world. It can be seen, the Davos forum with its 3000 participants is not very suitable for working out or at least defining an approach to new global challenges. This will require special and in a different format meetings of leaders of countries defining modern international economic relations.

The last day of the Davos Forum coincides with the inauguration of Donald Trump in Washington. This is one of the reasons for the absence of an elected US president in Switzerland. His place in Davos was taken by Trump's adviser, the former hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci, a long-time frequenter of the Davos Forum. This time, Scaramucci was in a new role. I had to answer questions about the plans of the new American administration in the world economy and politics.

China converts economic success into political

Western media called Anthony Scaramucci the star of the Davos forum. Meanwhile, the attention of the participants of the event was focused on a completely different person. For the first time in history WEF here appeared the head of China. PRC Chairman Xi Jinping arrived in Switzerland with a large delegation of Chinese businessmen, officials and politicians. He appeared on the forum as a senior leader in a children's sandbox.

The political weight of the Chinese leader was not commensurate with the authority of other panelists. This was immediately emphasized by the founder and host of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Professor Klaus Schwab. Representing Xi Jinping’s audience, Schwab said: “We can hope that China in this new world will take on the role of a responsible leader.”

Klaus Schwab called the appearance of the head of the People's Republic of China on the forum symbolic and saw this as "a sign of the transition from the unipolar world dominated by the United States to a multipolar system in which China will increase its role." The wording and epithets that accompanied the arrival of an important guest the host of the forum reflected the qualitatively new position of China in the world.

To him, Beijing went for many years. Through reforms and modernization of production assets, he rose to the first economy in the world. At least, China’s gross domestic product, calculated at purchasing power parity, surpassed the American one in 2014 year. According to the World Bank, China’s GDP at that time was $ 18083 billion, compared to $ 17348 billion in the United States of America. Since then, the gap is only widening.

Raised China and its political weight. Beijing did this through participation in BRICS, the SCO, an independent position on the UN Security Council, through investment international projects. The most famous of them is the Economic Belt of the Silk Road. It is already being implemented.
In the days of the Davos Forum at the train station in London, with the drums and dancers disguised as Chinese dragons, we met the first freight train from China.

He arrived from Yiwu city (eastern Zhejiang province), having covered 18 thousands of kilometers in 12 days. The train proceeded through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France and brought 58 containers with Chinese products to the British capital. The British Daily Mail noted that London had become the 15 city in Europe, with which China now has rail freight services.

The export-oriented economy of China dictates the country and the corresponding political decisions. They were voiced in Davos by Xi Jinping. He told reporters that global peace needs protection. “Protectionism, populism and de-globalization are on the rise. This is bad for economic cooperation at the global level, ”the PRC Chairman noted.

Thus, if the new administration of the United States wants to focus on the problems of the domestic economy, then China demonstrates its readiness to take America’s place in the global economic field. For this, his delegation appeared so representatively and massively in Davos.

In the absence of the majority of the leaders of the leading countries of the world, China did not have any serious opponents on the discussion platform. He could act freely, relaxedly, confidently, at times, “running into the territory”, where he hadn’t been before, or against the background of other world players, the Chinese had minimal effect on the overall situation.

So it was, for example, during a meeting of Xi Jinping with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China says: “Xi Jinping emphasized that China sincerely hopes that the situation of social stability and economic development will remain in Ukraine, he is ready to play a constructive role in overcoming the crisis by political means.”

In the interpretation of the Ukrainian president, the dialogue is presented somewhat differently. Poroshenko expressed the hope that China will contribute to the peaceful settlement of the conflict in the Donbass, "curbing Russian aggression" and "restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including the Crimea."

Experts explain China’s attention to Ukraine with a warning to the Russian president in his eventual rapprochement with the Donald Trump administration on anti-Chinese positions. This is said openly in Washington, and Beijing responded in Davos. True, during a speech at the Geneva Palace of Nations at a high-level meeting with the participation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres and UN General Assembly President Peter Thompson Xi Jinping said that Beijing will maintain “comprehensive strategic partnership and coordination” with Russia. But the sediment remained.

It is clear that China has begun to formulate its new international agenda based on multilateralism, as befits a global leader. With the United States, Beijing "will seek to build a new relationship model." Europe is waiting for a partnership "for peace, growth, reform." China is counting on "unity and cooperation" in relations with the BRICS countries. With neighboring countries, China will strengthen “cooperation on the principle of consensus, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusion”.

This perspective of China’s new policy was outlined in China by the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping. Behind this rhetoric there is no concrete practice yet. How will she change? We will follow the movement of Chinese hands ...
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18 comments
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  1. +4
    20 January 2017 14: 06
    At one time, Chinese cheap labor helped transfer European and American enterprises to China. China got the technology. Now, even with the withdrawal of enterprises, China has the technology and, I think, the equipment will not be so easy to withdraw from China. They will impose duties on the export of equipment and it will be cheaper to drop it in China.
    1. +3
      20 January 2017 14: 14
      Quote: woron333444
      China got the technology.

      At one time, the USSR also "received technology" from the United States, so that the general war in Europe was fierce. A large state that is incapable of creating technology is a semi-colony of the United States and will be forced to enter wars in the interests of the United States to obtain new technologies.
      1. +1
        22 January 2017 22: 31
        Quote: iouris
        A large state that is not capable of creating technology is the US semi-colony
        Name at least one large state that does not have the technologies it needs. If the country does not have chemical enterprises, why does it need technology in this area? As we say - "why the heck goat button accordion?" What products the country needs is the government's task - the choice of the development vector and priorities. hi
    2. 0
      22 January 2017 22: 19
      Quote: woron333444
      China got technology

      UAE also received the latest American weapons, so what? What technologies do we need? ah ti? What kind? And in response, silence. We have everything, we lack the mind wassat Our "effective managers" believe that it is easier to buy technologies in the West than to develop more efficient ones. hi And to attract foreigners to the management of companies, let these guest workers raise the Russian economy wassat
      1. 0
        23 January 2017 14: 37
        UAE also received the latest American weapons, so what? What technologies do we need?

        Arms are not ready-made technologies. If there are no brains, then there will be no technology. And China received technology along with production. If you just gave the tank or to the tank another technology for its production. These are two big differences.
  2. +6
    20 January 2017 14: 36
    Well, that's right. The 21st century is the century of domination of China.
    1. +2
      22 January 2017 11: 57
      Quote: Aaron Zawi
      Well, that's right. The 21st century is the century of domination of China.

      And Israel ... Correct Aron? If Russia is withdrawn from the game, you really come off to the fullest ...
  3. +1
    20 January 2017 16: 39
    In addition to China, there are India and Pakistan, and Nigeria, and Brazil.
    "golden billion" against 1,5 billion in China and an additional 2 billion dr "young" economies. Now we do not know the training programs in the schools of the third world (for example, Brazil, Nigeria) and we cannot say that the teachers of the future "Gagarins" and "Keldyshes" were prepared. Without China, this is with 2 or 3 billion people in countries that have not yet "flown dragons".
    What will happen in 5-10 years?
    antivirus 1 Today, 16:27 | Will we be stupid victims of deceit?
    Remember: three years after a change in US policy (they lost the globalization race to China).
    Trump (first, his team around the world will run, collect the sources and figure it out ... to the nose) will set the reference point out loud.
    A unitary state will be created from the former USSR. Only with military parity. You can count on subordinates of one chapter. to the commander.
    And one currency.
    All over the world, oligarchs (Elon Musk, Trump, D Ma, etc.) are very quick and not honest ("there are no such crimes .... for %% profit") and are overtaking the Russian Federation now. Only to fence off the Iron Curtain, as in the 20s of the 20c.
    I will not describe my delirium in more detail. "Everything will be as it should be, and not otherwise"
    External forces are much stronger than our economies (BSSSR) - only military force can unite.
    Economically, we always lost, survived due to closeness.
    Complaint More ...
    1. +1
      21 January 2017 15: 01
      1) This "golden billion" consumes 80% of the world's resources, and eight people own assets that exceed the assets of the remaining eight billion people on the planet.
      2) Russia has never been "closed", but survived at the expense of a high population, enterprise and endurance of the people, a large territory and its own resources.
      We just stopped developing, became a resource.
  4. +1
    20 January 2017 17: 04
    The Britons fell first. Now the Yankees are going. If this happens, the ship of the global economy will sink. And no China will save him. The latter will be paid.
    1. 0
      20 January 2017 21: 59
      I agree. My shirt should be closer to the body, to the size of myself and strong enough to live without imported boots and hats (do not freeze in one shirt)
    2. 0
      21 January 2017 12: 16
      Quote: vladimirvn
      The Britons fell first.

      The first "toppled" the Russians, starting "Perestroika".
  5. +1
    20 January 2017 18: 46
    Well, before the first violin in the world, China still, as we say, like China with cancer (sorry for the tautology). That's when the yuan will become the world reserve currency, when China will manage global financial flows, when it will have military bases in half the countries of the world - then it will be the main country on the planet. Although it should be noted that he purposefully goes to this.
    1. 0
      20 January 2017 22: 02
      Is Black Africa and Southeast Asia a half of the world? + Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela? Yes, and hypersound can cancel stationary bases and aircraft carriers?
    2. 0
      21 January 2017 05: 25
      No, the yuan has already entered the list of reserve currencies in the world. And if we take into account the speed with which China came to the place of the 1-2 economy (estimates are different) of the world, and not so much in terms of soap bubbles, but in terms of real production. And the bases are a dark matter, it is not known whether the Chinese need a "quiet occupation", it is easier to tie the country to oneself financially so that they are afraid to blather.
  6. 0
    21 January 2017 12: 15
    Go crazy: who to join, with whom to be friends and against whom, when to start?
  7. 0
    22 January 2017 22: 02
    The withdrawal of production from the United States led the country to exacerbate domestic problems. People should work and get decent wages for their work. This also applies to the Russian Federation. A person with a high level of affluence will choose quality rather than price when choosing a product. And if the Americans, and the Europeans, dreamed that Putin became the president of their country, now the Russians are saying that Putin needs to adopt something from Trump. Moving away from the raw material economy towards high-tech production of the same gasoline, diesel fuel, oils, organic synthesis products and other goods will allow Russia to take its rightful place among the leading economies of the world. hi
  8. 0
    22 January 2017 23: 31
    It is unlikely that China will go to an open confrontation with the United States. It's too early for them to stick out, unless Trump leaves China a choice.

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