World Economic Forum optimistic of future
DAVOS, Switzerland: Amid growing doubts about the future of free trade and international economic cooperation, proponents of globalisation found reasons for optimism as the World Economic Forum opened last Tuesday.
The specters of President- elect Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric and the British exit from the European Union loomed over the annual event that attracts world leaders and dignitaries to this mountain resort town to discuss the state of the global economy.
But despite a populist push against globalism in the West, Secretary of State John Kerry told attendees that the “70-yearjourney” of expanding economic integration that began after World War II was not over.
“I know some people who are looking at the world and saying, ‘Oh my God, you know, the world is coming apart,’ and this and that,” Kerry said. “No, it isn’t, folks, and it won’t.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping also offered encouragement, delivering a forceful critique of the protectionism endorsed by Trump and other Western populists.
“It is true that economic globalisation has created new problems, but this is no justification to write off economic globalisation altogether,” Xi said, speaking through a translator.
“We must remain committed to developing free trade and investment.”
China was one of Trump’s chief antagonists on the stump, and many at the World Economic Forum expressed fear that his administration will begin a new era of global barriers to commercial exchange.
Trump, who will be inaugurated on Friday, has threatened tariffs of as much as 45 per cent on goods imported from China, arguing that the nation’s interests must come first in US foreign policy.
Without mentioning Trump by name, Xi offered an opposing viewpoint.
Countries, he said, “should view their own interests in their broader context and refrain from pursuing their own interests at the expense of others.”
“No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war,” Xi said to applause.
For observers in Washington, Xi’s appearance in Davos suggested a claim to the kind of international economic stewardship that Trump has rejected.
“If we look back five years from now, 10 years from now, you could say this was a turning point, at which China did move up in the direction of asserting the kind of global leadership role that the US has had for about a century and might willfully be abdicating,” said Fred Bergsten, the former director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, in an interview before Xi’s speech.
Speaking to international audiences, Xi typically eschews bold rhetoric, maintaining a low profile.
Analysts say he and other Chinese officials are aware that explicit pretensions to worldwide leadership could inflame anxieties in the United States and elsewhere.
“The Chinese have been very careful not to describe themselves as a global leader,” said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on China at the Washingtonbased Center for Strategic and International Studies, before Xi’s speech.
Xi’s address last Tuesday was characteristically measured and subdued. All the same, his themes of international cooperation and global stability offered an implicit contrast with the rhetoric from Western populist leaders. — WPBloomberg