DIn the large, half-filled room, Jake Sullivan lists the world’s disorders. Joe Biden’s national security adviser, one of the United States president’s closest collaborators, addresses the Russian war in Ukraine, the attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea and the Chinese risk exacerbated by the victory of Taiwanese separatists in the elections of January 12.
When they go out, the participants of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, encounter a different atmosphere. During the American speech, the hall was entirely dressed in red, decorated with multicolored kites. The city of Dalian, a partner of the event, is celebrating the Chinese New Year a little early. An all-you-can-eat fine buffet, an immense white radish sculpture and radiant faces, the port city in northeast China, which hosts a “Chinese Davos” every year, is honing its image as a friend of the West. Far from the warnings of Jake Sullivan on the other side of the partition.
So goes Davos, still trying to hold together the fragile threads that unite businesspeople from all continents. As in 2017, when President Xi Jinping came to sing the praises of globalization, Beijing chose to play the dove of world trade. Prime Minister Li Qiang, appointed less than a year ago, did not come alone: 150 members of his delegation accompanied him, adding to the hundred or so Chinese entrepreneurs already there.
Appeasement speech
A mass arrival to deliver a speech of appeasement. Launched in a bold metaphor comparing the Chinese economy to the majestic Alps whose beauty can only be appreciated from a distance, he silently blamed American discrimination and opened his arms to foreign investors. “Investing in the Chinese market is not a risk but an opportunity”he said, saying he was ready to relax regulations.
This call is not innocent. In the second quarter of 2023, the flow of foreign investments was negative, a first since 1998. Money is fleeing a country that is suddenly scary. The latest sign in January was that Western consultants were investigated for espionage.
Like its president, Li Qiang is the apostle of current globalization which establishes the supremacy of Chinese industry in the global supply chain, so efficient when it is stable and fluid. “We do not want decoupling but to make our supply chains less risky”, responded diplomatically the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Way to mark the end of a world which so pleases the entrepreneurs of Davos but which is now behind us.