Weekend Roundup: Davos Elites Look To
China’s Global Role As America Steps
Back
While Asia embraces globalization, the popular tide
turns against it in the West.
01/13/2017 05:04 pm ET
Nathan Gardels Editor-in-chief, The WorldPost
WorldPost Illustration/Getty
Xi Jinping will be the first Chinese president to attend the summit in Davos.
A new rift in world affairs appears to be opening up: a division between pro-globalization Asia, with China
in the lead, and the transatlantic nations that have turned against globalization.
“President Xi’s appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week,” I write in a blog post this
week, “comes at both an auspicious and inauspicious moment. It is an auspicious moment because
President-elect Donald Trump has all but announced America’s withdrawal from the world it has largely
made over recent decades — and from which Asia has most benefited.” Since Europe has become inwardly
absorbed with anxieties over terror attacks, immigration and failed integration, I continue, “that leaves
China as the one major power with a global outlook. Ready or not, China has become the de facto world
leader seeking to maintain an open global economy and battle climate change. In effect, President Xi has
become the ‘core leader’ of globalization.”
“The inauspicious aspect is the reverse,” I go on to say. “The general secretary of the Chinese Communist
Party is speaking to the converted from the pulpit in the foremost church of the global elite that gathers
annually in Davos. Aligning with the global business elites in such a high profile manner places China even
more squarely in the negative sights of the populist wave sweeping the Western democracies. It affirms in
their minds that China is the main enemy of the working and middle class in the West.” China’s increasing
show of force in the South China Sea this week in response to what it sees as provocations by the incoming
U.S. administration also does it little favor in Western eyes.
Alexis Crow makes the counter-case that globalization continues to be beneficial to the West, saying trade
is closely correlated with economic growth. “Increased wages in Southeast Asia boost demand for goods
from new economy sectors in the West,” she writes. She also notes, as a case in point, how Chinese
investment is creating thousands of jobs in Ohio.
Writing from Vladivostok, Artyom Lukin wonders how heightening conflict with China, as Trump tilts
toward a closer embrace of Moscow, will play out. “Given Trump’s obvious hostility to China and his
friendliness to Russia,” he writes, “Moscow may move into the apex spot of the triangle, having better
relations with Beijing and Washington than they have with each other.” As Lukin sees it, Russian President
Vladimir Putin may well seek to, “position himself as a sort of mediator between Trump and Chinese
President Xi Jinping.”
Based on his experiences with Putin, Alexey Kovalev offers some advice as a Russian journalist to his
American colleagues who this week faced their first press conference with Donald Trump. “Facts don’t
matter. You can’t hurt this man with facts or reason. He’ll always outmaneuver you. He’ll always wriggle
out of whatever carefully crafted verbal trap you lay for him. Whatever he says, you won’t be able to
challenge him.” He welcomes his American colleagues to “the era of bullshit.” Fearing this is only the
beginning of what’s to come in the battle between Trump and the press, Howard Fineman writes, “It’s not a
video game. It’s Washington in the Trump era, and we’ve just seen an unsettling preview.”
Many Africans are also wondering how a Trump presidency that is hostile to China will unfold for them.
As Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden report, while America’s role in the world is growing uncertain,
China is becoming more predictably favorable. As the year opened, China outlawed its domestic ivory
trade and Foreign Minister Wang Yi is making a visit to Africa his first overseas trip of the year. China has
also committed $60 billion in financing for African projects.
Writing from Singapore, Parag Khanna takes another tack entirely, suggesting that an America caught up in
the turmoil of a populist backlash might learn a thing or two not only from other successful states like
Germany, but from China as well. America, Khanna observes, “is caught in a hapless cycle of flip-flopping
parties and policies while overall national welfare stagnates. Populism has prevailed over pragmatism.” He
further remarks that, even in the West, there is grudging admiration for, “China’s ability to get things done
without perpetual factionalism holding up national priorities, such as infrastructure.”
The populist drift in both the U.S. and Europe deeply concerns the Human Rights Watch organization, Nick
Visser reports. “They scapegoat refugees, immigrant communities, and minorities. Truth is a
frequent casualty,” he cites the watchdog’s director, Kenneth Roth, as saying. Nick Robins-Early
looks at the trend of populism in Europe, noting that this year will be a test for the far-right,
specifically in France, Germany and The Netherlands.
Writing from New Delhi, Swati Chaturvedi fears the consequences of the anti-Muslim and anti-woman hate
speech that seems part and parcel of a Hindu brand of populism taking hold in India today. “Trolls,” she
says, “are the goons of the online world. ... lies and violent words can have deadly consequences in the real
world.”
In an interview, former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr sees opportunity for the regime in a Trump
presidency where others see only trouble. “Khamenei’s supporters believe not only that Trump will
maintain the Vienna nuclear agreement,” he says, “but also that his policies in Syria and the Middle East
will maintain the interests of the regime.”
Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, also has a positive spin on the
negativity surrounding President-elect Trump. He thinks Americans are more than capable of rising to
disruptive challenges of new technologies behind so much political anxiety today. Wheeler argues that the
slogan “‘Make America Great Again’ became a surrogate for ‘Make me secure again amidst all this
change.’ Great swaths of the electorate sought stability in a world where everything seemed to be
changing.” Wheeler reminds his fellow Americans that they’ve been here before: “Like today,” he says,
“the technology revolution of the 19th century produced a longing for stability. But instead of retreating,
Americans pushed forward to build a new security around new concepts. Universal education, employee
rights, governmental offsets to abusive market power and other initiatives targeted the new problems. The
result was the good old days many now long for.”
Writing from Geneva, Richard Baldwin sees a double blow to the labor market – in both rich and poor
countries ― of both offshoring and robots. “Rapid advances in computing power and communication
technology,” he contends, “will make it economical for many more people to work remotely across
borders.” As medical costs rise in the rich countries, for example, Baldwin expects to see more and more
“telesurgery” where the patient and doctor are divided by hundreds of miles.
In this world so afflicted by hatred and violence, Turkish novelist Kaya Genc also sees a way to unite
amidst division, finding beauty and peace in the quotidian event of a winter snowfall. “Snow saved
Istanbul,” he writes this week from his beloved hometown on the shores of the Bosphorous. “As flakes fell
from the sky, the city was relieved of its status as the new destination of international terror. … There was a
hint of something chilling in the air, and I felt relieved that it was not man-made.”