As discussed in these pages on numerous occasions over the past week or so, Chinese President Xi Jinping is keen on using his address at Davos to position Beijing as the torchbearer for free trade and global governance.
Xi’s visit to the World Economic Forum comes amid a populist surge in Europe and the US that threatens to replace progressivism and multiculturalism with populism and nationalism.
Here’s how I put it on Monday evening in “Western Democracy’s Last Stand: Merkel Versus Trump“:
The rising tide of nationalism perpetuated by Donald Trump in the US, Theresa May in the UK, Marine Le Pen in France, and Frauke Petry in Germany, threatens to upend the post-World War II international order in favor of a system based on a kind of “us against them” mentality where the definition of “them” depends on whether we’re talking about trade or immigration.
[…]
Angela Merkel is keen on holding down the fort in what feels like a kind of Alamo-ish last stand to defend democracy [but] the irony in all of this is that should Merkel lose the battle, the savior of Western democratic ideals may well end up being a communist.”
Well, enter the communist. Here are the key points from Xi’s address:
- Economic globalization has created new problems but it’s no justification to write it off all together
- Economic globalization powered global growth
- Any attempt to cut off capital flows is not possible and runs counter to historic trends
- Most pressing task is to steer global economic out of sluggishness
- Fundamental structural reform is unfolding, new path for global economy remains elusive
- There is no point in blaming economic globalization for the world’s problems because that is simply not the case. And that will not help to solve the problems.
- The history of mankind has shown us that problems are not to be feared.
- What should concern us is the refusal to face up to the problems.
"No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war," China's President Xi Jinping says https://t.co/CWwXmsZyb2 #wef17 pic.twitter.com/s65KuaBdOG
— Bloomberg (@business) January 17, 2017
And now it’s time for Donald Trump to call Xi a “loser”…
Your statement “the savior of Western democratic ideals may well end up being a communist.” is a remarkable. Just to be sure, you are referring to the individual that leads the country (China) that:
-maintains governance through the arcane politburo process
– Amnesty International in their World 2015-2016 report states China is “escalating crackdown against human rights defenders and a series of sweeping laws in the name of ‘national security’.”
-is building and fortifying military bases in the South China Sea
-is failing to visibly exert a stabilizing influence on their neighbor North Korea
And these circumstances and events have taken place at a time when the “progressives” have been at the zenith of their power. Have you considered the possibility that such failures (and many more) have fueled the disgust of the populations of the countries that turned the ‘progressives’ out? Would such failures not have likely caused the downfall of any particular political ideology in a democracy?
Just a collectivism of a different flavor
Xi: “Any attempt to cut off capital flows is not possible and runs counter to historic trends” … really? China doesn’t have restrictions on capital outflows?
Xi: “Most pressing task is to steer global economic out of sluggishness” … central planning and control, is such a great feature of communism (and Brussels/EU) … allows “to steer” economies (including malinvestment), huh?
China’s growth in debt (including so called non-debt ‘investments’) seem to be China’s solution in the recent past … how successful has this been in steering it’s economy out of sluggishness? …