China casts a long shadow over Trump and Davos
In many ways, President Trump's star turn in Davos was prefigured by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Last year, Xi took center stage at the World Economic Forum, delivering a defense of globalization and the liberal world order that was hardly typical of Chinese leaders. “Pursuing protectionism is just like locking oneself in a dark room,” Xi said to widespread agreement.
At a time of pronounced anxiety in the West — fueled by the then-nascent Trump presidency and the challenge of right-wing populists in Europe — Xi's remarks offered a degree of comfort to the global elite cloistered in Davos.
A year later, the situation has changed. Few outside China took Xi's liberal-globalist act at face value, an instinct later validated by China's purported rigging of the economic system and Xi's deepening authoritarianism. Moreover, the luster of Western populism has somewhat faded. National elections in various European countries dented the challenge of the far right, while Trump himself has shed much of his populist clothing, embracing tax legislation that thrills many of the plutocrats assembled in this snowbound Swiss town. In Davos, politicians and business leaders of various stripes scoffed at the Trump administration's recent move to slap tariffs on imports of solar energy components and large washing machines — the former a move against China, the latter harmful to South Korea, a close U.S. ally.