World looking for sense of stability from Xi's visit to Switzerland
- By David Maguire
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail CRI, January 17, 2017
|
|
|
Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during a welcome ceremony held by all members of the Swiss Federal Council in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 15, 2017. [Photo: Xinhua/Xie Huanchi] |
President Xi Jinping is making the first visit by a Chinese leader to Switzerland this century but it is his opening speech to the elite World Economic Forum at Davos that is dominating the media spotlight.
The forum is held annually in a resort town in the Swiss Alps and is famous for the world leaders, corporate chiefs, senior bankers and occasional clutch of opportunistic celebrities it attracts. They surge to this highest town in Europe to attend a crystal-ball gazing conference which consists of panel discussions, speeches, one-on-one stage interviews, behind-the-scenes background briefings and backroom dinners and lunches.
This year's Davos starts on January 17 and concludes on January 20, the day of inauguration of a new president of the United States.
The forum is offering a business-as-usual start to the 2017 calendar year and its theme is "Responsive and Responsible Leadership." It is snatching a time of calm after a year of disruption (Brexit, U.S. elections) and before what could be next as the world comes to terms with anti-globalization sentiment, a hard shift to the ideological right, and the re-emergence of varying levels of strong nationalism.
In that context, the pragmatic and unpretentious Switzerland is the perfect place for the gathering of VIP opinion leaders, law-makers and investors to ruminate over how 2017 will play out.
China's President Xi Jinping will open the forum, the first Chinese President to attend in the event's 46-year history. His four-day visit to Switzerland also includes a state visit to the central European republic renown in China for its watches, chocolates, knives and Nespresso.
Xi's talks and meetings in Switzerland reaffirm China's commitment to the practical and effective economic and trade cooperation the two countries share. Their history of mutual support is rooted in Switzerland being one of the first Western countries to establish formal ties with the new China, on 17 January, 1950, and it being the first country to establish an industrial joint venture in China in 1980.
In recent years the countries have established a free trade agreement, allowing exchange of goods and services and mutual investment to flourish, including financial and monetary cooperation. China is Switzerland's largest trade partner in Asia.
Importantly however, China is attracted to the Swiss strengths in innovation, particularly in helping to deal with the Middle Kingdom's environmental challenges. Talks are being held on project collaboration in areas such as green consumption, energy efficiency, renewable energy and low-carbon city development.
Notwithstanding the importance of the Sino-Swiss relationship and its on-going progress, Swiss President Doris Leuthard is firmly convinced of the importance of the stabilizing effect President Xi's visit will have on both Europe and the world.
"It will be a very important visit for the whole of Europe," she said. "As you know we are in a difficult situation ... I think China can use this situation to show its world power status and how it can be a factor of stability," she added.
The "difficult situation" she mentions has been a time of significant upheaval in Europe: the wake of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the EU, the pressing plight of Syrian refugee assimilation, widespread terrorism, and Russia's flagrant meddling in geopolitical affairs and territorial conflict.
Political leaders in Western democracies are being challenged and discarded as populations try to reclaim national identities. France is certain to elect a new President and Europe's strongest leader, Angela Merkel, faces a strong battle to stay in power.
Further development of the concept of globalization in which borders are reduced to lines on a map is on hold as steel fences are installed and brick walls are promised to keep out unwanted economic migrants or political refugees.
The resolution of the UK's exit from the European Union appears timed to coincide with the inevitable realignment of European politics and will test the Union's solidarity as a trade and economic entity as much as it will disrupt the UK.
On another stage, in another continent at the same time as the Davos forum unfolds, the United States is preparing to inaugurate its next President, Donald Trump, introducing the world to another unknown element in the teetering global mix.
The new leader of the world's largest economy and beneficiary of a questionably functioning democracy, Mr. Trump has given notice that U.S. politics will be played differently in a global sense and strongly nationalistically in a domestic sense.
China's President Xi Jinping will have delivered the opening address at the Davos forum by the time Donald Trump accedes to power in Washington. And his essence of stability will have had time to sink in.
The increasingly global statesman Xi is expected to register China's perspective on the current state of world order and the imminent challenges to sustaining a globalized economy. It will also be an opportunity for him to introduce the world to China's prevailing economic conditions and prospects for the future.
This will strike a chord with the Davos audience of global movers and shakers who have stood witness to the seismic changes the world has undergone in the past two years as the collective political and economic axis has been jolted.
So Xi's business-as-usual message proposing active efforts to continue to drive economic globalization toward more inclusive development has the potential to assuage their realistic fears.
His theme of proffering a united approach to "reduce uncertainties" by injecting confidence and solidarity into the international business community reflects a leadership position that in these challenging times should earn him a standing ovation. Dr. David
Dr. Maguire has been commentating on China for CRI radio programs for five years. He is a university professor in communications and journalism.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)