A Communist Party Man at Davos

For a global elite still reeling from the shocks of Donald Trump and Brexit, the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos this month offers a safe harbor. Surprisingly, some also see China as a safe harbor as well. “In a world marked by great uncertainty and volatility, the international community is looking to China,” said Klaus Schwab, the founder of the WEF, in his introduction of China’s Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping.

Xi, who was making his first appearance at the annual gathering, seemed more than delighted at the opportunity to assume the burden. To illustrate the contrast between the modern world’s unprecedented civilizational advances on the one hand, and the terrorism and regional conflict that continue to bedevil its progress on the other, he drew, which remains technically a communist one-party state, credits globalization with spurring decades of heady growth, “will keep its doors wide open,” Xi said.