China’s “summer Davos” 2023

Next month the World Economic Forum will be hosting its “Summer Davos” in Tianjin, China.

Described as the “Annual Meeting of the New Champions”, this has been an important yearly WEF event since 2010, always hosted somewhere in China.

In Klaus Schwab’s words:

The Annual Meeting of the New Champions creates a unique platform to boost innovation and strengthen collaborative efforts on a global level.

Here is its happy blurb for 2023:

Back in January this year it was reported by TASS, citing Bloomberg, that no “business representatives from Russia and China” would attend the annual WEF meeting in Davos, and this has been cited by some as further evidence of the alleged split between Western finance and the BRICS nations. An alt-media counter-narrative further presents it as showing the increasing irrelevance of the WEF in a new “multipolar” world.

However, it should be noted that China’s “vice premier” Liu He actually was at Davos, and, on January 17, gave a “special address” about the importance of international cooperation and tackling climate change.

We think the counter-narrative may have elided this part, but, together with the fact China continues hosting WEF’s annual summer extravaganza, it suggests the rift is perhaps not as deep or wide as many claim.

This year’s “new champions” event will see “over 1500 global leaders” converge in Tianjin, northern China, to discuss ‘Entrepreneurship: The Driving Force of the Global Economy’. It has “six core themes”:

Rewiring growth
China in the global context
Energy transition and materials
Safeguarding nature and climate
Post-pandemic consumers
Deploying innovation.

In an exciting indication of the general direction being taken, one of its co-chairs is Carrie Chan Kai Yi, co-founder and CEO of Avant Meats, producer of lab-grown “food”.

Other co-chairs include…

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Director General, World Trade Organization

Robin Zeng, Founder, Chairman and CEO, Contemporary Amperex Technology , makers of lithium batteries

Benedikt Sobotka, Chief Executive Officer, Eurasian Resources Group, who are all about “driving global change whilst holding true to our values”, whatever that means.

There are others, but you get the picture.

How should we view the fact China is continuing to host this WEF-sponsored entirely globalist “annual meeting of the new champions” during a period of alleged monumental new east-west divide?

Are fences being mended or were they never as broken as many allege?

Is the WEF really struggling to catch up with this fresh new “multipolarity” that allegedly took it by surprise, or is that just a carefully curated misdirection?

Will Russian representatives be attending this year?

We await developments…