In an era of conflict and confrontation, the pulse of the powers displays its rawness in Davos International

The world is living through “an era of conflict and confrontation, fragmentation and fear”, which represents “the greatest threat to the global order in the post-war era”, as summarized by the President in Davos this Tuesday Has gone. European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The opening day of the World Economic Forum highlighted the risks in their full gravity, with the current crises – Ukraine and the Middle East – and the great heartbeat of all things power involved. Senior representatives from Beijing, Washington and Brussels…

The world is living through “an era of conflict and confrontation, fragmentation and fear”, which represents “the greatest threat to the global order in the post-war era”, as summarized by the President in Davos this Tuesday Has gone. European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The opening day of the World Economic Forum highlighted the risks in their full gravity, with the current crises – Ukraine and the Middle East – and the great heartbeat of all things power involved. Senior representatives from Beijing, Washington and Brussels have arrived in Davos to debate their positions in front of perhaps the most powerful audience in the world for a confluence of economic, political, technology and opinion leaders.

A cross-reading of the perspectives of these three major actors on the global scene – the two superpowers, the United States and China, and the European Union – is not reassuring. There appears to be no safe way forward so that competition between the first two does not turn into confrontation, nor any other way for the EU to succeed in building a secure autonomy and contributing to a world based on rules rather than force. Is.

It was initiated by Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, who leads an important delegation from his country to Davos. Lee agreed with von der Leyen in diagnosing that, after decades of progress, “trust has been eroded” and needs to be rebuilt. Without naming them, he said several broad things with two underlying political condemnations in the United States: first, about the trade restrictive measures that Washington promotes, believing that Beijing uses free trade abusively and that it does so for unclear purposes. Takes advantage of Western technology to. , Second, about the reluctance of the United States to pave the way for reform of the world order that establishes shared and accepted rules in a world very different from its post-war equilibrium.

“We must bet on multilateralism. This is the right direction,” Lee said in response to a question at the plenary session. “But what are the rules? Who establishes them? If the rules are defined by only a few countries, we have to put quotation marks around the word multilateralism. It should be based on rules recognized by the entire community,” he opined. This approach is linked to a number of statements Beijing signed with Moscow in which they demand changes in the global order that they view as abusively dominated by the West.

Earlier, in his speech, Lee presented several proposals to rebuild broken trust through economic cooperation. Among them, there are suggestions to strengthen the coordination of macroeconomic policies of large countries and a variety of ideas that can be summarized in rejecting trade barriers and protectionism, maintaining the liquidity of supply chains, and relying on productive expertise.

Mistrust between America and China

This is largely an expression of the desire to return to the situation before the worsening of tensions between the United States and China, in which the Asian giant had the potential to grow spectacularly. But there is an absolute consensus in Washington, perhaps the only one in hyperpolarized American politics, that one can no longer count on the peaceful rise of a peacefully integrated China into the world order that has for years benefited disproportionately from a structure that has Has provided him with a status. Profit, and providing it with cutting-edge technology to support military and security forces whose future use is uncertain, is suicide.

White House security adviser Jake Sullivan gave a speech a few months ago in which he detailed the current US presidency’s vision in which actions in the economic and technological sectors are essential pillars of the security strategy. In this key we read about restrictions on exports to China of strategic technologies such as high-end microchips. In Davos, Sullivan took advantage of his speech at the plenary session to say that in his opinion Washington’s restrictive measures towards China are not a “blockade” but rather actions limited to precise areas, thus responding to those readings. Which can be done between the two. Lines from Lee’s words, which meant that restrictive attitudes hinder the progress of the less affluent. Sullivan also defended his administration’s policies in the Middle East crisis.

It is noteworthy that Washington’s top representatives at Davos are Sullivan himself and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has a diplomacy and security profile, while Beijing has chosen to send the prime minister, a reference traditionally focused on economic issues. In his speech, Li announced that the Chinese economy will grow by 5.2% in 2023.

Here the Biden administration wants to strengthen its policy of strengthening Washington’s international alliances, which were shaken by Trump, closing relations with them in the face of Putin’s challenge, imagining ways to resolve the conflict in Gaza. And trying to convince partners and companies. To reduce dependence on China, which, in his opinion, could prove dangerous. Blinken did not make any public speeches this Tuesday and took advantage of the platform to hold bilateral meetings.

“To regain trust, prejudices must be overcome,” Lee said, in another indirect jab at Washington, whom he accused of acting based on speculation about future behavior. The Prime Minister has on various occasions attempted to link his defense to free trade in technology, which is beneficial to Beijing and also beneficial to developing countries. He presented the view that it cannot be accepted that “new technologies benefit only a few people.”

Following Lee, von der Leyen intervened, who tried to present the EU as a geopolitical actor that could “lead a response” to competition “not seen in decades.” The broken trust will rebuild the fragmented global landscape. “overcoming huge challenges”, from regional crises to climate change, from the advent of artificial intelligence to geographical changes.

Von der Leyen affirmed the EU’s resilience, pointed to its ability to free itself at a stroke from energy dependence on Russia, and underlined the important opening of negotiations for Ukraine’s accession. Kiev’s accession “would be Europe’s response to the call of history,” he said.

Regarding the Ukrainian crisis, President Volodymyr Zelensky also intervened in Davos, who did not want to give too much importance to the existing difficulties for the US and the EU in giving new assistance to Kiev, but he spoke about the previous hesitation on this issue. Harshly criticized. A portion of the partners balked when handing over weapons, which in their opinion led to “lost opportunities”. Zelensky categorically rejected diplomatic solutions that represent a freezing of the conflict: “Putin is a hunter who is not satisfied with frozen products.” The only solution, Zelensky said, is a “just and lasting peace.” The speech made clear reference to the initiative that had been announced the day before in Bern to hold a summit to promote peace in Ukraine.

As far as the EU is concerned, von der Leyen placed great emphasis from the beginning of her speech on the threat of disinformation, a threat that can undermine the operational capacity of democracies. He defended the regulatory measures adopted to date by the EU in the technological sector, but showed his determination for Brussels to serve not only as a regulatory actor, but also as a driver of European technological capabilities. He announced that the EU would allow entry new companies in the area and small and medium-sized businesses for their own supercomputers “kinda like what Microsoft does with ChatGPT, making it work on its supercomputers.” The effort is to compete in a strategic technological race.

Von der Leyen also made a brief assessment of European actions to “reduce the risks” of dependency, a concept she had presented in Davos the previous year and which was subsequently very successful, replacing the previous idea of ​​”decoupling”. did which was being widely circulated. In Washington… His speech reflected the risks inherent in China’s first measures to ban exports of strategic materials and the strong dominance of Asian giants in green technology sectors.

However, importantly, von der Leyen did not utter a single word related to the conflict in Gaza in her speech. This is a clear symptom of the serious division of partners in this matter, which is one of the nerve points of this world full of risks. This shows that the EU faces serious problems in being an effective geopolitical actor in the “era of conflict and confrontation” described by the President of the European Commission.

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