President Xi Jinping leads a Chinese delegation of over 100 officials and scores of business executives attending the World Economic Forum, embodying a tectonic shift at an event that started nearly a half-century ago among Europeans and Americans. Xi’s opening plenary address Tuesday to political and business leaders is shaping up as perhaps the highlight both of this year’s WEF and Xi’s one-country European visit to ultra-stable and chronically neutral Switzerland. It comes as mainstream Western democratic leaders have been grappling with populist movements at home, including the one that helped undergird Donald Trump’s U. S. presidential election victory. Trump’s clique plans to have only one top adviser, Anthony Scaramucci, attending the forum ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration.
