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The World Economic Forum (WEF) convened the 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC) in Tianjin, China, on Tuesday. The AMNC is billed as the “Summer Davos Forum,” a nod to the main WEF conclave held each January in Davos, Switzerland.
The 2023 AMNC was the first time the event has been held in China since the outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. Tianjin, a port city with a population of about 14 million, went all-out for the event as a chance to rekindle international tourism.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang, point man for dictator Xi Jinping’s effort to persuade international investors that China will no longer cripple their operations with brutal health lockdowns or politically-motivated business crackdowns, told AMNC attendees that the world stands at a “historical crossroads” after the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.
AMNC covers many of the same topics discussed at the Davos meeting, but with more of an emphasis on developing economies, and since the event is held in China, the Chinese Communist Party naturally uses it for political purposes.
Li brought politics to the table by regaling attendees with boasts about the strength of the Chinese economy, even as China’s post-pandemic recovery sputters and fizzles in numerous ways. He also railed against all efforts by other nations to decouple their economies from China, as quoted by the state-run Global Times on Tuesday:
The strong growth of the Chinese economy will continue to provide impetus to global economic recovery with growth for the second quarter expected to register faster growth rate than in the January-March quarter, according to Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony at the forum.
De-risking and reducing interdependence is a false proposition as the global economy has already become intertwined.
