Trump A No-Show At Davos; China Steps Up

Click here for an article at The Washington Post by Ishaan Tharoor, entitled "China plays the adult as Trump attacks the system."

Trump is not there and has no representative there. "A member of Trump's transition team told Bloomberg that the president-elect felt a star turn at Davos would betray his populist image."

China has taken advantage of the situation, stepping into the vacuum:

Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first visit to the conclave and delivered the event's de facto keynote speech with an hour-long defense of globalization on Tuesday. His remarks were a thinly-veiled riposte to Trump's hostility to free trade deals and open borders.

Richard Quest, formerly with the BBC and now with CNN, tweeted: "It's surreal. A Chinese president giving a speech one might have expected from a US president."

Benjamain Ramm, editor-at-large at openDemocracy, who presents documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, tweeeted:

World's most powerful communist, Xi Jinping, argues for free trade at Davos, while president-elect of 'free' world argues for protectionism.

In the article, Tharoor says:

Trump has been quite clear about his desire to upend the international system, stem the tide of globalization and immigration and even potentially slap tariffs on Chinese goods. Xi, meanwhile, presides over a stifling one-party state that will have much to prove and that needs significant political reform if it's going to match its leader's lofty rhetoric.

Trump, ignoramus that he is, seems about to send the world spinning into chaos.