By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, January 29, 2021

“History is moving forward and the world will not go back to what it was in the past. Every choice and move we make today will shape the world of the future. It is important that we address the four major tasks facing people of our times, (including Covid-19),” said Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China, chosen to give the opening address of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos Agenda 2021 opening day Monday (Jan. 25, 2021).

The annual meeting of world government and business leaders was virtual and livestreamed. It is normally held in Davos, Switzerland.

Xi identified the four global governance tasks (health, economic, climate and digital), and discussed China’s role in global digital governance and in enhancing global health governance while pledging to get more engaged in global economic governance.

“It serves no one’s interests to use the pandemic as an excuse to reverse globalization and go for seclusion and decoupling of supply chains,” he scolded, using the term “arrogant” to describe any country or region that disrupts globalization. “We are one Earth with one shared future to cope with the current crisis.” (That being the Coronavirus pandemic, which originated in the Wuhan Province of China.)

Citing climate and economic recession as the other crises facing the world, Xi Jinping talked about coordinating macro-economics to determine ‘sustainable’ global growth and to shift the global growth factors and goals to a global economic system.

“In the era of economic globalization, public health emergencies like Covid-19 may very well recur, and global health governance needs to be enhanced,” he said. “The Earth is our one and only home, to scale up efforts to address climate change and to promote sustainable development bears on the future of humanity. No global problem can be solved by any one country, alone. There must be global action, global response and global cooperation.”

President Xi went on to say that the way out of the problems facing the world is through ‘multilateralism’, that there must be ‘openness’ and ‘inclusiveness.’

He defined multilateralism as being about having international affairs addressed through consultation and everything decided for the world together. He gave his opinion that the building of small circles, the starting of  a new cold war that decouples supply chains and disrupts them, the placing of sanctions, and unilateral trade agreements as reasons why the world gets pushed into division and confrontation.

The president of the People’s Republic of China said the world must act on a “shared future for mankind, peace, developmental equity, justice, democracy and freedom, to make policies that are open and inclusive and safeguard an open world economy, by taking down barriers to trade and barriers to technology exchanges.” (China is well known for requiring access to intellectual property as condition of trade).

At its roots, Xi said the world needs “structural reform and international rules based on the majority of countries agreement.” He also said the United Nations and international law rules — once made — should be followed by all.

Citing the pandemic, he said: “Now is the time for major transformation.”

He said this transformation should stand by core values of multilateralism, improve global governance systems, give full play to the World Health Organization, International Monetary System, and World Trade Organization, including fulfillment of the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development regarding climate change.

It was at the conclusion of his remarks that the agenda seemed most clear, and chilling.

“China is on course … building the platform for a modern socialist country in a new development stage with a new development philosophy, fostering a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and with domestic and international circulation reinforcing each other,” Xi said.

“China will work with other countries to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity,” he concluded.

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