The pulse of powers in an era of conflict and confrontation exhibits its rawness in Davos

The world is going through “an era of conflict and confrontation, of fragmentation and fear” that represents “the greatest risk to the global order in the post-(world) war era,” as summarized this Tuesday in Davos by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The opening day of the World Economic Forum exposed the risks in all their starkness, with the current crises—Ukraine and the Middle East—and with the great pulse of powers that encompasses everything. Senior representatives from Beijing, Washington and Brussels have landed in Davos to argue their positions before what is probably the most powerful audience in the world due to the confluence of economic, political, technological and opinion leaders.

The cross-reading of the approaches of these three major actors on the global scene—the two superpowers, the United States and China, and the EU—is not reassuring. There is no safe path in sight so that the competition between the first two does not turn into confrontation, nor another for the EU to be successful in building a secure autonomy and in contributing to a world based more on rules than on force.

It was started by the Chinese Prime Minister, Li Qiang, who heads an important delegation from his country in Davos. Li agreed with Von der Leyen in the diagnosis that, after decades of progress, “trust has been eroded” and needs to be rebuilt. Without naming him, he delivered several broadsides at the United States, with two underlying political reproaches: the first, about the trade restrictive measures that Washington promotes considering that Beijing makes abusive use of free trade and that it takes advantage of Western technology for murky objectives; the second, about the reluctance of the United States to make way for a reform of the world order that establishes shared and accepted rules in a world with balances very different from that of the post-war.

“We must bet on multilateralism. It is the right direction,” Li said, in response to a question at a plenary session. “But what are the rules? Who establishes them? If the rules are defined only by some countries, then we will have to put quotes around the word multilateralism. This must be based on rules recognized by the entire community,” she considered. This approach is linked to multiple statements signed by Beijing together with Moscow in which they demand a change in a global order that they consider abusively dominated by the West.

Previously, in his speech, Li launched a range of proposals to rebuild broken trust through levers of economic cooperation. Among them, the suggestions to strengthen the coordination of macroeconomic policies of large countries and a range of ideas that can be summarized in rejecting trade barriers and protectionism, maintaining the fluidity of supply chains and trusting in productive specialization stand out.

Mistrust between the US and China

It is largely the expression of a desire to return to the situation prior to the worsening of tensions between the United States and China, one in which the Asian giant had the possibility of growing spectacularly. But in Washington there is an absolute consensus, perhaps the only one in hyperpolarized American politics, that one can no longer trust in a peaceful rise of a China serenely incorporated into the world order, which for years benefited abusively from a framework that gave it an advantage, and that providing it with cutting-edge technology to support military and security forces whose future use is uncertain is suicide.

Jake Sullivan, White House security advisor, gave a speech a few months ago in which he articulated in detail the vision of the current US presidency in which action in the economic and technological fields are essential pillars of the strategy of security. In this key we read the restrictions on exports to China of strategic technologies such as high-end microchips. In Davos, Sullivan took advantage of his speech in 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 the reading that could be done between the lines of the Li's words, which implied that restrictive attitudes impede the progress of the less prosperous. Sullivan also articulated a defense of his Administration's policies in the Middle East crisis.

Significantly, Washington's top representatives in Davos are Sullivan himself and Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, a tandem with a diplomacy and security profile, while Beijing has chosen to send the prime minister, traditionally a reference on economic issues. Li took advantage of his speech to announce that the Chinese economy grew by 5.2% in 2023.

The Biden Administration here seeks to consolidate its policy of strengthening Washington's international alliances, which Trump had shaken, closing ranks with them in the face of Putin's challenge, trying to envision ways to resolve the conflict in Gaza and convince partners and companies. of the need to reduce dependencies on China that could prove, in his opinion, dangerous. Blinken did not give any public speeches this Tuesday and took advantage of the forum to hold bilateral meetings.

“To regain trust, prejudices must be dispelled,” said Li, in another indirect jab at Washington, whom he accuses of taking actions based on speculation about future behavior. The prime minister tried on different occasions to link his defense of free trade in technology, which is of interest to Beijing, as also beneficial for developing countries. He introduced the idea that it cannot be accepted that “new technologies only benefit a few.”

After Li, Von der Leyen intervened, who tried to present the EU as a geopolitical actor that can “lead a response” that will rebuild the broken trust, the fragmented global scenario, in the midst of a competition “not seen in decades” and of “overcoming enormous challenges,” from regional crises to climate change, from the advent of artificial intelligence to geographic changes.

Von der Leyen vindicated the resilience of the EU, pointing to its ability to free itself at a stroke from energy dependence on Russia, and underlined the momentous opening of negotiations for the accession of Ukraine. kyiv's entry “will 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 current difficulties for the US and the EU to unlock new aid to Kiev, but he launched harsh criticism about the past hesitations on the part of of the partners when handing over weapons, which in his opinion led to “lost opportunities.” Zelensky flatly rejected diplomatic solutions that represent a freezing of the conflict: “Putin is a predator who is not satisfied with frozen products.” The only solution, Zelensky said, is a “just and lasting peace.” This speech gave a clear context to the initiative, 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 risk of disinformation as a threat that can reduce the operational capacity of democracies. He defended the regulatory measures adopted to date by the EU in the technological field, 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 will allow access start-ups and small and medium-sized businesses to their supercomputers “something similar to what Microsoft does with ChatGPT, making it work on its own supercomputers.” There is an attempt to compete in the strategic technological race.

Von der Leyen also made a brief assessment of European actions to “reduce risks” of dependency, a concept that she presented precisely in Davos last year and that was subsequently very successful, supplanting the previous idea of ​​“decoupling” that was widely circulating in Washington. . In his speech, the risk inherent to the first measures of restrictions on exports of strategic materials by China and the strong dominance of the Asian giant's companies in green technology sectors appeared.

However, significantly, Von der Leyen did not utter a single word related to the conflict in Gaza in her speech. It is the clear symptom of the serious division of the partners in this matter, one of the neuralgic points of this world full of risks. This shows how the EU faces serious problems in being an effective geopolitical actor in the “era of conflict and confrontation” that the president of the European Commission describes.

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