Global solution providers like China need to be supported

One year ago, when Donald Trump was sworn in as US president, his European Union counterparts still believed he would take the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership forward. But with Trump sticking to his "America First" isolationist policy, which he espoused during his presidential campaign, the EU decided to pursue globalization and deeper international engagement.

This is a typical example of a split in the developed world. It is also the backdrop against which more than 70 heads of state and government and up to 3,000 international business tycoons and opinion shapers will debate the future of the global economy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, from Tuesday to Friday.

The theme of this year's forum is "creating a shared future in a fractured world", with "shared" and "fractured" representing two contrasting key words, indicating the urgency to cope with the distressing reality of today's world.