Chinese leader Xi Jinping will lead an 80-strong delegation of business executives and billionaires to the annual gathering of the powerful and super-rich in Davos next week.



Xi will be the first Chinese president to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) and lead the country’s biggest-ever delegation to the celebration of capitalism in the Swiss Alps as a statement of intent that China wants to assume a global leadership role as other world powers struggle with domestic tumult.

Xi’s entourage will include some of the country’s most powerful businessmen including Jack Ma, founder of internet group Alibaba; Wang Jianlin, chairman of property developer Dalian Wanda; and Zhang Yaqin, president of web services firm Baidu. Ma and Wang are China’s two richest people, with fortunes estimated at $34.5bn (£28.5bn) and $30.5bn, respectively, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index.

In an opening address to the conference in the exclusive ski resort, Xi will defend globalisation as US President-elect Donald Trump’s threatens trade barriers and a US retreat from international deals. Xi will warn other world leaders, business executives and celebrities that the rise of populism could lead to “war, poverty, confrontation and domination” as he takes on the mantle of defending globalisation.



David Aikman, the WEF’s chief China representative, said this year’s Bejing delegation was so large that Chinese voices would be present in nearly all discussions at Davos and other participants want “to know China’s view on global and regional issues”.

Xi will push for greater international cooperation, development and economic globalisation to help build “a human community with shared destiny”.

Jiang Jianguo, the head of China’s state council information office, said: “With the rise of populism, protectionism, and nativism, the world has come to a historic crossroad where one road leads to war, poverty, confrontation and domination while the other road leads to peace, development, cooperation and win-win solutions.”

China’s vice foreign minister Li Baodong told a briefing in Davos that Xi would set out Beijing’s views on how to “steer economic globalisation towards greater inclusiveness”.

The Chinese leader will also speak out against Trump’s accusations that China is a “big abuser” of free trade deals by artificially depressing its currency to boost exports at the expense of US jobs. Trump has vowed to impose import tariffs on Chinese goods. Li said Trump’s attacks were unjustified and warned that “trade protectionism will lead to isolation and is in the interest of no one.

Li suggested that Xi would be happy to meet members of Trump’s transition team in Davos. “The channels of communication are open,” Li said. Trump will not attend Davos, which starts just three days before his inauguration. The president-elect will be represented at Davos by Anthony Scaramucci, a multi-millionaire hedge fund manager and member of Trump’s presidential transition team.

Scaramucci, founder of hedge fund SkyBridge Capital and lavish Las Vegas investment conference Salt, is expected to this week be given an official White House role advising Trump on business affairs.

Xi is attending Davos as part of a three-day state visit to Switzerland, including a speech to the United Nations in Geneva on Wednesday.