DAVOS: The global elite begin a week of earnest debate and Alpine partying in the Swiss ski resort of Davos on Tuesday, in a week bookended by two presidential speeches of historic import.
One will be by Xi Jinping, the first Chinese president to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. He is expected to seek to turn the page on the US-led polity for trade that has governed since World War II in favour of a "multipolar" approach.
The other speech will be by Donald Trump when he is inaugurated in Washington as the 45th US president on Friday. His barnstorming conquest of the White House has left many in the globetrotting Davos crowd agog at his repudiation of all that they stand for -- liberal thought, free trade and open borders.
Around 3,000 government leaders, captains of industry, stars of screen and agenda-setting thinkers are braving heavy snow and the chill winds of an anti-globalisation revolt by Western voters to congregate in Davos for the 47th World Economic Forum.
Conscious of the revolt, organisers are billing the four days of discussions as "A call for responsive and responsible leadership", and top business executives agree that they must not appear oblivious to public anger.
"The advantages of globalisation are more clear in emerging markets then in developed countries. We have to listen, to help people that are concerned," Sergio Ermotti, chief executive of Swiss banking giant UBS, told AFP.
A World Economic Forum study said that within advanced economies, median per capita income fell on average 2.4 percent over the past five years, helping to explain why disaffection is so high across the West.
And the scale of the chasm between the richest and poorest was laid bare by an Oxfam report that said eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world's population.
The eight include Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is speaking at the forum this week, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, which like several other companies has remodelled a Davos shop as a promotional "pop-up" venue.
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