George Soros on Russia, China and the Fight of Our Lives: Remarks Delivered at Davos

Open Society Founder and Chair George Soros painted a stark portrait of the global state of affairs in a speech at the 2022 World Economic Forum on May 24, suggesting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “may have been the beginning of the Third World War”—posing an existential threat to civilization as we know it. Repressive regimes are ascendant, while the open societies Soros has sought to foster through his philanthropic work are under siege, he said. Aided by the rise of artificial intelligence, social media and tech platforms, Russia and China today pose the greatest threat. But cracks are beginning to show in both of these repressive regimes. China’s Xi Jinping has misled his people about his government’s ability to protect them from the ravages of COVID-19. And Russia’s Vladimir Putin has grossly overestimated his military’s capabilities in the invasion of Ukraine, shocking the world’s conscience with his brutality and rallying Europe in ways that could “strengthen both its energy security