T HE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM spends quite a lot of time talking about politics. The five dominant political themes at this year’s meeting in Davos will probably be the future of the EU; tensions between the US and China; the threat of a new food-price crisis that will destabilise poor countries; global governance from the UN to the Group of 20 nations; and the panoply of regional crises from North Korea to the Middle East.

As Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has pointed out, the European sovereign debt crisis poses a threat to the very future of the EU. Davos is an ideal place to discuss the issue since many of Europe’s most important leaders – from Ms Merkel to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president – will attend. They will consider whether European leaders have the political will and public backing to take a decisive leap forward towards deeper political integration, in response to the euro crisis. And, if not, whether there is any alternative to muddling through and ad hoc crisis management.

With the US and China now the world’s two largest economies, the state of Sino-American relations will loom large over the discussions at the WEF. In previous years, the main disagreements between the two nations have centred on economic questions such as currency and trade imbalances. But strategic tensions are rising.