China will break with a 30-year tradition by not sending high-level officials to the World Economic Forum at Davos, which falls this year in the middle of Chinese New Year festivities.

Beijing approached WEF organisers early in 2011 and suggested they move this year’s gathering to an earlier date, making it possible for senior Chinese officials to attend the event. “Can we imagine that this event takes place in Christmas?” asked Cheng Li, a China specialist at the Brookings Institution in the US. “A more telling point is that nowadays an international economic forum without the presence of China is an embarrassment, not for China, but for the forum organisers.”

China will be represented by Zhang Xiaoqing, vice-minister of China’s National Development and Reform Commission and a regular Davos participant, and Donald Tsang, chief executive of Hong Kong.