The 8th Annual Conference of the “Athens Democracy Forum” was held in Greece from September 30 to October 2, 2020. The forum was co-sponsored by The New York Times, the United Nations and the city of  Athens, and was carried out in a combined online and offline manner. The forum focuses on rethinking the meaning of democracy in times of crisis and putting it into action.

Eric Li, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the China Forum and Board Chairman of the Guan.com, participated in the sub-forum “Capitalism in the Post-Covid-19 Era" online. Also present were Valerie Keller, CEO of Imagine, Frédéric Pierucci, former executive of Alstom Group, and Beata Javorcik, chief economist of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The meeting focused on various dilemmas faced by global capitalism. Eric Li said that in today’s world, capital and interest groups used various means to capture power and manipulate the political system to strengthen their own interests, resulting in the deterioration of the governance capacity of capitalist countries, especially in the face of the new crown epidemic. The key to solving the problem lies in political leaders, who should be determined to reform the political system to get rid of interest groups. 

Frédéric Pierucci agreed with Eric Li's views in his speech,and pointed out that the shortcomings of capitalism have appeared before the China-US trade friction and COVID-19’s outbreak. The fair rules on which capitalism depends for survival have been constantly destroyed in the past decades.