Xi Jinping says the world order is ‘crumbling into disarray.’ Larry Fink and the IMF are worried about a global recession

Chinese President Xi Jinping issued some of his starkest language yet about the state of the global economy on Tuesday, telling Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Beijing, “The international order is crumbling into disarray,” in remarks reported by Bloomberg, which clarified the Chinese phrase connotes not merely chaos, but also moral decay.

The two leaders were pledging closer bilateral ties and called for a joint front to preserve multilateralism—a pointed signal, directed at Washington, that Beijing intends to fill the vacuum left by America’s more unilateral posture on the world stage.

Xi’s dire assessment is increasingly shared by the world’s most prominent financial voices. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, speaking to the BBC in late March, laid out a bleak binary: Either the Iran war resolves in a way that reintegrates the country into global markets, pushing oil to $40 a barrel, or the conflict grinds on and oil climbs to $150 with years of supply disruption to follow.

“I don’t thi...