De-risking is the hot new phrase from Western governments when it comes to managing their economic ties with China. Over the past few decades, foreign companies looked to China as their next big market, pouring resources into the country, often at the encouragement of their governments. But the pandemic, along with increasingly tense relations between Beijing and Western countries have caused a change in policy—first "decoupling" and "China plus one," and now de-risking.
The speed at which attitudes changed is unnerving some CEOs, like Ingka Group's Jesper Brodin, who has invested heavily in China both as a consumer market and as a production hub.
