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The World Ahead | China in 2024

China’s leaders will seek to exploit global divisions in 2024

But they will continue to preach harmony

Illustration: Cristiana Couceiro

By David Rennie

China will pursue two contradictory goals at once in 2024. Xi Jinping and other Communist Party bosses will seek to rally and lead a bloc of countries that are sceptical of an American-dominated world order. But even as China’s rulers prepare for an age of division and great-power competition, they will present their country as a defender of global unity.

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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2024 under the headline “An undeclared cold war”

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