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The World Ahead | China in 2025

China’s entrepreneurs must navigate stormy seas

They face challenges both domestic and foreign in 2025

Illustration of a flying balloon like a light bulb. The basket has the Chinese emblem on it
Illustration: Chloe Cushman
|SHANGHAI

By Don Weinland, China business and finance editor, The Economist

All manner of consumer-electronic devices pass through Shenzhen’s markets. The southern Chinese city is at the centre of one of the world’s densest industrial clusters for electronics manufacturing. More recently some costly parts have been making their way through the markets—but these objects can only be manufactured overseas.

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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “Innovation’s stormy seas”

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