Threats to the future of democracy look overrated these days, given the glaring leadership weaknesses now evident in Russia, China, and Iran. Add relief that the U.S. midterm election came off with few of the stresses we saw in 2020. But there are still important (and growing) risks to preoccupy world leaders, business decisionmakers, and the rest of us in 2023. Here are the most important. ▶
BY IAN BREMMER
WORLD
MAXIMUM XI
Xi Jinping now has a command of China’s political system unrivaled since Mao with (very) few limits on his ability to advance his statist and nationalist policy agenda. But with no dissenting voices to challenge his views, his ability to make big long-term mistakes is also unrivaled. That’s a massive global challenge given China’s outsize role in the world economy.
We see risks in three areas this year, all stemming from Maximum Xi. The ill effects of centralized decisionmaking on public health will continue with COVID-19’s spread. Xi’s drive for state control of China’s economy will produce arbitrary decisions, policy volatility, and heightened uncertainty for a country already weakened by two years of extreme COVID-19 controls. Finally, Xi’s nationalist views and assertive foreign policy will increasingly provoke resistance from the West and from China’s Asian neighbors.
WEAPONS OF MASS DISRUPTION
Recent advances represent a step change in the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate people and disrupt society, and 2023 will be a tipping point for this trend. A new form, known as generative AI, will allow users to create realistic images, videos, and text with just a few sentences of guidance. Large language models will pass the Turing test—a Rubicon for machines’ ability to imitate human intelligence. Advances in deepfakes, facial recognition, and voice-synthesis software will render control over one’s likeness a relic of the past.
These tools will help autocrats undermine democracy abroad and stifle dissent at home, and enable demagogues and populists within democracies to weaponize AI for narrow political gain at the expense of democracy and civil society.
Rogue Russia
A CORNERED RUSSIA WILL TURN FROM GLOBAL PLAYER INTO THE WORLD’S most dangerous rogue state, posing a serious and pervasive danger to Europe, the U.S., and beyond. Bogged down in Ukraine, with little to lose from further isolation and Western retaliation, and facing intense domestic pressure to show strength, Russia wil
