20/20 vision

Rediscovering our common humanity in a divided world

From climate change to smartphone addiction, fake news to the workplace revolution, ST writers lay out the new decade's challenges and their hopes and wishes

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Decoupling - that icy, or perhaps worse, a fiery, splitting up between two who are inherently inseparable, with all the nasty side effects that entails. This ugly word, I fear, could become the leitmotif of the decade just begun, writ large on the world stage.

Ordinarily, the re-emergence of China, shaking off at last the poverty and isolation of the past, should be something that everyone might celebrate.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on January 12, 2020, with the headline Rediscovering our common humanity in a divided world. Subscribe