1. This section describes the Government’s assessment of the strategic context to 2030. Its judgements are drawn from the evidence base assembled during the Integrated Review (see Annex B), including external consultation, the public call for evidence and internal analysis. 2. The nature and distribution of global power is changing as we move towards a more competitive and multipolar world. Over the coming decade, we judge that four overarching trends will be of particular importance to the UK and the changing international order: • Geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts: such as China’s increasing power and assertiveness internationally, the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific to global prosperity and security, and the emergence of new markets and growth of the global middle class. • Systemic competition: the intensification of competition between states and with non-state actors, manifested in: a growing contest over international rules and norms; the formation of competing geopolitical and economic blocs of influence and values that cut across our security, economy and the institutions that underpin our way of life; the deliberate targeting of the vulnerabilities within democratic systems by authoritarian states and malign actors; and the testing of the boundary between war and peace, as states use a growing range of instruments to undermine and coerce others. • Rapid technological change: technological developments and digitisation will reshape our societies, economies and change relationships – both between states, and between the citizen, the private sector and the state. S&T will bring enormous benefits but will also be an arena of intensifying systemic competition. • Transnational challenges: such as climate change, global health risks, illicit finance, SOC and terrorism. These threaten our shared security and prosperity, requiring collective action and multilateral cooperation to address them. Of these transnational challenges, climate change and biodiversity loss present the most severe tests to global resilience and will require particularly urgent action. These trends will overlap and interact, and the long-term effects of COVID-19 will influence their trajectory in ways that are currently difficult to predict. 24 Integrated Review