The last sentence of this chapter is also the last sentence of chapter twenty-two, in almost identical words: because he does not contend, nobody in the world can contend with him.
The repetition is not an oversight and it is not the only one. The four propositions about not showing oneself appear in both chapter twenty-two and chapter twenty-four. The instruction to block the openings and shut the gates appears in chapters fifty-two and fifty-six. The three titles rulers use of themselves appear in chapters thirty-nine and forty-two. Chapters two, ten, thirty-four and fifty-one all carry some version of giving life without possessing.
A text with that pattern of repetition is a compilation, and the repeated units are the pieces it was compiled from. A closing formula that can be attached to a chapter about being bent and kept whole and equally to a chapter about river drainage is a formula in circulation rather than a conclusion derived from either argument.
That has a practical consequence for reading. A repeated line should be read for what it does in the chapter it is in, not treated as a fixed doctrine that the two chapters are both illustrating. Here the formula caps an argument about the position of a ruler among his people, and its force is political: a sovereign who is not competing for precedence has no rival, because rivalry requires two parties who both want the same place.
In chapter twenty-two the same words cap an argument about personal conduct, and they mean something quieter.