#93-Former UK Secretary of State, Vince Cable On Why The West Needs To Engage With China and India Rationally

Sir Vince Cable is one of Britain's most experienced observers of Asia's rise, having tracked China and India for over three decades from inside both business and government. As Chief Economist at Shell in the 1990s, he built the scenario work that helped shift one of the world's largest companies towards serious investment in China and India — at a time when both were regarded internally as too risky to touch. He later served as the UK's Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015, leading Britain's trade engagement with Beijing and Delhi during the coalition government, and went on to lead the Liberal Democrats.His new book, Eclipsing the West: China, India and the Forging of a New World, argues that two Asian superstates will end three centuries of Western dominance by 2050 — and that the competition, unlike the Cold War, will be won or lost in economic rather than military terms. The book was named a Financial Times Best Book of 2025 for economics and shortlisted for the Westminster Book Awards.This conversation matters because Cable has sat on both sides of the West's China dilemma — as the minister championing engagement, and as a witness to Britain's turn towards securitisation — and he names, from the inside, the decisions he believes his country got wrong.This is the 92nd episode Of The Front Row Podcast.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Introduction 0:52 Inside Shell: Seeing Asia's Rise Early 4:35 Persuading Shell to Bet on China and India 6:42 Selling Britain to Beijing and Delhi 8:48 Was the Coalition Naive? 11:05 Superstates, Not Superpowers 12:26 What China and India Have in Common 15:23 Two Models of State Capitalism 18:04 Thank You PlaudAI 19:45 The Reality of Doing Business In China And India 22:18 Why Britain Turned Against China 27:16 The Perception Gap with Southeast Asia 30:10 The Kindleberger Trap 33:06 From Returns to Resilience 35:10 Three Futures for the World Order 40:19 India: The Swing Superstate 45:11 The Case for Multilateral Optimism 48:27 What Britain Must Fix First 50:35 Advice for Young Southeast Asians A huge thank you to our amazing Front Row Friends for supporting and advancing the podcast: @marinama2728@deborahchoi1455@annkowong@yewchoutan5876Full transcripts of episodes can be found here: https://www.ykeith.com/tag/podcast/Feel free to mingle in the comments below or head to...Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrow.65/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-yap/Website: www.ykeith.comEmail: [email protected] access to every episode by subscribing for free on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/keith-yap8 or Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/front-row/id1771599400