00:00Vince Cable is the former leader of the Liberal Democrat Party and was Britain's Business Secretary.
00:05Between 2010 and 2015.
00:08Well, it's extremely important.
00:10But at the moment, rather one-sided.
00:11I mean, we have a lot of Chinese tourists.
00:15And Chinese students come into the UK and they're very welcome and they make a value.
00:20Contribution to the British economy and more generally, but there aren't.
00:25Too many people going the other way.
00:27It's partly issues of language.
00:30I think, but we haven't yet gotten a kind of reciprocal flows.
00:35On a big scale.
00:36So I'd like to see more British people going to China.
00:40But what I do discover is that where people have studied.
00:45Particularly, I had long visits to China or business relationships.
00:49This very often.
00:50Consolidates into good friendships and deeper understanding.
00:55And that's what we need rather than superficial sloganing.
01:00What would a more stable and mutually beneficial China-UK relationship.
01:05What would a more stable relationship look like?
01:07And what steps should we look at?
01:10What would a more stable relationship look like?
01:13What would a more stable relationship look like?
01:14Well, we have a more stable relationship.
01:14I think we would.
01:15an improving and stable relationship in the days of the coalition government.
01:20When I was a member and very actively involved in the
01:25engaging with the Chinese, it was called the golden era and there was perhaps a
01:30bit unfortunate because it gave me a rather exaggerated impression about what was actually
01:35happening.
01:36But nonetheless, the themes were business-like.
01:40It recognized that there were threats, but there were also opportunities.
01:45You have to balance these in a grown-up way, it's the kind of thing which any big
01:50company engaging in international business has to do.
01:55It's a dynamic relationship that recognizes threats and opportunities on both
02:00sides and is therefore stable rather than lurching from extremes.
02:05And the way to get the extreme enthusiasm to deep freeze is essentially what's required.
02:10I can't let you go without mentioning that you're hugely popular on China's
02:15Instagram you you you have an enormous following it seems
02:20and huge amounts of interaction with with Chinese people on social media
02:25well I'm absolutely delighted with that I'm not quite sure I have that
02:30same level of following here um but no but something suggested to me when I
02:35was in China a few months ago there is an excellent
02:40organization called cam rivers that promotes exchange between the two
02:45countries and they help to um curate my contribution
02:50to red note and I'm getting really excellent feedback back
02:55from uh Chinese people you know who would I think genuinely curious about
03:00me there's um there aren't many former ministers on this account
03:05and generally curious about the UK and I I'm able to discuss this in a very
03:10dispassionate open honest way and that seems to go down well with the Chinese
03:15leadership
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