According to many experts, China is already the largest economy on the planet - yet its relations with the rest of the world have deteriorated in recent years, and are now at an all-time low. Is this a passing phase caused by the shockwaves of the Covid pandemic and the personalities of leaders in China and in the USA, or are the current divergencies going to become wider and more entrenched, as China grows economically and develops technological leadership? Can the West learn from its past mistakes and engage successfully with China on many common interests, or are we on the verge of a new Cold War?

In The Chinese Conundrum, Vince Cable - author of the the Sunday Times number-one bestseller The Storm: The World Economic Crisis and What it Means - provides an answer to these and many other topical questions of global politics and economy, examining the long history of relationships between China and the West, as well as the change in attitudes on both sides of the divide, with a particular focus on the possible repercussions of the recent election of Joe Biden as president of the United States. The result is a gripping, insightful and accessible investigation into the intricacies of today's economic and geopolitical situation.

Vince Cable was MP for Twickenham for twenty years, retiring in 2019. He was Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade in the Coalition government between 2010 and 2015. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including the memoir Free Radical, the number-one bestseller The Storm, about the banking crisis, the novel Open Arms and, more recently, the non-fiction book Money and Power. He is a regular columnist for The Independent, and is married with three grown children.