With apologies for missing this yesterday – that’ll teach me not to pay my daily homage to that fount of reactionary, fact-free unpleasantness, the Daily Mail website – but the Lib Dems’ deputy leader Vince Cable was performing the remarkable feat of inserting some common sense perspective into the paper, writing about the growing importance of China to the world’s financial affairs. Here’s an excerpt:

China now has the second biggest economy in the world, based on purchasing power, and India the fourth (Britain is battling it out for sixth place with France). This new industrial revolution is not a pretty sight. There is massive environmental damage, extreme inequality and corruption – as seen in the brilliant Slumdog Millionaire – and in China (but not democratic India) a brutal approach to dissent.

But there has also been real development, lifting hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty in the process giving a massive boost to the world economy.

In the past few months even China has been caught up in the crisis. Millions have lost their jobs and have disappeared back into the countryside. The Chinese authorities are desperately anxious that they may face unrest and they will deal with it the way that dictatorships do. But I doubt that China will be in economic trouble for very long. There is a real dynamism in the country, as in many parts of India. They do not depend exclusively on Western markets and are encouraging their own people to spend more and enjoy better public services. The Chinese and Indians have state-owned banks which have avoided the gross follies of ours.

We may find, before long, it is the Asian giants, with or without America, who are pulling the world economy forward. This will have several implications. The way that our financial system operates will radically change. … In a few weeks time world leaders will be assembling in London. No doubt Mr Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy will be jostling to stand next to Mr Obama in the middle of the photographs. I would prefer to keep my eye on the dapper, shy, Chinese man in the background (and the elderly Indian gentleman in a turban).

You can read Vince’s article in full here.

PS: amidst confernece fever, we also managed to miss the Mail’s in-depth profile of Vince, published at the weekend, looking back at his life to date.