The New Silk Roads | Peter Frankopan | Modern Wisdom Podcast 108
Peter Frankopan (guest), Chris Williamson (host)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Peter Frankopan and Chris Williamson, The New Silk Roads | Peter Frankopan | Modern Wisdom Podcast 108 explores peter Frankopan Explains How Rising Asia Is Rewiring Global Power Historian Peter Frankopan argues that the world's center of gravity is shifting from the West toward Asia, particularly along the 'New Silk Roads' spanning Istanbul to Beijing. He critiques the UK and US for being trapped in self-referential politics like Brexit while missing deeper structural changes in demographics, resources, economics, and climate. Frankopan highlights China's rise, regional integration across Asia, and expanding influence in Africa and beyond, contrasting these long‑term strategies with Western short‑termism and inward focus. He also stresses the social and environmental costs of rapid growth and the urgent need for multilateral cooperation and more globally literate citizens and politicians.
Peter Frankopan Explains How Rising Asia Is Rewiring Global Power
Historian Peter Frankopan argues that the world's center of gravity is shifting from the West toward Asia, particularly along the 'New Silk Roads' spanning Istanbul to Beijing. He critiques the UK and US for being trapped in self-referential politics like Brexit while missing deeper structural changes in demographics, resources, economics, and climate. Frankopan highlights China's rise, regional integration across Asia, and expanding influence in Africa and beyond, contrasting these long‑term strategies with Western short‑termism and inward focus. He also stresses the social and environmental costs of rapid growth and the urgent need for multilateral cooperation and more globally literate citizens and politicians.
Key Takeaways
Western politics are obsessively inward-looking while global power shifts elsewhere.
Frankopan notes that British media and politics are consumed by Brexit and Westminster drama, yet for most of the world these issues are peripheral compared to shifts in Asia, resource competition, and demographic changes.
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Asia’s demographic and resource weight will define global realities.
The region from Istanbul to Beijing holds around two-thirds of the world’s population, most of its rice and wheat production, and a dominant share of oil and gas; its prosperity, conflict, or climate stress will directly shape global outcomes.
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China is pursuing long-term strategic goals, not a simple cartoon villain agenda.
From Belt and Road investments to social credit experiments, Chinese actions reflect a mix of resource security, domestic economic restructuring, regional influence, and regime stability, rather than a single master plan or purely malign intent.
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Many Asian states are integrating while Western countries are decoupling.
Where the West builds walls and exits treaties, Asian and emerging economies are signing trade deals, building infrastructure, and deepening regional ties, positioning themselves for long-term growth and influence.
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Rapid growth carries severe social and environmental costs that can destabilize societies.
Urbanization, inequality, and pollution in rapidly growing economies mirror Western industrialization but at greater speed, while climate pressures—from Chinese emissions to Amazon deforestation—threaten global systems and indigenous communities.
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Disillusionment with democracy is empowering resilient authoritarian models.
Polarization, institutional paralysis, and leaders like Trump erode the appeal of Western democracies, making China’s promise of growth-with-order increasingly attractive to some governments and elites, especially in Africa and parts of Asia.
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Global literacy and listening are now strategic necessities, not luxuries.
Frankopan argues that monolingual, Eurocentric education leaves Western citizens and leaders unprepared; understanding other histories, languages, and perspectives is essential for negotiation, cooperation, and realistic foreign policy.
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Notable Quotes
“We are living in a world that’s changing very fast, and we have this very imperial way of looking at our own importance.”
— Peter Frankopan
“If you landed from outer space and asked what really matters, Brexit really isn’t one of them.”
— Peter Frankopan
“The narrative across Asia is that their time has come.”
— Peter Frankopan
“We always assumed that as people became richer, they’d want more democracy. The evidence doesn’t show that’s the case.”
— Peter Frankopan
“My view is that the challenges we have—digital, technology, climate—can only be resolved by organizations where people all have a chair at the table.”
— Peter Frankopan
Questions Answered in This Episode
If Western publics and media remain so inward-focused, what practical steps could shift attention and education toward emerging global centers of power?
Historian Peter Frankopan argues that the world's center of gravity is shifting from the West toward Asia, particularly along the 'New Silk Roads' spanning Istanbul to Beijing. ...
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How should democracies respond when authoritarian regimes can credibly offer economic growth and visible improvements in governance or infrastructure?
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What would a genuinely long-term strategic plan for the UK or EU look like if it took Asia’s rise and climate constraints seriously?
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How can individuals in wealthy countries change their consumption patterns—on beef, fast fashion, travel—to meaningfully affect issues like Amazon deforestation and global emissions?
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What risks and opportunities does China’s Belt and Road Initiative create for smaller states that want investment but fear dependency or loss of sovereignty?
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Transcript Preview
But these are questions that our politicians need to be thinking about, need to be listening to researchers and trying to work out how do we try to correct that. How do we make this country a fairer place? How do we make it environmentally safer? How do we look after our natural habitats? How do we become more tolerant? How do we encourage people who are- who look different, behave differently, want to worship in a different way? How do we get all sides to sit around the table and, and work out how to pull together? And, um, you know, there is a price that you pay if you start to get that wrong. (whoosh)
I am joined by Professor of Global History at Oxford and Director at the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, Peter Frankopan. Peter, welcome to the show.
Hi, there.
Very good to have you here. Uh, I am holding a copy of The New Silk Roads.
Yep.
Many of the listeners will be familiar with your first book, Sunday Times bestseller. And, uh, we got a new one now, talking all things China and Asia and stuff in a area of the world that we never really know much about.
Well, um, th- I, I wrote the first book about ... I mean, I'm, I'm interested in, in all parts of history. I'm interested in looking as far and as wide as possible. A- but when I was a- when I was a young boy at school, um, I, I got fed the same stuff year after year after year. I got, I got told about Henry VIII and his wives and about the First World War and the awfulness of the trenches and about how bad Hitler was. And all of that is, is important that we learn about, but I never learned about anything else. Apart from that, I never heard the word Ottoman Empire or Byzantines. I heard a little bit about, about Russia, but not a great deal, about the Russian Revolution, but I couldn't understand why, I'm a lot older than you, Chris, I couldn't understand why people were trying to point nuclear weapons at us. We had drills once a month at my school on a Friday at two o'clock to hide under our desks. And, you know, I watched the news growing up and I heard about the Cambodian, b- you know, about the war and genocide in Cambodia or about China changing and then Tiananmen Square when I was 18. And, um, I, I was very interested about why was it that these parts of the world, like as you just said, we never spent any time talking about? And, um, I guess there are two different questions, two different reasons, uh, for the subjects I'm interested in, is first, well, what, what is interesting in these countries? You know, what, what did happen that was important and interesting? W- what are the stories that are important and interesting for people my age or, or younger than me, older than me in other countries? But also how have we managed to write our own history about current affairs too where the only thing that matters is ourselves? And, you know, today we're talking on a day where we had lots of dramatic developments about our political system here in Britain about prorogation, this sort of very unusual word about Parliament being pushed to one side. And, and for us I, I understand that really matters, w- what happens in Britain and how we get our relationship with Europe right. But, you know, for 99% of the world's population, it really doesn't matter. You know, if you're in Downtown Shanghai tonight or in Mumbai or in Cape Town or in Sao Paolo or Mexico City or in Lagos, you know, the irrelevance of what a bunch of men and women are doing in, in Parliament in London, um, i- it's important to remind ourselves of that because we are living in a world that's changing very fast. And I sometimes think that, that we have this very imperial way of looking at our, our own importance. You know, I suppose it's fair to say a- any country you look at yourselves first. You know, of course you study your own heroes, your own history, your own problems about politics and eco- economy and so on, but in that big picture, you know, 100 years ago it, it mattered a lot to the rest of the world. You know, a quarter of the world's population in 1914 owned their allegiance, or notional allegiance I s- should say to the King of England. And that world, unless I missed something-
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