Whilst David Cameron’s hectoring over EU membership and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s taste for cognac at breakfast continue to dominate the headlines, the tectonic plates gradually shift over on the other side of the world.
Nobody can doubt the importance of the EU question and the 海角视频’s status, whether you are Mr Cameron, Ed Miliband or Nigel Farage posing with a pint of real ale outside the Lamb and Flag. But it’s not the only economic debate in town.
The late, great Auberon Waugh once argued that the “in or out” EU debate was ultimately something of a sideshow compared to the creeping Americanisation of much of 海角视频 society.
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Bron certainly had a point or two, as we consider the American-style shopping malls, the 24-hour TV and radio, the fast-food emporia, the crazy compensation culture with its no-win no-fee lawyers.
Just to make matters even worse, the USA has now overtaken us in the football stakes, qualifying for the last 16 of the World Cup whilst Roy Hodgson’s bruised foot soldiers were making their sad way home.
At least Wayne Rooney and co weren’t humiliated on the field by the Chinese. But it’s probably only a matter of time as we consider the extraordinary economic and cultural growth of the biggest communist superpower on the planet.
Back in late 2010, eminent economist Professor Leslie Young, from the Asia Pacific Institute of Business within the Chinese University of Hong Kong, argued in a fascinating speech at Aston Business School that the western world had already been outwitted by the Chinese.
He said at the time: “The US economy has been fatally hit by the iceberg that is the Chinese, state-owned, market-driven economy.
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“Under capitalism, the normal mechanism controlling growth is shareholders taking out capital and spending it. That’s not happening in China because the state-run, market-driven economy there just keeps reinvesting the capital and there’s no appetite to devalue the dollar.
“The crux of the problem is America needs to manufacture goods and export them.
“Contrast that with China which is running an export surplus because Mao Tse Tung had a simple but brutal answer – he wiped out landlords and capitalists.
“So it’s not cheap labour fuelling China’s economy... it’s the fact that the state controls the capital and reinvests all surpluses back into China that makes the difference.”
It’s more than three and a half years since Professor Young’s Birmingham analysis of the economic collective model powering the growth of the Far East superpower.
In that time, the single biggest economic success story here in the West Midlands has been the non-stop rise and rise of Jaguar Land Rover, which has created thousands of jobs on the back of a new model range and intensive export drives.
Its biggest export market today is not the US or Europe, but China.
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That sales drive has helped the 海角视频 amass a large export surplus with China, which grew threefold last year alone. The West Midlands sold £1.74 billion more goods to Beijing than it imported in 2013, with the JLR phenomenon accounting for around half that growth.
Over at Longbridge, Shanghai-controlled MG 海角视频 has been able to withstand millions of pounds of losses over the years because it is backed by Chinese resources, supporting hundreds of West Midland jobs.
At Coventry, body parts maker Covpress is helping create up to 5,000 new jobs in Shandong province with a new half a million square feet factory, a year after a £30 million China-海角视频 buyout.
Chinese carmaker Geely bought the collapsed Coventry black cab maker Manganese Bronze for £11 million while Guangdong-based NVC unveiled a new £5 million lighting factory at Rubery in 2011.
Chinese car maker Changan is currently looking to create more than 100 jobs at the Advanced Manufacturing Hub in Aston.
In 2009, the assets of another renowned West Midland manufacturer, van-maker LDV, were bought by Chinese businesswoman Qu Li. The LDV Maxus-style van, for years a proud Washwood Heath product, has been revived by SAIC, with orders as far afield as Australia.
It’s not just the manufacturing sector being targeted by the Chinese.
Chinese buyers are signing up for slices of Birmingham city centre real estate in unprecedented numbers; 30 per cent of the buyers at the Cube development were a mix of mainland nationals and Hong Kong Chinese while 43 per cent of purchasers at the Hive in Eastside were from China.
On the High Street, an 89 per cent stake in the House of Fraser group – including stores in Birmingham’s Corporation Street, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Leamington Spa and Wolverhampton – was sold to Chinese conglomerate Sanpower Group as part of a £480 million deal.
Meanwhile, a Chinese consortium from Hangzhou has bought the Grade II listed 130 Colmore Row with plans for a China business centre while Peng Global Holdings acquired Quayside Tower in Broad Street last autumn.
Back in the political world, Mr Farage will doubtlessly continue to grin merrily for the cameras and knock back his beer while Mr Cameron will carry on booming away about the EU in that irritatingly know-all tone.
But, whether we leave or remain in the EU, the China Syndrome is here to stay in the West.