The sleepy town of St. Austell in the British county of Cornwall wasn’t quite where I expected to hear the world being put to rights. But over a traditional English breakfast in a small bed and breakfast this summer that’s just what I overheard.
“I don’t think we have a very good future. We just can’t compete with them,” lamented one woman, who I guessed was in her late 60s. “I know. We don’t spend anything on training, on apprenticeships. So they send the jobs there instead,” replied her companion.
“Them” were the Chinese. “There” was China. And, even in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, the extraordinary rise of the People’s Republic apparently looms large in people’s consciousness.
Read Full Article »