Who holds the begging bowl now?

Weetabix. It’s as traditional as you can get at the breakfast table. For generations the semi-healthy option to Kelloggs Corn Flakes and Quaker Oates. The option to a good old fry up. But now that doyen of the early healthy start has been gobbled up by no other than the Chinese.

On Thursday a state-owned company swallowed up a majority stake in Weetabix for £720m.

But this is only the start of an orgy of takeovers and buyouts that going to feature on business news worldwide for a great many years to come.

Lord Digby Jones, former director-general of the CBI, has warned that “if we don’t watch out, China will eat our lunch”. But its not only China. India, the quiet almost silent, new kids on the block are hard on the heels. Leaving the West fidgeting nervously in the corner.

As China creaks open its hyper-conservative doors to a once glorious West and India, cheeky and confident, yet hellbent on taking a lions share, it seems that whilst we lick our wounds in a double-dip ressession a whole new world is evolving under our feet. And theres nothing we can do about it.

Once the knackered, Victorian colonial masters, it seems now it is us who have to tug our forelocks. Armed with a begging bowl to go in search of the few crumbs or morsels.

Is it too late? Are we so wrapped up in our insular world? Have we finally missed the boat?

For some, its a kind of payback time. For others its opportunity for serious growth. A new world for those who once held the begging bowl.