People who know me personally will know that for a while now I have been saying that the U.S. has taken a path in the last seven years as far as world leadership is concerned that has put us on the same path that the Great Britain, once the world’s great super power, followed in the last century and we will probably all watch China rise to the fore in the next century.
Robert Roy Britt, the Managing Editor of LiveScience writes about it this article:
Will China Become the No. 1 Superpower?
As the world focuses on China during the Olympics and keeps a watchful eye on Russia’s military moves in Georgia, there is an underlying expectation — and for some, fear — that China is poised to become the world’s new No. 1 superpower.
In fact, a good number of people in many countries believe the torch has already been passed.
In Japan, 67 percent of the people think China will supplant the United States as the world’s premiere superpower, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Fifty-three percent of Chinese see that as their fate.
"Most of those surveyed in Germany, Spain, France, Britain and Australia think China either has already replaced the U.S. or will do so in the future," according to the Pew report released in June.
In the United States, hope reigns: 54 percent of Americans doubt China will win out.
[…]
Four elements of a superpower
A superpower "is a country that has the capacity to project dominating power and influence anywhere in the world, and sometimes, in more than one region of the globe at a time," according to Alice Lyman Miller, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and an associate professor in National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Four components of influence mark a superpower, Miller says: military, economic, political, and cultural.
[…]
What do yo think? Where are we going and why have we headed that way?