"China is very likely to be the second-most-powerful country -- if it isn't now, then within a decade"

Explosive growth in China and India, coupled with Japan's clout as the world's No. 2 economy, has long been expected to shift economic power from the United States to Asia as this century progresses. The financial crisis and resulting Great Recession are accelerating that process.

SHOOT: Yes, it's easy to think so, easy to agree. Unfortunately China will not emerge from its economic chrysalis. Why? Because they are and will be resource-strapped. They may continue to expand for a time, but the prognosis will be global contraction over the longer term. This applies, almost without exception, to every country. Because by definition, once you've reached the peak of cheap energy, globally, growth is no longer feasible. Some countries can import energy, and shoulder others countries out, but this is only a temporary measure, and a precursor to the most wasteful and inefficient activity of all: war.

clipped from finance.yahoo.com BEIJING (AP) -- The auto-parts maker Delphi Corp. is headquartered in Troy, Mich., in the heart of the region that made the United States the car capital of the world. It's a place where the phrase "buy American" is right at home. Now the 3,000 employees of Delphi's brake and suspension unit are getting a new boss. Battered by weak sales, Delphi is selling the unit to investors led by a company named Shougang Corp. Shougang is a steel maker owned by the government of China -- a government that calls itself communist but espouses a "socialist market economy" as it marches down globalization's road toward a capitalistic future. "Everyone's so desperate for cash that the Chinese show up with a checkbook and people say, `Yes, please'," says Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics, a Beijing research firm. "China certainly comes out of the crisis stronger rather than weaker, and it's the opposite for the United States," says Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.