China vs. U.S.

German magazine Der Spiegel says that China and the U.S. are currently engaged in a battle to determine who will dominate the world of tomorrow. Perhaps unsurprisingly it's a battle that Der Spiegel thinks the U.S. will lose:

Fear is blowing through the offices of lobbyists and union headquarters of the capitol city and through the halls of Congress on Capitol Hill. …The US has fallen into a vicious cycle. …A downward spiral has been set in motion that leaves many experts cold. …Has America already lost the challenge from of the Far East? Are there no more options in the land of endless possibilities, is the long-term decline inevitable? … Doesn’t matter, which nations George W. Bush and Hu Jiantao visit: The man from Peking scores far more points with his ideology-free countenance.

Meanwhile, today's Washington Post notes that China's factories are forced to deal with rolling blackouts and "chronic energy shortages."

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Forgive me if I put my money on the U.S.

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Also, see this follow-up post on the conspicious omission of Europe as contending for global supremacy.

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Update: China's energy woes make it little different than Europe:

A drought that has struck parts of Europe this summer, combined with a string of heat waves reminiscent of 2003, is creating a risk of power outages across the Continent.

Fueled in part by the increased availability of cheap air conditioning, electricity consumption across Europe has been soaring to highs this summer. Scarce rainfall has compounded the problem by squelching production of hydroelectricity and jeopardizing output from nuclear-power plants.