Various media reports have tracked the steady growth of China as an upcoming economic superpower. They are the world's most populous country - 1.32 billion people, and 15 million more people will be born in China every year. They will shortly exceed the United States in energy consumption. Not only do they make most of the products we buy, they lend us the money to buy them. (China lends the United States something like $250 Billion per year, and the U.S. trade deficit with China is... $250 Billion per year.)

Some people have said if you could make your child bilingual, make them learn Mandarin Chinese. At some point (soon), Chinese will surpass English as the most common language for business. With Chinese people emmigrating to almost every country in the world, there are large Chinese expatriate populations everywhere. In fact, it's not unreasonable to imagine a point where every major city in North America and Western Europe has Chinese as the second most common language spoken. For instance, in the last census, a full 40% of people living in Toronto came from Asian decent.

China's economic growth rate is something like 9.5% per year, while the United States is around 4%.

So the obvious conclusion a lot of people are coming to, is that China is in a position to take over from the United States as the world's economic superpower. Countries are looking at China as a new place to sell their goods. Companies are looking at China as a cheap place to get things made. But what should other people think? What should Canadians and Americans think of China's move to dominance?

Are we all going to lose our jobs to China? Can China keep its high-growth strategy for much longer without being forced to raise the standard of living of its people, or without being a democracy?