BBC world affairs editor John Simpson considers how China has become a major challenge to the EU and the United States. Read a selection of your comments below.

The following comments reflect the balance of opinion we have received so far:

How will consumers in the West pay for goods made abroad if their jobs are going to be taken away? Mathew K. George, New Haven, CT, USA

Having lived in India for the past 29 years and currently in the US, it really surprises me to see how the US market is flooded with Chinese goods. Its looks like the industrial base that made this country is being eroded and taken East. How will consumers in the West pay for goods made abroad if their jobs are going to be taken away? I think the West will have to think of ways to increase its share of exports and try to bring back the jobs here. Otherwise we could end up being toothless service-oriented economies which are totally dependant on the Occident for its goods.
Mathew K. George, New Haven, CT, USA

The Chinese are good at what the Japanese used to be. They watch, learn from Western companies then they'll divest themselves of these companies and go it alone. Both China and India have the manpower to become the dominant countries but such is the surge to get ahead and such is the pressure on the world's natural resources from increasingly greedy industry, including the increased pressure from the pollution of industrialisation, that the world will probably collapse before they get the chance.
Ian, Brechin, Scotland

There is only one thing that is capable of stopping this from happening, and that is a global oil shortage brought about by supplies running out. When the price of shipping exceeds the cost savings made by having an item made in China or India, production will be local again - and China will have to find new ways of sustaining its growth.
Oliver, D�sseldorf, Germany

I think that it is inevitable that China, (perhaps closely allied with India) will become the world's greatest ever superpower within the next twenty years. The real question is whether the USA has the flexibility to accept this inevitability and adapt to it peacefully.
Jack Charity, Bossier City, USA

I'm sorry to sound a note of pessimism but China is one of the last remaining large empires on earth. What will happen if the regions start to demand autonomy? What will happen if the regions on the Pacific Rim decide that they no longer wish to send the wealth they have created to the centre? There is a lot of money up for grabs.
Ian, UK

I totally agree with Mr Simpson, the main advantage of China and India is their population. India's democracy and highly educated English speaking workforce will help them to be a pivotal power.
Anil, Nicosia, Cyprus

Unfortunately, there is no more room at the table Charles Methot, Paris, France

China's economic ascendance has unquestionably been impressive. Unfortunately, there is no more room at the table. The future will see China struggling with the other big petroleum consumers over an ever-dwindling supply of oil at ever-increasing prices. This will drive up export prices while decreasing demand from China's biggest customers, the US and Europe. The end of cheap oil, combined with massive environmental degradation and rapidly approaching water shortages, will make China increasingly unstable in the coming decades. China's descent will be as rapid as its explosive growth, and it will be ugly.
Charles Methot, Paris, France

The Chinese leadership's main preoccupation is to raise China's standard of living. The world will be a better place if both China and India could continue to grow economically. For that matter, we should help Africa down the same road.
Patrick Yin, Fremont, CA, USA

One aspect of the collective mind of the West is its persistent emphasis on the individual and the goal or responsibility to satisfy each in all their needs. The resentment created through this ideology is far away from the collective mind of the East that sees success in an entirely different dimension. If the future to come lies in a semi-Brave New World I whisper "so be it" ...
Remi Paluszak, Fargo, ND, USA

It would be a great thing if India and China were to become the next superpowers of the world. Why on earth not? At some point, it was Great Britain and, to a lesser extent, Spain. Problem is, China has never even pretended to be a democracy. And that is my only worry: to live in a world dominated by a virtual tyranny.
UE, UK/Nigeria

I think this article is absolutely correct. China does have the potential of becoming the next superpower. All they need to do is to become stronger industrially, and they could do it.
Matthew Ayers, Canton, United States

There is no doubt in my mind that China will become the next superpower. Sure it has problems such as income imbalance, environmental crisis etc, but these area all issues the leadership has recognised early on and set out to address. I don't think India will become a superpower though because it lacks the confidence China is displaying militarily and politically.
Tony, England, UK

China already dictates the pace of the world's economy Peter Nuttall, Farnborough, UK

China already dictates the pace of the world's economy - its lack of global military and cultural dominance are the only remaining obstacles to China becoming a traditional "superpower". Competition over energy resources over the next 15 years will see China assert increasing amounts of military muscle. The interesting part for me is how "the west" will react to a dominant culture that has traditionally been seen as "alien" to us. Maybe Singapore's a good model of the Chinese-modelled western culture of the future?
Peter Nuttall, Farnborough, UK

Good luck to China, a powerful China and India will add some balance to world largely seen through European eyes. Environmentally it is a bad thing for us I do not think manufactures in China pay much heed to those matters. We are quite likely to see vast smog pollution as occurs frequently in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. For the rest of the underdeveloped world like africa, one hopes in a world of scarcer resources and increased demand, they can command a higher price for their goods as they will not only have western markets to cater for as before.
John, London UK

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the European and US economies will collapse as the Asian ones boom. This will happen with the full knowledge and consent of corporate capitalism as they transfer all their activities there with abandon chasing nothing other than the elusive fast buck. It is the ordinary worker who will suffer while the equivalent worker in Asia will remain little better off.
Jamie Pendrigh, Livingston, UK

The China question has been on the minds of all political watchers over the past few years. Will the West, namely the United States and Western Europe, fall into history's ashtray? I do not believe any educated individual could say yes. Europe, and later the United States, have ruled the world for some 600 years. They are the strongest economies in the world, and even if they are surpassed by other countries, their place in the world is very much solidified. What is more likely in the future, rather than a fade away of the West, especially America, is to see a new world order arise, where all the world ceases to be dominated by one or two countries.
Steven, Goettingen, Germany

It is India and China's small labour costs that attract global companies' interest, and as more of these companies vie for the Eastern workforce, they will start to ask for more money. Basic supply and demand. Eventually Indian and Chinese labour will cost as much as European and American labour, and the drain of money to the East will slow and stop. The world will reach an equilibrium and the wealth will be more evenly distributed. Then you have to wonder if perhaps Africa, as the last remaining under-developed continent, will do to everyone else what China and India is doing to Europe and America now.
Jim Coleman, Basingstoke, England

Given the direction of the West, I rather think that an advance of political freedom in China is rather less necessary than you postulate. Given America's place in the execution league table, why ever should China need to change that? Also, the phenomena Pacific rim was based on real work just as much as the current Chinese one. One may argue that are part of the same development.Who becomes the next superpower has as much to do with Bird flu (or some other unpredictable work of nature/act of God) as any political policy.
Dafydd, Ipswich UK

The Chinese understand how to work together, and this will allow them to overtake western capitalism where everyone is too busy squabbling against each other.
B J Patiro, Hilo, HI USA

China is becoming a superpower with all the environmental and economic consequences. Why do people in the West be afraid of that? They are doing what they are supposed to do according to all development agencies in the world "to grow". Whether that means the dismissal of America and Europe as superpowers is up to them. Will they adapt themselves to a situation in which thousands of million people reach better economic conditions?
Juan Luis Rodriguez, Carbondale, IL USA