This. ^

The only country founded on lies, fairy tales, and forcing innocent people to feel guilty for living life.

That is true power.

I will probably can only go so far as to say that China is a real threat... and the US Government takes measures to counter any possible gains they make... as far as military might... their Navy is stink pile next to ours... well everyones navy is but they really are not long range threat(aside from their intercontinental missiles though we have ways of dealing with that to)... their biggest asset is their ability to assemble massive amounts of fodder in a short amount of time.  The 10,000 Marines at Chosine Resivor fought their way out of a certain death situation... they were trapped by 300,000 Chinese... to make the situation amusing it was a Chinese-American who was instrumental in the successful retreat... or as us US Marines refer to it... fighting in the other direction

edit: Major Lee (Lt. at the time) was a hero who many felt should have been honored with the highest award given to a service member... though he did get a Navy Cross

USA and EU. China will become a superpower withing approx 17-20 years, India in 35years ish

China would probably be classed as a superpower they are the worlds second largest economy in the world and the fastest growing, their military is twice the size of the USA's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_troops). they are also the most populace country in the world. And lets face it there needs to be at least two supper powers in the world, I mean what fun would it be if there was only one? 

Of course many people believe there are no real "superpowers" left especially as the USA weakens and other powers like China and India grow. 

the USA and China, niether of which is a good thing for the human race.

I don't think China qualifies...yet.  It won't be too much longer at the current pace before they do, but their military is seriously nowhere near as advanced as the US military.

That gap will continue to close so long as the US fails to face its debt problems and so long as China stands to benefit from that same debt problem.

As far as economy goes, china's economy is built on the premise that the rest of the world is going to buy the crap they make...and with the way the economy is going right now, they may be better off than a lot of countries but they will be effected too and the harder the EU and the US are hit the harder China will be hit as well.

You better be british...

Russia has 4000 nukes; second only to the USA. Does that make them a super power?

Perhaps not, but I would say that China is. If you include Taiwan, it has the second highest GDP in the world, an enormous budget surplus, exports to everywhere in the world, an extremely large military and over a billion people. It also has 180 warheads.

I would define Superpower not in terms of GDP or any easily compared factor like that, but by their influence on other countries. American corporations act in a selfish and shortsighted way and the economies of many European countries collapse - that is what it means to be a superpower.

If China wanted to, they could destroy the American economy, which would then destroy the global economy, thus China is a superpower, they just aren't (currently) abusing this superpowerfulness.

Europe, whilst having a whopping GDP has very little economic impact on the rest of the world and is thus not a superpower

I'm pretty sure Japan is still technically the world's second largest economy, though perhaps not for much longer.