By now, everyone has grown accustomed, if not physically weary, of articles extolling China's economic dynamism and rehearsing America's economic decline. While the United States is only now beginning to recover from the most serious recession in nearly 80 years, China skated through the global financial crisis essentially unscathed. Even if the growth of the Chinese economy now slows to 7.5 per cent, that will still be triple the rate of expansion of the United States, where growth in the wake of the crisis remains subdued. It will not be many years before China overtakes the U.S. in sheer economic size. And with this reversal of economic fortune will come a reversal of political fortune, as China assumes the leading role on the global geopolitical stage.