@DesertDave,
US knows that before long it won't be able to contain China, and therefore, it is bringing up India (ever wondered why your IT job moved there?) to contain China. China is heavily vested in the oil fields of sub-saharan Africa, and has signed contracts with 2 of the US rivals, Iran and Venezuela - both of whom want to trade oil in euro. China is building a base in Gawadar, Pakistan, very close to Straits of Hormuz to insure it's supply of oil. And already you are seeing petro (Afghan) and dollar (Iraq) wars.
Most old fairy tales involved a giant too powerful to confront, but through some twist of fate, had it's soul in something very vunerable, such as a bird. If US is a giant, the dollar hegemony is it's soul.
China can already devestate the US economy by (1) refusing to buy anymore US treasury bills which would skyrocket interest rates within the US, and (2) devalue dollar by dumping the $1 trillion it holds - it's first time in history that any one entity holds that much in pure cash.
