Bidhan, i don't deny that not all US universities are par excellence. but it should be understood that most of the breakthroughs in science and technology come from US universities. i am not just talking about MIT and Stanford, but there are number of others (even second and third tier unis) where cutting edge research activities are carried out. If we go by average amount of research work per year, US will bit other countries. As for your second query, interesting fact you pointed out about the strength of China in Olympics but i am not sure how much that is gonna boost their economy and/or their bilateral relatioships with other countries. When i compared China with former soviet union, i meant to juxtapose their internal market and foreign policies. China is a power no doubt. But we are talking about "China being a threat to US". i don't see that happening coz as i explained, in the event of war, EU and India will back US...which means its literally china vs. rest of the world. As haddock said, china may losen up and come out as a democratic country over time. but that will put more responsibility on their shoulders to maintain bilateral trade relationships with other countries and for sure they cannot rule out US in that event. Economic prosperity cannot be sustainable with a secluded market. LooTe