I don't hear Brazil being mentioned enough imho...maybe not as a superpower as such but most certainantly an economic powerhouse that may well rival old europe in the future if not beat it. It has a massive amount of resources and so does Russia, in a world so dependant on many of these resources, they may well become very powerful.

I feel that China will become very powerful but imo never world no.1. The economy is not built in such a way in my opinion. The reason is a lot of China's money is based on export and at that, low value added exports. China's big neopotism problem has been touched on briefly here but it is damn true. Most of my friends who are in their 20s got their jobs in Honk Kong at family buisnesses because they couldn't get a job elsewhere...