Oh, and on a more serious note, even though China (1.33 trillion) just passed Japan (1.28 trillion) as the world's second largest economy they are still a long ways away from the US (14 trillion). Also the income per capita in China is under 4 grand a year, while in the US it's closer to $45,000 a year. China's cheap and plentiful work force is largely responsible for China's economic boom (China's economy is predicted to grow 10% in 2011). Unfortunately for China, their current formula is not sustainable. Look at any county that has gone through an industrial revolution, from the US to Britain. If history has taught us anything is eventually workers get tired of working in dangerous factories with no rights working for pennies. If the Chinese work force starts demanding rights, forming unions, refusing to work in unsafe conditions, etc China is going to have a huge problem. If you look at the conditions US workers faced during our industrial revolution you'd see they're pretty similar to what Chinese workers deal with today.
In the next decade or two, China's economy will at best slow down, and at worse crash. China's economy is growing so quick because they are going through an industrial revolution. In the 1930's the USSR's economy was growing at a rate near 30% annually, and look how far that got them.
Does the US owe a lot of money to China? Sure does. But is China going to be the new world super power? Probably not. It would be near impossible for China to sustain this growth long enough to pass the US in economic size, let alone sustain it indefinitely. There are a lot of hurdles China has to overcome that I didn't touch on as well from a lack of resources (besides people) to a mostly uneducated populous.
