Why China Will Not Overtake U.S. as Top Leading Power

Well, not anytime soon, at least.

And, yeah, I know.

I've admitted I'm not as bullish on continued American preponderance as I used to be, but stories like this remind us that China is seriously FUBAR on freedom --- and hence, innovation. At Telegraph UK, "China Makes Skype Illegal."

China on Thursday announced that it had made illegal the use of Skype, the popular internet telephony service, as the country continues to shut itself off from the rest of the world.

In the latest move dashing Western internet company hopes of breaking into China, it was announced that all internet phone calls were to be banned apart from those made over two state-owned networks, China Unicom and China Telecom.

"[This] is expected to make services like Skype unavailable in the country," reported the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist party.

Websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are already blocked in China and Google closed down its Chinese servers last year after heavy government pressure.