Here comes China.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Americans are accustomed to their status as the world's most voracious consumers. Whether it's cited as a testament to the productive capacity of the country's economy or as an indictment of Americans' insatiable appetites, everyone has heard the claim that the United States uses a quarter of the world's natural resources despite having only 5 percent of its population.

Yet, Americans have some new competition as world-class consumers. By some measures, China has already surpassed the United States.

The Earth Policy Institute, a forward-looking and environmentally oriented think tank that tracks economic and social trends worldwide, reports that in four of five basic resource categories - meat, grain, coal, oil and steel - China's consumption already eclipses the United States'. The exception is oil, where the United States is by far the world's leading consumer, burning 20.4 million barrels a day. But China recently moved past Japan into second place, and while U.S. oil consumption has grown 15 percent since 1994, China's consumption has doubled.

What's more, China trails the United States in oil consumption partly because two-thirds of its energy comes from coal. China burns 800 million tons of coal each year, far more than the United States' total of 574 million tons. The institute notes that, "It is only a matter of time before China will also be the world's top emitter of carbon. Soon, the world may have two major climate disrupters."

In the other categories, China is already out in front. It's the top consumer of meat and grain. China uses 2 1/2 times as much steel as the United States, and also is the world's biggest user of aluminum and copper. China uses twice as much fertilizer as the United States.

China's consumer economy is also surging ahead. Nine years ago, the United States had six times as many cell phones as China. Now China has 269 million and the United States has 159 million.

There are more television sets and refrigerators in China than in the United States. China still has fewer personal computers, but the number is doubling every 28 months.

The United States appears to have an insurmountable lead in the number of automobiles, with 226 million compared to China's 24 million, but motor vehicle sales in China doubled over the past two years.

These comparisons are distorted by the huge difference in the two countries' populations - China has 1.3 billion people, while the United States has 300 million. Though China's aggregate levels of consumption make it the world leader in many respects, the United States' per capita consumption of basic commodities and consumer products remains higher. The average Chinese person, for instance, eats 49 kilograms of meat each year, compared to 127 kilograms for the average American.

Still, if China's economy continues to grow at a near-double-digit rate, even its per capita consumption rates will soon begin to approach those of a developed nation.

China's impact on world commodity markets, on industrial production and on the environment is already substantial and will in- crease.

The United States has been the world's sole superpower since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That status may not last long.