There is Definitely A Space Race...like it or not

Almost 37 years after Americans set foot on the moon, China's ambition to make the same trip is evoking rhetoric from U.S. lawmakers echoing the space race of the Cold War 1960s.

The lawmakers -- including Representative Frank Wolf, the Virginia Republican who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the U.S. space agency -- want President George W. Bush to spend more, faster, to get his new lunar program off the ground and retain U.S. space dominance. Bush's target of a U.S. return to the moon by 2018 may be too late, they say.

"If China beats us to the moon, we will have lost the space program," Wolf said in an interview.

From here

There is this...whether you believe it or not, the Russians are talking up the possibility of being another side of the competition:

Energia management, which has completely different plans, unveiled a concept of the national manned space-flight program for the next 25 years.

This document states expressly that the initial stage of the manned lunar program will involve Soyuz spacecraft, Soyuz-FG and Proton launch vehicles and DM-type boosters. Energia officials said that the ISS' Russian segment should be used to assemble an inter-orbital space complex bound for the Moon, and that this approach would make it possible to launch the first lunar expeditions in the near future.

There are plans to develop a reusable lunar transport system comprising manned spacecraft on the basis of the advanced Kliper shuttle and inter-orbital space tugs with liquid-propellant rocket engines during the lunar program's second stage. The new transport system will link the ISS and a projected lunar orbital station. It is intended to use tugs with electric-rocket engines and large-size solar batteries for transporting bulky consignments. Plans are also in place to assemble a permanent lunar orbital station with a reusable lunar ascent and descent module during the second stage.

The program's third stage stipulates the creation of a permanent lunar industrial base for developing the Earth's satellite.

The Martian program is closely linked with the lunar program.

From here.

(FWIW, Ria Novosti ahs been accused of being the sockpuppet of the Russian government...frequently).

We shall see who does what and who is merely talking politics. Personally, I think the Russians are just boasting, but the design bureaus, ahem, companies have a lot sway in policy. We'll see if post Putin Russia follows through. Or not. The Chinese and the US are definitely the most serious of the lot. We'll see if India, Japan, and Europe join in.