Place your bets for the coming race to growth.

It will be an epic contest among the world's most significant economies, with generational and geopolitical consequences. For context, think back to what the United States accomplished after World War II, when it rose as an economic power to shape a better world.

The post-COVID19 race could determine whether the U.S. rebounds in a manner that allows it to retain the mantle of global leadership. More likely for the moment, Beijing could leverage its first-mover advantage – alongside a faster economic recovery across Asian markets – accelerating the trend toward a Chinese-centric globalization.

Elsewhere, as President Macron argued this week to the Financial Times, the coming months could determine whether the European Union collapses as a political and economic project. The days ahead also could trigger a dangerous widening of the economic gap between emerging markets and the developed world – with escalating conflict and surging migration.

It may seem premature to reflect on which of the globe's economies is likely to have the most robust and lasting economic comeback – and with what geopolitical impact. After all, this was a week in which the International Monetary Fund projected a 3% contraction in global GDP for 2020, the most dramatic drop since the Great Depression.

Yet it is the details behind that dismal forecast that should raise concerns within the U.S. and Europe. Their steeper economic decline and slower recovery could lay the seeds for a long-lasting shift of global tectonic plates to China's advantage.

The IMF projected a U.S. economic decline of about 6% in 2020 and a contraction of the eurozone of 7.5%. That compares to projected Chinese economic growth for 2020 of 1.2% after a first quarter real decline of 6.7% – far less than the 10%-plus dip many experts had expected. The only group of countries in the world projected to be in positive territory are East Asian, at roughly 1%.

Even if one accepts that Chinese coronavirus fatalities likely are greater than their public figures and that the growth decline is likely larger, that doesn't change the potential for a scenario that Deloitte and Salesforce this week referred to as "Sunrise in the East."

Describing this scenario, as one of four possibilities they list, they write, "The global center of power shifts decisively east as China and other East Asian nations take the reigns as primary powers on the world stage and lead global coordination of the health system and other multilateral institutions."

That comes with the broader acceptance of greater surveillance mechanisms as part of the public good, a faster recovery of East Asian countries with less economic impact from COVID19, and a significant ramping up of Chinese foreign direct investment to burnish its global reputation.