Europe and Japan, however, see the threat differently; they worry more about America's technological supremacy than about what happens when China gets the Merced.

Chip industry executives and politicians feared that the sale would touch off a chain of events ending an era of American technological supremacy.

Then there is American technological supremacy, which was so evident in the gulf war.

The object was technological supremacy and, if the cold war heated up, technological surprise through the detonation of devastating weapons.

The heart of the Japanese strategy, he contends, is that capturing product markets is the key to technological supremacy.

A forceful moral of "Rising Sun" is that America will pay dearly for having yielded its technological supremacy to Japan.

Equally, as the superpowers vied for technological supremacy, every American triumph felt like a personal insult.

But the technological supremacy the S.L.C. and Tevatron offer may be short-lived.

The long-sustained technological supremacy of the West has ingrained a sense of confidence, even of arrogance.

It is an answer to institutes in West Germany and Japan that pose a threat to American technological supremacy in some areas of industry.