[SkyRat]

Yet, right after his proposal comes out, we see a flood of these "mee too!" articles from Europe, China, and Russia..

I think you are wrong there. First was China and then the "me too!" stuff from US, Russia and Europe.

The whole thing started with the Chinese putting a man in orbit and their plan to build a moon base within 2015.

[RightWhale]

the Chinese putting a man in orbit and their plan to build a moon base within 2015

Robotics should be a huge part of the American base-building. Both the moon base and the eventual Mars base will probably be built by robots before humans show up. The race is more of a robot race than a rocket race. That is where we'll see the most advances in tech--nearly autonomous robots with assigned tasks.