To signify two or more carriers in that country that are part of the alliance:
China with ST = China Southern, China Airlines, China Eastern
Colombia with *A = Avianca–TACA, Copa Airlines [through Copa Airlines Colombia, formerly Aero Republica]
USA with *A = United-Continental, US Airways

ADDITION: I was sent a PM that *A in Brazil should also be squared with TAM & Avianca Brazil (although TAM may be moving to OW with LAN, the current status is with both in/going to *A)

oneworld has a much different aim than SkyTeam (which is called the 'leftover alliance'). oneworld wants a smaller alliance (less intra-alliance competition) with quality carriers, and competition laws would surely prevent such a merger.

I'm sorry to say, but I think Star Alliance is the "leftover alliance" instead, who seems to willing to take any airlines on the planet with a valid flying license.

For example, in Southeast Asia, I think airlines like Philippine Airlines, Lao Airlines, Bangkok Airways, Royal Brunei Airlines, may all join Star Alliance if these airlines ever "apply" to join. Star Alliance would even "accept" Malaysia Airlines as well (just that Malaysia Airlines will not want to).

Did you my analysis above about the "great strategy" by SkyTeam to focus on "the most important countries" of the future? (e.g. BRIC, Next 11, G20, the most populated ones)

For example, Indonesia is the 4th most populated country in the world. No one is looking to Indonesia now. No one is looking to Garuda Indonesia now. But that is a 250-million population (just after China, India, and USA). The potential market is huge. And SkyTeam "conquers" that market.

And China as well, the biggest country in the world. SkyTeam is a clear winner in China (Star Alliance is far left behind, while oneworld is almost non-existent there).

While I'm Sapphire with QF and love my AA miles and have a preference for OW, a lot of OW is marketing spin. Cathay seems to loathe that it is in the same alliance as QF or AA and has actively prevented expansion of OW in Asia (hence Hainan is still non-aligned). And the "quality" claim always amuses me (perhaps "arrogant" is more apt), when QF long haul economy has less seat pitch that SQ regional, QF converts its flights to it's "quality" LCC Jetstar, the torture of CX economy seats on any flight over an hour, Air Berlin is accepted, Iberia loses your bags, and, well, AA.

What SkyTeam seems to do better than other airlines is raise their members. When Korean joined it was a laughing stock for a variety of reasons including safety, now I would pick them over CX long-haul in economy in a heartbeat (although I'd even pick AA or UA over those awful CX seats). The cooperation they offer almost had JAL move until a catastrophic bankruptcy and initial change costs put paid to that.

It would be interesting to have a discussion about the strategy of the three alliances here.

However, this will not work if people start claiming that a certain alliance is better than others, that a certain alliance is a "leftover alliance", etc.
Whether alliance A, B, or C, is the best one, is in the eye of the beholder and very much depends on individual travel plans and on how people perceive the quality of different flight products. As much as there is no such thing as "the best Business class", there is no such thing as a "best alliance". All 3 alliances have carriers with more sophisticated products and carriers that are boarderline LCCs. The same applies to FFPs within the 3 alliances: there are generous ones, not so generous ones, some that match the needs of a particular individual, some that do not.

So let's try to keep all these subjective assessments out of this thread here and see them as what they actually are - a mater of taste.

Instead, we could focus on business facts, such as the number of passengers, the number of destinations, exposure to different markets, mid-term strategy, etc. In doing so, we could have a fruitful discussion.

Number of carriers is an exceedingly poor metric for alliance reach or market share. Number of destinations served, number of city pairs served, Revenue Passenger Miles, number of flights per day, passenger boardings... all these are better indicators.

That said, there's no way any proper competition authority would allow this. Look at the time spent, and concessions made, just to get the simple 3-way AA/BA/IB TATL JV approved. I don't see how the ongoing cartelization of the global airline industry is good for consumers, and a SkyTeam + oneworld combination would be a huge step.

Do not call me rasist, but historically:

Star: Central European and Northern European centric plus Portugal (Turkey, Egpty have strong tie with Germany; Part of Siwss and Austria have strong tie with Germany)
Sky Team: Franco and Dutch centric plus Eastern European(Indonesia and Taiwan used to be Dutch colony; Frenhc once occupy Vietnam...Russia and France used to be friend...Malev once was believed to join Sky Team with heavy code share and cooperation with both KLM and Air France)
OneWorld: Anglo-saxon and Spanish centric (Hong Kong used to be GB colony, JAL loved the beatles....Lan and Iberia...the founding members including five airlines from five former British pride: GB, US, AU, Canada and Hong Kong)

But not all the airlines in the alliance have such historical ties. There is more to be studies in this area. E.g. why United chose Star Alliance whereas why Delta chose SkyTeam? It may be just economic interest or strategic choice. But for many airlines in the alliance, there is background ties within the alliance. It is interesting to notice.

Their objective is really to be big with maximum coverage, but at the expense of each individual member airlines' revenue (intra-alliance competition). Of the three, *A actually has the best products and services - such as a standardized priority tag, combined *A check-in at major hubs, dedicated baggage / passenger tracking centres (as per their Reference Guide at www.starallianceemployees.com).

SkyTeam does not have a clear objective of what they want to achieve.

The term leftover alliance(Which I take credit for starting back in 03) refers to Skyteam only being able to grab a few of the major global carriers.

By the time ST was formed in 2000, OW(est. 1999) and *A(est. 1997) had already collected the major carriers who were looking to join an alliance.

I wouldn't count OW out of the china game just yet. Hainan is still up for grabs and they already codeshare with MA, S7, and AB. CX and DragonAir cover the ex-HKG to china routes in the meantime.

In the case of those two airlines they were both founding members as opposed to joining the alliance after it was formed. I think it would have been highly unlikely for DL to join *A or vice versa.

On a lighter note, what would the new alliance be called... OneTeam, SkyWorld?

"Leftover", "major global carriers" and "number of airlines" are all very subjective terms that have little to do with reality (as does the ridiculousness that ST "only" has one US carrier, all the alliances originally had only one US carrier, it was ST which changed the trend when it absorbed "Wings" , and considering that Delta ate NW, which was in fact bigger than about 35 of the worlds top 50 airlines at the time of the merger, ST has enough US coverage). I am top tir on TWO * carriers as well as top tier on 2 ST carriers, as well as 1 1world carrier, they all have their pluses and minuses, however carrier count is not a real metric, as airlines like Air Adria, Tyrolean, Aegean, and a few others really do not generate too many passengers. All the talk about "better" carriers is a bit of a joke as I count several of the 1world and * cariers which hae dsappeared over the years due to insolvency, but cannot remember any ST carriers doing the same. Furthermore with the exception of Continental and its minions leaving ST, I cannot recall many defections from ST, but do recall several from the other alliances. I would say overall that 1world has been and continues to be in the weakest position for a variety of reasons, and that these may accelerate in the medium term future.

Other than Canadian Airlines going broke and being bought by AC, there have been no defections from OW. I can't speak about *A other than MX.

People have been saying this for years, and yet OW still survives and continues to grow with new members and ATI/JV agreements. Predictions of OW's demise are highly exaggerated.

true, as it is true that ST has in the past years lost many of the most interesting prospective members to * (mostly) and OW.
I would not be so quickly to discount OW as the weakest alliance, one of the main stumbling blocks for its development, a proper alliance between two of the core partners, has been just removed. The presence of one or more core partners with deep links between them (AF/KL/DL for ST, LH/UA for *) has been a deciding factor for many prospective entrants in their respective alliances.

EI left OW also

1 World has lost Aer Lingus, and Canadian ( Canadian went bust and Air Canada picked up a few pieces, this was not some sort of merger), Swiss (which was a huge stillborn mess). And of course MExicana which has disappeared (again)

It should also be noted that 1w has lowered its standards substantially, one of the reasons Aer Lingus was forced to leave was because they would no longer operate a business cabin on s/h services, now 1w has gone out of its way to bring AB in, which is even more down market.

* lost Varig, Ansett, Mexicana, Shanghai Airlines. At least 6 * carriers are so small that it is a joke that they are listed as full members.

I agree on the loss of EI, however EI never left OW for another alliance. They left to become a Ryanair-esque LCC which they realized was a big mistake. Now they're considering rejoining an alliance.

Swiss was never a member of OW and as you said CP ran out of cash and was bought. None of these examples fit the term of "defection".