But I have trouble imagining that they would get rid of all the ready
hardware up there in just 7 years. And the USA is not the only owner
of the station.

I expect to see the Space Shuttle being extended past 2010, unless
that Orion Lite concept can get out the door by 2013 as they say.

With the darkening political situation in Russia I am becoming more wary
of relying on them at this time, even though they need the money to
run their space program more than ever.

How plausible is this? In 2016 the Chinese dock their latest manned
spacecraft to the ISS due to some emergency. They then "ask" to be
the newest partner of the International Space Station once onboard.

The UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and the astronaut code demands
that assistance be offered to the stranded taikonauts, so they remain
aboard and eventually become partners due to their actions and the
fact that the original ISS partner nations are running out of funds to
keep the ISS aloft.

In the end the Chinese end up completely owning the ISS for a song.
They then immediately convert the station into a fully armed battlestar
and demand that the peoples of Earth bow before their might.

Okay, I got a bit carried away with that last part (I hope), but how
unlikely would it be for NASA and even Russia to sell their parts of the
ISS to make up for their dwindling budgets? Because does anyone here
see NASA getting more money in the future, unless a major cosmic
discovery is made that would require their services?

$100 billion for the ISS - that is probably about how much all of Apollo
cost in adjusted dollars. At least with Apollo we know what we got
from it. Try asking Joe Sickpack what the ISS does, if they even know
it exists.