>>9
C# would have potential (not as a C replacement, but a higher level language that would be used instead of Java and C++) if it weren't developed by Microsoft (Mono is not a viable CLR and MS still gets to make all the decisions about the language).
However, D is not supported well enough (even Go has more packages and bindings available (and is a better language anyway)), so Java still remains as the best higher level somewhat high performance language.