The power of English and Mandarin

In last a few decades, China has grew rapidly, many people believe it is one of the most considerable force nowadays. Like what Jeffrey(2011) says in his book, English Today: “A report in China Daily (2004), for example, suggests that: there may even come a day when learning Chinese, like present day English, becomes compulsory for business, politics and cultural exchanges – a trend that has become increasingly plausible as more foreign students enroll in Chinese courses and China as a nation takes a more prominent role on the international stage.” You can see that how everyone is closely relating the role of China and the use of Chinese.

First of all, I want to have a say that China’s development and rapid growth is relied largely on overuse non-renewable resources and at a cost, the environment pollution and destruction are super high. Honestly I don’t know how long the positive situation will last and whether it’s the right way for us to get stronger because drawbacks are already exposed. In fact, as Chinese, we are all benefiting from the development of China and we can’t just complain about it even if we paid our environment for a cost. But I personally would like to think this is not a long-term deal for a country’s development. 

http://ichinese8max.blogspot.com/2013/11/chinese-education-online-chinese-vs.html

There’s no doubt that the growth of China played a huge role in the expand of Mandarin Chinese, so what if someday China can no longer maintain its rapidly growing pace and its power position be surpassed by other countries like Japan or India? I think many Chinese people actually overestimated the influences and power of China on the global stage. Objectively speaking, Chinese as a country and area based language, it indeed has gained some sort of power now but I don’t believe it has enough to exist without the its root—China. The role China plays in the use of Chinese is far greater than the role America plays in the use of English. English, as a successful global language, it has already eliminated the national boundaries, think about it, if someday in the future, when US and UK stop using English, other hundreds of countries will still continue using it because English is one of their their official language and it’s the most effective way to communicate with the world. If that day really comes, a new language may emerge but it will be really hard to destroy the empire of English, just like the situation faced by Chinese now.