I generally find this article lacking in anything beyond personal opinion. However, I think the kernel of the problem is hinted at when he writes about chemical

I generally find this article lacking in anything beyond personal opinion. However, I think the kernel of the problem is hinted at when he writes about chemical elements (and the article it links to is more suggestive of this): That is, synthesis of new terms must be very difficult in Chinese -- due to the large number of homophones -- which is compounded by the inflexibility of the writing system. If this is true -- I'm not a Chinese speaker, but I'm married to one and have had this discussion before! -- then that is a burden on development as it clearly makes communication of new ideas clumsy.