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The author seems to curiously soft-pedal the situation in China. Even if we treat the state statistics at face value, they rocket up the chart over the next ten
by b800h 4y ago
The author seems to curiously soft-pedal the situation in China. Even if we treat the state statistics at face value, they rocket up the chart over the next ten years, and it'll have major implications for world politics.
- threeseed 4y agoThey don't mention India once. A country who is rising and will inevitably be a rival of China.
- b800h 4y agoYes - lots of people teaching their children Mandarin, but Hindi will be much more useful. Funny thing is that in the UK we have far more people to learn it from, but we don't seem to use the resource. Would be good and fun for social integration too, especially given the fact that Hindi and Urdu are almost the same language.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoThe difference is that Indians speak good English.
- readthenotes1 4y agoOr some version thereof I'm not just talking about the lilt. There are also vowel shifts and word choices. English not have a common pronunciation...
- wraptile 4y agoTeaching children business languages seems rather silly at this day and age tbh.
- b800h 4y agoThe point isn't just about business language - it's about participating in a culture. From a soft power perspective, having a large proportion of your population able to interact with another culture makes a lot of sense. India will continue to become more culturally significant and having a handle on that will be valuable.
- bee_rider 4y agoNah, Americanly I’ll say: we are happy to give away your language to whoever wants it. Re-spin it for local convenience, cut off bits that are inconvenient, get rid of all those stupid extra “u’s.” It was wildly over-complicated to start, but soon enough we’ll have morphed it into Earth Business Basic. It is great to learn a language to appreciate the culture that it comes from of course, but for business purposes American is the way to go. :p
- bilekas 4y agoI remember thinking about this too but there is a higher level of inequality in India which appears to be hampering progress. > Inequality using the Gini index is 24% higher in India than in China according to income, but 9% higher in China than in India according to consumption. Something similar is found if we compare urban and rural areas across countries https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X20300602#:~:text=Inequality%20using%20the%20Gini%20index,and%20rural%20areas%20across%20countries https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X2.... Edit: The reason I mention this is due to access to higher level of education can be correlated to the income inequalities in general. Add to that China's massive social services and pushes for science related education they definitely are showing some advantages.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> author seems to curiously soft-pedal the situation in China Taiwan is labelled a province of China in the penultimate bar graph, FYI.
- sofixa 4y agoIf you want to get pedantic, that's de jure the case. There is only one single China recognised internationally, and it contains all of Chinese territorial claims, including the island of Taiwan. For almost all intents and purposes Taiwan is an independent country, but even they used to claim to be the one and only China until not that long ago. Unfortunately it's unlikely that a declaration of independence will be well received by China proper, so the current weird limbo (no international recognition and thus no embassies, "Chinese Taipei" in the Olympics, etc.) will persist for the foreseeable future.
- JumpCrisscross 4y agoThe neutral term is Chinese Tapei. Taiwan and Province of China are loaded terms.
- sofixa 4y agoIt was my understanding that "Chinese Taipei" is only for Olympics, and the current government in Taiwan would like to get it changed.