"A movement against Western influence threatens to close off a nation that succeeded in part by welcoming new ideas."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/business/china-english.html

English does not mean the world so rejecting English is not rejecting the world.

There's also the negative effects. Look at what happened in Hong Kong. The Westernised Chinese there think they are more superior than other Chinese. They want HK to separate from China so that they can bear allegiance to the West. When they fail, they flee to their "motherlands" in the West.

I'll start with the question raise by a Chinese in the last paragraph of the article.

“When could Chinese stop learning English?” he asked, then answered his own question: When China becomes a leader in the most advanced technologies and the world needs to follow it.

But this will not happen if the Chinese can only learn about the world through other peoples’ language. They will develop an inferiority complex about themselves. The will only know how to follow or copy.

Example: Chinese third aircraft carrier will take to the sea soon, end of the year or early next year. One impressive technology of this carrier is its electromagnetic aircraft launching system. Nothing new, the Americans have done it, one may say. The Americans are doing it on a nuclear-powered carrier. They are still struggling with it. The cost overrun has been so high that ex-President Trump wanted it scrapped. The Chinese are doing it on a conventional powered carrier, which by conventional reasoning, would not be possible. What do the Chinese do that is different from the Americans? The Americans rely on AC power. The Chinese use an integrated AC/DC power system. When the Chinese Chief Designer of the system first proposed it, he met stiff resistance from fellow Chinese. Their reasoning is that if the Americans have not done it, that means it cannot be done!

Two other examples:
A Chinese spacecraft has landed and roved on the far side of the moon. Another Chinese spacecraft has orbited, landed and roved on Mars in a first mission. Both have not been done before by any Western nation.

This is the mentality the Chinese need, that of a leader, not mere follower.. For this to happen, they have to have pride in their own culture, confidence in their own ability. This is true not only for the Chinese but also people of other races or nationalities.

Should the Chinese not learn English then? One good reason for the Chinese to learn English would be to use it to counter the soft power of the native English-speaking world, like how this Chinese lady debated with an American.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4FE-5A6tWc

On Friday, September 10, 2021 at 10:45:40 PM UTC-4, wog wacker wrote:
> "A movement against Western influence threatens to close off a nation that succeeded in part by welcoming new ideas."
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/business/china-english.html
>
> English does not mean the world so rejecting English is not rejecting the world.
>
> There's also the negative effects. Look at what happened in Hong Kong. The Westernised Chinese there think they are more superior than other Chinese.. They want HK to separate from China so that they can bear allegiance to the West. When they fail, they flee to their "motherlands" in the West.
>
> I'll start with the question raise by a Chinese in the last paragraph of the article.
>
> “When could Chinese stop learning English?” he asked, then answered his own question: When China becomes a leader in the most advanced technologies and the world needs to follow it.
>
> But this will not happen if the Chinese can only learn about the world through other peoples’ language. They will develop an inferiority complex about themselves. The will only know how to follow or copy.
>
> Example: Chinese third aircraft carrier will take to the sea soon, end of the year or early next year. One impressive technology of this carrier is its electromagnetic aircraft launching system. Nothing new, the Americans have done it, one may say. The Americans are doing it on a nuclear-powered carrier. They are still struggling with it. The cost overrun has been so high that ex-President Trump wanted it scrapped. The Chinese are doing it on a conventional powered carrier, which by conventional reasoning, would not be possible. What do the Chinese do that is different from the Americans? The Americans rely on AC power. The Chinese use an integrated AC/DC power system. When the Chinese Chief Designer of the system first proposed it, he met stiff resistance from fellow Chinese. Their reasoning is that if the Americans have not done it, that means it cannot be done!
>
> Two other examples:
> A Chinese spacecraft has landed and roved on the far side of the moon. Another Chinese spacecraft has orbited, landed and roved on Mars in a first mission. Both have not been done before by any Western nation.
>
> This is the mentality the Chinese need, that of a leader, not mere follower. For this to happen, they have to have pride in their own culture, confidence in their own ability. This is true not only for the Chinese but also people of other races or nationalities.
>
>
> Should the Chinese not learn English then? One good reason for the Chinese to learn English would be to use it to counter the soft power of the native English-speaking world, like how this Chinese lady debated with an American.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4FE-5A6tWc

For me, the first rule of reading Western publications is that Read the Fact, not the interpretation. A
good journalist would get the fact right most of the time. But they inevitably get the interpretation/
generalization wrong.

On Chinese learning English, more Chinese students than American students were learning English
during early 2000s. Of course, things would inevitably change.

First of all, it is not wrong for any Chinese to learn English or any other foreign language. Quite a few
dissidents had written posts on how the Chinese language is inferior to the English language. Most of
their writing are garbage.

Still one could choose to learn English or any other foreign language not because they are better languages.
But because they are different languages and they allow one to see the world differently.

Second, cost- benefit of learning English. It is difficult to pin-point a balance point. But time is on the side
of not devoting too much effort learning English. Professionally speaking, if one wants to write for New York
Times or WSJ and etc, learning English is still a must. But as a national policy and for most students it is
about the right time to de-emphasize English as part of the curriculum.

Another reason to learn English is to acquire the wealth of knowledge from books written in English and from
professors and expert who speak and write in English. Why English? Again, no superior or inferior language but
technology and wealth could play critical roles in facilitating or hindering the dissemination and accumulation
of knowledge.

Technology wise, China invented Gutenberg style printing centuries ahead of Gutenberg. But the later had initiated
an explosion of knowledge in the West. Advantage phonetic language. China book printers had to have a large
table size of library characters for its large number of individual Chinese characters. Commonly used characters
would be a smaller table. But still printers had to invest quite a lot to be a printer. Finding the characters were also
time consuming. In contrast, phonetic language printers only needs small trays of letter blocks. Of course, they would
also need to have more trays of more frequently used letter, like e, t, a and etc. Overall, it is a lot cheaper and easier
to be phonetic printers.

Accumulation/dissemination of knowledge is also a function of national wealth. Wealthier countries have large
middle class populations which could devoted to the pursuit of knowledge. Britain got wealthy by being piracy,
continental genocide and smuggling opioid by force. All these activities were crimes against humanity. But in the
home front, it did greatly facilitate the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, the same applies to English
speaking US.

But the world has changed. Digital technology is leveling the playing field of information and knowledge reproduction.
China's economic rise has also produce a large number of knowledge workers. Translation is English work also readily.
English as a must have tool to access new information/knowledge will be a weaker reason than before. And this trend
would accelerate. Most could have their own person Silver (Advance Artificial Intelligence = Artificial genius= Ag) in the
coming decade. They certainly don't need to spend years to master English to access new information from English
speaking countries. Even today, some English books are like to be read by Chinese than Americans.

On Friday, September 10, 2021 at 7:45:40 PM UTC-7, wog wacker wrote:
> "A movement against Western influence threatens to close off a nation that succeeded in part by welcoming new ideas."
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/business/china-english.html
>
> English does not mean the world so rejecting English is not rejecting the world.
>
> There's also the negative effects. Look at what happened in Hong Kong. The Westernised Chinese there think they are more superior than other Chinese.. They want HK to separate from China so that they can bear allegiance to the West. When they fail, they flee to their "motherlands" in the West.
>
> I'll start with the question raise by a Chinese in the last paragraph of the article.
>
> “When could Chinese stop learning English?” he asked, then answered his own question: When China becomes a leader in the most advanced technologies and the world needs to follow it.
>
> But this will not happen if the Chinese can only learn about the world through other peoples’ language. They will develop an inferiority complex about themselves. The will only know how to follow or copy.
>
> Example: Chinese third aircraft carrier will take to the sea soon, end of the year or early next year. One impressive technology of this carrier is its electromagnetic aircraft launching system. Nothing new, the Americans have done it, one may say. The Americans are doing it on a nuclear-powered carrier. They are still struggling with it. The cost overrun has been so high that ex-President Trump wanted it scrapped. The Chinese are doing it on a conventional powered carrier, which by conventional reasoning, would not be possible. What do the Chinese do that is different from the Americans? The Americans rely on AC power. The Chinese use an integrated AC/DC power system. When the Chinese Chief Designer of the system first proposed it, he met stiff resistance from fellow Chinese. Their reasoning is that if the Americans have not done it, that means it cannot be done!
>
> Two other examples:
> A Chinese spacecraft has landed and roved on the far side of the moon. Another Chinese spacecraft has orbited, landed and roved on Mars in a first mission. Both have not been done before by any Western nation.
>
> This is the mentality the Chinese need, that of a leader, not mere follower. For this to happen, they have to have pride in their own culture, confidence in their own ability. This is true not only for the Chinese but also people of other races or nationalities.
>
>
> Should the Chinese not learn English then? One good reason for the Chinese to learn English would be to use it to counter the soft power of the native English-speaking world, like how this Chinese lady debated with an American.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4FE-5A6tWc

Simple!!! Learn ALL the languages you can, to communicate with all people.
I can't even communicate with the woman I'm living with in Chinese. She speaks Mandarin.
I speak Cantonese. We can only communicate through English.

The NYTimes article could be accessed from the following Indian site. No paywall.
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/reversing-gears-china-increasingly-rejects-english-world-7500779/

On Friday, September 10, 2021 at 10:45:40 PM UTC-4, wog wacker wrote:
> "A movement against Western influence threatens to close off a nation that succeeded in part by welcoming new ideas."
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/business/china-english.html
>
> English does not mean the world so rejecting English is not rejecting the world.
>
> There's also the negative effects. Look at what happened in Hong Kong. The Westernised Chinese there think they are more superior than other Chinese.. They want HK to separate from China so that they can bear allegiance to the West. When they fail, they flee to their "motherlands" in the West.
>
> I'll start with the question raise by a Chinese in the last paragraph of the article.
>
> “When could Chinese stop learning English?” he asked, then answered his own question: When China becomes a leader in the most advanced technologies and the world needs to follow it.
>
> But this will not happen if the Chinese can only learn about the world through other peoples’ language. They will develop an inferiority complex about themselves. The will only know how to follow or copy.
>
> Example: Chinese third aircraft carrier will take to the sea soon, end of the year or early next year. One impressive technology of this carrier is its electromagnetic aircraft launching system. Nothing new, the Americans have done it, one may say. The Americans are doing it on a nuclear-powered carrier. They are still struggling with it. The cost overrun has been so high that ex-President Trump wanted it scrapped. The Chinese are doing it on a conventional powered carrier, which by conventional reasoning, would not be possible. What do the Chinese do that is different from the Americans? The Americans rely on AC power. The Chinese use an integrated AC/DC power system. When the Chinese Chief Designer of the system first proposed it, he met stiff resistance from fellow Chinese. Their reasoning is that if the Americans have not done it, that means it cannot be done!
>
> Two other examples:
> A Chinese spacecraft has landed and roved on the far side of the moon. Another Chinese spacecraft has orbited, landed and roved on Mars in a first mission. Both have not been done before by any Western nation.
>
> This is the mentality the Chinese need, that of a leader, not mere follower. For this to happen, they have to have pride in their own culture, confidence in their own ability. This is true not only for the Chinese but also people of other races or nationalities.
>
>
> Should the Chinese not learn English then? One good reason for the Chinese to learn English would be to use it to counter the soft power of the native English-speaking world, like how this Chinese lady debated with an American.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4FE-5A6tWc