Ottawa Citizen – Daniel Fried
“…with the rise of China, and the corresponding rapid growth of Chinese language education around the world, it would be a mistake to continue to view this as the language of one ethnicity only: it is becoming a world language, and Canada must adapt…Almost unreported outside of China, the Chinese government has been moving swiftly to reduce the amount of emphasis given to English language education in its own schools. University departments of English are being closed, and English will be removed from the all-important college entrance exams by 2017; it seems certain that within a generation, there will be far fewer speakers of English in China than there are now. More and more, businesses and nations that wish to engage with China will need to do so in Chinese.”(more)