I'm posting as a Chinese (second-language) speaker here who grew up speaking English and who has endeavored to maintain a bilingual home in the United States. Amazingly, only just more than half the population of China itself is conversant in Modern Standard Chinese.<p><a href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838.htm" rel="nofollow">http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...</a><p>So Chinese still has to gain a lot of use at home before it can gain major use abroad.<p>Several of the other comments about the importance of network effects in favoring one language rather than another show what a tremendous head start English has as the interlanguage for varied ethnic groups all over the world.