Paul Denlinger at the ChinaVortex brings up an interesting issue: Chinese were by there US or European employers assumed to be fluent in Chinese. Only when the Goldman Sach's proposed co-head for China Richard Ong failed that language test, the investment bank discovered what some of us already news: many Chinese do not speak Manderin.
Even within China, where five major languages are being spoken, the China Daily annually brings the news that more than half of the Chinese actually speak Chinese. For those brought up outside China, without the compulsory Chinese education, that percentage will be much lower. For example in the Netherlands, the majority of the Chinese comes from the region of Wenzhou and mostly spoke at home their wide variety of local dialects. A special language institute in Hangzhou helps them to learn Chinese when they come for business of other reasons to China.
Paul Denlinger certainly touches on a hot topic. He will in the future write more regular about this and other topics for Chinabiz, as he is becoming one of our core speakers.
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