I was hoping it would be an announcement about a linux smartphone from China. But who knows, it may come. If China decided to go all in on Linux, we’d all have to start learning Chinese.
No we wouldn’t. China is plenty adept at what they do in the world with English.
The point is that English is dominating for many reasons but in tech it’s because it spread everywhere. If China decided to invest in Linux and spread it everywhere, at some point they’d stop communicating in English just to fit in. There would be innovative things coming out of China that other non-Chinese speaking people would want and they’d have to translate it or learn the language.
It was like that (bar Linux) for many centuries, it may happen again. Albeit I must admit, learning Chinese is way harder than learning English
Before English, German and French were the lingua franca’s of the world. Then Hitler came along and fucked that up for Europe, the US took advantage and spread its defaults around the world, now Trump is here and it may be the end of that. If China’s clever, they’ll do more than just owning supply chains and actually try to spread their language and world view.
From the looks of it, that’s one thing they haven’t understood yet: you need a strong marketing and ad machine to really take over in the hearts of people. Material ownership can be reversed more quickly than cultural and mental. There are still lots of people who will continue to speak English, make English content, and spread US culture around the world long after the US hegemony falls. If China’s only legacy is material and not in world-wide language and culture, it will be quickly forgotten.