The new 'must learn language' is Mandarin Chinese
Graddol noted, though that employers in parts of Asia are already looking beyond English. "In the next decade the new 'must learn' language is likely to be Mandarin."
I remember during the mid to late 80s, many people believed that the must learn language in business was Japanese. Japan was an emerging market then, taking over the world by storm with their products. Japan, while still a strong force in business, is in the middle of an economic recession.
China is the new emerging Asian market -- just as Japan wanted to imitate and adopt the Western ways, China wants to bring over a billion people in their society to live a western-like lifestyle. Right now, I see the industries of America salivating at the thought of having access to the Chinese markets -- over a billion people to sell their products and services to. But what people forget is that these billion people will also be competition. Competition in sales, in products, and in jobs. A door allows both entry and exit, after all.
It has already happened since the Open Door Policy back in 1978/1979. Many businesses from foreign countries including Canada, the United States, various European countries, Japan, South Korea have taken the opportunity to invest in China and set up branch offices there. Many businesses in Taiwan and Hong Kong have moved their means of production to mainland China because of the lower cost of labor since the 1990s or so. Besides receiving a huge chunk of their investments from Taiwan and HK, many investments also come from the overseas Chinese communities in SE Asia.
You have to remember that most of this takes place in the major cities and in the coastal provinces, especially in Guangdong province and the city of Shanghai.
While that is true for manufactured goods, I think China does want to make themselves a major technology center, much like Japan and Korea have done for themselves. They flew in the former San Jose Mayor a few months ago to discuss how San Jose was transformed by the dot com boom, and how they could transform their cities the same way, and which pitfalls to avoid.