[malandrew]

How does Chinese handle the propagation of neologisms?

A rough 1:1 phonetic correspondence between oral and written languages intuitively (to me at least) would be more fit for the creation and propagation of news words, or am I missing some other natural form of conveyance and propagation that exists in the Chinese writing system?

[contravert]

It's actually extremely easy to create new words using Chinese characters. You simply put existing characters together. To use some computing related terms for example:

mobile phone: 手机 （hand machine)

programming: 编程 （compose orders)

QR code: 二维码 （2d code)

hacker: 黑客 （black guest, this also sounds phonetically like "hacker")

For brands and other names, there is a system of transliterating sounds using characters, or simply a literal translation of the name, e.g.

Android: 安卓 (an zhuo)

Microsoft: 微软 （small soft)

Apple: 苹果 （literally apple)

[jarboot]

Note that what the author said was "danger plus oppertunity" for the word for crisis -- 危机 -- shares the same last character as 手机。 While easy to compose and sometimes understand, it's not as simple as the author implied.