[Ambix]

From what I know nobody in China cares about English and that's a nation like 2-3x bigger than all population of English-speaking countries :) Can't see a demise of Chinese even after 1,000 years. As well other languages with big enough user base (I'm not speaking about smallish European countries)

[Levitz]

China is so large that it can afford to ignore other languages, it's also important enough in the global economy that it can get other people to learn Chinese in order to deal with them rather than doing things the other way around.

I think the point stands that the more time passes, the more interconnected the world is, the more English becomes beneficial. If the great chinese firewall fell today, millions of Chinese citizens would start leaning more and more English and using it more, odds are that the same wouldn't happen the other way around.

[stickfigure]

The important metric is not "how many people live in English-speaking countries". The important metric is "how many people speak English". There are several times more non-native English speakers than native English speakers.

Mandarin doesn't seem to be very popular beyond native speakers, and the Chinese population is shrinking. I wouldn't bet on it in a race for the next Lingua Franca. Though I can imagine a Firefly-like future with Mandarin words mixed in with English.