[mimighost]

>> A poor Chinese kid doesn't need to learn a foreign language to be hired as a full time programmer

Not really true.

English proficiency is a very important factor in job hunting in China also. Most of the good programmers I know have certain level of mastery in english, at least in reading. For sure, China has its own internet ecosystem, the same applies for the programmer community. But English is still the dominant language in computer science, a fact that will not be changed in near future.

China has its own english proficiency test, called "四级", literally "Level 4" or officially CET4 Test. It is required for all college students to pass this test when graduating, a huge pain for many. And we are not done :a higher level test, "六级"(Level 6, CET6) awaits for whoever wants to show better than average english fluency. Which makes thing worse, high score in those tests doesn't really guarantee real-world good english ability, so additional tests will be taken by companies themselves to make sure the candidates meet their requirement.