[1] They differ as much from each other morphologically and phonetically as do English, German and Danish, but meanwhile share the same writing system (Hanzi) and are mutually intelligible in written form.

According to the 2010 edition of Nationalencyklopedin, 955 million out of China's then-population of 1.34 billion spoke some variety of Mandarin Chinese as their first language, accounting for 71% of the country's population.

According to a government white paper published in early 2005, "by the end of 2003, 22 ethnic minorities in China used 28 written languages."

One decade before the demise of the Qing dynasty in 1912, Mandarin was promoted in the planning for China's first public school system.

In that year, the government pushed linguistic unity in China, focusing on the countryside and areas with ethnic minorities.

[13] In 2024, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping called for wider use of Mandarin by ethnic minorities and in border areas.

Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, estimated that the total English-speaking population in China would outnumber the native speakers in the rest of the world in two decades.

[23] There have been a growing number of students studying Arabic, due to reasons of cultural interest and belief in better job opportunities.

[26] There have also been a growing number of students choosing to learn Urdu, due to interest in Pakistani culture, close ties between the respective nations, and job opportunities provided by the CPEC.

[27] Interest in Portuguese and Spanish have increased greatly, due in part to Chinese investment in Latin America as well as in African nations such as Angola, Mozambique, and Cape Verde.

[29] Macau is used by China as a hub for learning Portuguese and diplomatic and financial ties with Brazil and Portuguese-speaking African countries.

[32] In China, English is used as a lingua franca in several fields, especially for business settings,[33] and in schools to teach Standard Mandarin to people who are not Chinese citizens.