In China, including both the mainland and Taiwan, English
has also become the foreign language of choice. A professor
at Beijing Normal University informed me not long ago that
there are a million teachers of English in the People’s
Republic. As with India, the figures for the total population
of Chinese users and learners are uncertain, but 200–300 million
is probably a fair estimate. This means that, between
them, India and China apparently account for over half a billion
users and learners of English, a total that (before bringing
in any of the millions elsewhere in Asia) makes the
continent demographically the heaviest user of English in
the world.