Although it may be hard to imagine it right now in the not to distant future China will become a major player in the technology industry. They will not simply be a source of cheap labor forever, at some point they will increase the quality of their workforce and start to produce their own high tech products. For employees in the technology industry it will be critical to speak the Chinese language in order to have a successful career. There are already good reasons for tech employees to speak Chinese but in a few years it will no longer be an option it will be a requirement.

The biggest reason that somebody in the technology industry would want to speak Chinese is the enormous size of the market for technology products in China. In addition to having the largest population in the world China also has one of the fastest growing economies and this means that there is an opportunity for business. One of the goals of the government is to raise the standard of living and bring everybody in China up to the level that in the west would considered middle class. The newly affluent Chinese have a huge demand for technology products, but they will need to be designed for the Chinese user. That means that they will have to operate in the Chinese language with the Chinese alphabet. These products will require designers and developers who are capable of working in Chinese.

As the Chinese economy grows a lot of the high tech products will be built in China and that means that it will be necessary to work with the Chinese, most of whom won't speak English. Collaboration and joint ventures will become more and more common and communication barriers will need to be over come. The employee who can speak Chinese will be in a far better position to work on these types of projects, making language skills an important part of career advancement. As the Chinese economy develops more of the work beyond just manufacturing will be moved to China, eventually the actual development work will be done there as well.

Once the Chinese reach the point where they can start doing development work they will start to create their own high tech companies rather than just being a place for American companies to outsource work. Once that happens China will actually start to develop their own technology which will be imported into the United States. This is going to require American employees who can understand how the product works and read the documentation despite it's being in Chinese. At some point the flow of technology is going to become a two way street and the ability to integrate it so that it works together is going to be a critical job function. This will require employees who are fluently bilingual.