You may not know the official (spoken) language of China was selected not by market economy, but an entirely democratic means. In 1912, a Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation was convened with delegates from the entire country, and Beijing dialect was selected - as a compromise of many participants for political considerations, or, in other words, the result of negotiation.
What you may not know is, the Beijing dialect actually won the champion with a narrow margin; Cantonese actually came as the first runner up - lost by only one vote.
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Nonetheless, I am not that worried of the preservation of our local dialect. If that's easily removed, Ying Zheng (嬴政) would have unified our spoken language over 2000 years ago.
Unless you believe our country has a stronger administration than that of our First Emperor.
Well, you may be right.
PS. As a traditional Cantonese, I certainly have a personal bias to preserve this very language. After all, no other dialect could do better when you want to express yourself by some colourful spicy vigorous explicit vocabulary.
Many of our honorable council members need them.
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