China was a major civilization if not world power for over 2000 years until the late 1700s; the country has only been in decline for ~300 years, with most of its major defeats in the mid-1800s; a short time in history.
It's not all that surprising China would ascend again; what comes around goes around.
Not necessarily, look at India, it is poised to be larger than China, but several factors have been impeding its economy: casted based system, corruption, poor infrastructure, education, poverty, etc. China is by no means perfect, but at least it has its economic house and government policies
somewhat in order.
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In Europe, there are restrictions on phone subsidizations... therefore it is cost prohibitive to buy a smartphone outright. In the US, everyone buys on credit - and in this case, a long term, locked in cell contract.
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Tee hee hee, the UK is now an emerging market!

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It's true - sorry to burst your bubble but in the grand scheme of things, there are actually quite few English speakers. They just happen to be clustered in some of the wealthiest nations and English is the de facto language of business (but that may change in the future... who knows):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
Take a look at Wikipedia, the numbers may shock you.