Communicat~ "There has been some research done on this issue which suggests that students take much longer to acquire a competency in Chinese or Japanese and that many students never achieve sufficient to hold as much as a simple conversation, let alone conduct business in either language."

You could say the same for any language. That makes no sense to single out Chinese and Japanese. I had french classes at school. If I had stuck with it I'd probably be fluent by now, but I didn't and I couldn't hold down a simple conversation with it. Since having left school I've probably met two french speakers that if I did continue with my studies it would have been handy to know it. One wanted to know where the bus stop was and the other was after AusPost. I meet Asians EVERYDAY that I have to communicate in some sort of 'sign language' to get across what we're on about. Japanese tourism is HUGE here. That would've been a good one as well. Some Islander languages would be handy too. The best future for Australia is locally. I'm all for our defence and trade being concentrated 'locally'. American, European and Middle Eastern markets are saturated and going nowhere. Asia and the sub-continent where it's at. Wouldn't it be handy if we had some school leavers who understood what they were saying?.

I was not suggesting that there would be no teaching of other languages, just that there would be a focus on Asian languages. Given our truly appalling record in resourcing and teaching any language other than English it may well be that other languages will need to be dropped from the curriculum in order to make way for Chinese and Japanese.
The question then becomes, is this the best use of language teaching time and resources? It takes longer to learn Chinese. (This is true for the Chinese as well as other learners.) We must therefore be prepared to spend more time as well as resources if we want students to learn Chinese. Even if we do many students will not succeed in achieving a level of Chinese that they can actually use in everyday life.
Or we could go the other route and teach languages which are less time consuming and in which a higher level of achievement can be more readily obtained by more students. We can then encourage those with aptitude to take up Chinese as well.
As it is I see the present focus (not an exclusive focus) on Asian languages as actually causing a decline in all language learning. So, we either radically overhaul the time and the resources spent on language learning and exclude something else from the curriculum or we recognise that levels of attainment, especially in Asian languages, are not going to be such that they are of any value on a widespread scale.
Some will still say that is not a reason not to teach Chinese but I would prefer an individual could actually read a page of say Urdu, Swahili or Malay than merely recognise a few characters in Chinese.

I could put it into another perspective... though only the christians would relate to it clearly.
Australia lives in spiritual deception!
Asia is where one of the major evil spirit power strongholds is.
Its where all of the false eastern religions come from who fellowship with demon powers.
Its where satan has established a throne and where he manipulates the people so they are poor and in many cases ill. Its where a great disrecpect for human life has been cemented by those evil powers... AND...this is why we are quielty being drawn towards asia.
The evil spirit realm wants us away from Christianity and into the trap of the eastern religions because they control that whole region. This is the truth and a description of the great war between Christ and satan can be found Ephesians chapter 6:12-18..."For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the DARK WORLD and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms..."
Its that simple...now...youve got it.
Satan knows if we get too close to China, like moths around a flame, we will be gobbled up and digested and he (satan) will control all that Australia once was.

Oh well, maybe we should all learn Satanese instead.

Welllll...if one thing was predictable.. it was CJ's response to Gibo :)

CJ.. you already know 'Satanese' it's called 'unbelief' or. 'rejection' of Christ. (after hearing the Good news)

The sad thing is.. you don't realize this....yet.

But to the topic. I fully support the learning of Asian languages. Chinese is an important one for business. Considering also that most business in South East Asia is run by ethnic Chinese, it will become the most credible and widespread language for those who wish to interact with the region.

We should recognize that the Chinese are furiously learning English all the time. So, why not we of Chinese.?

Spoken Chinese (Mandarin) is much easier to pick up than written..and that's the big barrier. All dem funny lil piccies.

Communicat.

Oh ok, so it's not for practical reasons you're arguing against Chinese or Japanese, but it's purely for cost effective reasons. You'd hope practicality would enter into the equation somewhere. How about scrathing languages from the curriculum totally and just outsource them?. I don't see how learning African bushman clicking sounds (example) would benefit students longterm....or practically. I'd rather they spend the money on learning Chinese and AT LEAST gaining some understanding of the culture as well rather than being in total grasp of 'how to make a poo house'.