Mandarin is becoming an increasingly popular subject among the children of world leaders, billionaires and royal families, reflecting growing interest in China’s economic and diplomatic importance and the opportunities associated with its language.
The trend has attracted attention following several high-profile examples, including 15-year-old Arabella Kushner, the daughter of Ivanka Trump, who greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in Mandarin during an arrival ceremony at the White House on September 24.
Arabella had previously demonstrated her Chinese-language skills during a visit by US President Donald Trump to Beijing in November 2017. At an afternoon tea gathering in the Forbidden City, Trump played Xi and Peng a video of his then six-year-old granddaughter wearing a traditional Chinese-style dress. In the recording, she sang the children’s song “Our Fields”, recited passages from the Three Character Classic, a traditional Chinese primer, and performed poems by Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai. Xi reportedly awarded her an “A+” for her Mandarin.
Other prominent families have followed a similar approach. In May, technology entrepreneur Elon Musk brought his six-year-old son to Beijing for the Trump-Xi summit. Responding to a question on X about the child’s presence, Musk wrote in Chinese: “My son is learning Mandarin.”
The children of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott also study Mandarin as part of their global learning programme, alongside Singapore mathematics, according to India’s Global Review. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, who delivered a speech in Mandarin at Tsinghua University in 2014, posted a video in 2016 showing his daughter Max practising the language with the assistance of an artificial intelligence programme.
Royal families have also incorporated Chinese-language education into their children’s studies. Britain’s Prince George, the eldest son of Prince William, has studied Mandarin at school, while Spain’s Crown Princess Leonor received Chinese lessons for several years. Former Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has described his failure to learn Chinese as one of his greatest regrets and said his youngest son is now studying the language.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also referred to his grandchildren’s Mandarin abilities. Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club on October 1, he said that although he and Xi did not speak each other’s languages, communication had not created a cultural barrier between them. “My grandchildren will be my interpreters – they speak Chinese,” Putin said.
Some political leaders developed their own Mandarin skills through extended periods of study in China. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev studied Chinese in the early 1980s at what is now Beijing Language and Culture University while serving as a young Soviet diplomat. His former teacher, Liu Shiqin, recalled that Tokayev was 31 at the time, while he was 44.
Liu particularly remembered the final five weeks of the course, when students watched a popular Chinese documentary series about the Yangtze River, rewrote its narration and recorded their own versions. Tokayev told Liu that he intended to use the same learning method after returning home. The university continues to preserve his student records, grade sheet and handwritten application form from 1983.
Tokayev subsequently served at the Soviet embassy in Beijing and has said he spent nearly eight years in China. He has maintained an interest in Chinese culture and cuisine and continues to use Mandarin in diplomatic engagements. At the opening of the Kazakhstan Cultural Centre in Beijing on September 2, 2025, he delivered remarks in Chinese and quoted a traditional saying: “One flower alone does not make spring; a hundred flowers in bloom fill the garden with spring.”
Former Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome also studied at Beijing Language and Culture University, making him and Tokayev fellow alumni.
Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese studies at King’s College London, said wealthy and influential families had clear commercial and diplomatic reasons to encourage their children to learn Mandarin. China is the world’s second-largest economy and is expected to remain an important partner in business and technology, making familiarity with its language valuable to future generations.
However, Brown has identified a significant gap between the language priorities of influential families and ordinary university students in Europe and the United States. He has argued that Western countries need to invest more in Chinese-language education if they are to engage with China on equal terms.
There are indications that interest is expanding beyond political and business circles. In January 2025, when a possible TikTok ban prompted American users to join the Chinese social media platform RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, Duolingo reported a 216 per cent increase in new Mandarin learners in the United States. Its 2025 language report identified Chinese as the fastest-growing language on its platform in Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, South Korea, Spain and Thailand, and the second fastest-growing in the United States.
Seth Wiener, an associate professor of linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University, told China Daily that many learners probably believed Mandarin proficiency would create greater employment opportunities. He cautioned, however, that the language’s speech sounds and writing system presented considerable challenges for English speakers.
The growing availability of artificial intelligence translation has also prompted debate over whether learning Mandarin remains necessary. Commentator Palki Sharma argued that automated translation could convey sentences but could not independently provide cultural context or establish personal trust. Researchers writing in The Conversation in May similarly argued that language learning engages memory and attention, while machine translation can miss humour, tone and context because it relies on pattern recognition rather than lived understanding.
