30% of Chinese cannot speak Mandarin

Over 400 million Chinese people still cannot communicate in standard Mandarin, a senior official recently said, as quoted by the Xinhua News Agency.

Li Weihong, director of the State Language Affairs Commission, told reporters Sunday that 30 percent of China's population cannot speak proper standard Mandarin, also known as Putonghua.

The State Council launched another push for "linguistic unity" on Sunday, marking the 17th anniversary of the country's efforts to promote Putonghua.

"About 70 percent of the total population can speak Putonghua, and 95 percent of the literate population knows how to use standard Chinese characters. However, only 10 percent [of that 70 percent] can speak standard Putonghua fluently," Li said.

China is home to thousands of individual dialects. The government has promoted Putonghua for decades as an way to ease communication between people of different regions.