[amanwithnoplan]

Chinese characters being unsuitable for QWERTY typewriters and early computers' limitations didn't "almost kill character-based Chinese", it just meant Chinese computing lagged behind. Inputing Chinese characters with a limited key set wasn't even conceptually novel, given the long history of structural decomposition and phonetic representation of Chinese characters, but it just couldn't be implemented before computers were powerful enough.

[TMWNN]

It is a fact that Mao supported romanization. <https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/54ky8m/til_th...> Presumably, had the PRC switched decades ago, no doubt Taiwan would today cite its sticking with the traditional written language as yet more proof of it being the "real" China, while the PRC would no doubt point to the millions of illiterates who were taught to read in the Western alphabet as proof of the superiority of its approach. (And vice versa, of course, had Taiwan been the one that chose to romanize.)

[ethbr1]

> it just couldn't be implemented before computers were powerful enough.

Wubi was presented by Wang at the 38th UN General Assembly in 1984.

So while they missed a few years, that's not bad.