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Chinese writing system is a language in itself. You can translate Mandarin, Cantonese and even English to that language. To learn that language is harder because it has to support more than one spoken language.

Using an alphabet would make things far more easier, but then how would people from different parts of China understand each other?

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It's not a language. It's a writing system used to write Classical Chinese for 3000 years and Mandarin for 150 years. When I was in Hong Kong, I was surprised that the written language is Mandarin (in traditional form).

It's a language in the same sense math notation is a language. It's understood by both a Chinese and an American mathematician.

Math notation consists of symbols and syntax (order of symbols). How to arrange the Chinese characters (syntax) is very different between different languages.

I suppose advocates of alphabetic writing imagine everyone in China (outside Hong Kong and Macau) will be speaking standard Mandarin in a few generations anyway due to standardized public education.

I would argue that alphabetisation would increase the use of regional languages because it would be possible to write down your speech, instead of relying on Mandarin or phonetical transcription with Chinese characters.

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