Anyone can learn how to say 你好are you? But seriously, getting basic taxi cab mandarin down in 6 months is pretty easy. Heck, when I did it it was much harder since real beijingers back then had thick 儿 accents.
You definitely don't need 大山-level mandarin to do business in china these days.
Yeah but it's still not honest to say you don't need to learn Chinese at all. I would say that you will need atleast 6 months to be able to live normally, 12 months to get respect in business meetings, 3-4 years to be understood and make it a comp. advantage.And I'm not talking about 上海。
I'm always shocked when I visit shanghai and the taxi drivers can actually speak English. Nothing like that ever happens in Beijing.
Plenty of foreigners work in China having much less than 6 months of Chinese. Most of them weren't even at my level. They still got by. Business meetings held with foreigners are usually in English anyways, it is only the old guard (Xi's generation) that can't English very well. And those people aren't so common in tech.
My winning combination for China: Google Fi (unrestricted access to real Internet), Google Translate, Didi. Most places have pictures for food so I just play the pointing game, but it would be difficult if you were a picky eater.
After seeing Mark Zuckerberg's "Chinese ability" I have less respect for him than before. I don't think 12 months cuts it. Maybe gives you a cute factor, yes. I would think respect is independent of language ability, unless you are taking language ability as your main selling point as a person. I'm sure Bill Gates is both respected in China, and effective, whether he speaks any Chinese or not. It all depends on the circumstances.
You definitely don't need 大山-level mandarin to do business in china these days.