You are more than wrong, Throbert. Linguistic features never influence the choice of the international language. Why hasn't English been replaced by Esperanto?
Most people in China know Mandarin. English is the lingua franca, but most people in the world don't know it. It is also very difficult. English spelling is a terrible mess, English pronunciation is very difficult too. Even Russians have big problems with English consonants, while Russian is a very consonant-rich language (36 consonants; English - 24). Not to mention the Chinese.
Think how Russian was abandonned in Slavic countries, while it was much easier than English for them.