>>64168784
Problem is that the characters carry more meaning than the sounds in Chinese, to the point where the complex interrelation of the radicals and characters is core to understanding Chinese. To any literate Chinese speaker this would be equivalent to tearing the soul out of their language.
Of course that's why Mao nearly did do that, along with killing no small amount of China's literate population. According to Chinese Communist Hagiography Stalin talked Mao out of just using latin character Pinyin for Chinese, and to settle on simplified characters. While it's a rather unreliable source, I do personally believe this happened, because I doubt Stalin would pass up a chance to fuck over another country.