Well I never said Spain was Mexico, and that doesn't really matter. In the UK, in Australia, in the US, etc., we all speak different versions of English, yet, for the most part we are able to understand eachother. To my knowledge, the same holds true for Spanish. People I know who are Spanish tell me they can even understand enough Portuguese to be able to have a conversation in Portuguese simply because it is so similar to Spanish.
As for Chinese, I'm aware of what you said, but, my point is, just because Chinese is spoken a lot IRL doesn't mean it is such a signifigant influence on the internet and IRC/mIRC. Meaning, there are other languages that imho are more influential. As Watchdog pointed out, French is generally the second international language. Almost all, if not all, of Africa either speaks English or French, English and French also add the US and all of Canada, and most of Europe. Even the UN recognizes French as an international language, look at
www.un.int note how it only has translations in English and in French, not to Chinese.
