These are probably the headlines they're thinking about,

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/747853.shtml

https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-28599392

Or more recently this one about character amnesia

https://globalchinapulse.net/character-amnesia-in-china/

None of these really mean that English has won, though. Rather that phonetics-based writing systems are easier to remember and use, especially in conjunction with digital systems that make it easy to map sound and context to symbols.

I wouldn't be surprised if characters are faster to read though. In English we have all these subconscious shortcuts like looking at the shape of the word, first and last letters, etc. But I think symbology can convey more at a glance. Thus the popularity of emoji