No thousands are the same.

Read no? I would get the jist of what the article was about, but in only knowing Japanese (poorly), I wouldn't be able to read it. However, a Japanese person would be able to pick up reading Chinese fairly easily, since they already have most of the "spelling" in place.

Another advantage is that character combos allows for easier understanding of new words. For instance atheism in Japanese is used by combining the characters for "No", "God", and "ism". Where as most English people on seeing the word would have no idea what it means (unless they understand the greek roots of the word). But even with my limited understanding of Japanese, first time I saw that combo I knew exactly what it meant.