This is what some people advocate for English - entirely misguidedly in my view.

You can start by undoing misguided spelling reforms of the past. "Debt" used to be spelled "det" but due to incorrectly inferred etymology it was changed to be non-phonetic. There are many words like these.

Then look for major inconsistencies where a cluster of letters is pronounced more than one way, and simplify one of them. For example, "ough" is pronounced as in "tough" more often than as in "though". Change "tough" to be spelled as "tuff" and "rough" as "ruff".

Going further, embrace text/informal writing and use tho, altho, nite, tonite, etc. Although the last two are not necessary since "ight" is pretty consistent. Keep common clusters of letters so that it still looks like English. Do it in in stages over a 100 years , making changes every 15 years or so. I'm mostly aiming at ease of reading vs ease of writing.

England could have done it perhaps in Shakespeare's time or shortly thereafter, but once English spread across the globe in its modern (lack of) form with no recognized central authority with the power to force the change, it's not going to happen.

You couldn't get three states in the United States to agree on a universal spelling/pronunciation let alone the three countries in the United Kingdom. You think you'll have any more success over continents and across oceans?

Good luck!

There is no central authority over the Spanish language since the days of Bolivar and San Martin (1810s or so). Modern e.g. Argentinians would laugh at the idea that Real Academia Española has any say on how they should use their language. And indeed, there are differences not just in vocabulary and pronunciation, but also in grammar: "vos hablás" instead of "tú hablas".

Nevertheless, I can pick pretty much any written Spanish word and know how it sounds both in European and Argentinian Spanish.

It is specifically English which failed at the task of not being like Chinese.

Me, and millions of other speakers of English as a second language, will vehemently disagree with that point.

The rest of your comment reads like a detailed attempt at rationalization of this untrue affirmation.

As a counterargument, take Spanish. Spanish is not younger than English, pronunciation has diverged and for example someone from Cuba and someone from Argentina pronounce many words differently.

The Spanish-speaking world is by no means small, or homogeneous.

And we absorb loanwords like madmen. Mostly from English, but also French, Japanese, Italian, etc.

The point is: Spanish is a much more phonetic language in its written form than English, so much that we have no spelling bees.

English simply fucked up itself with the great vowel shift, that's all.

By comparison, the rules and structures of English (such as they are) were not altered significantly following the great vowel shift in Chaucer's time. Mostly minor spelling changes and word choice.

All languages adopt foreign words unless there is an active body attempting to prevent it, such as the French Language Academy.

French words are not however just loaned to English. It was thoroughly baked in following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when the nobility all spoke French for hundreds of years. Basically every "fancy" word in English came directly from French while "plain" words came from Anglo Saxon (Germanic) or other related sources. Incarcerated vs jailed. Debris vs trash. Magnificent vs great. "The player regarded his opponent." vs. "The player looked at his opponent." (French for "He looks" is "Il regarde".

The great vowel shift didn't mess up English; the lack of concerted normalization of English is what did it in. English is the greatest pragmatist without design of all world languages.