There are plenty reasons to oppose the natural process of advanced things displacing less advanced ones. Cultural assimilation is not a political reason, it is an emotional reason. Many Chinese people regard calligraphy as art, so naturally they'd be uncomfortable with a newer generation not being able to perform it.

I think western society has the same feeling towards cursive writing, although it is much easier to obtain the basic skill of writing cursive western characters not many people are still able to write it in a beautiful fashion.