Now that there is a enthusiastic foreign friend who thinks he know my country than me, I'd like to tell you more about what I know.
Firstly, not everyone in mainland China officially speaks Mandarin. We have seven basic dialect branches different enough to make some linguists think they're different languages. And I do know there are some people speaking each dialect who can't understand Mandarin at all. But as Mandarin is the official language of China, the majority of Chinese people, especially the youth, know it very well. What's more, Mandarin is about the same as Taiwan's official language 国语 in the spoken way. So, if you learn Mandarin well, you'll be able to communicate with most of the people from mainland China, Taiwan and Honk Kong as well. Considering the influence of the mainland and our unity as one people, can you really believe the idea that the majority of the Hong Kong people don't know Mandarin or Taiwan 国语? To me, it's like a joke. I have friends from that city of our country, too.
As for characters, do you know why the government popularized simplified characters decades ago? Because traditional characters were too hard for people to learn. Do you really want to learn the characters which are hard for people who speak them, just for a handful of bigoted people? That's up to you.
Moreover, I think you learn Chinese for business reasons, right? If you that's true, and you want to ignore mainland China, that sounds like a bigger joke.