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Chinese Standardization and the benefits of European led coordination

posted by Klaus Ziegler on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 9:08 am

In recent years China’s standardization system has matured considerably. Today, China has more standards than Europe, covering more aspects of economic operations than any industrialized country. China wants to be recognized as a major player in standardization, including export of its standardization deliverables. One of the growing ambitions of this country is to become a leading high-technology country, making a transformation from the “factory of the world” to an innovation-based society and from standards-follower to standards-setter for the rest of the world. This target is evident also in the 11th Five year plan for 2006-2011, where standardization is mentioned many times as a tool to leapfrog innovation, with specific emphasis put on the high-tech and ICT sectors.

In China standards are considered a tool to support the industry provided by the government. This puts the responsibility for standardization primarily in the hands of the respective ministries overseeing the industry. This, however, makes it difficult for our industry to understand Chinese standardization and may also result in a lack of transparency within the system. The perception prevails that many standards, especially in the industry sector level are still developed behind closed doors and with the participation of selected industry partners only. Although there are signs of changes towards more transparency, there is quite a long way to go.

Currently there are several hot topics in the Chinese standardization world. These are energy and resource saving standards corresponding to the Chinese government’s efforts on energy saving. Then there are safety and security related standards expressing the need to improve the record in occupational health: mining, traffic, fire protection, etc. Furthermore, the focus is on security issues related to cyberspace and media content – “Infosecurity” as well as on technology transfer + IPR policies to leapfrog industrial development.

Due to longstanding and active efforts on both sides we can rely today on a strong cooperation among European and Chinese organizations in the field of standardization, with results that are beneficial to both sides. The Regulatory Dialogue between the European Commission (EC) and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China (AQSIQ) takes place every year, which includes a Working Group dedicated to cooperation in standardization.

Recognising China’s importance, the three European Standards Organisations (ESOs), CEN (European Committee for Standardization), CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) and ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), together with the EC and the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) established a post for the Seconded European Standardization Expert in China (SESEC) in 2006. The role of the SESEC is to represent the ESOs in China, develop contacts with stakeholders in China and to increase visibility of European standardization in China as well as improve European stakeholders’ knowledge and understanding of Chinese standardization.

Deepening the cooperation further, in 2009 CEN, CENELEC and ETSI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Standardization Administration of the People’s Republic of China (SAC). This agreement provides a framework for regular and coordinated exchange of information at corporate and technical level. The main action concerning the implementation of this agreement is CESIP (China-EU/EFTA Standardization Information Platform). CESIP was launched in October 2009. This electronic platform gives information on the titles of European and Chinese standards in both English and Chinese and currently covers four areas: electrical equipment, medical devices; machinery and environmental protection, with a perspective to include more areas in the near future. The platform is accessible at http://www.eu-china-standards.eu. The project was developed to foster trade between the two regions and to support the understanding of both models in partnership with the three ESOs, SAC, EC and EFTA.

Responding to the needs of European industry, which made it very clear that they consider increased harmonization of standards as one of the top priorities in trading with China, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI have considerably increased their activities in and towards China. These actions and experiences repeatedly show that the best and most efficient results can be achieved through intensive cooperation with China initiated by the European Standards Organizations.

recent DISCUSSION

Dieter ERNST says:

Klaus,
I like very much two insights in your blog.
1. You emphasize that China’s achievements in standardization are considerable, and that we need to take these achievements very seriously. We also need to understand that China is serious in its ambition to move from being standards-takers to standards-co-shapers and ultimately to standards-setters. We in the West would do ourselves a favor if we accept for a fact both China’s achievements and its ambitions. Once we have done that, negotiations may become less cumbersome.

2. Your second paragraph goes right to the heart of the matter. You state: “In China standards are considered a tool to support the industry provided by the government. This puts the responsibility for standardization primarily in the hands of the respective ministries overseeing the industry. This, however, makes it difficult for our industry to understand Chinese standardization and may also result in a lack of transparency within the system.”
You are absolutely right that, as long as we don’t get this simple fact, we will have a hard time to come up with realistic policy suggestions.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Dieter ernst
Ajit Jaokar says:

Re
>>>
In China standards are considered a tool to support the industry provided by the government. This puts the responsibility for standardization primarily in the hands of the respective ministries overseeing the industry. This, however, makes it difficult for our industry to understand Chinese standardization and may also result in a lack of transparency within the system.
<<<
This is a very succinct point. Companies and standards bodies interface with other companies and standards bodies(irrespective of where they are). But interfacing with government is relatively new. In the USA there is some involvement of governments(ex in NIST) for standardization but that is more in general direction and NIST is transparent(even I as a non US citizen am invited as an expert). But maybe this is a language issue? I am not sure.
Baisheng An says:

I believe the current European-China cooperation on ICT standards can be substantially enhanced. So far, with regard to ICT standards, European might not have been positioned to cooperate with, or even to influence China. Rather, Europe has been thought to be more interested in IPR protection rather than standards cooperation. Besides, Europe might need to figure out how Europe will deal with ICT standards before it kicks off substantial discussions with China. Europe might not feel comfortable to explore this issue together with China. And all these issues might be obstacles for substantial China-EU cooperations on ICT standards.
Mattias Ganslandt says:

Klaus, very interesting. (1) One of your points have important implications, China may well be positioned to be the standard-setter of the world in particular industries (such as solar or other renewable energy markets), and this position is related to the fact that this is an area where PRC de facto is at or even moving the technological frontier. More general transformation to a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy however typically requires abundancy of the most important production factors for innovation, i.e. knowledge capital, private equity and well-defined property rights. (2) The European initiative to collaborate with China has bilateral and even multilateral value. Europe has a long history of international collaboration and harmonization. The question is if Europe is pericularly well positioned to cooperate with PRC on these matters? And if so, what can China learn from Europe? /Mattias
vanessayzhang says:

Klaus. Good points. It seems that the Chinese government still retains the right to take the lead in most standard setting decisions. Similar situation even can be found in other developed economies such as Japan and also ever happened in Europe in the 1980s for its GSM cellular standard initiated by state-owned telecom operators and the EC. However, China may be more committed than any other countries to implement de jure standards in most strategically important sectors, such as ICT. Before it involves more market mechanism in standard setting, it’s important to keep intergovernmental dialogues between the EU and China.
Baisheng An says:

Hi, Klaus, Further to the question of Peter, could you tell us how much the current coordination between China and EU has been focusing on ICT standards, such as the 3G mobile standards? Sure I know some of the information int his regard and my question in effect is that how could the EU and China coordinate with regard to ICT standards?
Peter Gray says:

Klaus, you seem very positive towards strong coordination between European and Chinese standardisation efforts. It seems to me that China’s development towards TD-LTE appears to indicate a divergence with Europe and FD-LTE. What are the prospect that though initiatives such as MoU and CESIP we will see greater convergence?

Chinese Standardization and the benefits of European led coordination

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Klaus Ziegler

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