In June, Talkstandards.com hosted an open forum which discussed the standards system in the People’s Republic of China. A series of articles were posted by contributors which covered a range of issues related to China’s involvement and cooperation with standards setting in the EU, US and abroad.

In co-authored article, Anne Layne-Farrar and Vanessa Yanhua Zhang highlighted the role IPR will play in China’s ambitions to transform from “made-in-China” to “innovated-in-China”. They suggest that the experience from WAPI – a domestic alternative to WiFi – will see a less “draconian stance“, which is in the country’s interest.

With regard to China’s standardization system, which is drive by government agencies as a tool for industry innovation, Klaus Ziegler commented that it is “difficult for our (European) industry to understand Chinese standardization and may also result in a lack of transparency within the system”. He however assured that today there is every increasing cooperation between European and Chinese standardization organizations, due to long and active efforts by both sides to achieve this.

George Willingmyre discussed the publication of two key draft regulations in late-2009/early-2010 and issued by Chinese governmental bodies regarding the requirements of IPR to be considered in Chinese national standards. The first of which “departed significantly from patent policies of standards organizations widely accepted internationally” and while the second excluded the most worrying elements much work is needed to “bring them into alignment with patent policies of standards organizations widely accepted internationally”.

Presenting an overview of Western reaction to China’s indigenous innovation policy, Richard Suttmeier, highlighted four key questions and criticism the policy attracts. These include the “re-innovation” trap, internal favouritism, domestic conditions and national security considerations.

Ajit Jaokar argued that due to a large, unsustainable internal investment and peeking consumer spending, China’s rapid growth is danger of slowing. Whether future growth comes from either export or domestic factors, ICT and by extension standardization will play a vital role according to Jaokar.

Dieter Ernst described China’s top down approach to standards setting as “time-consuming and cumbersome” due to the increasing complexity inherent in modern technology, business and market structure, etc. He emphasized the need to improve both the flexibility and dynamics of the system if seeking “to become co-shapers of international standards”.

Stacy Baird described the goal of China’s indigenous innovation policy in ICT as effort to “level the playing field”. However, he maintains that such as policy places a country at a competitive disadvantage and that the government’s goals are instead best served by participation in formal international standards setting. He noted that it seems China is starting to acknowledge this, and that the mature yet domestically innovated TD-SCDMA was a turning point for China.

Timothy Simcoe noted an inherent tension between China’s ICT standardization approach, with close cooperation between firms and the government, and the prevailing international norm, namely a decentralized “bottom up” approach. He further detailed both the opportunities and challenges related to the Chinese system: while on the one hand it may prove better equipped to deal with the complexity of modern standards efforts, it is weighed down by safeguards against loosing out to foreign IPR.

Knut Blind outlined a number of factors required by China to successfully integrate the country’s national standards initiatives into the greater international community. Blind stressed that these factors, primarily related R&D and IPR considerations, need be implemented carefully to promoting the domestic economy and society without trading too heavily that of other international standardization participants.