China Developing own Standards

J ROC writes "Encouraged by their government Chinese electronics firms are shunning technological protocols invented abroad and developing their own, according to this article. The Chinese have developed several standards including EVD to replace DVD standards, and TD-SCDMA to replace the CDMA cell phone standard found elsewhere. The reasons seem to be partly based on "techno-nationalism", and Chinese firms growing tired of paying foreign patent fees. While this may force foreign firms to lower their patent fees, some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world."

Comments

Re:Funny that.

[Nova Express]

20% of the world's population.

Just think how much more it would be if Mao hadn't killed 30-60 million of his own people during "The Great Leap Forward" (plus another million or so during the "Cultural Revolution"), and if the current regime didn't perform forced abortions for population control.

Jackie Chan was asked once in an interview if he regretted not breaking into the US market. He replied that with 2 billion people in asia, why should he care about the States?

Yes, that would explain why he never came to the U.S. and started working in Hollywood. Hey, wait a minute...

Re:Piracy...

[mblase]

Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?

I'm sure it won't affect it at all, although it will probably affect the manufacture of devices it's played on.

For instance, right now you can buy a DVD player in the USA for $40, if not less, because the components to make one are so widely standardized they can be bought at rock-bottom prices.

If China enforces a new format to replace DVDs, they'll have to require manufacturers to build new devices to play the new format -- which won't be as cheap and won't sell as well, if at all.

It'll be little problem for pirate movie sellers to convert overseas movies to the new format, but it'll be harder for manufacturers to get people to buy the new players unless China goes door-to-door to retake people's region-free players.

If anything, widespread piracy will defeat China's effort to impose new standards, because the government won't be able to stop pirates from selling standard DVDs.

Some Chinese "standards" not doing so well

[bullitB]

Just as an example, EVD has been something of a flop.

The Chinese didn't actually invent most of the technology in EVD; they seem to have just taken the existing DVD medium and licensed On2's VP6 video codec (On2 is US-based). They've shipped so little actual EVD units that On2 is suing the Chinese companies involved for not fulfilling their minimum units obligations. As a bit of anecdotal evidence, my Chinese friend claims that he can't even find EVDs any more (there were more several months ago).

TD-SCDMA was also developed in large part by outsiders (Siemen's IIRC), and hasn't completely taken off, though this may change if/when the government decides to require operators to use it. Point is, I believe many of these new "Chinese standards" are really just a way to encourage real competition in the new Chinese economy, and it's actually working extremely well. EVD, for example, might actually be a really great way to stop the HD-DVD mafia from imposing discriminatory patent fees against Chinese electronics manufacturers.

Re:tumbling

[Ishin]

Actually judo is very much Japanese, and means passive way. (or letting your opponent beat himself. It was adapted from jujitsu (another Japanese martial art)

Remember, kung fu != karate, just like chinese != japanese.

Re:China is very smart to do this

[isaac]

Chinese economic growth in the future is dependent on the same thing US economic growth is dependent on.

Cheap Oil.

China is actually a coal-fueled country, to a much greater degree than the US. Fortunately for them, they happen to have the largest coal reserves in the world. (Unfortunately for them, the coal they have is really dirty, and pollution is the biggest constraint on growth they face.)

-Isaac