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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."
China is currently facing the dilemma of joining the world community yet somehow maintaining it's authoritarian (yes they are still communist) government. Communism itself can't tolerate any kinds of rivals whatsoever. This extends to churches like the inability of Tibetans to display pictures of the Dalai Lama to the fact that Chinese Catholics cannot be loyal to the Pope (he is not a Chinese National and therefore verboten). Other Chinese intolerances include banning Falun Gong which commands hearts and minds of a huge number of Chinese and is therefore an enemy of communist ideology even though it's a relatively benign movement.
It should be no suprise that the Chinese want to develop their own standards: using Microsoft for everything would basically put China in a position of having their tech infrastructure being run by a foreign power. This is merely an example and of course it's easy to pick on Microsoft but this idea extends to all ideas that have their standard determined and dictated somewhere else other than by the <SARCASM>glorious Chinese communists.</SARCASM>
Under communism there is no such thing as intellectual property rights unless you are the State. Communism cannot afford any kinds of rivals whatsoever, such is the nature of authoritarian regimes be them communist or otherwise.
Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
The Communist Government there would just like to control all the strings themselves in an effort to tighten their power.
It's not about innovation or costs. China is simply trying harder to keep their power. When they ban or restrict foreign technologies in favor of their own, it'll make it easier to censor and suppress "subversive" material.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world.
I'm more concerned that someday the rest of the world may need to bend over [backward] to support China's standards. They are, after all, manufacturing a great many of the electronic items that we buy.
" some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world."
And that's particularly different from the U.S. how? PCS vs. GSM...
While that is true, China could also benefit from setting their own standards, letting other corporations or other countries use it for free or much lower cost than the more costly, patent protected counterparts. That will likely turn the table around and isolate the more expensive alternatives of what we have now, and will be using their cheaper and possibly superior standards for our future needs.
Please direct all bug reports to
After RTFA, I thought of a decent question. Are there Chinese developed formats better then the current US/Japanese formats out there right now? They mentioned the Chinese WIFI encryption; WAPI. Is it better then WAP? Worse?
To be honest, I could see why they would want thier own formats. They have a country of over a billion people, and even if only a fraction of them buy eqiupment based on foreign patents; that's a lot of money.
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
Bullhockey, the rest of the world will cater easily to a market of possibly 1.3 billion consumers, let us not forget the system of capitalism which does not really care who is buying it as long as someone is buying it. If the cost of licensing and fees are so high in a market where the foothold was not that strong to begin with then it would only follow reason that people/corporations/governments will adapt to the fabrication of their own systems...which is the same argument we use in the OSS community.
Additionally, China does not like to follow foreign arrangements, they tangle with democracy and touches of capitalism too much as it is (their opinion), having them rely on those same foreign arrangements undermines the authority of the governing powers.
It's about time that China started doing these things, hopefully the push in the technology direction wont spark another arms race, but rather easier and open stream technology and systems for the lower end users.
Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep
It has been promoting as more secure the homegrown Red Flag Linux, based on an open-code operating system.
First Linux was invented by the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, and now Linus is Chinese. Methinks the article author doesn't get it with respect to linux.
As far as the other technolgies, I think the EVD standard is doomed to failure. People are going to want DVDs from abroad, and a player that only does EVD isn't going to sell. The mobile phone standard doesn't matter. The US has gone its own way with cell phone standards and the sky hasn't fallen yet. There's not a lot of compelling reasons why mobile phone standards have to be compatible with the rest of the world, and China is definately big enough to set their own standard.
As far as this cry of "nationalism", that just sounds like posturing to justify this to a certain communist segment of the Chinese populace. Setting your own standards and avoiding patent fees sounds like capitalism to me.
AccountKiller
Thats not really the issue that china will be addressing. Whether or not their people can afford DVDs in their current state is secondary to the fact that a large amount (I'd say more than 80%) of the labor that goes into the manufacturing of the electronics for everyone else is done in and around China. With them creating their own standards, the bigger issue may be if they will still produce the equipment for the rest of the world's standards or just their own. If they revert to only their own, a large portion of the elctronic toys that we like playing with may need to find new manufacturers, which could very easily drive the prices up considerably.
The stupidity of your average American is just about the same as the average European, we simply show it off better.
No, they'll just get the foreign corporations, like Sun, to bootstrap them with subsidized projects. While Sun's marketers and bizdev suits salivate over the Chinese market, their mafia government will just announce new API standards and cut out every company that's not Chinese. Sun will cut its losses, sell its useless stakes in their Chinese operations to Chinese "partners", and the Chinese companies will proceed to revise the open source OS and apps.
It's called judo: leverage your larger opponent against himself, as he clumsily grasps at you. Chinese people invented it, and it still works, at all scales, in all arenas.
--
make install -not war
"some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world."
Ummm...shouldn't that read, "China may successfully isolate itself through these measures"? Isn't that what they seem to perpetually want, with their policies in most other areas?
Free market is great, but not necessarily on a multi contry scale. One of the things America's been learning as of late is that Free Market can suck in an open system. Other countries will always be a sorce of cheaper laber and less painful business taxes for companies than home is. You could call that competition, but what it really does is cause our businesses to leave us. That is a baad thing. The only way for it to become a good thing is if our own country (by which I mean America - I don't really know the economic situation of other countries) stops shuddering at the thought of tax cuts for wealthy businesses and actually starts giving our companies a reason to stay. Like with all competition, its only good for the guys taht are priced competitively. America just isn't right now.
Then, I decided to actually check my facts. Boy, what a suprise. I was right about the population issue: India 1.03 billion, China 1.28 Billion. But what really shocked me was the figures on literacy. I would have bet a week's pay that India had a much better educated population. I assumed that most Chineese couldn't read or write, but a little googling showed that China has about 80% literacy while India has around 60% literacy. So much for assumptions.
I still think China is in for a tough time when more of their population gets access to outside information. It's difficult to excercise dictatorial control over a population that has ready access to contrary views and information. We'll have to see. Maybe this can be a "peaceful" revolution... Either way, China will be a force to be reconned with, but I seriously think creating their own standards will slow the growth process.
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
This reminds me of something I watched on an old WWII documentry.
One of the factors that slowed the Nazis down in trying to invaded the Soviet Union was that the Soviet Union used non-standard train tracks that Nazi troop and supply trains could not run on.
Steve
Forking out millions of US$ in licences would ruin any chinese company. Hell, do you know what 500$ US means for a chinese person? ONE THENTH of the per-capita GDP! and it won't even buy a single PC with Windows on it.
To those of you paranoiacs who still think Communism Is The Red Menace: communism has nothing to do with this issue. In fact, the Chinese are applying by-the-book capitalism to IP: get the cheapest source avaliable, and use it.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
I live in Shanghai. You know the town? It has the fastest pasenger train in the world, the "maglev". The whole place feels more modern in many ways than 80% of US cities.
Now China is growing up quickly. I lived in Taiwan for a decade, that country grew up fast. But China is like a weed on steroids, growing rapidly, developing complex domestic markets for everything and anything, and, like Japan in its early stages China is setting its own standards.
Ever wonder why in Japan you can get 3G phones and 3G service? 1.3 megapixel phone with video? Why can't the US consumer buy that? Oh yeah, the US uses its own standards for cell phones. They would never use some "foreign" standard, especially one that is from the Japanese, that would mean royalties. Why not develop your own, hence CDMA.
Heck, I was using my single GSM cell phone number in 1996 in Taiwan, I could roam in Europe, Middle East, Asia using the same number and SIM card, but NOT the USA. GSM only became available in the USA recently.
China is doing the right thing by encouraging local standards and locally developed technology that is not dependent on the rest of the world. It is in the best interest of its people.
Now is it in the best interest of US Citizens that we obliterate sovereign countries and the US go bust doing it? Guess that is OK, China is financing the whole thing anyway buying T-bills! It is a mad world indeed.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
The article has several good points but got a little silly calling the Chinese government "secretive". sublim/Echelon/sublim Market confusion, ha, that is competition. Communist, well maybe, but its one of the most capitalistic countries on Earth. The conclusion the article drew, that China would isolate itself, is a laugher. China is a huge chunk of the human population and is self-sufficient in every way. Immagine if every device in China was incompatible with the rest of the world, then only the bigwigs in China would be making all the money and controlling all the content, and therefore the populace. You have to understand that if it meant going back to the stone age, China would do it, just to keep the ruling class in power. The dirty politics of monopolist big communications business is on the same level as in the United States. If you follow the history of Qualcomm you will see that China has basically, ass-raped them. If China didn't have a brutal population control in place, half the world would be Chinese and we all would be outsiders. To the average Chinese, we are but a tiny part of _their_ world.
Other countries/companies create competing standards, too. If Sony doesn't want to pay royalties, they come out with a competing standard, get market share, and cross-license. Don't believe it? Next time you buy your CD+R/-R/+RW/-RW/DVD+R/-R/+RW/-RW/RAM drive you may have have to choose between Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, or now, the Chinese EVD. Remember that only about 45% of US households have a DVD player, even though they cost $39. The MPAA would love to replace this DVD standard with a more secure medium anyway.
Instead of abandoning the patent system, China is using it in a competitive way. My grandpa invented things and patented them just to have US corporations work around his patents as soon as he filed them. If you file a patent, you are screwed, if you don't file, you are screwed. I hope this TD-SCDMA is not a work around for S-CDMA, as S-CDMA was invented by someone I happen know. (I hope they pay him.)
China is its own world; kinda like a whole other planet. A lot of Chinese have never even heard of other races, let alone, seen another person from one. I have lived in China for short periods of time. While there, I felt like a Martian walking down the street, because of the excitement it would cause. When I step out to the curb, people would lock onto me with their eyes, and stare until they crashed their bike or motorcycle, two blocks away. The police would shoo me away, so then I would step into a store and the sales girls would all run away laughing. In this area, they had seen Caucasians on TV, but not in RL. Everywhere I went, they would gasp "Gwy-Lo!". Once, while passing a restaurant at night, one patron stood, pointed and yelled; it was like being Godzilla. After a few weeks, it gets old. But, I digress... Basically, the only control other countries have is to control the flow of Chinese products and hope they don't move into your major industries.