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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."
Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
. . .and China will come up with an incompatible email protocol, and rid us of much of our spam problem ;)
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
Creating national standards is an eventual dead-end. Eventually, when the Next Big Thing overtakes the world, these national standards will only serve as an impediment to technical progress in China. Remember Minitel vs the global internet in France? If it's this kind of backwards progress they're after, they might as well invent their own alternative to the metric system.
China has a market that is far far FAR too large to care what the rest of the world thinks or does. As the middle class grows, companies from the rest of the world are going to come crawling to China in order to participate in the market.
They won't isolate themselves, they'll re-write the books on standardization.
20% of the world's population.
:)
I reckon that's a pretty good base on which to design standards.
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?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
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.
I love standards. There are just so many to choose from. And now China is going to give us more.
This sig no verb.
some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world
Why not? It works for the United States...
On a serious note, China is big enough to throw its own weight around if it wants to, though.
I don't know about that isolation warning. China is pretty big and has access to cheap labor. Microsoft isolated itself right into a market monopoly by ignoring standards.
" 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
There isn't a dillema in China. China was given open access to the WTO by President Clinton who called them a "strategic ally".
China is having a field day, and we should be very concerned that their form of government can reap the benefits of a free society without adhering to its rules.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
Without getting into politics, China is only walking the well trodden path of other emerging super powers in their time. America pulled pretty much exactly the same tricks with everything from science (hell what kind of global standard is CDMA anyway?) to sport.
China walks all over global standards because China is big enough to get away with it. Same as America, same as Russia, same as Britain (in its time) probably too.
I don't think they'd be isolating themseleves (anymore so than they are now, willingly). There's no reason that they couldn't develop gateways to interface with foriegn technology. It's not like compatable technologies won't be available, they'll still be made over there to be shipped to first world countries, and I'm sure they'd be happy to sell to the chinese people as well. If this brings lower cost technology to the people, I'm all for it. If it's intended as a means of information isolation, then of course they can make that happen, but I don't think that's the case here. It seems like they genuinely want to get out of patent costs, which is why they have a national Linux distribution. Truly Open standards aren't patent encumbered, and maybe they'll open up some of their tech to us, and we end up being the ones who adopt it, as an open and perhaps better standard.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Experts warn that China risks isolating itself
China's history is all about isolation (erm, the great wall and stuff), not to mention what communism did to them. Their modern history is rife with isolationism. To quote Spock, "Only Nixon could go to China." This says nothing of the centuries before that. So isolated were they that they didn't even realize they were the ones who invented the clock!
China, isolating itself?... It took experts to realize this?...
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
Are you delusional? China is not and never has been Communist. And for your information no other country in modern history has either. Now before you start spouting crap again, each country claimed to be moving TOWARDS communism. That is they weren't (and still aren't) communist but given time they would become communist. This approach has since be shown not to work and China is now moving towards capitalism.
Communism is defined as a classless (and stateless) society. If you look at China, it has classes. The people at the top are in one class and the people on the bottom in another. Just because they call themselves communist doesn't mean they are. And if you think that they are I'm the most intelligent person on the planet (and I have this bridge to sell you).
On the matter at hand, I think that it is important for China to develop their own technologies, however, I don't like the idea of them ignoring international standards. If it is just a matter of patents, why they should just ignore them. Oh wait, they're capitalist, they can't do that...
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..
...Chinese firms growing tired of paying foreign patent fees.
Are they even _paying_ patent fees now?
... as a sovereign state. Not so good for those who dream of a one world integrated system. I don't concieve of any reason interchanges couldn't be develop to allow the chinese standards to coexist with the rest of the world, sure it will be bothersome to some, but maybe this will give China an opportunity to innovate in new and interesting ways. What some may regard as fractioning I would say could potentially spurr innovation and competition. But you know, why look for a bright side to this when it gives us ample opportunity to pull a chicken little or to belittle somebody else...
:-)
Woot for the chinese! Dirty commies!
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
I don't think Communism has much to do with it. America develops it's own standards even when others are readily available. GSM vs TDMA comes to mind (though I am not well versed on the history there). More likely this is an economy that is planning for the day when it is the largest economy in the world, and if the rest of the world wants to trade/interoperate with it, well, they'll just have to pay the patent/license fees to China instead.
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
i hope they come up with their own SMTP protocol standard so they can keep their F(*&%ing spam to themselves!
i can wish, can't i?
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
experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world
Yes.. Perhaps the US should also take note. Using your own standards for mobile phones and digital radio is not a good idea.
Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats - approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
It should be no suprise that the Chinese want to develop their own standards
No it shouldn't. But not for the motives you give.
The USA has for decades played hardball in international trade. They have been good at getting their own way. The Chinese realise that if they want to become a world ecomonic superpower, they've got to start playing as hard as the USA traditionally has. Europe is also now getting it's act together - the EU is a powerful force in international trade negociations, much more that the individual countries of Europe can be.
You say "Communism itself can't tolerate any kinds of rivals whatsoever". I don't think this has got anything to do with Communism, it's about global trade and China's desire to become a global economic superpower.
China is a real threat to the potential for world democracy. And don't forget it. They may trade with the west, but their political structure and long term planning make them political and economic adversaries long term. Compared to them, Iraq is a "[...]side show of a side show" (See Lawrence of Arabia for the quote).
--Maynard
I dun understand how communism comes into the picture. To me its just about business and money. If with their own technology they can save big bucks from paying patent fees, why not ?
... they can alreay earn big bucks ... who bother to sell it else where ...
and with huge market in China, they won't worry about the standard. Movie makers will adopt their technology/standard to publish their films so they can sell it in China.
"...it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world...."
Who CARES ? if they can sell to everyone in China
Secondly, China remains a totalitarian country which has only adopted capitalistic market as a stepping stone on its way back to pure communism. That remains the ultimate goal and doctrine of the CCP. Isolation from foreign "control" allows them to better insulate their own population, selectively, from expected evil foreign manipulation and "interference in China's internal affairs". Becoming a "standards-setter" might also give the CCP more leverage over Taiwan's extremely powerful business lobby in preparation of the "re-unification" of that island with communist China.
On a related note, all this foreign investment feeding the growth of totalitarian China is somewhat akin to helping Hitler build up the Nazi German industry, after Hitler had already begun invading its neighbours. China's nationalist propaganda aside, they are holding Tibet under very harsh foreign occupation, and the turkic Uighur people of East Turkestan (which the Chinese call Xinjiang, or "New Frontier") are not too happy under Chinese control and massive influx of ethnic Chinese on their lands either. But yet China is a great business buddy while the fully contained and de facto harmless Iraq had to be invaded... Maybe I just don't get the true meaning of this "liberation of people" stuff.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
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
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.
Seems that the US and Canada have done okay despite their standardization on Imperial measurement units as opposed to metric. The Chinese populations is now something like 1.2 billion people if I recall correctly, which is 4 times larger than the US. Once they get going economically they'll be dictating a lot of standards, I'm afraid.
If you post it, they will read.
You underestimate the interest in escaping outrageous patents, patent fees and monopolies. China can set its own standards because it has enough consumers to force foreign companies to listen. Pundits saying China will isolate itself (e.g. suffer) are blowing industry smoke. What, are American corporations pulling themselves from Uncle Sam's tit long enough to cry that capitalism is unfair? Boo hoo.
You have it partially right, but your drawing too many comparisons between them being "communist" as the reason this is being done.
"...Chinese firms growing tired of paying foreign patent fees."
This is the part that holds the most significance as the reason it is being done. The western world dominates when it comes to patents. What patents mean in a legal sense is control. The Chinese business interests obviously want control over their own businesses. They have two choices, pay the patent fees and allow U.S. interests control over certain aspects of their technology and business, or ignore patents and/or develop your own so that the control and knowledge is held within your own businesses and country.
Here is the major problem. We are seperating. The U.S., business interests, investors, and even the citizens are unwilling to give up/change the patent system. It is about control and losing it is not what most want. So China is pushing away. This will create tensions between the western world and China, which is not a good thing. Tensions will exist between programmers, politicians, business persons, and many others. Why will they exist? Because now there is a whole new level of understanding and translation. Between China and the west, standards would not match and so translation is required. Understanding would include Chinese attempting to understand our system and the west understanding the Chinese system. Patents are deeply integrated in the technological and business world. All the way from the few existing lone inventors that have a patent of a few to the large conglomerates and even the military.
The ignorance of the Chinese towards patents is not a bad thing. We are led to believe that patents are the answer to progress (and I will argue that with anyone if they wish), but after the introduction of a patent system within our entire legal, social, and economical structure the opposite becomes true and progress is then defined within the limits of the remaining freedoms of thought within our corporate economic system. By ignoring patents and allowing a more natural kind of competition that prevents the tieing up of progress by the legal system which corporations in the U.S. and western countries use as control mechanisms. If is plain to see that the Chinese benefit from such a move and could easily overtake the western world in progress. They have the resources and the people.
Maybe I should consider learning Chinese.
Btw, if anyone isn't sure what I meant by this entire post, please ask. I have a way with words that causes confusion for many.
Question everything.
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.
I think it is worth noting that most of the standards we call "global" are of American origin (take ASCII as a simple example -- it means American standard codes etc., not Worldwide SCII). It just happens that the rest of the world adopted them as well.
The same could be true in the future for any new standards developed in China; creating them in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, removing support for the existent ones is.
Score: i, Imaginary
Lowers the cost of technology in China.
Reduces revenue to American and Japanese technology firms.
Allows for a new technical-design boom for Chinese workers, increasing knowledge and affluence.
Creates a cheaper alternative for worldwide consumers, including Americans. (Can you say WAL-MART?)
Increases the brain drain already in full swing from the major outsourcing of programmers and other tech positions to India.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
China has the larges population, but not the largest economy. The economic potential you refer to is only potential, and the current reality is that China is not poised to overtake the US and the EU for decades, even if current rates of growth continue. Maybe in some future economy where China does indeed dominate it will have the clout to make the world adopt its standards. The vast majority of technical progress takes place outside of China, and this nationalistic hubris with regards to standards threatens China's ability to take advantage of others' advances. Closed systems retard growth.
Have to question your assertion that, we should be very concerned that their form of government can reap the benefits of a free society without adhering to its rules.
That smacks of 'our-system-is-better-than-yours' elitism which I don't believe is justified. I'm not deliberately going off on an anti-US tirade here but how is the US government adhering to the rules of a free society when it allows the RIAA to haul up hundreds of people in the name of the draconian DMCA? The refusal to be kept in check by the Geneva convention is another example. Of course the Chinese government are draconian, but it's another variation of the draconian governance practiced elsewhere, even in the sanctity of the 'free world'.
No thinking person denies there are problems with the US system of government, it's current government, and many of the social, political and economic systems we have here.
However, we all know it. We talk about it constantly. We publish newspapers, magazines, and TV shows that display content critical of the government. We protest, rally, demonstrate. We lampoon our past and present leaders, demand (and often get!) changes in leadership and policy.
By and large, we don't kill our own people for it. We don't run slave labor camps, populated by people whose opinion on political matters differs from that of the government.
The Chinese do. China is a police state, run by dictators. It's not a democracy. There is no freedom of expression. Don't confuse the limited expression of economic capitalism in China with individual liberty.
Is the US system perfect? Hell no! Would you trade your life here for a life in China? I wouldn't.