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China Developing own Standards 590

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-bully-for-them dept.
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."
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China Developing own Standards More

China Developing own Standards

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  • 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 m

    • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by akaina ( 472254 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:30AM (#9247453) Journal
      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.

      • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by citog ( 206365 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:14AM (#9248097)
        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'.

        • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by swb ( 14022 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @12:38PM (#9249287)
          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.
      • China was given open access to the WTO by President Clinton who called them a "strategic ally".

        You mispelled "Nixon".

        And if Clinton made such and awful mistake - why has not Bush undone it? He's had 3+ years. Apparently Bush agrees. Bush Sr. certainly agreed with Clinton's China policy. He set the groundwork.

        Or are you one of those neocons who believes Clinton sold missile technology to the Chinese. BUZZZ! wrong. Clinton's State Department fined the contractor 13 million dollars (plus other conces
      • China certainly has reaped some of the rewards of the global economy. Their low standard of living means labor is cheap. Multinational companies are employing many Chinese people to manufacture their products. However these companies get to keep all the profits, leaving the Chinese with nothing more than wages earned.

        If China continues to enforce domestic standards at the expense of international ones then it will stunt the growth of some of their industries. There will be no demand for their products

    • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:31AM (#9247461)
      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.
      • 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 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

    • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:32AM (#9247482)
      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...
    • 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.

    • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:42AM (#9247629)
      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.
    • 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 ?

      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 ... they can alreay earn

    • More power to 'em (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fleener ( 140714 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:48AM (#9247701)
      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.

    • Re:This shouldn't come as a surprise.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rzbx ( 236929 ) <slashdot&rzbx,org> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:48AM (#9247708) Homepage
      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.
    • While I acknowledge the argument that there is a need for standards in newly-developing technological fields, they are not as important as they were fifty years ago.

      An advantage of tiny inexpensive microcontrollers is the ability to convert from one standard to another in the background, out of the notice of the user.

      Standards are only a real problem when their specifications are not shared with the consumers, or when the companies make it illegal to convert from one standard to another. Reverse-engineer
    • They arn't exactly communist anymore. They are "socialists" now.

      Anyway, i don't see how this is bad for China. If about 1/4 of a billion Americans can insist on using CDMA instead of GSN and using Imperial instead of metric, why can't OVER a billion Chinese insist on doing their own thing?

      As it is, I don't see how letting China come up with standards can be any worse then letting some monopolistic companies come up with them.

  • Piracy... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stephenisu ( 580105 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:24AM (#9247354)
    Wonder how this will effect all the rampant pirating of our wares?

    • Re:Piracy... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:52AM (#9247760)
      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.

  • Maybe we'll get lucky (Score:4, Funny)

    by twbecker ( 315312 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:24AM (#9247361)
    . . .and China will come up with an incompatible email protocol, and rid us of much of our spam problem ;)

  • the next great leap backwards for China (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Spatula Sam ( 770957 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:24AM (#9247362)
    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 is too big to worry (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:24AM (#9247364)
    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.

    • Does it? China has a lot of people, but how many people in the dirt poor mainland will be buying all this technology? It is the size of the market that matters, not the size of the country.

      Okay I checked the numbers and it appears that only 15% of chinese fall into what we would consider middle class, but this is still 110 million people. In the US 60% of the population is concidered middle class which comes out to about 170 million. So it appears that China is significantly large enough to dictate thier o
      • The point isn't their market is big... it is that it is GROWING with the potential to be very (more) influential in teh world markets. If they wait until they already have a large market, it'll be too late to start talking about making their own standards.

  • Funny that. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mateito ( 746185 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:24AM (#9247367) Homepage
    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? :)

    • Re:Funny that. (Score:4, Funny)

      by n1ywb ( 555767 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:27AM (#9247404) Homepage Journal
      Yeah with only 2 billion people in their market, they could wind up being really isolated.

    • Re:Funny that. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nova Express ( 100383 ) <lawrenceperson.gmail@com> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:34AM (#9247519) Homepage Journal
      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:Funny that. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Mateito ( 746185 )
        > Yes, that would explain why he never came to the
        > U.S. and started working in Hollywood. Hey, wait
        > a minute...

        _Real_ Jackie Chan fans pretend that he never did... that Rush Hour never happened, that Rush Hour II never happened, and that "Shanghai Kid" was just a bad acid trip.

        But "Rumble in the Bronx" still rocks hard.

  • Rather than this quote's concern: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by robslimo ( 587196 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:25AM (#9247378) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • er...5 billion people is quite an isolated market. Besides which the Chinese have sought isolation for millenia. The great wall of china, the boxer rebellion, world war II, and mao's march were all about thowing foreign influence out of the country.
  • ...some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world. As opposed to their lack of isolation now?

  • Standards (Score:4, Funny)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:27AM (#9247393) Homepage Journal
    I love standards. There are just so many to choose from. And now China is going to give us more.

  • Metric? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:27AM (#9247395)

    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.

    • Unfortunately for them, the weight of 1.3 billion Chinamen only works out to about 10 million Americans. There are advantages to obesity after all...

  • Taking cues from Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ximbiot ( 723866 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:27AM (#9247398) Homepage
    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.
    • Of course, by hook or by crook, Microsoft has established itself as a de-facto standard in much of the world. On the other hand, China doesn't seem to want much co-operation/participation from the rest of the world.

      Not saying it's right, just how it is.

  • Incompatible Standards (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JumboMessiah ( 316083 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:27AM (#9247403)
    " 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...

  • Turning the table (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DJ Rubbie ( 621940 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:28AM (#9247410) Homepage Journal
    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.

    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.

  • 800lb Gorilla (part 2) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by akaina ( 472254 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:28AM (#9247423) Journal
    Compatible with the 'rest of the world'? China IS the rest of the world. America occupies about 5% of the world population. Instead of worrying about China technologically cutting itself off, how about we worry about being compatible with their standards? I'm more worried that one day there will be 3 billion EVD players that won't read DVDs.
    • I for one welcome our new EVD overloards. Seriously, DVD is a crappy encumbered standard. EVD could be to DVDs as VHS was to BETA.
      • Ubiquitous, but technically inferior?
        • No, just ubiquitous, and cheaper as a consequence. Anyway as long as we're talking about an average person using a hi-fi VHS deck on an ordinary TV, VHS isn't really lacking for much. And SVHS is great, too bad it never caught on.

          EVD is even SUPERIOR to DVD.

          Like DVD, EVD video data is compressed, but according to the format's developers, Beijing-based E-World and US digital video technology company On2, it is capable of displaying HDTV images, a feat currently not possible with the established standard.

  • I suppose in the near term this will be true, but they're the fastest-growing and soon-to-be largest consumer market in the world. If they can stay united, they'll be in a strong position to dictate standards to everyone.

    Reminds me of the old joke about British weather headlines -- "Fog shrouds channel, Continent isolated"...
  • some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world
    Other 'experts' are going to say much of the computer hardware is now made in China and it is the rest of the world that will be isolated. Who do you buy your motherboard from? asus, abit, msi? You may want to check where all those cheap parts are being manufactured.

  • Anybody else see the comparison to Coming to America?

    "They have the DVD standard, and we have the EVD standard . . ." the Chinese solution

    "McDonald's has the Big Mac, and we have the Big Mic. They have the Golden Arches, and we have the Golden Arcs," Mr. McDonnell explaining why McDonald's doesn't have a case of trademark infringement.

  • Not Really.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:31AM (#9247462)
    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.

  • Isolated market??? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:31AM (#9247467)
    With an estimated population of 1.3 to 1.4 BILLION by 2010, I can really see China's techno nationalism hurting itself.

    If (for example) the US with a population of ONLY 300 Million, and Japan (130 million) and a few other countries can dominate the worlds technology, I can easily imagine that in 50 years time we could be all following Chinas leads with regards to technology (assuming of course they haven't outsourced it all to India by then :-)
  • This should be a challenge to open standards everywhere to try and get China on board. It's a huge potential market that would still rather latch onto a good open standard than be yoked to something proprietary. This is a big opportunity.

    Jon Acheson

  • No duh.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Himring ( 646324 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:32AM (#9247478) Homepage Journal
    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?...
  • 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.

  • Patent fees (Score:5, Insightful)

    by m.h.2 ( 617891 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:33AM (#9247489) Journal
    ...Chinese firms growing tired of paying foreign patent fees.

    Are they even _paying_ patent fees now?
  • Next they'll be doing something crazy like building a wall round their country.

  • Good for the chinese... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jwthompson2 ( 749521 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:33AM (#9247492) Homepage
    ... 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! :-)
  • I'll admit I didn't RTFA, but what could they possibly have to gain from this? All this really does is effectively take them out of the global market. Could this be a case of the Chinese government seeing too much wealth (and by proxy, power and independence) flowing to the common Chinese citizen? Makes you wonder...

    PS: And please hold off on the Microsoft comparisons; in many cases, they ARE the de-facto standard.

  • So Chinese OSS is called Isolation? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Clinoti ( 696723 ) * on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:35AM (#9247528)
    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."

    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.

  • their own smtp protocol standard... (Score:3, Funny)

    by agroman ( 119991 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:36AM (#9247544) Homepage
    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?

  • Linus is Chinese? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:37AM (#9247551) Homepage

    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.

    • China does indeed have its own "Red Flag" linux distibution. Its a pretty standard distro apart from the fact that the support for chinese ideograms is standardised and most of the desktop apps use ideograms by default.

      The descision to standardise on a homegrown Linux platform was as much to do with flakey and inconsistent chinese langauge support on other platforms as it was about saving money.

  • Restrictions (Score:2, Insightful)

    by salvorHardin ( 737162 )
    Personally, if the Chinese standards don't include restrictive concepts such as CSS and region-encoding, I'd rather have my movies on EVD than DVD.
    That said, if EVD has some other kind of restrictions (such as detecting anti-government remarks, and then emailling the details of the viewer to the Ministry of Truth [orwelltoday.com], so that they might be 're-educated' - then perhaps CSS is the lesser of two evils.

  • Sensationalist News... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is all much commotion over nothing. People use different standards all the time, and it's not always a big problem.

    You say they're developing their own kind of DVDs, yet (thanks to region codes) DVDs aren't internationally compatiable anyway.

    About cell phones... are you kidding me? Look at how many networks we already have in the world... GSM, TDMA, CDMA, and yet we still manage to call each other.

    You don't even have to be a country to make your own standards. Look at Sony and their spectacularly

  • International standards (Score:3, Funny)

    by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:41AM (#9247614) Journal
    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.

  • Now would be appropriate to restate... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mav[LAG] ( 31387 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:42AM (#9247625)
    Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:

    No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats - approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

  • China is very smart to do this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maynard ( 3337 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:42AM (#9247630) Journal
    While the problem of incompatibility may appear to make this move foolish, it is in fact very smart of them to do so from an economic and national standpoint. Consider these points:
    • China has a huge trade surplus with the western world, and in particular the USA. They hold very large sums of US treasury bonds, giving them real economic leverage against US intervention in Taiwan and North Korea.
    • By developing their own protocols, technical standards, and software (based on Linux or other open source we suppose) they further their goal of keeping capital inside China while sucking capital out from other industrialized nations in trade. Further, they maintain legitimate WTO status be meeting the letter of the law in their international trade treaties.
    • With each step they take integrating into the world trade community by breaking down centralized management of their economy the Chinese government has taken flanking steps politically to shore up power within the central government. This is a great example of how to implement capitalist economic theory without sacrificing political power with political decentralization through democratic means. IOW: freemarket capitalism doesn't necessarily require or create democracy, and here's your proof.
    • While Chinese GDP is small compared to the US or Europe, that won't continue for long. The Chinese economy is the fastest growing of all industrializing nations. And they have a huge pool of cheap labor with which to maintain that growth. Don't assume that just because we set technical standards here in the west that fifty years from now standards designed in China today can't take over a Chinese dominated marketplace tomorrow. Apple once held control over the GUI market for a time, who controls it now? There are many alternative scenarios whereby the technical leaders who dominate a market today lose their power and fade from the market tomorrow.

    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

  • China risks isolating itself? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Bullard ( 62082 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:46AM (#9247675) Homepage
    And the Chinese Communist Party leadership would consider that a negative thing? Foreign firms located in China would still churn out "made in China" products for the foreign market, and probably adopted China's own standards as well. After all, everyone's flocking to the Chinese market exactly to "tap into" that massive market of 1.3B consumers.

    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.

  • Maybe their economy is large enough. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jlowery ( 47102 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:47AM (#9247690)

    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.

  • Risks? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jameth ( 664111 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:50AM (#9247738)
    "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?

  • Some Chinese "standards" not doing so well (Score:4, Informative)

    by bullitB ( 447519 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @10:56AM (#9247827)
    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 [on2.com] 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.

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Viceice ( 462967 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:09AM (#9248018)
    In Socialist China, Standards adopt YOU!!

  • What this REALLY does (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Servo ( 9177 ) <dstringf@NospAM.tutanota.com> on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:12AM (#9248054) Journal
    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.

  • What's wrong some competition? Isn't that good? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:22AM (#9248215) Journal
    "some experts warn that China risks isolating itself if it creates standards that are incompatible with the rest of the world."

    Hmmm... sounds like these "experts" are a bit suspect. If the Chinese develop their own standards, but make them freely available to everyone, then this just simply indicates that China is new competition. After all, wouldn't this be all about "free market"? ;P The idea of a global set of standards for technology is nice, but has been so far unattainable outside of the computer industry. With video we have NTSC, SECAM and PAL. Why should the computer industry be any different? I think the warnings given by these "experts" is nothing more than either chicken little thinking, or American neocons who are afraid of real competition.

  • Chinese control manufacturing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:29AM (#9248292) Homepage Journal


    China will easily be able to dictate their own standards to the rest of the world. They control manufacturing. If they come up with a competing DVD standard, you'll see hybrid players on the market immediately that will play both DVD and cDVD. Probably, these will be made by APEX and will be just as cheap as all the other DVD players. Apply this example to everything else.

  • Hmmm... Time to rethink (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NtroP ( 649992 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:35AM (#9248393)
    my assumptions. I started typing a reply along the lines of "yeah, but what about india? They have almost as many people, and have a much more educated population".

    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.

  • Could be good for China (Score:3, Interesting)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @11:39AM (#9248458)
    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

  • This is about Control... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by clichekiller ( 665320 ) on Tuesday May 25, 2004 @01:51PM (#9250192) Homepage
    This is also an issue of control. If all Chinese electronics follow Chinese standards. Then they won't be able to utilize foreign media. Additionally the Chinese will only authorize those parties they deem usefull to use their standards. They can now control entirely the flow of information in their country, lock, stock, and barrel. Imagine if they develop a highly advanced operating system that becomes the defacto standard in the country, that also happens to have huge gaping back doors to allow the government to monitor everything. Or a DVD standard that prohibits foreign DVD's from functioning. I think this is their ultimate goal.

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