SHAPING NEXT-GENERATION TECHNOLOGY

In the aftermath of the United States and China trading tariff blows, the narrow focus on market access and trade deficits has revealed itself as a short-sighted priority. It obscures a bigger and more critical aspect of US-China strategic competition; technology standard setting. Back in 2015, when the Made in China 2025 document was released, US officials reacted strongly to the plan to dominate key technology sectors, resulting in the omission of the MIC 25 plan from China’s policy documents. A less-controversial follow up to MIC 25 plan has equally, if not more serious implications for US-China technology competition; China Standards 2035.

China has focused on shaping technical standards for technology goods as a complimentary strategy to its high-tech manufacturing ambitions. These standards, explained simply, are product specifications at the national or international level that create interoperability, a result of voluntary private regulation. But they are hardly voluntary, because products that do not comply with standards are effectively locked out of world markets. Common examples are Wi-Fi or USB, both technology standards, which have become universally accepted. Setting standards bestows enormous advantages to Chinese enterprises and the state, with the potential to cement Chinese firms as best-in-class enterprises. It has a lasting influence on technology adoption, trade dependency and state behaviour.

Domestic Policy Guidance: Planning and Implementation

The pursuit of influencing standards began much before the China Standards 2035 plan was announced, but it was the ambitious plan for 2035 that made standard-setting a key objective of China’s high-technology growth and key component of its strategy to navigate US-China high-tech competition. It began to take shape with an action program by the National Standards Administration, Chinese Academy of Engineering and other national think-tanks who devised a standardization strategy by selecting 10,000 enterprises to carry out benchmarking to bridge the gap between domestic and international standards. Based on the study, a National Standardization Development Outline was released in 2021, for which Action Plans were announced in July 2022 and July 2024.

The Outline emphasised strengthening research on standards in strategic technology sectors like AI, quantum information and biotechnology, and formulation of standards in smart ships, high speed railways and NEVs. It also planned increased participation in international standardisation activities, greater cooperation with BRI countries and building of regional standardisation partnerships. Provinces were directed to establish a leadership mechanism to coordinate and promote standardization work, even make them a part of performance evaluations and include them in national development statistics.

The Action Plan of 2022 targeted standards in technology-intensive manufacturing sectors—such as IT, intelligent manufacturing, CNC tools, construction machinery, ship equipment, and agricultural machines—through pilot projects. Similar pilots were proposed for new materials and biotech applications. The guidelines called for developing standards for digital technologies and data transactions, to enhance upstream-downstream linkages. The 2024 Action Plan goes further, targeting standards in integrated circuits, semiconductor materials, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, intelligent vehicles, and Beidou applications. It also discusses standards research on 6G, IPv6 and blockchain technologies, development of standards for precision components, high-end bearings, automotive chips and industrial software, acceleration of standards in IoT, big data and cloud computing, and pilot projects in quantum information and generative AI.

Setting or Keeping Pace: Chinese Standards in Action

China is setting the pace for technology standards in key sectors like NEVs, AI and Information Technology. In the field of batteries for NEVs, the GB 38031-2025 safety standard for thermal runaway safety was announced in April 2025, putting China ahead of the rest of the world in terms of battery safety standards. The Chinese standards, mandated for new vehicles by July 2026, require no fire or explosion for 2 hours after a thermal runaway event in a cell. The standards don’t just mean China is moving faster than the EU and US, but also places LFP chemistry, the dominant technology used in Chinese EV market, in a better position to match this standard; the new safety standards are expected to accelerate the technological progress of solid-state batteries. Such standards don’t just place China at the head of the pack in the race to dominate the NEV space, but cement its leadership in the industry for the medium-to-long term.

In the telecommunications and information technology sector, China has emerged as one of the most influential global players in telecommunications technical standards, guaranteed to dominate next-generation communications technologies and standards. The use of Huawei’s Polar Codes for control channels in 5G technology, approved by the 3GPP standards group in 2018, was only the beginning. Although some assessments place China in second place after Qualcomm in terms of standard-essential patents (SEP) in 5G technology, China is already making serious progress in shaping standards of next-generation technology; in July 2024 China introduced three 6G technology standards at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), developed by Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Telecom.

China is also targeting strategic sectors like AI and data security, outlined in the Action Plan for Information Standard Construction (2024-2027). Plans for shaping standardisation involve contributions from the private sector, working in concert with state institutions. In December 2024, China launched the AI Standardization Committee, a  41-member group including representatives from Baidu, Peking University and relevant stakeholders, to develop technical frameworks and regulatory standards governing AI products and services. The goal of being a standard-setter has come from the top of China’s leadership; President Xi Jinping at the Third Belt and Road Forum announced the Global AI Governance Initiative, a clear signal of China’s intention to shape not just AI norms, but equally significantly, technical standards.

Internationalising Standards

To develop domestic standards and eventually internationalise them, China designates standards as key output indicators of technology plans, which the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academy of Engineering, and universities are tasked with executing. The 2024 Plan promotes collaboration between large firms, establishes joint standardization working groups and announced 50 national pilot projects for standardisation in high-end manufacturing. Outside the domestic sphere, China has identified internationalisation through multilateral institutions like BRICS, SCO, APEC and RCEP, plans to use BRI projects to showcase application of Chinese standards and play a proactive role in global technical standards bodies like ISO, IEC, ITU and several others. By holding international standardisation conferences and events, inviting foreign standard bodies to establish a presence in China, encourage Chinese enterprises to take membership of SDOs, China is aiming for 90% alignment between Chinese and international technical committees and 85% conversion rate of international standards into Chinese standards.

Furthermore, China drives the adoption of standards in a variety of ways; intensive participation in Standard Development Organisations (SDO), exporting Chinese standards through BRI projects and increasing participation with domestic and international industry associations. SDOs like the International Standards Organisation (ISO), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have been led by Chinese citizens, which does not necessarily mean China directly impacts the development of standards, but does help it shape the agenda. Over time, China’s footprint, measured in terms of membership and proposals, has increased in SDO Secretariats, Technical Committees (TC), Working Groups (WG) and Subcommittees (SC).

It has increased its share of secretariat positions in TCs and SCs at ISO by 73% between 2011 and 2020, and by 67% for the same positions in the IEC from 2012 to 2020. By 2020, it held more leadership positions than both Germany and the US for the first time. Currently, China holds the Secretariat position for the ISO TC8 (Ships and Marine Technology), ISO/TC 298 (Rare Earths), ISO/TC 333 (Lithium), ISO/TC 61 (Plastics) and several other leading strategic sectors.

Similarly, at the Third Generation Partnership project (3GPP), an industry stakeholder group that develops standards to meet ITU guidelines for international mobile telecommunication, China’s footprint is growing; it accounts for 33.2% of adopted standardization contributions, second to the EU at 36.8%. In the ITU itself, China has expanded its participation by increasing its membership from 22 members in 2017 to 106 in 2022, almost on-par with the US. If this trend continues, China will develop an edge in next-generation telecommunications technology standards. Beijing is simultaneously normalising its standards through its own initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Digital Silk Road (DSR) and others offering public goods and connectivity infrastructure targeted at the global south.

Promoting Chinese Standards: BRI and DSR

Since the BRI and parallel offerings like the DSR are spread across developing countries and the Global South, China is able to export its technology standards through Smart cities, telecom goods, surveillance infrastructure, data centres and other digital platforms and systems. The “Action Plan for Harmonisation of Standards Along the Belt and Road” explicitly states that China will internationalise Chinese standards in BRI countries. It has already signed 108 cooperative bilateral agreements on technical standardisation with 65 countries and institutions.

Exporting technology goods translates into gaining acceptance for Chinese standards, which creates a “lock-in” effect on countries adopting these standards. They become reliant on Chinese enterprises for maintenance, upgrades and expansion of projects, like the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway and Abuja-Kaduna railway. Moreover, for connectivity projects, the effects are stronger since multiple systems are needed to operate together. Technology goods offered by Chinese companies are integrated with networks and systems operating along the same Chinese standard, which means that countries that do not adopt Chinese standards may find themselves unavailable to build-out critical infrastructure.

From a geopolitical perspective, countries involved in the BRI become testing grounds for Chinese standards, legitimising their applicability and refining their deployment for global use. With export-led growth continuing to dominate China’s economic growth and high-technology goods emerging as a priority, the trend of external markets promoting Chinese standards is likely to continue. Particularly with the DSR, Beijing can seek wider acceptance of its standards, even locking out competitors whose offering may not be compatible, but competitive, with Chinese systems and platforms.

China growing footprint in SDOs, particularly for technology goods like 5G, AI and biotechnology is likely to embed Chinese standards within global markets. It would benefit national champions like Huawei, who would see their influence expand and possibly become market leaders in next-generation technologies. Standard-setting also furthers China’s objective to dominate high-technology manufacturing sectors and gain the upper hand in US-China technology competition. Such outcomes would have serious implications for competition in the military domain as well. It also becomes important to monitor how the adoption of Chinese standards via the BRI would generate influence for China in developing countries. With Beijing working hard to set standards of strategic technologies of the future, advanced industrial economies will have to develop more robust technical standard-development policy frameworks to match the competition.

This article is the third of a series that examines the progress of the Made in China 2025 initiative. Read the first and second ones here.