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2014
General Condition of Technology Markets in China Case Studies Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) viii Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) 180 Intelligent Grouping and Resource Sharing (IGRS) 185 Audio-Video Standard (AVS) 190 Conclusion 196 5 CONCLUSION 198 Bringing it Together: the Cases of Japan and Korea 199
2011 7th International Conference on Standardization and Innovation in Information Technology (SIIT), 2011
While users in the rest of the World have been offered 3G mobile phones based on either the CDMA2000 or W-CDMA standards, users in China have the additional option of using phones based on the TD-SCDMA standard. As a technology largely developed by Chinese actors and only implemented in China, TD-SCDMA has been seen as a technonationalist project orchestrated by the Chinese government, unequivocally supported by Chinese firms. In China, the media has also started trumpeting the success of this "indigenous innovation". This paper adopts a science and technology studies (STS) framework, opening up the technological "black-box", to explore how global and national institutional and social elements have been embedded in and impact on the artefacts of TD-SCDMA technology. It is concluded that rather than see TD-SCDMA as an indigenous Chinese technology, its history exemplifies how standards and the intellectual property embedded in them lead to a complex hybridization between the global and national sectoral systems of innovation.
Telecommunications Policy, 2008
In 2004, China attempted to set its national standard for mobile security (wireless LAN authentication and privacy infrastructure (WAPI)) which was to be used for wireless LAN. In 2005, Korea implemented a national standard for the mobile Internet platform (wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI)). This paper examines and compares the two cases in terms of the role of government, characteristics of each standard and the process of standards setting. Despite some similarities of 'aiming for a de jure national standard', 'government-initiated' and 'anticipatory', the outcomes of the two efforts are different. WIPI was ratified in Korea, while WAPI was indefinitely postponed as the national standard and failed to be ratified as an international standard. It is contended here that the different outcomes are attributed to differences in the openness of the standards and of institutional processes of standardization, combined with the government role and the timing of market entry. In the cause of national security, China adhered to the original goal of WAPI; in the WIPI case, compromises were made to satisfy to some extent the various demands from many stakeholders despite the original goal being undermined. The findings from this comparison reinforce findings by previous studies on open standard and open standardization processes. This paper makes a unique contribution in that it first examines the international standards-setting attempts by newcomers, China and Korea, in the race for international standards. They used to be standard adopters but now want to become standard setters. Given the narrowing gap of technological capabilities at the global level and the huge size of markets in countries like China, these standards challenges from newcomers are not one-off episodes, but will happen repeatedly in the future. Further research is required in this area.
2007
The ICT sectors of Japan and South Korea (hereon, Korea) developed rapidly since the early 1990s, especially in wireless and broadband services. In particular, the two countries have extremely advanced wireless markets, producing notable service innovations linked to sophisticated ...
This working paper reviews the competition between various technology standards for mobile communications and the strategies that China has adopted in this competition. It finds that the returns from winning the standards wars have diminished. Main Findings Technology standards are often regarded as having a strategic importance in high-tech industries. The Chinese government has been influenced by this theory and has attempted to develop its own high-tech standards. By reviewing the history of mobile communications technology, this paper finds that the expected market size and the switching cost between different technology standards determines the intensity of the standards wars. When the switching cost is high, the potential returns from victory are huge, so the war will be fought hard. But if the switching cost decreases, winning or losing a standards war will have little influence on a firm’s or a nation’s success in high-tech industries. In the case of mobile communications te...
Telecommunications Policy, 2014
The latecomers from Asia-China and Korea-started to participate in information and communication technology (ICT) global standardizations as they accumulated technological capabilities. We observed the current situation of ICT global standardizations in those countries by analyzing the mobile communications standards, WCDMA and LTE, and derived interesting findings and meaningful implications from the analysis. First, this paper provides evidence of the differences in Chinese and Korean standard strategies; China is creating its own standard whereas Korea goes with global standardization. Second, this paper shows the subsequent results of the different strategies. In detail, we conducted an analysis based on (declared) essential patents in WCDMA and LTE. The results indicate that China and Korea hold a significant number of essential patents and their numbers compete with those of leading countries. However, the analysis shows that Korea accumulated domestic knowledge that enables the country to actively participate in standardization,but China still heavily relies on foreign knowledge, probably because China is attempting to create its own standard and accumulating knowledge takes a long time despite its efforts.Our findings have several implications for leading countries and other following countries.
North Carolina Journal of International Law, 2020
In the world of continuous globalization, technical standards and industry norms play a crucial role in transnational economic development. For the past few decades, increased digitalization and emergence of new technologies gave due prominence to ICT standards: our future is closely linked to the Internet of Things and 5G technologies that are expected to penetrate an enormous range of economic sectors and by this means affect our quotidian life. At the same time, the introduction of these new technologies is accompanied by concerns such as privacy and security. Especially the latter has been recently subjected to a wider political debate, which was largely fueled by national security concerns voiced by Western governments regarding the involvement of China-based companies, Huawei and ZTE, in standardization of 5G technologies. In this context, the paper discusses whether the current regulatory landscape can address the variety of concerns raised in relation to the development of ICT standards through the well-established procedural principles for standard-setting, such as openness, transparency and consensus, and whether these principles ensure that ICT standardization, while delivering cutting-edge technological solutions, remains balanced and inclusive.
Developing technology standards require significant upfront investment expenditures. The value of the resulting technology depends on how it is deployed (e.g., proprietary use versus licensing) and remains uncertain. Hence, the rules governing investments in technology development must be conditioned on the subsequent deployment strategy (e.g. licensing fee) and the nature of uncertainty.
Journal of International Business Policy
Research since the 1980s has considered the economic and innovation impacts of technology standards policies. This paper extends the research on the impact of standardization policies to consider how the policies themselves, as they govern how the standards are created, determine standards' impact on emerging economies' economic performance and innovation capabilities. Using four cases of digital technology standardization in China, this paper finds that combinations of government financial and market support and openness to domestic and foreign contributors determines how and when digital standardization begets positive technological and economic impacts for firms. This paper contributes to our understanding of international technology upgrading in emerging economies, as well as suggesting policies for successful economic upgrading in large emerging economies.
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 2006
Standards have become a basis of global competition among countries. Although there are many studies of standards and standardization, little is known about how international standards are set. Even less is known about how it occurs in the unprecedented case in which a developing country is actively involved in this process. In the past few years, China, leveraging the huge size of its domestic markets, has attempted to influence international technology standard setting. Standardization, especially at the international level, often revolves around building an alliance surrounding a particular technology. Actor-network theory (ANT) is a theory that helps analyze the ways in which actors form alliances and enroll other actors to strengthen such alliances surrounding a technology. Therefore, we see a fit between the study of standard setting and ANT. In this paper, we use ANT to investigate the process of mobile standard setting in an international context where firms, industry consortia, and governments collaborate and compete in complex ways. It is found that China's attempt to set WAPI as a national standard failed in enrolling other actors mainly due to the fact that WAPI was too closed a standard even for a de jure one; China did not release the WAPI security algorithm to the scrutiny of the international community.
Telecommunications Policy, 2011
According to traditional wisdom, latecomer countries improve their technological capabilities in reverse of the product cycle, that is from mature towards new technologies. However, improvement of standards capabilities in this process has not been revealed clearly. This paper confirms similar patterns for improving formal standards capabilities as for the technological capabilities, but records some possible differences in the rate of catch-up when latecomers approach the technology frontier; a forward moving position where technology leaders (typically advanced countries) develop or conceptualize new technologies before being turned into products or systems. A number of case studies of South Korean ICT systems reveal that transition to the technological frontier is increasingly related to how they target and carry out formal standardization. The common elements driving differences in rates of successful catch-up for ICT systems standards are not only limited to generic standards capabilities, but also rely on characteristics of technology trajectories, national strategic focus, and organizing for standardization. 3 This implies that a nation should not be discouraged by slow progress in standards-setting during earlier stages. Once a minimum level of capabilities is achieved, a nation pro-active in standards from the beginning may attain higher rates of catch-up near the technology frontier.
This paper explores the way that increasing engagement in international standardisation processes has enabled Chinese firms to become global players in mobile telecommunications technologies and China to become a major influence in the international information and communications technology (ICT) standards arena. From a ‘social shaping of technology’ perspective it examines the development of the third generation (3G) TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) mobile telephony standard (TD) and the path laid towards the next generation of mobile broadband standards and technologies. The paper highlights the complex interactions between a wide array of players involved, including national and foreign firms, and different sections and levels of the Chinese state. TD’s success was by no means predetermined. China eventually adopted a pragmatic approach implementing TD and the two established Western standards. This complex history and interplay between Chinese and foreign players calls into question the idea of national or indigenous technologies for large-scale infrastructures, and highlights the limitations of national strategies in globalised innovation processes.
China's growth strategy as set out in the 11 th 5-year plan in 2005 called for upgrading of product quality, the development of an innovation society, and reduced reliance on foreign intellectual property with high license fees. Consistent with this policy, China has been involved in recent years with the development of a Chinese standard in third generation (3G) mobile phone technology, both in negotiating the standard and seeing it through to commercialization. This is the first case of a developing country both originating and successfully negotiating a telecommunications standard and this experience raises issues for China's future development strategy based on product and process upgrading in manufacturing. We argue that while precedent setting from an international negotiating point of view, the experience has thus far is unproven commercially. But the lessons learned will benefit future related efforts in follow-on technologies if similar Chinese efforts are made. This paper documents Chinese standard-setting efforts from proposal submission to ITU to the current large-scale trial network deployment in China and overseas trial networks deployment. We discuss the underlying objectives for this initiative, evaluate its effectiveness, and assess its broader implications for Chinese development policy.
International Journal of IT Standards and Standardization Research, 2012
Korea and China are among the rising challengers in the international ICT (Information Communication and Technology) standards regime. They are attempting to internationalize their home-grown technologies. As latecomers they share similarities and display differences. This paper examines two Korean cases (WIPI and WiBro), and compares with Chinese cases. Thereby it helps to conceptualize and evaluate latecomers’ strategies for international standardization. Comparison of the two countries’ strategies for international standardization is useful and timely particularly considering forthcoming FTA negotiations between the two countries where TBT (technical barriers to trade) including standards becomes a critical part of the agreement. The cases of the two countries share some commonalities in terms of origination (local R&D), government leadership and motivation (reduction of royalties). The main difference is that while Korea is oriented towards the outside, China is towards the insi...
2000
Breznitz and Murphree -November 27 th 2009 Such a preliminary DRAFT that you must be joking if you want to circulate it -please ask authors for professional advice if you do. participant in international standards forums and become the source of the largest delegations to the ITU . Domestically Chinese companies, which often pay hefty royalties to use foreign standards, fiercely fight against efforts to implement mandatory domestically developed standards, while companies with massive export markets, such as Huawei and ZTE, participate in the development of unique Chinese standards against their supposed economic interests. The same government agencies at times support unique and exclusive standards on nationalistic grounds, but at other times torpedo others. 2 Furthermore, the impact of these standard development efforts has been to increase uncertaintythe exact opposite of the proclaimed goal of standardization. The sheer number of Chinese standards ensure lasting confusion, by 2006, there were already over 1.26 million enterprise standards independently registered by companies in China (Kennedy et al. 2008). As of 2004 there were 15,800 local standards, proposed and enforced at the municipal or provincial level and 37,850 trade standards. Finally, China had 21,342 national standards (Zhao and Graham 2006).
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Studying technology standards in emerging economies provides a unique opportunity to examine the comparative political economy of science, technology, and innovation, as well as to analyze how economic institutions from mature capitalist countries fare when planted in different institutional settings. Of the emerging economies, the largest and arguably most important for the international economy is China. Looking from the national systemic level we find a puzzle in explaining the Chinese policy: Why do domestic standards continue to proliferate and be led and supported by government even when there is evidence that standards policies are counterproductive in terms of fostering innovation, their political and economic raison d'etre? We argue that this is the outcome of a two steps self-reinforcing sequence dynamic. In the first stage the state initiates standards development in the hope of fostering technological independence by offering status and economic incentives. As standard development starts, however, an unintended consequence is that more and more organizations, fearing a loss of competitive advantage, begin competing standard development efforts, creating an innovation arms race and explosive growth in the number of standards. This proliferation is counterproductive, leading to more uncertainty and less innovation. Nonetheless, since this dynamic has been creating vested interests, they ensure the continuation of the current policy.
European Journal of Innovation Management, 2012
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze standard setting and how a critical mass of users emerged in an industry in which multiple interface standards co-exist and a critical mass of users was created multiple times. Design/methodology/approach -This paper is based on research conducted for almost ten years using the case study approach. Data were gathered through more than 100 interviews with Japanese firms and through analyses of published sources. Findings -The paper finds that growth in mobile internet services required agreements on multiple interface standards where some of these interface standards exhibited interdependencies and thus required integral design, while others have been built on top of these "basic" interface standards. Agreements on the former interface standards enable basic data connections between phones, services, and content and this required integral design. The latter interface standards connect the mobile phone with content and applications from other industries (e.g. music, video, publishing, broadcasting, and payment) and each critical mass of phones, services, and content for them partly builds from previously created critical masses.
1995
This thesis seeks to understand several choices currently facing the Chinese telecommuni-cations sector. It starts with a review of the general macroeconomic trends affecting China, and with a framework for understanding Chinese policy-making through ...
Journal of Economic Surveys, 2001
As recent studies on the evolution of a technology indicate, the role of a standard, or dominant design, is highly significant in a number of contemporary industries such as computer, telecommunications and consumer electronics. Following Katz’ and Shapiro’s pioneering works (1985), our paper rationally evaluates the concepts and results developed over the past ten years in this field. It is grounded on a typology of two types of models: the first is based on users’ anticipatory behaviour, and the second, on the collaborative behaviour of existing firms. The article initially discusses the specificity of network technologies, then analyses market standardisation models, and finally, studies the different actors models. Our conclusion builds upon existing works in network technologies. We next propose a research agenda
Review of A. Macpherson. International Telecommunication Standards Organisations Information Economics and Policy, 1994
Research Policy, 2001
The existing literature on industrial standards almost exclusively focuses on pure market competition; this paper shows how and why both governments and firms have had a strong effect on the creation of global standards in the mobile communication industry through a hybrid system of committees and markets. According to our model, governments can and did influence forecasted and actual installed base for systems in the mobile communications industry through their influence Ž . on product demand e.g., by determining the amount of competition in the market and the number of and degree of Ž . openness in the standards. In particular, the choice of a single standard by either a large single country or region dramatically and instantaneously increased the forecast for the standard's domestic installed base, thus causing other countries to also adopt the standard. q
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