The Change Mariner

China Poses Trade Worry as It Gains in Technology

New York Times:

Today, the principal international standard-setting organizations have representation from many countries, including China, but American interests often carry the greatest influence.

"We are accustomed to the United States being the biggest market and the technology leader, so the standards have largely been American standards," said Clyde V. Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute in Washington and a former trade negotiator. "But China is going to be the biggest in the world for a lot of things. If the Chinese have the biggest market for cellphones, DVD players, computers and other things, they will have a lot of power to set technology standards."

China's effort to develop its own technical standards for the next generation of DVD's appears to be an effort to avoid hefty royalty payments to patent-holding corporations in Japan, the United States and Europe. About half of the world's DVD players are now made in China.

The new discs will hold four to five times the digital video and audio data of those currently on the market. The next-generation discs and their players will not be widely available until at least 2005, but the world's largest electronics, computer and entertainment companies are already battling over whose technology will become part of an industry standard.

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