SMART MOVES BY CHINA... CHANGES HARDLINE POSITION ON WI-FI

As I wrote before on this issue, I do believe it is better for China and its companies to not take the route of creating a closed technical standard for its Wi-Fi industry or any for this matter. The fruits of this move will be seen when Chinese companies start expanding beyond its domestic borders.


China, U.S. strike trade accord

By Richard Shim, Michael Kanellos and Evan Hansen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 21, 2004

China is softening efforts to establish its own Wi-Fi security standard and will adopt stringent new piracy prevention policies as part of a broad trade and technology agreement with the United States, the two countries announced Wednesday.

Chinese government officials had set June 1 as a deadline for gear makers to include its Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) standard into products sold in China. The specification would allow the government to decrypt any communications by its citizens over wireless networks.

WAPI is not compatible with current Wi-Fi security standards. Enforcing the inclusion of WAPI into gear would have limited the number of manufacturers that could sell products in the Asian country, setting the stage for a high-profile technology battle between China and the United States.

According to sources close to the negotiations, China agreed that it will not implement WAPI by its announced deadline and will indefinitely postpone enforcement of the WAPI directive. In the meantime, the country will work to revise and perfect the standard in collaboration with the international standards group IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

China's WAPI decision is one of several agreements announced Wednesday, after a high-level meeting between U.S. trade officials and China's Vice Premier Wu Yi in Washington, D.C., convened as part of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. (full article)