According to Yang Guang, a Beijing-based senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, China has been planning all along to raise the profile of its technology standards for crucial next-generation technologies. This is in accordance with the Chinese government’s standard master plan – China Standards 2035 – and in a bid to strengthen China’s role in standards organizations.
Imperative to the goal of setting some of the rules shaping the modern technology industry is the Belt and Road Initiative which is a means of diffusing Chinese technologies – facial recognition systems, big data analysis, 5G telecoms and AI cameras – across the developing world by constructing what Beijing calls a “digital silk road”.