China to Release National Blockchain Standard Next Year, Says Official: Report

China’s technology standardization body will issue a national standard for blockchain next year, said an official from the China Electronics Standardization Institute, according to news site Chuanguan.

• The institute has drafted a standard and is in the process of approving it, said Li Ming, director of the Blockchain Research Office at the standardization body, during the Fifth China Blockchain Development Competition held in Chengdu, Sichuan.
• China is looking to boost blockchain innovation and application in enterprise and government across the country even as it clamps down on crypto. Its latest Five-Year Plan, a planning document that outlines development goals, put blockchain on a par with artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing.
• Li said that standards are fundamental to an industry and used the example of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Without a unified standard, he said, devices from different manufacturers wouldn’t be able to connect to the network.
• Once the standard is set, the body will look into drafting evaluation criteria around it so that a “benign” ecosystem can be created, the director said.
• Key government projects like the Blockchain Services Network and Xinghuo Chain follow an “open permissioned” protocol, which seeks to retain some of the benefits of decentralization while maintaining centralized control.
• Exporting Chinese-made blockchain and standards is also a goal of these projects.
• Last year, the International Telecommunications Union passed a set of blockchain standards for financial applications developed by the People’s Bank of China, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, and Huawei.
• The institute is responsible for drafting tech standards and is under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
• Chuanguan is a site operated by Sichuan Daily, a state-run newspaper in China’s southwestern province.

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