The Silk Code: China Standards 2035 and the Battle for the Global Operating System

Standardization today represents the invisible architecture on which the global economy is based, because it defines the technical rules that allow different devices and systems to communicate with each other harmoniously. Those who succeed in imposing their standards effectively control global markets, as they force all other economic players to pay licensing fees and follow technological paths already mapped out by the first innovator.

A recent study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) clarifies that control of these specifications in the digital sector is not just a matter of profit but represents a pillar of national security and the projection of power in cyberspace.

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As has been documented, Beijing's leadership considers technology to be the main battleground for global supremacy in the 21st century. Essentially, the Chinese government has long understood that it is no longer enough to be the world's factory; it is necessary to become the laboratory of global rules through the strategy known as China Standards 2035, which aims to transform the concept of production into that of standardization in order to guarantee the country a dominant position in value chains.

However, despite this ambition, objective data show that there is still a wide gap between China and the established powers, which Beijing intends to bridge very quickly. Statistics updated to 2024 indicate that the United States and Europe together control approximately 68 percent of international standards approved by bodies such as the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission, while China currently holds a share of just 1.8 percent of the world total. This imbalance still forces many Chinese companies to chase after other people's innovations and depend on foreign patents for the operation of their electronic products. Our previous analyses highlight how China's structural limitations lie in a serious lack of autonomy in basic technologies, namely critical components such as high-end chips and electronic design automation (EDA) software, which are still dominated by Western intellectual property and represent the real bottleneck for Beijing's industry.

To counter this isolation, China has launched a massive geo-economic intelligence strategy centered on the Digital Silk Road, involving a growing number of industrial and academic players. One particularly significant development concerns the completion of the mapping of standards for 149 partner countries in the Belt and Road Initiative, which has made it possible to identify infrastructure and regulatory gaps in each geographical area. The nerve centers of this drive are the cities of Beijing and Shenzhen, home to elite research institutes such as Tsinghua University and the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, which work in symbiosis with the China National Institute of Standardization. The three telecommunications giants, China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, play a key role in this effort, coordinating the laying of submarine cables and the construction of 5G base stations in accordance with national protocols. Alongside them are companies such as Inspur in the server and cloud computing sector and the giant Lenovo, which are pushing for the adoption of Chinese hardware architectures in the emerging markets of Central Asia and Africa.

Another example of success concerns blockchain and digital payments, where China has managed to export its regulatory model to over twenty countries, including strategic partners such as Singapore and Thailand. Companies such as Hangzhou-based Ant Group have transformed Alipay's practical applications into recognized international standards, while Tencent has done the same with the WeChat ecosystem by integrating payment systems with digital identity functions.

In the field of surveillance and smart cities, companies such as Hikvision and Dahua Technology, together with emerging players such as SenseTime and Megvii, are setting the parameters for facial recognition and biometric data analysis within standardization bodies such as the International Telecommunication Union. However, as we have repeatedly pointed out, China faces growing resistance from the West, which is using tools such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation to create regulatory barriers against the expansion of Chinese models, often defined as too intrusive or potentially dangerous to the national security of host countries.

What needs to be monitored closely?

China's future moves will be based on increasingly close synergy between the government and businesses to transform infrastructure advantages into regulatory advantages through three main guidelines: coordination between politics and industry, integration between technology and markets, and alignment between national and international rules. A key player in OSINT intelligence to monitor is the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, which acts as a technical office for translating the needs of companies such as Baidu in the field of artificial intelligence into official proposals for international technical committees.

Beijing is promoting the creation of joint laboratories in Silk Road countries to train local technicians through programs such as Huawei's Seeds for the Future, which aims to educate the future global technology leadership according to Chinese standards. The goal is to build a community with a shared future in cyberspace, which in practice means an integrated digital ecosystem where data flows and satellite networks such as Beidou are regulated by protocols established in Beijing, thus ensuring independence from US sanctions.

In this scenario, standardization is no longer a technical process but an act of sovereignty that aims to redefine the geography of global power through the coordinated management of physical infrastructure and fundamental technical rules.

In addition to its presence in international organizations, China is implementing a real circumvention maneuver where standards are not simply proposed but imposed as a precondition for loans and investments under the Belt and Road Initiative (standardization diplomacy). In many African and Southeast Asian countries, the adoption of Beijing's protocols for cloud computing and data management is not a free technical choice but an infrastructural constraint linked to financing from Chinese state banks.

A striking example of this projection of power is the State Grid Corporation of China, which is successfully exporting standards for ultra-high voltage (UHV) power grids to countries such as Brazil and Kazakhstan. By controlling the technical specifications of these grids, Beijing is not only selling components but also locking an entire nation's energy market into proprietary technologies, making it almost impossible and extremely costly to switch to different suppliers. This effect of technological dependence gives China unprecedented geopolitical leverage, as energy management becomes inextricably linked to the rules decided in Beijing.

Another critical point for intelligence to monitor concerns the profound reform of China's Standardization Law, which codified the link between technical standards and national security. According to this legislation, every standard developed must serve the strategic interests of the state and facilitate the so-called civil-military fusion, ensuring that technological innovations are immediately available for defense needs. This means that in the event of mobilization, all civil infrastructure built according to these parameters must be made available to the armed forces.

Beijing is also investing enormous diplomatic resources to move from de facto standards, i.e., those imposed by the commercial success of a product, to de jure standards, which are those decided at the negotiating table in international technical committees. To achieve this goal, China is systematically placing its officials in the presidencies and secretariats of working groups of bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission. This is not just a matter of prestige but of the ability to set the agenda for the next ten years in strategic sectors such as intelligent transport systems and quantum technologies.

Finally, we should not underestimate the use of the dual circulation strategy applied to technical standards, whereby Beijing creates national standards that are so advanced and specific that they force foreign companies wishing to operate in the Chinese market to modify their products, effectively isolating them from their global supply chains. In this scenario, standardization ceases to be a common language and becomes a weapon for protecting the domestic market and aggressively projecting power abroad.

In conclusion, the real challenge for the West will not only be to produce better technologies, but also to prevent the operating system of the future from speaking exclusively Mandarin, making digital sovereignty a matter of pure technical compliance.

Further reading:

• The global overtaking project: the Sinocentric doctrine of wireless technology, the crisis of standards, and the risk of digital slavery (Extrema Ratio Intelligence)

• National Security Rides on Robots: The Attack on GeekCon and China's Standardization Strategy for the Embodied AI Ecosystem

• Chinese Standardization: From Space to Cloud, Xi Jinping's Normative Assault on Global Dominance 🚀

• New lithography technology pushes the boundaries of semiconductor manufacturing standards

• #Military: are China's national standard SAR satellites that powerful?

• Forum on 6G innovation and development: for Chinese experts, Beijing will be a world leader in the communication industry, also determining the relevant technical standards

• China, Artificial intelligence and quantum computing are leading great changes. How will the "technology standard-bearers" of the Two Sessions take action?

• The digital reminbi and the global standard of "Central Bank digital currencies"

• Pechino è in vantaggio nella competizione per definire uno standard globale di valuta digitale CBCD