اقتصاد سیاسی استانداردهای تعیین شده توسط مشتریان تازه وارد: WAPI چین و WIPI کره جنوبی

In 2004, China attempted to set its national standard for mobile security (wireless LAN authentication and privacy infrastructure (WAPI)) which was to be used for wireless LAN. In 2005, Korea implemented a national standard for the mobile Internet platform (wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI)). This paper examines and compares the two cases in terms of the role of government, characteristics of each standard and the process of standards setting. Despite some similarities of ‘aiming for a de jure national standard’, ‘government-initiated’ and ‘anticipatory’, the outcomes of the two efforts are different. WIPI was ratified in Korea, while WAPI was indefinitely postponed as the national standard and failed to be ratified as an international standard. It is contended here that the different outcomes are attributed to differences in the openness of the standards and of institutional processes of standardization, combined with the government role and the timing of market entry. In the cause of national security, China adhered to the original goal of WAPI; in the WIPI case, compromises were made to satisfy to some extent the various demands from many stakeholders despite the original goal being undermined. The findings from this comparison reinforce findings by previous studies on open standard and open standardization processes. This paper makes a unique contribution in that it first examines the international standards-setting attempts by newcomers, China and Korea, in the race for international standards. They used to be standard adopters but now want to become standard setters. Given the narrowing gap of technological capabilities at the global level and the huge size of markets in countries like China, these standards challenges from newcomers are not one-off episodes, but will happen repeatedly in the future. Further research is required in this area.

In 2004, China attempted to set its national standard for mobile security called wireless LAN authentication and privacy infrastructure (WAPI) which was to be used for wireless LAN. In 2005, Korea implemented a national standard for mobile Internet platform called wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI). Although they are concerned with different domains of mobile technology, they have one thing in common: the two countries’ governments were deeply involved and actually initiated the standardization projects, additionally the USA was involved. Both wanted to set the national standard and had the intention, though implicit, to render it an international standard. Although both the attempts began with similar purposes, they followed different paths, which resulted in the different status of each standard. WIPI was ratified in Korea, while WAPI was indefinitely postponed as the national standard and finally failed to be ratified as an international standard by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2005. This paper examines these two international standards issues. They are important because they represent unusual challenges to international standards leadership from previous standards adopters. China and Korea are latecomers and, as such, newcomers in the race for international standards, rather than simply observers and followers in standards wars. Given the fact that innovative capability and market size are growing remarkably in countries like China and Korea, there is good reason to infer that these instances are not isolated ones. This paper's contribution lies in its investigation of the transformation in roles of the two countries from standards followers to standards innovators.

This paper has examined the two international standards-setting attempts by China and Korea, new ambitious players in the global standards war. Despite some similarities in ‘aiming for a de jure national standard’, ‘government-initiated’ and ‘anticipatory’, the outcomes of the two efforts are different. The paper found that this is attributed to the differences in three aspects: the openness of the standards and standardization processes, governments’ role and the timing of market entry. In the cause of national security, China adhered to the original goal of WAPI; in the WIPI case, compromises were made to satisfy to some extent various demands from many stakeholders despite the original goal being undermined. The findings from this comparison reinforce those of previous studies (e.g. Funk & Methe, 2001) on open standards and open standardization processes. Openness is logically linked to the facilitating role of government. Regarding the timing, WAPI appears to have been late in that it was to be implemented in the transition phase when Wi-Fi was close to becoming a de facto standard. On the other hand, WIPI was launched in the fluid phase when several standards were still competing for market dominance. The major contribution of this paper is that it closely examines international standards-setting attempts by newcomers. Given the narrowing gap of technological capabilities at the global level mainly due to the rapid development of technological capabilities in countries like China and Korea and the huge size of markets in countries like China and India due to their fast growing economies, standards challenges from newcomers are not one-off episodes, but will occur repeatedly in the future. For example, China is pushing a series of standards-setting programmes in ICT industries including TD-SCDMA (3G communications), audio video coding standard (AVS) and home networking. Korea is also trying to propel home-grown technologies such as digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) and wireless broadband (WiBro)10 as an international standard. All these standards attempts by China and Korea invite separate and/or integrated studies. Furthermore, it appears that the disputes between China and Korea regarding WAPI and WIPI, respectively, offer a lesson to the USA. The recently agreed free trade agreements between Korea and the USA (KORUS FTA: Korea–US Free Trade Agreement) include detailed articles on standards. Standards will be increasingly important not only in global telecommunications markets, but also in the wider international trade sphere.