At the beginning of December 2020, the Standardisation Administration of China (SAC) issued the Guidelines on the Adoption of International Standards (2020). These guidelines aim at propelling the conversion between Chinese standards and international standards as well as their application, thus and ensuring the effective adoption of international standards in Chinese national standards (hereinafter referred to as ‘the adoption’).

This document outlines 8 key sectors for the adoption, namely: agriculture and food, consumer goods, equipment manufacturing, information technology and electrical engineering, new materials, service industry, social administration and public services, and energy resources. The guidelines also indicate the basic requirements that must be met throughout the execution, feedback, coordination and safeguarding of the adoption process.

The document will guide China to adopt more international standards in a timely manner, especially in the eight key sectors listed. Furthermore, the guidelines encourage the “simultaneous initiation of international standardisation projects proposed by China, with the initiation of national standardisation projects”: this is expected to ensure the effective adoption of international standards in China, as it overcomes potential obstacles originating from the misalignment of international standards from those used in China. The document also proposes a guidance, coordination and notification mechanism aimed at facilitating the proposal, execution, feedback and improvement of adoption projects.

The following sections of the guidelines are particularly noteworthy:

  • The administrative department of standardisation of local people’s governments, and national professional standardisation technical committees, shall conduct research and analysis on international standards and their applicability in Chinese standards. They shall continuously monitor the development and progress of international standards, provide recommendations on adoption projects in a timely manner, and verify the progress of the adoption, in order to ensure its scientific nature and effectiveness.
  • The domestic technical counterparts of international standardisation organisations shall follow up on the research and analysis on international standards, and actively provide feedback to national professional standardisation technical committees and all other relevant units.
  • The relevant administrative departments of the State Council shall cooperate with the administrative department of standardisation of the State Council, in order to promote the simultaneous initiation of international standardisation projects proposed by China, with the initiation of Chinese national standardisation projects.

However, the document also reflects some drawbacks in China’s adoption work, for instance:

  1. The document does not specify the existence of relevant policies to ensure the coordination and consistency of Chinese standardisation projects with international standardisation projects.
  2. The guidelines explicitly mention that the applicability of adoption projects will be analysed and verified: this implies that the adoption might, in practice, involve a revision of international standards, which in turn may create unnecessary technical barriers to trade.
  3. The document does not cover the issue of copyright.

Finally, in our view, the document fails to cover many other issues that often emerge during the adoption process. For instance, it does not illustrate how to deal with issues involving intellectual property (IP) rights in the adoption process, thus potentially leading to other issues such as the impossibility to adopt IP-related international standards and ineffective protection of IP.