Maybe This Explains China's 3G Delays

While we're following a self-imposed moratorium on stories about 3G in China after all the delays and doublespeak, this one did catch our eye. Apparently there's been a trial of 4G technology in the country, with a view towards implementing it before 2010, despite the government's unwillingness or inability to get 3G off the ground there. This has been largely because of problems with its homegrown TD-SCDMA standard. The development of this technology, in spite of the long-standing availability of internationally developed standards, illustrates how protectionism trumps pragmatism in many cases for Chinese technology. While there's been no clearly defined 4G standards yet, the Chinese need to realize they've got more to gain by working within international standards bodies rather than hamstringing their rollout of new technologies by insisting on developing their own parallel technologies that run a few years behind schedule.