Technology standards are still high on the agenda in Beijing, and that makes them an ongoing concern for US and European policy hawks inclined to believe China wants to use home-grown standards to trip up foreign companies in its market. They can be forgiven for thinking this. After all, China's disastrous attempt at launching a Wi-Fi standard left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, and there is growing concern about China's approach to information security standards.

It's more likely, however, that China will slowly pursue a cooperative rather than a combative stance on tech standards. It just doesn't pay to launch a standard that survives in only one market -- not even one as large as China. Even its 3G standard, TD-SCDMA, may not end up being a commercial success, despite wads of RMB funnelled into private and public R&D and it being launched by the almightly China Mobile.

Yet from a policy point of view, TD-SCDMA already is successful, and that may be enough for now. At the very least, it's achieved two important goals. First, it's proven that the Chinese are willing to go it alone, despite the high cost, in an effort to develop their own intellectual property and create an environment that fosters future innovation. That's caught the attention of international standards makers, who weren't always keen to let the Chinese learn the game. Second, it's given the Chinese crucial experience with developing and coping with the complexity of an innovation chain, from developing IP to corralling industry support to eventual commercialization. These two things alone make the headaches of TD-SCDMA worthwhile to Chinese policymakers.

Ultimately, the goal for Chinese policymakers and industry is to increase their particpation in global standards. As the Chinese improve the quality of their IP and understanding of the standards game, they will become more savvy at protecting their interests and benefitting from their huge market. It will be a long road, but reversion to the mean will be the guiding force. That's to say that there will be a lot of positive and negative experiences still to come -- probably more negative in the near-term -- but the trendline leads toward greater cooperation and international inclusion.