Amid the rapidly unfolding COVID19 pandemic during early 2020, Beijing boosted its “China Standard” engineering and technical standardization plans and programs to “national development strategy” status and quietly lowered the profile of its timestamped “China Standard 2035” action plan, in a report posted on the website of the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR [市场监管总局]). These actions by the Communist Party of China (CPC) likely signal that it views the efficacy of its China Standard actions in advancing its geostrategic goals as on par with its other major national development strategies such as the “Military Civil Fusion (MCF) Development Strategy,” while also likely seeing an increased necessity to reduce mention of timestamped action plans in order to avoid scrutiny such as the public call out of “Made in China 2025” by some US leaders.

The “‘China Standard 2035’ project completion meeting” and the “‘National Standardization Development Strategy Research’ project kick-off meeting” were held at the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) on 14 January 2020, according to the SAMR report. Tian Shihong, deputy director of SAMR and director of the Standards Administration of China (SAC), attended the meeting and delivered a speech, according to the report.

• Tian Shihong said “the ‘China Standard 2035’ project has achieved remarkable results,” according to the SAMR report. Beijing views its campaign to create and implement PRC technical standards domestically and abroad as a foundational component of its strategies to develop the PRC and expand the CPC’s geostrategic power through reshaping global governance.
• The PRC State Council’s 2015 “Plan to Deepen Reform of Standardization Work” spotlights the priority the CPC and the PRC government places on standards setting and the growing role of PRC personnel in international, national and sectoral standards-setting bodies. The plan called for PRC entities to integrate PRC standards into virtually all outward facing actions, coopt and take over the committees and leaderships of international standards-setting organizations, and celebrated progress to date.

By promoting engineering and technical standardization plans and programs to “national development strategy” status, the CPC signals that it views the efficacy of its China Standard actions in advancing its geostrategic goals as on par with its other major national development strategies such as the “MCF Development Strategy,” “Regionally Coordinated Development,” the “Innovation-Driven Development Strategy,” and the other major national development strategies prioritized by Xi Jinping is his October 2017 speech to the 19th Party Congress of the CPC.

• According to a March 2020 notice by SAC, key priorities for 2020 work include strengthening the major requirements for standardization in national strategies such as innovation-driven development, rural revitalization, coordinated regional development, and sustainable development, and to continue to universalize military and civilian standards.”
• During 2018-2019, “national high-level think tanks” in the PRC—including entities in SAMR, SAC, CAE, and others—worked together to consolidate existing standardization strategies into a higher profile action plan deemed “China Standard 2035”, according to the PRC’s official wire service Xinhua.
• Speeches during 2014-2016 attributed to CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping assert that for the PRC to become a leading nation it will have to become a rule-maker, and that standards are the “first chess move” of global expansion. Xi said that the CPC must strengthen its “leadership over standardization work” and “hard power of China’s Standards.”

The 27 February 2019 “Hearing Before the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship: Made in China 2025 and the Future of American Industry,” is an example of US political leaders focusing concern about PRC policy on timestamped party-state action plans, such as “Made in China 2025,” which is scrutiny that Beijing may prefer to avoid.