Globalisation, indigenous innovation and national strategy: comparing China and India's wireless standardisation

This comparative case study investigates the contrasting approaches to telecommunications standard-setting adopted by two developing countries, China and India, using the 3G standard as a case study. Despite facing comparable opportunities in the form of fast-growing markets, and comparable challenges in terms of meeting consumer demand and fostering industrial development, the two countries adopted sharply different standards strategies, with China investing heavily in its home-grown Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access standard, and India allowing operators to choose any international standard. In this paper, we trace the antecedents of this divergence to the different policy approaches that the two countries adopted to their respective electronics industries in the early to mid-1990s.