Publications and Other Works

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• China and the Standardization of Digital Technologies

  Publication January 23, 2026

  From algorithmic regulation to cybersecurity procurement, technical standards are increasingly becoming a central element of China’s public regulatory framework. How do these domestic developments translate into global influence, and what role do non-state actors play in this process?

  This special issue of the China Law and Society Review, titled “China and the Standardization of Digital Technologies,” offers a comprehensive analysis of these questions. Edited by Daniel Fuchs, Daniel Sprick, and Marianne von Blomberg, the issue brings together empirical research on China’s evolving standardization practices. Contributions cover a wide range of topics, including the role of standards as market gatekeepers, the shaping of social interactions through corporate algorithm standards, and China’s fragmented yet growing presence in international Standards Development Organizations (SDOs).

  By examining the complex interplay between political, economic, and societal stakeholders, this publication sheds light on the “normativity of standards” and their far-reaching impact on global digital governance.

  The full text can be accessed here

  This special issue was published as part of the DFG project “Pathways from Rule-Taking to Rule-Making: A Comparison of China and Korea’s Internationalization Strategies for Digital Standards” (Project number: 515038358). See also here.

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• China as Standard-Maker: Mechanisms of Authority in Cybersecurity Standards Internationalization

  Working paper October 10, 2025

  China has successfully become a “standard-maker” – a country that actively sets and shapes international technical standards for a range of industries. What does this mean for China’s position in international relations and global governance? This article analyzes practices of standards internationalization in the cybersecurity sector that enact and represent China’s authority towards domestic and international audiences. Drawing on Chinese language sources and other documents, it introduces China’s academic debate on the internationalization of cybersecurity standards and examines a practice-centered case study of the authority of cybersecurity standards in China’s automotive industry. Three examples illustrate the different mechanisms of China’s authority in international standardization: participatory deference, pre-promulgated deference, and regulatory deference. The article contributes to recent debates on authority in international standardization by theorizing – against the intersubjectively constructed field of international standardization – the conditions of how standards are recognized as authoritative in the first place.

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• Chinas Aufstieg zur Normungsweltmacht. Technologiestandards als Schauplatz geopolitischer Rivalität

  Publication January 01, 2025

  Chinas Einfluss auf die internationale Normung von digitalen Technologien hat rasant zugenommen. Wie kann der Aufstieg des Landes zur Normungsweltmacht erklärt werden? Und wie reagieren führende Akteure im Globalen Norden darauf?

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• Practice diffusion in China’s two-pronged engagement in global technical standardization

  Publication April 15, 2024

  In the context of intensifying geopolitical rivalry, China’s transition from rule-taker to rule-maker in technical standard-setting has generated deep contention with established stakeholders in the Global North. This article analyses how China, as a latecomer to global technical standardization, has navigated this increasingly contested arena of global economic governance. Building on the ‘practice turn’ literature in International Relations and a conceptualization of standard-setting processes as shaped by ‘communities of practice’, this article argues that ‘practice diffusion’ is of crucial significance for China’s rising standards power. Just as it sees mastery of global standardization practice as a key dimension of increasing its influence in established standards developing organizations, China has also begun to diffuse its standardization practice abroad in the effort to lay the foundations of a China-centric standardization regime. The article develops this argument by identifying four specific mechanisms of practice diffusion – learning the basics, learning to lead, learning within the region, learning to build – and by illustrating the role that each has played in Chinese stakeholders’ evolving engagement in global technical standard-setting.

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• Technische Standards und globale Ungleichheit: Chinas Aufstieg zur Normungsweltmacht

  Publication November 02, 2023

  Die internationale Normung von Produkten und Technologien ist eine Grundlage für Globalisierungsprozesse und wesentlich für die Regulation der kapitalistischen Weltwirtschaft. Technische Standards – vom Papierformat DIN A4 über die Maße von Frachtcontainern bis hin zur Netzarchitektur der 5G-Mobilfunktechnologie – dienen der Interoperabilität und Qualitätssicherung. Die Aushandlung dieser Standards ist zugleich von Profitinteressen transnational agierender Unternehmen und vom strategischen Kalkül staatlicher Akteur:innen geprägt: Wer die Standards für neue Technologien setzt, prägt und kontrolliert die Entwicklung der entsprechenden Märkte.

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