China sent a group of 10 delegates on Tuesday to Prague for a resolution analysis meeting on the wireless encryption standard concerning the Chinese WAPI and American 11i.
The meeting to be held on June 7 and June 8 will discuss the voting results of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) members on the two technologies.
Members voted against the Chinese standard in the fast-track ballot in March. "The meeting would put WAPI in a very severe situation due to the monopoly of the American technology," said a delegate surnamed Huang who is also an expert of China's work group on WAPI.
But he said that China would make a 100 percent effort even if there is only a one percent chance that WAPI would win.
WAPI and 11i, as two parallel amendments to the present wireless technology, have applied to the ISO to become international standards.
"The monopoly force from the American standard maker IEEE failed WAPI in the voting process," said Huang.
IEEE, the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc, has been accused of violating ISO rules and misleading concerned nations to vote against WAPI.
In appeals made to the ISO in late April, China asked the organization to delay the processing and analysis of the voting results and asked IEEE to apologize for their "immoral behaviors."
According to ISO procedure, an analysis meeting should be held after the ballot voting and all national bodies voting against either of the two technologies should elaborate on their reasons.
The appeal is still pending but the analysis meeting would be held on time.
If any agreement is reached during the meeting, it would be the final result after being approved by the relevant ISO department.
The real challenges for China's WAPI are not the opposing opinions from the national bodies but the monopoly of the American association, said an expert with the WAPI work group.
He said before WAPI, no proposal had entered the fast track ballot of ISO in areas dominated by the IEEE, even for developed countries like Japan, the Republic of Korea and Germany.
The Chinese delegate group is afraid that IEEE would force 11i to be accepted as international standard in the analysis meeting and would not give China enough time for presentation.
China has listed over 100 comments on the technology defects of 11i and program editors of 11i also admitted that their technology has fundamental flaws and requires further improvement.
"If we all strictly follow ISO rules, the rejection of WAPI should be withdrawn and the 11i technology should be returned for reprocessing," said Huang.
Though worried about the possible unfavorable result of the Prague meeting, Chinese delegates believe that it would not affect WAPI's wide application at home.
Even if 11i becomes the international standard at this meeting, China has sufficient reasons to reject it at home, said Huang.
China is not optimistic over the Prague meeting but it hopes to strive for a better environment for its future technologies in the international standard field, he said.
(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2006)
