High standards are the guarantee of high quality. High-quality products and services are not only related to improvements in living standards and the protection of property security, but are also directly tied to public health and safety – a matter the state has long given great priority. Recently, the State Council Information Office held a press conference introducing the achievements of China's standardization reform and development. The related reforms and institutional building have strongly advanced the construction of a quality-driven nation.
From "the same gauge for carriages and the same script for writing" in ancient China to the large-scale industrial production of modern times, all are vivid examples of standardization. Strengthening standardization can effectively protect public interest from harm. For example, setting higher "thresholds" for design and production standards helps improve product quality; when enterprises organize production in line with high-standard requirements, this supports high-quality, high-efficiency assembly-line work; and when inspection and testing institutions test product raw materials, components and production stages against high-standard requirements, this ensures that products entering the market meet the prescribed indicators. In this closed-loop quality management running from design and production to market circulation, quality cannot truly be guaranteed once any single link departs from standards. Only by streamlining and optimizing the government standards system, increasing the effective supply of market standards and raising the level of standards internationalization can we improve the overall quality of standards and use high-standard construction to drive high-quality development.
First, streamline and optimize government standards to safeguard public interest in real terms. To this end, recent reforms have first made "subtractions": "consolidating and streamlining mandatory standards" and "optimizing and refining recommended standards", both "managing well what should be managed" and reserving space for cultivating and developing market standards. At the same time, in line with legal requirements, only one tier of mandatory national standards is provided, and these are formulated only within the scope necessary to safeguard health, safety and economic and social management; industry standards and local standards are no longer mandatory but are all recommended. This both reinforces the bottom line of quality and safety and avoids overlap, duplication and conflict among standards. This uses legal means to "slim down" the government standards system and to push recommended standards to transition into public-interest standards, so as to better meet the needs of all parties and balance their interests.
Second, cultivate and energize market standards to enhance quality and competitiveness. Standardization reform must give full play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation. In response to the practical problems of standards being missing, ageing or lagging, the relevant reforms have made two "additions": "cultivating and developing association standards" and "liberalizing and energizing enterprise standards", and the legal status of "association standards" has been further clarified. With this new type of market standard, associations, chambers of commerce and other social bodies have the right to formulate more flexible standards and respond promptly to market changes. In addition, granting enterprises the autonomy to formulate their own standards and removing restrictive provisions on enterprise standard filings help to invigorate enterprises and promote industrial transformation and upgrading.
Finally, target international standards and raise the overall level of standards. On the basis of these "additions and subtractions", the reforms also "optimize" the overall level of standards: in addition to drawing on the basic experience of international standards, they actively encourage all parties to participate in international standardization activities. On one hand, this prescribes the content of participation, so as to advance the conversion and application of international standards, help raise the overall quality of China's standards and share the advantages of quality development; on the other hand, it also provides institutional support for the state to encourage all sectors of society – including enterprises and associations – to take part in international standardization, further promoting the "going global" of Chinese standards and, with them, products, technology, equipment and services.
In his congratulatory letter to the 39th General Assembly of the International Organization for Standardization, President Xi Jinping noted that "standards drive innovation and development, and standards lead the progress of the times". By better leveraging the role of government to protect public interest and effectively leveraging the role of the market to meet enterprises' need for quality and efficiency improvements, we can make standards a "hard constraint" on quality and successfully drive high-quality development.
