China is still looking to push its alternative 802.11i technology, WAPI, into the market despite international standard bodies already rejecting the it. Now, China is looking to use the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing as a reason, citing a "need" for WAPI since "media users" were skeptical about the safety of current WLAN technology. I'm sure the Olympics will allow China to show off its technological progress, but their reasoning for doing so, in this case, doesn't hold water.
If you recall, the Chinese delegation walked out of the opening of a two-day meeting in the Czech Republic that was scheduled to talk about harmonizing WAPI technology with international standards in June. The move follows Chinese accusations that the U.S.-based standards body used underhanded tactics to prevent the global approval of WAPI. The IEEE has chosen 802.11i as the encryption standard. The Standardization Administration of China, in a statement, accused backers of the American technology of "a lot of dirty tricks including deception, misinformation, confusion and reckless charging to lobby against WAPI," the Chinese newspaper Xinhua reported.
For more on China's persistent WAPI push:
- see this post from Techdirt