Enter the protectionist dragon? [China's software and standards policies stir debate and reflection]

China's economy holds perhaps the greatest opportunities in the world in the coming decades. The makers of all sorts of goods, from soda pop to software, are positioning themselves to take advantage of the projected phenomenal growth of the Chinese marketplace. Since its economic reforms of the late 1970s, China has made huge strides in becoming, a strongpoint for manufacturing and assembling goods to be sold worldwide. However, it has struggled to join the world's software development leaders. To encourage the domestic software industry's development, Chinese policy makers have written a series of regulations in the past five years. These give Chinese software developers tax incentives and mandate that government buyers give preference to domestic software. These regulations also encourage the development of open source software over proprietary software.