When governments, regulators and telecommunications companies gather in Shanghai for the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027, the meeting will inevitably be framed as another episode in technological competition between China and the United States. WRC-27, scheduled for 18 October–12 November 2027, will revise the Radio Regulations governing the international use of spectrum and satellite orbits. But looking only for the emergence of two clearly separated technological blocs will miss what is most important about China’s behaviors inside the International Telecommunication Union.
China's growing influence in the ITU does not primarily rest on commanding a stable group of followers. It rests on its capacity to construct different coalitions around different technological questions. States supporting a Chinese position on mobile spectrum may disagree with Beijing over satellite regulation. Governments taking part in Chinese-funded digital-development programmes can nevertheless oppose Chinese proposals in standardization. Influence therefore needs to be continually reconstructed.
China's controversial New IP proposal provides an early and particularly revealing indicator of this behaviors. In September 2019, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Huawei, China Mobile and China Unicom gave the proposal “New IP, Shaping Future Network” to the ITU-T Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group. They explicitly called for discussion about a strategic transformation of ITU-T around future network architectures.
New IP became controversial because critics saw elements of the proposed architecture as potentially enabling more centralized network management. The Internet Society argued that several New IP concepts left substantially from the decentralized architecture underpinning the existing Internet.
But New IP is important for another reason. It proved where China wanted debates over future network architecture to occur. Rather than relying exclusively on bodies such as the Internet Engineering Task Force and other non-governmental technical communities, Chinese actors tried to place future Internet architecture more firmly within an intergovernmental organization where governments, national operators and equipment manufacturers have institutional standing. Having Internet governance within an intergovernmental organization makes it easier for government to control the overall process.
The proposal was not adopted. Yet the strategy persisted in less politically charged forms. Contemporary ITU-T Study Group 13 work on future networks, distributed computing and artificial intelligence shows extensive participation by China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Huawei, ZTE and CAICT. One current project on networking for AI-agent collaboration, for example, is supported by this broad Chinese institutional ecosystem alongside Nigeria.
That matters because China's approach is increasingly ecosystem-based rather than one company-based. Standard-setting, however, is only one part of the strategy. ITU-D offers a mechanism through which technological practices can diffuse into developing countries. In Pakistan, ITU's Smart Village programme was implemented with Huawei as the cooperation agency, linking connectivity with digital health, education, skills and public services – scale however is extremely limited.
The Uganda case is even more instructive. ITU implemented a programme aimed not simply at infrastructure but at ICT policy recommendations, regulatory capacity, training and pilot implementation, with China's MIIT as cooperation agency and financing associated with China's Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund.
Norm diffusion therefore does not require countries formally to proclaim adherence to a “Chinese model.” It can occur more incrementally: officials receive training, regulators work with institutional partners, ministries adopt policy recommendations and technologies become incorporated into national development strategies. ITU-D can transform material cooperation into institutional familiarity.
Yet the most consequential arena ahead of Shanghai is arguably ITU-R. ITU-R manages the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbit resources on which mobile communications, satellite networks, aviation, broadcasting, navigation and increasingly the space economy depend. Its Radio Regulations constitute an international treaty, revised through World Radiocommunication Conferences.
This makes ITU-R strategically different from standardization. A standard can exist without being widely implemented. But wireless technologies cannot scale without sufficient spectrum, while satellite systems require internationally recognized access to spectrum and orbital resources. ITU-R decides the regulatory possibility within which innovation can diffuse.
China strongly supported identifying the upper 6 GHz band for IMT because it provides valuable mid-band spectrum for 5G-Advanced and future 6G networks and supports global harmonization around technologies already prioritized domestically. Beijing therefore does this to standardize future markets for emerging technologies. Because this outcome required international agreement, Beijing built an issue-specific coalition with Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar and Sri Lanka to sponsor the proposal at WRC-23.
The eventual WRC-23 outcome reflected regional differentiation and compromise rather than a simple Chinese victory. The broader 6 GHz debate divided governments according to mobile-industry requirements, existing spectrum users, satellite interests and preferences concerning Wi-Fi, not according to a China-US geopolitical line.
This is the lesson Shanghai may make increasingly visible. China's technological power depends not on creating a permanent bloc but on repeatedly persuading governments that Chinese-supported technological choices also serve their own national interests.
That, paradoxically, shows the resilience of international organizations. The ITU does not end geopolitical competition. It institutionalizes it. Great powers must translate technological ambitions into technical contributions, regulatory proposals and development programmes; negotiate through regional organizations; cooperate with firms and regulators; and repeatedly search for sufficient support.
The conference in Shanghai will evaluate whether China can convert its technological capabilities into coalitional power within the International Telecommunication Union.
In this regard, international organizations stay important precisely because they prevent technological superiority from becoming regulatory authority automatically. In the ITU, China, and the United States or other actors must still persuade others to help construct the technological future.
This research was conducted as part of the National Science Centre (NCN) OPUS 27 grant, entitled “Redefining Multilateralism through Relationality: China’s Diplomacy in the United Nations” (B2515900001445100).
