(Yicai) June 26 -- China has played a leading role in a United Nations initiative to draft and shape the first global technical regulations for autonomous driving systems, according to the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China assumed a particularly influential role throughout the process that resulted in the Global Technical Regulation on Automated Driving Systems, serving both as vice chair of the Working Party on Automated/Autonomous and Connected Vehicles and co-chair of the Informal Working Group on Functional Requirements for Automated and Autonomous Vehicles, the ministry said yesterday.

The ADS GTR, jointly developed by China, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Japan, was approved at the 199th session of the World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29) of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, held in Geneva, Switzerland, from June 22 to 26.

Following years of technical efforts and more than 20 intensive meetings, the new rulebook sets a shared baseline for safety management, testing methodologies, and lifecycle governance.

China led the drafting of the regulation's core sections, including its technical background, guiding principles, and technical rationale, according to the ministry. It also submitted dozens of technical proposals covering dynamic driving tasks, human-machine interaction, and testing and validation methodologies, while contributing data from domestic closed-course testing, public road trials, and vehicle-infrastructure coordination programs to support the rulemaking process.

Before the ADS GTR’s adoption, neither the international community nor major auto markets had established a comprehensive and unified regulatory framework for self-driving technologies. Instead, countries and regions largely pursued research, development, and deployment according to their own approaches, resulting in a fragmented global regulatory landscape.

‘Significant Influence’

“China’s the world’s largest market for smart electric vehicles, with an enormous scale in both production and sales, as well as a leader in terms of technology along with Tesla," Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, told Yicai. “We've significant industrial influence when it comes to formulating regulations for autonomous driving."

The adoption rate for driving assistance systems in newly sold vehicles in China has exceeded 60 percent. As a result, any global standard developed without meaningful consideration of the Chinese market would have effectively excluded the most crucial usage scenarios and foundational support.

“If China were not involved in developing these standards, they would, in practice, be difficult to implement in China and would lose much of their relevance," Cui said. China's deep involvement, he added, is not only a natural consequence of the country's industrial development but also a prerequisite for ensuring that global rules can truly achieve worldwide applicability.

Chinese and international standards can complement each other, Cui said. Domestic regulations can remain compatible with global rules while maintaining higher requirements and accommodating local market characteristics, helping reduce compliance and adaptation costs for Chinese automakers expanding overseas.

“Before, Europe and the US set the standards, and China executed them, but now, China participates in formulating and jointly promoting global smart electrification,” Cui noted. “Backed by its position as the world's largest market and manufacturing base, China's influence in the global smart electrification field will continue to grow.”

As globally harmonized rules take effect and China’s regulatory framework continues to mature, the autonomous driving sector will gradually move beyond a fragmented, trial-and-error stage and enter a more standardized phase of development, with safety serving as the foundation and technological innovation as the primary driver, according to industry insiders.

Editor: Futura Costaglione