Article 16 of the Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China (adopted at the 5th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 7th National People's Congress on December 29, 1988, and revised at the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress on November 4, 2017): "When formulating recommended standards, a standardization technical committee composed of relevant parties shall be organized to undertake the drafting and technical review of the standards. When formulating mandatory standards, relevant standardization technical committees may be entrusted to undertake the drafting and technical review of the standards. If a standardization technical committee has not been established, an expert group shall be established to undertake the drafting and technical review of the relevant standards. The composition of the standardization technical committee and the expert group shall be widely representative."

【Interpretation】 The standardization technical committee (hereinafter referred to as the technical committee) is an unincorporated technical organization engaged in standard formulation and revision work such as standard drafting and technical review within a certain professional field. The technical committee is the production workshop of standards. The technical committee is composed of members. The members should be extensive and representative to ensure that the requirements of all stakeholders are reflected as much as possible in the process of standard formulation. The members of the technical committee may come from relevant parties such as producers, operators, users, consumers, and public interest parties. Educational and scientific research institutions, relevant administrative departments, testing and certification institutions, social organizations, etc. may serve as representatives of public interest parties. In the process of formulating standards, the technical committee shall follow the principles of openness, transparency, and consensus among all relevant stakeholders, and adopt a voting method for the technical content in the standards during the technical review. Recommended standards are the result of consensus among stakeholders. Therefore, it is an international common practice for a standardization technical committee composed of stakeholders to undertake the preparation of recommended standards. For this reason, this Law stipulates that when formulating recommended standards, a standardization technical committee composed of relevant parties shall be organized to undertake the drafting and technical review of the standards. However, there are differences between mandatory standards and recommended standards. Mandatory standards not only have the attributes of standards, but also have the attributes of "technical regulations" and reflect the will of the government. Article 10 of this Law clearly stipulates that the relevant administrative departments of the State Council shall be responsible for the organization, drafting, and technical review of mandatory national standards in accordance with their duties. However, since the formulation of mandatory standards is a highly technical task, the relevant administrative departments of the State Council may entrust the technical committee to undertake the drafting and technical review of mandatory standards. Since the former State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision unified the planning and establishment of national professional standardization technical committees in 1979, after more than 30 years of development, China has formed a technical committee system composed of technical committees (TC), sub-technical committees (SC), and standardization working groups (SWG). As of now, China has established 537 technical committees, 737 sub-technical committees, and 11 standardization working groups, effectively supporting the steady development of China's standardization work. National professional standardization technical committees basically undertake the preparation of the vast majority of national standards and industry standards, and may, upon the entrustment of government departments, social organizations, enterprises, and public institutions, carry out standardization work related to their respective professional fields. The unified undertaking of the preparation of standards in a certain field by national professional standardization technical committees can not only give full play to the role of technical experts in the industry field, but also effectively coordinate stakeholders, and ensure the coordination and matching among various standards, avoiding the intersection, duplication, and contradiction among standards. If a technical committee has not been established in a relevant field, but there is an urgent need to formulate standards, the department formulating the standards shall establish an expert group to undertake the drafting and technical review of the relevant standards. The composition of the expert group should also be widely representative.