Despite widely accepted international standards, China developed standards mandated by government regulations amid a lack of transparency and due process, said Under Secretary of Commerce Christopher Padilla on Thursday.

"These requirements certainly provide Chinese domestic companies an unfair advantage, but they also carry great risks for China," he told a conference in Washington on standards and innovation in China.

In the 1980s, he said, Japan thought its market was large enough to justify unique technology standards that would eventually move the world in its direction, to the benefit of its companies.

"It was wrong," he said.

"Now China runs the same risk of turning itself into a lonely island of technological isolation, cut off from the world by government-mandated, China-unique standards that are out of line with where the market-driven global economy is heading."

Many American companies have expressed concern about security standards for information technology products that made it costly for them to enter the Chinese market, said Padilla, who is policy chief for international commerce.