China switches trade files to WPS-only format, shutting out MS Word

China's Commerce Ministry issued new documents on rare earth export controls which couldn't be opened using MS Word or any other American word processor but only with homegrown software, WPS Office

In a striking parallel to what the Europeans did when they first reached the shores of America and read out orders to the unsuspecting native populace, China now seems to have taken a leaf out of that playbook. This time, however, it’s not about conquest but control. Beijing no longer wants Washington to easily read its official documents.

 

Last week, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued new documents on rare earth export controls, but these couldn’t be opened using Microsoft Word or any other American word processor. In a first, the ministry used a file format that works exclusively with WPS Office, China’s homegrown equivalent to Microsoft’s suite, according to a report by South China Morning Post.

 

Developed by Beijing-based Kingsoft, WPS Office uses a different coding structure, making its files incompatible with Word without conversion.

 

The timing of this shift is symbolic of the growing cold war-like tensions between the two economic giants. The relations have been souring between Washington and Beijing, with deepening control over technology, semiconductors, and systems as strategic weapons.

 

China’s renewed push for ‘self-reliance’

 

Behind this switch lies China’s broader campaign for technological self-reliance. Over the past few years, Beijing has intensified its efforts to reduce dependence on foreign IT systems, especially in government, state-owned enterprises, universities, and critical industries.

 

For example, when a faulty update by Texas-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in July 2024 crippled Microsoft’s Windows systems worldwide, China remained relatively unscathed. Many of its key service providers, from banks to airlines, had already migrated away from foreign systems.

 

That wasn’t just by accident. In 2022, the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission had reportedly ordered all state-owned enterprises to fully adopt domestic software by 2027 for operations and office work. WPS Office has since become the dominant domestic word processor, while companies like Tencent, Huawei, Alibaba, and NetEase are building homegrown alternatives for email, cloud, and other digital services, the South China Morning Post report said.

 

Slow exit of American software from China

 

In China, foreign software firms have been gradually retreating and sometimes even forced out. Adobe and Citrix (now Cloud Software) have scaled back operations in China, while Microsoft has closed its AI research lab in Shanghai and all its physical stores in mainland China by 2024.

 

In September this year, regulators reportedly ordered major Chinese companies, including ByteDance and Alibaba, to cancel testing and purchases of Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chips.

 

Earlier, Beijing’s cyber authority had warned local firms like Tencent, Baidu, and ByteDance against using Nvidia’s H20 AI chips, citing national security and data risks.