On May 24, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Development and Reform Commission, and Ministry of Finance issued a joint statement, thereby initiating the restructuring of China's telecom industry, Xinhua News Agency reported.

According to the statement, the Chinese government encourages the acquisition of China Unicom's CDMA network and China Satcom's basic telecom service unit by fixed-line operator China Telecom as well as the integration of China Unicom and China Netcom. One day previous to the statement, China Mobile's parent company CMCC (China Mobile Communications Corp) had announced that it would buy China Tietong and make the fixed-line operator its wholly-owned subsidiary. It is projected that the restructuring process will take four to six months, according to China Daily.

Furthermore, the Chinese government is expected to issue three 3G mobile communications licenses following the completion of telecom restructuring, also according to China Daily. It has been reported earlier that the 3G license based on China's proprietary TD-SCDMA technology will go to China Mobile. China Telecom and China Netcom, meanwhile, are expected to obtain a 3G license based on the WCDMA and CDMA2000 standard, respectively.