The DVD Forum delegates, during the May 24th steering committee for the DVD, elected to pursue a physical HD-DVD format standard specifically for China.

The most pressing issue for all optical storage camps is piracy. With rampant piracy of DVD and VCD titles in China, the push to create an HD-DVD standard that only exists in China would force Chinese residents to buy players that conform to the new specification. The logical progression is that Chinese residents would not be able to play HD-DVDs from the US and that newly pirated content would stay in the Chinese HD-DVD format rather than make its way into the US.

This news article was written on May 29, 2006, quoting DVD Forum.