In 2018, nothing can get approved in 3GPP that China strongly opposes. In the past, 3GPP often was a battle between a few American giants and their European peers. A Qualcomm or a Nokia will still be heard, but the power has shifted. I haven’t seen evidence that the Chinese influence has made for better or worse standards.
There are now over a billion 4G subscribers at the big 3 Chinese telcos, by far the largest equipment buyers. Nokia, Ericsson, and the other vendors do not dare oppose their largest customers. Qualcomm, which sends 60 people to 3PPP, has been in crisis as the Chinese have held up their $44B purchase of NXP. The srock dropped $10B after the 4/16 ZTE incident.
Huawei and ZTE each have thousands of patents in wireless and submit hundreds of proposals in standards. OF Week reports
There are more than 30 Chinese people holding key positions in the standards organization, voting power exceeds 23%, the number of contributions is 30%, and lead projects account for 40%.
Some 3GPP working groups have open mailing lists, where I see Chinese submissions are ubiquitous,