China Unicom aims to become the biggest third-generation mobile operator in China as it expects to win a licence to build its future high-speed wireless services on the world’s most commonly used 3G technology.

“We are determined to be number one. We should get WCDMA, the most mature standard,” said Zuo Xunsheng, chairman and chief executive of China Netcom, the fixed-line operator that is merging with Unicom.