Today China deposited its instrument of accession to the Hague system, the international system for protection of industrial designs. The Hague system will take effect for China on May 5, 2022.
Starting on May 5, an applicant filing a Hague application will be able to designate China.
Starting on May 5, Chinese applicants will be able to file Hague applications at the CNIPA (China National Intellectual Property Administration) as an office of indirect filing, and will be able to file Hague applications at the IB as an office of direct filing.
With this accession, China achieves the trifecta — membership in all three of the international intellectual property filing systems (PCT, Madrid, and Hague).
The ID5 (industrial designs five) is the five largest intellectual property offices for protection of industrial designs (CNIPA, EUIPO, Japan, South Korea, USPTO). With this accession, all five members of the ID5 now belong to the Hague system.
This brings the number of countries covered by the Hague system to 94. China is the 68th contracting party to the 1999 Act and 77th member of the Hague Union.
You can read about the accession in an announcement on the WIPO web site. The announcement mentions that the instrument of accession specifies that the 1999 Act will not, for the present, be applied in Hong Kong or in Macao.