The Chinese authorities are reported to have unveiled a domestically-developed mobile platform, designed to address the dominance of Google’s Android in the market, ZDNet reported.

Called China Operating System (COS), it was apparently developed by the Institute of Software at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shanghai Liantong Network Communications Technology.

Apparently, COS is based on Linux but, due to “safety concerns”, is not open-source. It targets devices such as PCs and tablets as well as smartphones.

Early last year, it was reported that China’s technology ministry had said Google had excessive influence in China’s smartphone market through the success of Android.

There was also a complaint that Google had discriminated against local players developing their own Android variants by delaying the release of source code.

Indeed, numerous variants of Android have been developed by Chinese vendors, including Alibaba’s Aliyun platform, which led to a dispute between Google and Acer related to Android intellectual property.

As yet, no potential device manufacturer partners have been mooted for COS.