The Shanghai Daily reported today Research In Motion may be close to bringing its BlackBerry handhelds and push e-mail solution to the Chinese market. But testing in Beijing must be successfully completed first, according to Canadian vice consul Tina Shih.

The Canadian embassy has been speaking with Chinese telecom industry regulators and mobile operators on RIM's behalf. "The related parties, including China Mobile (Communications), are testing the equipment and only some technical problems are left (to be resolved)," Shih said.

A RIM spokeswoman in Hong Kong confirmed with the IDG News that the company is indeed in talks with the populous country in world's largest cellular carrier - China Mobile - to launch BlackBerry service on the mainland; although no target date was given, as negotiations are ongoing.

"We’re definitely interested in the China market," said Katie Lee. "We are working very closely with them," she added.

China Mobile, just one operator, has 250.7 million customers to itself. By comparison, the Cellular Technology Industry Association (CTIA) says there are around 204 million wireless subscribers in all of the United States.

BlackBerry service is already available throughout Asia, in places like Hong Kong (a China Special Administrative Region), Singapore, and the Philippines. Lee said BlackBerry owners can use their devices when roaming on China Mobile’s GSM/GPRS network today.

Entering the Chinese market could be a boon to RIM, which has been busy with product announcements and acquisitions (see links below) in the wake of its $612.5 million settlement with patent holding firm NTP, which put uncertainty about BlackBerry service in this country to rest.

China is the world's largest cell phone market, surpassing 400 million users in February, according to the government's official Xinhua News Agency.

The most populous country on earth - with a fifth of the population - didn't build its first wireless network until 1987, and it took ten years for China to reach its first 10 million customers. Yet by 2003 the number of mobile subscribers surpassed those with wire-line phones.

Xinhua said Chinese mobile handset users thumbed their way to 22.8 billion text messages, an increase of 65.7 percent from the same month in 2005.