Chinese Standard Time

Certain regions of eastern Asia, including all of China, observe a time zone eight hours ahead of UTC, known as Chinese Standard Time. These regions of Asia do not observe daylight saving time. It is the same time zone as Australian Western Standard Time.

The Dilemma of a Uniform Time Zone

Sunset is normally between 5pm and 7pm in a typical region on a typical day, but because all of China observes the same time zone, in the far west the Sun usually does not set until past nine o'clock, while the far east commonly experiences sunrises before 5am. If the same rule was used in the United States, then California and Florida would observe the same time, giving huge discrepancies.