CST — China Standard Time

China Standard Time (CST) is eight hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time and is used across the entire People's Republic of China, despite the country spanning five geographical time zones. The single time zone is based on the longitude of Beijing (120 degrees east) and was established in 1949 when the Communist government unified the country's timekeeping. This makes China the widest country to use a single time zone, stretching from the eastern seaboard to the far western region of Xinjiang.

The UTC+8 offset is also shared by several other East and Southeast Asian economies, including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and parts of Indonesia (Central Indonesian Time). This alignment facilitates business across these closely linked economies. Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei are all major financial centers operating on the same clock, making UTC+8 one of the most commercially significant time zones in the world.

China Standard Time does not observe daylight saving time. China experimented with DST from 1986 to 1991 but abandoned the practice due to public dissatisfaction, particularly in the country's far western regions where the single-timezone policy already creates a significant disconnect between clock time and solar time. In Xinjiang, some residents informally use an unofficial local time two hours behind Beijing time.