What does it mean to enable WAPI on iPhone?

Some versions of iOS have an option to enable WAPI on iPhone. What is WAPI found on some iPhones? Firstly, here is how to notice if your iPhone version has the WAPI feature. Navigate to Settings and into WLAN and now just at the bottom before Ask to Join Networks is Enable WAPI.

What basically does it mean to enable WAPI? And more importantly what is WAPI?

Wi-Fi is a global standard and is used everywhere. Practically every phone and mobile device user knows about Wi-Fi. On the other end, WAPI is a Chinese wireless standard that differs from Wi-Fi. WAPI stands for WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) and was allegedly designed to operate on top of Wi-Fi.

There was some sort of battle of the standards around 2004-2006. Due to the limited access of the standard (only eleven Chinese companies had access), it was the focus of a U.S.–China trade dispute. Following this, it was submitted to, and rejected by the ISO. It was resubmitted to ISO in 2010 but was canceled as a project on 21 November 2011 after being withdrawn by China.

The Chinese government’s preference for the WAPI standard in some respects is similar to their preference for the TD-SCDMA for their 3G network.