This article explores the standard establishment for Huayu (or Singapore Mandarin), a new Chinese variety that has appeared in Singapore owing to centralised planning and inter-linguistic contact. Huayu is the officially indicated mother tongue of the Chinese community and a second language in school education in Singapore. Huayu's general linguistic features mostly observe the norms practiced in mainland China, though this localised variety has evolved some distinctive phonological, lexical and grammatical traits. Singapore’s government takes a Tacit Compliance Approach to the Mandarin norms, that is, exonormative standards are imlicitly observed. This pragmatic approach has caused some uncertainty and dilemmas for Chinese language (CL) education in Singapore. As Huayu is approximating a nativisation stage, this article suggests the acceptance of an explicit endonormative standard to meet the pressing needs in CL teaching, learning and assessment.