I want to echo Eric Burger's notes.
1) I have been to China many times to attend conferences, standard meetings
(including IETF Lemonade, OMA, 3GPP, ...) and business meetings. I have never
felt or observed any constraint in what can be discussed, presented or done.
Sure that did not involve making political statements or staging public
protest; but it would not cross my mind to do that anywhere else I have meeting
either anyway.
2) Infrastructure (network, hotels, restaurant, transport etc) is very good.
Networking is better than in many places.
3) Security in major cities is OK. Some places and some countryside are more
risky. But it does not feel worse than in many other international or US
locations. Same common sense is required.
4) Meetings in China are extremely well attended (more local / Asian
participants than usual; usually expert in the domains in discussions BUT also
more experts from other geographies...)
5) No meeting I attuned has been "closed" for improper discussions and I have
not heard of individual expelled or running into trouble.
6) working with hotels and Chinese companies (~ host) to have such meetings has
been very easy (we did organize meetings aside from the IETF Lemonade meetings
and OMA meeting) and without any problem with hotel or government. Being able
to tunnel through firewall etc was on the agenda. Government owned Chinese
companies participated.
I do believe that the main issue at hand here is that IETF and the host (really
the host if I understand well) will be somehow expected to ensure that its
participants attend IETF for IETF purposes, not as an excuse to stage public
protests outside the IETF activities. It's again no different from other
meetings. So I guess the question is: is it that IETF participation is such
that for the host it may be hard to feel comfortable ensuring such things? If
an incident like that occurs can it be considered as an individual issue or do
we expect many participants will be involved?
Thanks
Stephane
_____
Stephane H. Maes, PhD,
Chief Architect & CTO, Mobility, Voice, and Communications, Oracle.
Ph: +1-203-300-7786 (mobile/SMS); Fax / Office UM: +1-650-607-6296
e-mail: stephane(_dot_)maes(_at_)oracle(_dot_)com
IM: shmaes (AIM/Y!/skype) or stephane_maes(_at_)hotmail(_dot_)com (MSN
Messenger) or stephane(_dot_)maes(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com (Google)
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf