Hi,
A personal opinion:
I believe that the logistic concerns voiced here (cost, visa, air pollution,
freedom of network access for IETF business needs) should not be seen as a
deterrent and are not likely to be a practical problem. There are
associated problems and risks, and they are IMHO considerably larger than
the ones of this infamous RFID experiment, but they appear to me to be
manageable.
Still, I am against the idea of an IETF meeting hosted in the PRC at the
present time, and I'm not in favor of signing the agreement as proposed.
Given a choice by my clients or employer, I'm also not going to travel to
the PRC.
My main motivation lies in the moral dimension, as excellently formulated by
Ross in his second class of concern (reproduced below for convenience).
The need for self-censorship beyond of what common sense suggests to a
western-educated person is a second, albeit smaller and perhaps a bit
selfish, concern.
This is not only a PRC issue: I would also argue against IETF meetings in
perhaps two thirds of the UN member states, for similar reasons.
In contrast to SDOs under control of political entities (ITU, ESTI, ...), we
do have a choice of venue. Let's exercise it.
Regards,
Stephan
P.s.: A personal anecdote; skip it if you are in a rush: Between 1984 and
1989 I was living in West Berlin, which was at the time surrounded by the
so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR). The GDR's political system
shared some aspects of the system in the PRC, including certain limitations
in personal freedom, that I was not willing to endorse in any way.
When driving from West Berlin to the rest of free Germany, one necessarily
had to transit through the GDR. Catering to those transit drivers, the GDR
offered cheap food, gas, cigarettes and booze at "Intershop" shops along
these transit routes, for western currency of course. Stopping and shopping
there was popular, and one could save quite a bit of money.
I tried to *never* take advantage of these commercial offerings. It was my
minor, risk-free way to deny the then GDR regime a few pennies of western
currency. (Occasionally I did get gas, because I forgot to fill up in the
West, but I do not recall to ever have filled up...).
In summary, at the time I did have a choice, and I exercised it. It did
cost me a bit, and it was unlikely to have any measurable effect on the
political system in the GDR. Still, it felt right to me.
Needless to say, with the fall of the iron curtain, all this became a
non-issue.
On 9/18/09 12:11 PM, "Ross Callon" <rcallon(_at_)juniper(_dot_)net> wrote:
Speaking solely as an individual, providing only my personal opinion:
I think that this is not acceptable and we should not sign it.
I understand that no location is perfect. However, I think that this goes well
beyond what we normally put up with and well beyond what we should put up
with.
There are two classes of issues which concern me:
The first is the risk to the IETF. I understand that the likelihood of
anything happening as a result of this is very low. However, the IETF is a
very unruly and opinionated group, and is probably more unruly than other
groups that have recently met in China (or anywhere else). We have little idea
what IETF attendees will do either in spite of or even because of this
restriction. It would not be surprising to have some sort of major dust-up at
the IESG plenary over this issue, and we don't know how the host country
officials would react to this. Also, while the risk of the meeting being
stopped in the middle seems very low, if it did happen this would be a very
bad result for all concerned. If one IETF attendee were to be booted out of
the hosting country based on something that they said or put on their slides
or in a jabber room even that would be very bad.
Also, from a moral point of view I don't think that we should accept this.
Freedom of speech is a very basic freedom that is guaranteed in a wide range
of countries (although of course not all). The people who live there don't
have the ability to say "no" without serious consequences. We DO have the
ability to say no, and I think that we should.
Again, this is just my personal opinion, and not the opinion of any group nor
organization that I might happen to be associated with.
thanks, Ross
-----Original Message-----
From: iesg-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
[mailto:iesg-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On Behalf Of
Marshall Eubanks
Sent: 18 September 2009 11:42
To: IETF Announcement list; IETF-Discussion list; Working Group Chairs
Cc: IAOC Jabberr; IAB IAB; IESG; irtf-chair(_at_)irtf(_dot_)org
Subject: Request for community guidance on issue concerning a future meeting
of the IETF
Greetings;
We have received numerous suggestions and requests for an IETF meeting
in China and the IAOC has been working on a potential China meeting for
several years. We are now close to making a decision on a potential
upcoming meeting in China. However, the following issue has arisen
and we would appreciate your feedback.
The Chinese government has imposed a rule on all conferences held
since 2008 regarding political speech. A fundamental law in China
requires that one not criticize the government. Practically, this
has reference to public political statements or protest marches, which
are not the IETF's custom. The government, which is a party to the
issue,
requires that people who attend conferences in China (the IETF being
but one example) not engage in political speech during their tour
in China. We consider this to be acceptable, on the basis that the
IETF intends to abide by the laws of whatever nations it visits and
we don't believe that this impacts our ability to do technical work.
The rule is implemented in the Hotel agreement and reads (note that
the "Client" would be the Host, and the "Group" would be the IETF) :
"Should the contents of the Group's activities, visual or audio
presentations at the conference,or printed materials used at the
conference (which are within the control of the Client) contain
any defamation against the Government of the People's Republic
of China, or show any disrespect to the Chinese culture, or
violates any laws of the People's Republic of China or feature
any topics regarding human rights or religion without prior
approval from the Government of the People's Republic of China,
the Hotel reserves the right to terminate the event on the spot
and/or ask the person(s) who initiates or participates in any or
all of the above action to leave the hotel premises immediately.
The Client will support and assist the Hotel with the necessary
actions to handle such situations. Should there be any financial
loss incurred to the Hotel or damage caused to the Hotel's
reputation as a result of any or all of the above acts, the Hotel
will claim compensation from the Client."
What does this condition mean ? The hotel staff would have, in theory,
the legal right to shut down the meeting and ask the offending
participants to leave the property immediately. While we do not
foresee a situation where such action would take place, we feel that
it is proper to disclose these conditions to the community.
The members of the IAOC, speaking as individuals, do not like this
condition as a matter of principle. The IAOC does believe that this
condition would not prevent the IETF from conducting its business.
We note that the Vancouver/Quebec survey conducted earlier this year
asked for people to suggest venues in Asia; an overwhelming majority
(94%) of those who mentioned China were in favor of having a meeting
there.
We are therefore asking for input from the community by two means - by
commenting on the IETF discussion list, and also by completing a very
short survey on people's intentions to travel to China, or not,
subject to these conditions. This survey can be found here :
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=h4DUkRUOdG_2bVLqioPcYYHw_3d_3d
All responses received by October 1, 2009 at 9:00 AM EDT (1300 UTC)
will be considered by the IAOC in making its decision. We appreciate
the assistance of the community in providing us with data that will
help us to make an informed decision.
Regards
Marshall Eubanks
(acting for the IAOC)
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