On Fri, 18 Sep 2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > OTOH, if there is a legal agreement which must be signed which clearly > impacts the free speach rights of IETF attendees, past a certain > level, I think it is valid for us as a community to decide that maybe > using such a venue might not be the path of wisdom. Which is why we asked you :-) > > Whether or not the situation "on the ground" in Beijing is likely to > rise to that level, I am not sure. Maybe people are right in that > the authorities understand that if they were to be unreasonable, > it's highly likely that it would be widely publicized and it would > be a major black eye for them. On the other hand, having heard > stories (admittedly many years ago), about someone on an > international assignment in China who called his wife and talked to > her in Portugese (since that was her native language), only to have > a heavily Chinese-accented voice break into the line to demand, > "speak in English", I'd be feeling rather cautious about going to > China and would probably feel that I would want to be very careful > about how I spoke and behaved while in that country, far more than > most other civilized parts of the world --- which wouldn't make it > to be a terribly pleasant place to visit. I think that if you would ask the thousands of businessmen who visit China every day you would not hear such stories in 2009. Having just come from a meeting in Beijing (APNIC 28), I can certainly attest to the fact that nobody worries about what they say in public or private and there isn't an army of listeners ready to jump on you (at least as far as I could tell). Of course, if you wander down to a certain square and unroll a banner, it would probably get you arrested before anyone had a chance to read it. Since that's not typically something we do in the IETF, the IAOC does not feel it would impact our ability to have a good meeting. The result of the survey will be informative, I am sure. Ole _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
