Hi, I think Steve has captured the core of the issue in this mail. I think his reasoning is the exact reason why we should go to Beijing with a positive attitude and have a great meetin in Beijing! Cheers, Jonne. --- original message --- From: "ext Steve Crocker" <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: Request for community guidance on issue concerning afuture meeting of the IETF Date: 19th September 2009 Time: 10:56:24 pm The choice is between engaging and not engaging. Engaging is better. Not engaging isn't constructive. The Internet and the IETF are all about engaging, expanding, communicating and being open. Much of this dialog has been worried about possible extreme situations. Let's focus on the center. More than a billion people live in China and their use of the Internet is expanding rapidly. They are building much of the technology and contributing technically. It's to everyone's advantage to have comfortable, constructive interaction. Our first slogan was "Networks Bring People Together." If you prefer to focus on the negatives, here's my analysis: If we don't go to China, we have charted a downhill course and the rest of the world will come together without us. The IETF will lose relevance. If we do go to China and something bad happens, the consequences will be much worse for China than for the IETF. The work of the IETF will suffer a bit, but we'll recover quickly enough. However, China's quest for engagement with the rest of the world will be hurt more seriously. Bottom line: We should go to China with a positive attitude. We're robust enough to deal with any consequences. If we don't go to China, however, we have weakened ourselves. Steve _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf