Hi, Here are my impressions regarding the areas of concern you raise. > (1) The law and associated hotel rule Marshall quoted could be > violated by what may appear to IETF participants as technical > discussion. For example, the manipulation/censorship of Internet > traffic by or under orders of the Chinese government is well known. > If this were to be mentioned or discussed during the IETF, perhaps in > the context of encryption, tunneling, web proxy, DNS, or some other > technical area, we could run be violating the law and hence the rule. I have worked for a subsidirary of Huawei, and now work for HuaWeiSymantec (a joint venture startup) and visit Beijing once or twice a year. I don't know if the venues under consideration are in Beijing, but I assume that is fairly likely. These opinions are my own and do not in any way represent the opinions of Huawei or HuaweiSymantec. I have personal concerns about censorship and manipulation of Internet traffic. I don't have anything to hide, and do not regularly post views I expect the Chinese government might find offensive, so it does not impact me directly, but it does impact me indirectly. I had some difficulty reaching some web sites, although they were mostly news websites that might discuss politically-sensitive topical issues. I do not remember having difficulty reaching any websites critical to my IETF work. The HQ of HuaweiSymantec is in Hong Kong, and my boss who lives there tells me that HK is not subject to the censorship on the China mainland. So maybe meeting in Hong Kong would allow us to meet in China, without the censorship. (But I personally found HK very expensive compared to mainland China) I doubt the Chinese government, or the hotel, is likely to interfere in our technical discussions. Some lively plenary discussions about government-regulation impact on Internet technologies, such as the net neutrality discussion in the Washington meeting and the encryption regulations discussion we had in Danvers, might make our Chinese participants and our host uncomfortable. I would be a bit cautious about political discussions in public venues outside the official meeting, e.g., over dinner or in bar BOFs. "Bush-bashing" and other disrepect for our leaders is considered great sport in Western countries; In China, for cultural reasons based on a very long history going back at least to Confucious, this type of disrespect for one's leaders is apparently considered very poor manners. I am pretty sure that disrespect for their leaders would be very very poor manners. The locals are much more likely to consider you a barbarian than to want to engage in such discussions of their leaders. > > (2) This is a very personal concern, but my experience with China is > that it is among the worst places to try and avoid tobacco smoke. I have not found avoiding smoke in China much worse than in Europe. I find it much easier to avoid smoke in US cities. > > (3) Similarly to (2), my experience in Bejing has been that the air > is exceptionally polluted. Hence, I'd be concerned for those IETF > members who would find this makes participation difficult. Auto emission pollution in Beijing is a real problem. If you have any respiratory problems, I recommend you avoid heavy-traffic areas of Beijing. This problem is mostly an outdoor problem, not an indoor problem. You can mitigate the pollution by wearing surgical masks when outside (which is fairly common in Beijing). I assume the air handling systems in a conference center and major international hotels would mitigate this while indoors. I think the level of poluution in Beijing is a valid concern when evaluating venues. David Harrington dbharrington@xxxxxxxxxxx ietfdbh@xxxxxxxxxxx dharrington@xxxxxxxxxx > > -- > Randall Gellens > Opinions are personal; facts are suspect; I speak for > myself only > -------------- Randomly selected tag: --------------- > The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf