I have helped setup one and attended another conference in Beijing and have attended one conference in Hong Kong. All of them were technical by nature, but not nearly as large as the IETF. Nor did any have the potential of political debate that might arise in the IETF. Personally I found the events in Beijing to be culturally more interesting and getting around and things to see in Beijing much better and the food and hotels were cheaper (airfare to Beijing was higher). One event did have some Chinese government official attendance. We had no problems. There were no warnings about "watch what you said". From my point of view it wasn't even a consideration or an issue. Perhaps another consideration is the issue of Visa's. I thought that Visa's (at least for the US) were not required for Hong Kong or Macau, but they are for Beijing. I really think that there is less worry about the control of speech issue than with the logistics. geoff PS - My internet connection (to most sites :-) was actually better from Beijing. Disclaimer - My personal experience - you connection may vary. On Fri, 2009-09-18 at 13:28 -0400, Donald Eastlake wrote: > To quote from Wikipedia: "Most national laws of the People's Republic > of China do not apply to the Special Administrative Regions of Hong > Kong or Macau. There are no known cases of the Chinese authorities > censoring critical political or religious [Internet] content in those > territories." > > I am opposed to the IETF meeting in China except in Hong Kong or > Macau. While one could argue endlessly about how likely such IETF > documents as RFC 1984 and RFC 2804 or such politically and culturally > sensitive issues as language tags, "internationalization" of > protocols, issuance of advice/requests to international authorities in > reference to country codes, etc., will be a problem, it seems to me > that the risk is too great. > > Thanks, > Donald > ============================= > Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1-508-634-2066 (home) > 155 Beaver Street > Milford, MA 01757 USA > d3e3e3@xxxxxxxxx > > On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Noel Chiappa <jnc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > From: Carsten Bormann <cabo@xxxxxxx> > > > > > Has the SAR (Hong Kong) been considered? > > > > Excellent idea. Does HK have the same 'Great Firewall of China' issues > > (which I would assume would be a fairly significant problem for many > > IETF members)? > > > > Noel > > _______________________________________________ > > Ietf mailing list > > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf