I want to echo Eric Burger's notes. 1) I have been to China many times to attend conferences, standard meetings (including IETF Lemonade, OMA, 3GPP, ...) and business meetings. I have never felt or observed any constraint in what can be discussed, presented or done. Sure that did not involve making political statements or staging public protest; but it would not cross my mind to do that anywhere else I have meeting either anyway. 2) Infrastructure (network, hotels, restaurant, transport etc) is very good. Networking is better than in many places. 3) Security in major cities is OK. Some places and some countryside are more risky. But it does not feel worse than in many other international or US locations. Same common sense is required. 4) Meetings in China are extremely well attended (more local / Asian participants than usual; usually expert in the domains in discussions BUT also more experts from other geographies...) 5) No meeting I attuned has been "closed" for improper discussions and I have not heard of individual expelled or running into trouble. 6) working with hotels and Chinese companies (~ host) to have such meetings has been very easy (we did organize meetings aside from the IETF Lemonade meetings and OMA meeting) and without any problem with hotel or government. Being able to tunnel through firewall etc was on the agenda. Government owned Chinese companies participated. I do believe that the main issue at hand here is that IETF and the host (really the host if I understand well) will be somehow expected to ensure that its participants attend IETF for IETF purposes, not as an excuse to stage public protests outside the IETF activities. It's again no different from other meetings. So I guess the question is: is it that IETF participation is such that for the host it may be hard to feel comfortable ensuring such things? If an incident like that occurs can it be considered as an individual issue or do we expect many participants will be involved? Thanks Stephane _____ Stephane H. Maes, PhD, Chief Architect & CTO, Mobility, Voice, and Communications, Oracle. Ph: +1-203-300-7786 (mobile/SMS); Fax / Office UM: +1-650-607-6296 e-mail: stephane.maes@xxxxxxxxxx IM: shmaes (AIM/Y!/skype) or stephane_maes@xxxxxxxxxxx (MSN Messenger) or stephane.maes@xxxxxxxxx (Google) _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf