[governance] [Fwd: China To Launch Alternate Country Code Domains]

[David Allen]

This is a complex situation.  One thoughtful Western investigation 
begins to understand.

http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2006/03/01/new-chinese-tlds

Those inside China, accessing Chinese language sites, are going 
directly there it seems, rather than via a lookup outside.  But this 
technical arrangement is secondary to the central news:

This society has arranged for access completely in its native 
language - fundamental to the wo/man-in-the-street user to whom ASCII 
would be a bewilderment.  It has been in progress for some years now, 
so that by this stage the user group approaches 100 million - it will 
grow much larger in time, since this is also the world's biggest 
society.

The real issue, it seems to me, is architectures, going forward.  As 
already discussed here, that means coordination, including mutual 
recognition (there is even an immediate question, of recognition for 
some new TLDs).  That is alongside the flowering of capabilities to 
admit onto the net the 5 or so billion so far without the possibility 
for access in the language they understand.  Along of course with all 
the other requirements for access.  Though here, we see the dawning 
of language access.

Native (in the West) news reports, it seems, are pivotal to raise the 
Western consciousness, about what has been in place for a few years. 
One news report, that has now made wider rounds through syndication:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/03/01/china_creates_own_net_domains/

(Any problems with access for non-subscribers, text is available.)

We need a forum to engage these questions - Meryem encourages us to 
get beyond the past stalemate.  That will only succeed, I believe, if 
we heed the call for adequate engagement by those with technical 
savvy - and the rest of us will have to be on a steep learning curve.

David

At 9:17 PM +1000 3/2/06, Paul Wilson wrote:
>FYI, the two root servers which have been deployed in Beijing (these 
>are anycast copies of the F and I root servers) are each showing 
>normal query rates of well over 1000 queries per second.
>
>This would certainly seem to indicate that the Internet's root 
>server system is not being bypassed, but is in active use by local 
>ISPs and Internet users.
>
>Paul Wilson
>APNIC.
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