[governance] China: "we don't agree that the IGF should continue"

[Jeremy Malcolm]

For those who didn't follow the open consultation meeting yesterday,  
China became the first to openly oppose the continuation of the IGF:

"Firstly, we very much appreciate the secretariat for their excellent  
work.  We agree in principle with what has been said by previous  
speakers on the specific aims of the IGF.  We feel that the IGF has  
contributed a great deal in light of its historic mandate ...  
establishing dialogue, exchanging points of view.  But this is not  
enough to solve the problems.  The real problem is that in the field  
of the Internet, there is a monopoly that exists.  And we need to  
solve that problem. It's not by talking about principles merely that  
we can solve this problem.

But it's not enough for developing countries who don't have enough  
resources and don't have the capacities to participate in this kind of  
dialogue without further commitments being made, which is why the  
points of view of developing countries, especially when it comes to  
Internet governance, their points of view are not sufficiently  
reflected in our discussions, which is why we don't agree that the IGF  
should continue its mandate after the five years are up.

So we repeat that the delegation of China does not agree with  
extending the mission of the IGF beyond the five years.  We feel that  
after the five years are up, we would need to look at the results that  
have been achieved.  And we need, then, to launch into an  
intergovernmental discussion."

I have blogged about this today (comments welcome, there or here):

http://igfwatch.org/discussion-board/china-seeks-to-end-the-igf

-- 
JEREMY MALCOLM
Project Coordinator
CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL-KL OFFICE
for Asia Pacific and the Middle East	

Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM
7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg
TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599
Mob: +60 12 282 5895
Fax: +60 3 7726 8599
www.consumersinternational.org

Consumers International (CI) is the only independent global  
campaigning voice for consumers. With over 220 member organisations in  
115 countries, we are building a powerful international consumer  
movement to help protect and empower consumers everywhere. For more  
information, visit www.consumersinternational.org.

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance