China cast a pall over the consultations of the Internet Governance Forum last week by announcing it opposes extending the life of the IGF for another 5 years, writes Milton Mueller on the Internet Governance blog. “When it comes to Internet governance, [developing country] points of view are not sufficiently reflected in [Internet Governance Forum] discussions,” China’s representative said, “which is why we don’t agree that the IGF should continue its mandate after the five years are up.The Chinese raised a number of points on their involvement on internet governance issues including the internet’s security and stability and that the future of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA), the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ICANN and U.S. Government’s Department of Commerce, should be debated within the current IGF under managing the critical Internet resources.The Chinese stated they “would like to stress the fact that under the theme of ‘critical Internet resource management,’ [they] think that JPA is a very important theme and that it’s not because we’re going to re-examine the JPA in September that we can’t discuss it at the fourth session of the IGF. On the opposite, it’s because we’re going to do this in September that we should do it in IGF, too.”Later in the day, while thanking the IGF for its efforts and that it “has contributed a great deal in light of its historic mandate,” however there are problems, the main one being “that in the field of the Internet, there is a monopoly that exists.”The Chinese then went on to say they did 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.”For more information on the Chinese perspective, see Milton Mueller’s comment on the Internet Governance blog at:
blog.internetgovernance.org/blog/_archives/2009/5/14/4185706.htmland see the transcript of the 13 May open consultations where the Chinese made their comments on the future of the IGF at:
intgovforum.org/cms/index.php/component/content/article/71-transcripts-/410-transcript-of-the-13-may-open-consultations-
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