[ga] Two more China National TLDs added to the China root

["Joe Baptista" <baptista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

*Congratulations to the Center from i-DNS.net International*

国际化域名系统公司恭贺中编办事业发展中心正式启动政务、公益机构域名

*Singapore, 8 October 2008 *i-DNS.net International, the Singapore-based
company that pioneered the concept and technology behind multilingual
Internet domain names including Chinese-character domain names, collectively
known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), would like to congratulate
the Chinese people and the Government of the People's Republic of China on
their historic official launch of Chinese-character domain names under the
top levels "政务" and "公益" signifying "government" and "organization",
respectively. The forward-thinking and foresight shown by both the Service
Development Center of the State Commission Office for Public Sector
Reform (also
known as Center), and the Ministry of Information Industry and Technology
that authorized the Center, in helping the average non-English speaking
citizen reach government web-sites under specific local-language top-level
domains dedicated to government organizations is certainly a world-first.

But the world has increasingly come to expect such world records from China,
especially in Internet-related progress. In the past decade, China has gone
from less than a few hundred thousand Internet users to over 200 Million,
with China now being the country with the largest number of Internet users
and accounting for nearly 1 in 5 global Internet users. And there is every
reason to believe that within the next decade the number of Chinese Internet
users will exceed a billion and along the way Chinese will replace English
as the top language for web-site content. Given that only about 1%, or some
15 Million people, in China are truly comfortable in English, the time has
certainly come for  the Chinese Internet to serve the needs of the other 99%
native Mandarin-only speakers by way of Chinese-character domain names so
that they too can use the Web effectively.

The most important benefit of the Internet is its educational aspect in
disseminating information widely. A central component of such distributed
information relates to information provided by government to all citizens,
but particularly to the less-educated and native-language-only rural poor
who need help in crossing the digital divide. By launching "政务" and "公益"
Chinese-character domain names the Center has boldly taken a critical step
in bringing such e-government to its native-language citizens.

With this launch we have come a long way from early-1998 when a team of
researchers, led by Prof. Tan Tin Wee (a Mandarin speaker and a man of
Chinese origin) and by Prof. S. Subbiah, at the National University of
Singapore, first demonstrated the feasibility of a non-English domain name
(IDN) which happened to be a Simplified Chinese Character domain name. From
one test Chinese name on a small island populated by the Chinese diaspora,
we are now poised under the Center's oversight to reach a million domain
names for Chinese government entities and organizations that serve the needs
of more than a billion Chinese people in the Middle Kingdom.

Long ago Confucius illustrated the strength of a nation in terms of the
strengths of each of societies' layers and its responsibilities to other
layers within a pyramid structure when he said " if each individual is
strong, then the family is strong, if each family is strong then the village
is strong, if each village is strong then the county is strong, if each
county is strong the province is strong, if each province is strong then the
nation (as embodied by the government) is strong". To update that in the
more complex times of today, clearly an even stronger nation can be built if
one completes the circle of societal responsibility and allows for the top
government layer to communicate directly to the lowest citizen layer. Today,
on the shoulders of the broader Internet and e-government initiatives, a
critical small step  -  the introduction of Chinese-character domain names
for government web-sites ?C is  being taken to complete that circle of mutual
responsibility.

Once again, congratulations Center. Congratulations China.

Dr. S. Subbiah

Chairman

i-DNS.net International

For your further reference, attached please find following selected
press releases :

1. China Government official
website:http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2008-10/08/content_1115527.htm

2. China's national TV
station:http://news.cctv.com/society/20081008/110040.shtml

3. China's top business website:http://news.hexun.com/2008-10-08/109614091.html

4. China's national news agency
(xinhuanet)http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-10/08/content_10166337.htm

5. China's top portal site (SOHU):http://news.sohu.com/20081008/n259916846.shtml

6. China's top portal site
(SINA)http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2008-10-08/18382496985.shtml

7. China's national news agency (PEOPLE's
Daily)http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2008-10/09/content_114877.htm

-- 
Joe Baptista
www.publicroot.org
PublicRoot Consortium
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