The proposed Forum will be the first Multi-stakeholder public forum in Chinese language (with interpretation) at an ICANN meeting, thanks to the availability of simultaneous interpretation for Chinese (first time in ICANN history despite some unsuccessful pilots though). The Forum would enable Chinese participants to voice their views, with no more language barriers, on ICANN policies that are most relevant to the Chinese community and be a good opportunity for ICANN's global engagement project.

The government, businesses and civil society all showed very strong support for and interest in the Forum. They said they had been listening ICANN meetings for many years (primarily due to language barriers) and would keenly want ICANN to listen to Chinese in Beijing. 

So far, the Internet Society of China (ISC), MIIT, State Internet Information Office and other authorities have confirmed to join the forum. The domain name & ecommerce industry, technical community (China Internet Engineering Center)  and Internet users organizations (at-large structures, ALSes) from the Great China area (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and other Chinese speaking regions) will be joining the forum as well.

After consulting the community, the topic that interests the majority is the issues in new gTLD program, particularly on (a) Chinese IDN character variants (technology, delegation and management); (b) trademark protection measures; and (c) other application and implementation issues. [We note that ICANN might have other sessions to discuss these issues but the value of this forum is the Chinese prospective.]

Since APRALO will hold its General Assembly in Beijing, seven Chinese-speaking ALSes will be available to present specifically from the users' prospective and make sure that all the discussions are for the global public interest, not being captured by commercial interests.    

Logistically, we hope the Forum could be put into Beijing meeting general schedule. We suggest the Forum be scheduled immediately after the Welcoming Ceremony (8:30-10:00?) on Monday, for 2 hours, in a large room with the interpretation available. The time slot is important to us because many Chinese officials invited to address at the Welcoming Ceremony could stay on to join this Forum.