ICANN Engagement With China Doesn't Mean 'Support' for Government Policies, Chairman Tells Cruz
ICANN engagement with China “does not suggest any level of support for the nation’s government or its policies,” ICANN Chairman Stephen Crocker said in a letter Thursday to GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and two other Republican senators.…
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Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, joined Cruz in increasing the pressure Monday on Crocker and former ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé to fully answer the senators' questions about ICANN's relationship with the Chinese government. The senators had earlier raised concerns about Chehadé's involvement with the Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (see 1602040061, 1603030067 and 1604040056). Crocker compared ICANN's involvement in China with that of top U.S. tech companies like Cisco, LinkedIn and Microsoft. “These firms, like ICANN, do not endorse the policies, laws, and regulations of China simply by operating there,” Crocker said in his letter. “As long as the U.S. Government has a policy of engagement with China, U.S. firms operate there without the insinuation that doing so makes them complicit in China’s censorship.” The Chinese government and its citizens “have an understandable desire to participate at ICANN,” Crocker said: “They have done so constructively,” including the China tech community's role in introducing non-Latin Internationalized Domain Names. ICANN's involvement with China “will continue in the same way we engage with other countries,” he said. Chehadé's coming role as co-chairman of a high-level WIC advisory committee “is not coterminous with his position at ICANN” because he won't join the committee until “later this year,” Crocker said. Chehadé left ICANN in March. The ICANN board “is not aware of any conflicts of interest relating to his activities during his tenure that would require additional steps to be taken in order to remain consistent with ICANN’s policies in effect relating to conflicts,” Crocker said.