The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) www.cnnic.net.cn is proposing
that restrictions be lifted allowing individual Chinese netizens to
register their own .cn domain names.
According to CNNIC, although there are now more than 300,000
.cn domain names in existence, this number is
greatly exceeded by .com domain names. These are
available for individual use but they carry the disadvantage of
being controlled by foreign institutions. To facilitate better
control over domain names and security of information, CNNIC is now
actively proposing an end to the restrictions preventing individual
registration of .cn domain names.
Background to .cn domain names
It was back on November 28, 1990, when Qian Tianbai first
registered the .cn domain name with the Internet
Network Information Center (InterNIC) on behalf of China. As an
interim measure the new .cn domain was temporarily
administered by a German university as China was not fully linked
to the Internet at that time. However .cn is a
national symbol and there are issues of sovereignty, strategy and
security.
China finally got full Internet access on April 20, 1994.
Recognizing the strategic significance of the .cn
domain names, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
(CAS) Hu Qiheng together with engineers Qian Hualin and Qian
Tianbai, and assisted by Professor Werner Zorn, applied to InterNIC
to move the .cn domain name server from Germany to
China.
It took just a month after China was fully linked up to the
Internet to locate the .cn domain name severs in
China. The early days of having to rely on a foreign server were
now over.
When the .cn domain name server was relocated
to China on May 21, 1994, it marked a significant milestone because
the domain represents China to Internet users. On that same day,
the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (CNIC, CAS) finished the work of configuring the
.cn domain name server and assumed the role of
administering registration on .cn together with
responsibility for maintaining the domain. These responsibilities
were further formalized on June 2, 1997 when the State Council
Informatization Office announced the establishment of the China
Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) under the auspices of
CNIC, CAS to take over the role.
Internet pioneer, Professor Qian Hualin, said, "At first there
were just a few .cn domain names when we moved the
server from Germany to China. Even by June 1997, when the State
Council Informatization Office authorized us to manage the
.cn domain names, there were barely 1,010. Today,
more than 300,000 .cn domain names have been
registered."
Although the .cn domain has certainly developed
considerably, it is very necessary to take cognizance of the big
disparity between the number of .cn domain names
and .com domain names.
Many of China's netizens would like to register
.cn domain names but current policy does not
permit this. Consequently many individual Chinese Internet users
find themselves pushed into using .com names,
which are controlled by foreign institutions.
In order to strengthen control over the use of domain names and
security of information, CNNIC is now actively proposing that these
restrictions be dropped so allowing individuals to have
.cn domain names.
(China.org.cn by Wang Sining, June 13, 2004)