China isn’t pleased. Via the Hong Kong regional government, it complained to ICANN that there’s no need to allow .政府 to exist. Just as governments other than the U.S. often have web addresses ending in, for instance, gov.cn or gov.uk, it said, countries could issue Chinese-language versions using the same principle. (In Chinese, gov.cn would look like 政府.中国.) China also claimed to be worried on the U.S.’s behalf: It said that allowing .政府 as a top-level domain for sites that don’t correspond to a U.S. government site (e.g. state.gov) could mean that Chinese visitors would face “a confusion that owners of ‘.gov’ websites would fret."

Finally, it complained that Net-Chinese isn’t “vested with the authority or mandate to endorse claims of government status on behalf of all governments."

Meanwhile, Japan, which also uses Chinese characters in its language, added to the complaints. And in an attempt to hedge its bets, China has filed for and gained rights to the top-level domain .政务 (zhengwu, “jung-woo”), meaning “government affairs.” That in turn prompted a formal complaint from Taiwan’s government that .政务 was unnecessary since it might be confused with .政府.

China’s move might seem strange given that .政务 (zhengwu) is a poor substitute for .政府 (zhengfu); the rough English equivalent would be claiming “.adm,” for “administration.” And China doesn’t really need it; since it has rights to the .中国 domain, China could authorize use of the .政府.中国 (i.e. “gov.cn”) string for its own government websites. However, China now says it will use .政务 exclusively for Chinese government sites.

In practical terms, the debacle could cause the kind of confusion Internet browsers experience when seeking out the government of Georgia (the country) online but landing here instead. Symbolically, though, .政府 is just one more obstacle to China realizing its dream of One China.

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