IDNs in China – CNNIC forecast use of IDNs in China

“China has solved most of the technical problems raised by Chinese-language domain names and is in the process of deploying them” – Zhang Jian (director of the international business department) at China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

Zhang Jian states that within two years, the agency expects all mainstream Web sites in the country will have domain names that end in the two Chinese characters for “China” – 。中国 rather than using the .cn top-level domain. CNNIC is also expecting these IDNs to become the most widely visited by Chinese Internet users.

The next steps for the agency include achieving broader use of Chinese-language domains and standardizing their use worldwide. China and other countries have urged the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet’s governance body, to pass an implementation plan for certain country-level domains in local languages at the organization’s October meeting.

A billboard in China advertising with an IDN - Chinese language domain

If the plan passes, then global root servers by next year should support the Chinese-language version of the country’s top-level domain, said Zhang.

Chinese-language domains would boost Internet penetration in China and be easier for local users to remember than versions written in English, she said.

Some Web sites in China already support Chinese versions of both their top- and second-level domains. Local portal Sina, for instance, can be visited by typing in the Chinese characters for “Sina-dot-China” – 新浪。中国. 9/10 provincial and ministry government Web sites have registered local-language versions of their domain names, according to CNNIC, which would speed up the awareness and use of IDNs by the general public.

Zhang spoke on the sidelines of a biannual meeting of the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, the first the organization has held in Beijing as the country seeks greater clout in Internet governance.

China had 338 million Internet users at the end of June, the most in any country, according to CNNIC.

“China is an increasingly important country in the development of the Internet,” Paul Wilson, director general of APNIC, told reporters at the event.