Hong Kong, HK Economic Times, 14 December 2000 -- Heated disputes pertaining to .com Chinese domain names are showing signs of cooling down recently. The deputy director of the telecommunications administration bureau under Ministry of Information Industries (MII) said in an interview by Asian Wall Street Journal that the government doesn't object to rival companies handling registration of Chinese-character Internet domain names, but however both CNNIC and VeriSign should patiently wait for a standard to be named first. In comparison to its earlier correspondence with the local media, CNNIC seemed to have now adopted a gentler tone to its speech.

Chen emphasized that MII encourages competition, and added that CNNIC's offering of Chinese domain name registration service does not mean other companies are disallowed to do so. He revealed that CNNIC and VeriSign would probably be meeting next month. The CEO of VeriSign Inc. Stratton Sclavos told our reporters that the company might visit China in the first season next year. Both parties had been in contact since half a year ago.

The article in Asian Wall Street Journal also criticized the Chinese regulatory environment as "far from transparent", to which had escalated the conflicts in the domain name dispute. Local media proceeded to 'sensationalize' quotes from officials, resulting in misinterpretations.

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