The 2023 Chengdu Worldcon committee tweeted April 24 that it has named Ben Yalow one of three co-chairs of the convention. They have also appointed Dave McCarty, Donald Eastlake III, Randall Shepherd as Vice-Chairs.
In addition, Bill Lawhorn has become a co-division-head.
A number of other overseas fans – Colette Fozard, Nicholas Whyte, Tammy Coxen, Pablo Vazquez, and Dave McCarty – were previously announced as part of the committee in a handout distributed at the DisCon III business meeting.
Here is the committee’s latest organization chart:
CO-CHAIRS
Ben Yalow, Hongwei He, Chen Shi
HONORARY CO-CHAIR
Haijun Yao, Xiaolan Liang
VICE CHAIR
Tong Xia, Yating Wang, Yao Chen, He Huang, Feng Yang, Zhenyu Jiang, Yue Sun, Zi La, Dave McCarty, Donald Eastlake, Randall Shepherd
ADVISER
Colette Fozard, Nicholas Whyte
INTEGRATED PLANNING AND COORDINATION DIVISION
Division Head: Yating Wang, Bill Lawhorn
ARTISTIC DESIGN DIVISION
Division Head: Yue Sun
MARKETING DEVELOPMENT AND BRAND BUILDING DIVISION
Division Head: Yuxi Tan
PUBLIC RELATIONSHIP DIVISION
Division Head: Tong Xia
MEMBER SERVICES DIVISION
Division Head: Yao Chen
TRANSLATION SERVICES WORKING DIVISION
Division Head: Shuang Liang
HUGO AWARD SELECTION EXECUTIVE DIVISION
Division Head: Zhengyu Jiang, Dave McCarty
BUSINESS MEETING EXECUTIVE DIVISION
Division Head: Xue Yao
2025 CONVENTION SITE SELECTION IMPLEMENTATION DIVISION
Division Head: Chi Yao
EVENT OPERATIONS DIVISION
Division Head: Liu Yang
PUBLICITY DIVISION
Division Head: He Huang
NORTH AMERICA, EAST ASIA, EUROPE AGENT
Division Head: Feng Yang
CONVENTION SERVICE DIVISION
Division Head: TBA
Many of the overseas committee members were part of the international array of visiting writers and Worldcon runners who attended the 5th China (Chengdu) International Science Fiction Conference in 2019, including then-DisCon III co-chairs Colette Fozard and William Lawhorn, then-Chicago bid co-chair Dave McCarty, plus Ben Yalow, and Pablo M.A Vazquez who was there as a winner of the Shimmer Program’s Two-Way Exchange Fund.
Below is the handout distributed in December.
[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh for the story.]
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This is good news and I was going to use Chengdu as an excuse to visit China. But until they back off from their extreme COVID restrictions, I will not be going.
State Department says to “Reconsider travel to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19-related restrictions. Do not travel to the PRC’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Jilin province, and Shanghai municipality due to COVID-19-related restrictions, including the risk of parents and children being separated. Reconsider travel to the PRC’s Hong Kong SAR due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws.
On April 11, 2022, the Department ordered the departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees and all family members from the Consulate General Shanghai consular district due to a surge in COVID-19 cases and the impact of restrictions related to the PRC’s response.”
It is not a good sign when your country (in my case the United States of America) orders the departure of employees from an area. I realize that Shanghai is a distance away but, I will be keeping my eye on this. I think I checked flights from San Francisco and they were not flying at the time I checked it.
I figure that if Florida wins the NASFIC that I won’t be able to complain about human rights violations.
@Linda Robinett
Because you think there is some equivalency between how the government of Florida treats its residents, and how the government of China treats its?
Clicking…
@ bill
It’s okay. People are upset about what’s going on in Florida, assume others are as well, and include it as a tag line. I’m finally learning to not react to people’s political views and assumptions.
@ Linda Robinett As I said to bill it’s better to leave out current US politics; they distract from what’s important. You’ve done an excellent job of explaining the current situation but, as newspaper folks say, overwhelmed your lead and your Florida comment at the end erased what you’d said about flights to China.
Blast. I’ve reverted to newswoman and lecturer on structuring how things are said but can’t figure out how to put it any other way so there’s only the criticism. I’ll try a different way.
@Linda: Second attempt
It’s great that someone noticed Chengdu further balancing their committee with non-Chinese conrunner. And that not only have you been hoping to go, the addition makes you want to go even more and are still looking at flights!
I’ll add that a lot of good people are working on Chengdu or actively supporting it. One person not beating up on us/them makes up for a lot of people doing so.
I voted and so should have a membership, but the convention hasn’t contacted me 6 months on. I hope the new staff can sort this out.
It’s a shame that some people whom I highly regard are accepting posts with a China-hosted Worldcon. Anyone who cares about human rights should stay clear of it.
They don’t have to be equal in awfulness. There are plenty of good reasons to object to Florida’s actions under Ron DeSantis and not want to come here for a convention.
The Chinese people live within a dictatorship. They can’t do much about it without risking their lives. I still believe they should have contact with the rest of the world and that it is good for fans to meet each other.
The government of Florida is elected. People chose the brutal racists and hatemongers. Arguably I have less in common with those who live there and more reasons to stay away.
FWIW, Tammy Coxen wrote “(and FYI that my inclusion on that list was an error)” back in March. (Facebook group, openly visible even without an account, although it may take some clicking on “expand Replies”).
(I will NOT jump into the fray otherwise, I’ve learned the unwisdom of it. In the case of my own humble and inept person, I mean. May we all not live in interesting times!)
((But I might add parenthetically that I happened to notice the tweet back in April. Had I but known that I could have had a File770 scoop!))
JVjr: And that scoop would have been welcomed with open arms.
It just didn’t occur to me that (such) a seated Worldcon’s Twitter is (not yesterday’s) news.
Oh well, next time (I think that it is sill impossible to find this information on their website).