Tong,

Elton has just come back from his trip and may not have had time to review all his emails yet. I know that Lo has already replied to you.

Originally, I had decided to let the whole incident just die down in time and I am not the type of person that likes to argue. However, since you challenge me to come forward to testify your statements, I think I should speak up and let everyone know the facts that I encountered.

Elton resigned as IXA VP and ICCS admin. in Oct. because he found out that the IXA (“International Xiangqi Association”) constitution was changed almost completely without his notice. You may want to post the NEW constitution publicly and let people see how good it is.

Even so, before Elton and I went to HK we have a verbal agreement between Xichen, IXA and us that HKCCA (“Hong Kong Chinese Chess Association”) will do live broadcasting for most of the games and we will have a live demo about ICCS during the world cup event in HK. We even received email from Charles Bu (cm) later, dated Nov 19, that IXA/ICCS will offer the best to help and make sure ICCS and the backup site will be up (see attached email # 2).

"HKCCA" and "TXA" accounts were both set up to be able to do the broadcasting function. On Nov 19, when Elton tried to demo Internet Xiangqi in front of the WXF (“World Xiangqi Federation”) top officers, ICCS was down at the right moment and Elton was forced to just mention ICCS but unable to demo ICCS. However, we still have a very successful presentation.

A few games were broadcast. On about Nov 22, HK officer, Cheung YuKwong (Xmas) discovered that the special function was removed from both "HKCCA" and "TXA" accounts. I suggested Xmas to use two different players to log-in to continue to do the broadcast by just playing the games for both sides. However, every time after a few moves, one of the players got logged-out and the games were adjourned. First of all, I thought it may be just a line problem but we found out later this happened only to opponents of "HKCCA" and "XMAS" accounts.

Xmas tried to ask ICCS admins (cm, Tong (aplayer), and Gao's wife Amy (wgao) ) for help but all of the admin. insisted they have to get approval from Gao WeiXuan (Gao) in HK before they will release those accounts. Elton finally talked to Tong on ICCS and Tong did restore the function on "HKCCA" account. However, this did not last long, the function was removed again the following day. Xmas informed Lo Hung Kui (Fire) again and wgao (Amy) insisted again she has to get the approval from Gao in HK for the demo. Fire asked Gao to do this and Gao refused to offer any help. Elton logged-in to ICCS again and talked to wgao(amy) and she told Elton that IXA is not interested to help on the demo for HKCCA and she will make sure an admin will be there at ICCS 24 hours to block the demo, unless the demo was approved by Gao in HK. I myself, HK official Mr. Leung LiShing, USA United East President, Eric Chan has all asked Gao again on Nov 23 and Gao still refused to do anything. According to Gao, this is not his decision and it is the decision of IXA standing committee. So who is telling the truth?

Later in the evening, we even found out ICCS and its back up site were both down completely and Gao again said he does not know how to reboot the site remotely. We have to consider alternate plan for the next day big demo with live video, the simplest solution will be to bring up the Toronto Site but I personally rejected that idea since I don't want to put more oil on the fire. The 2nd plan is to use Taiwan site but we tried and it was too slow. We finally decided to use XiangQi Corner instead. Later that night Stephen Fung in Toronto was able to contact Oyang and luckily Oyang brought up his Australia site. I am surprised that now you told me that oyang was the guy who intent to block the demo. Please educate me how oyang could do this without any admin. account.

On Nov 24, just before the live demo at around 9:30am, Gao came and informed me he already phoned his wife and everything should be OK. I am so happy and thanked him. However, according to Xmas and Elton we still have difficulty and the special function was never reinstalled. So we have to do the demo using oyang's site.

This is the fact that I know personally and is very different from what you told people here. I challenge Gao to come forward and testify my statements. He could call me a liar if Gao still does not agree on what I said. In addition, my questions to you are:

n Why suddenly we have to get approval from Gao for demo at ICCS? Does it mean Gao have to exercise his new ownership of ICCS ? (So far I have not heard any confirmation from Xichen). Even if this is the case, we could live with that. Please post the new relationship of IXA and ICCS since Gao claimed that he now has the sole ownership and copyright of ICCS. Please also let us know from now what type of approval we have to gain before we could do any promotion about ICCS. n Why Gao did not provide any help at all when so many people asked him in HK? And he keeps saying that promoting XiangQi is the MAIN part of his life. Why his wife becomes ICCS admin and has so much power? n How much fact have you know before you make your statements in your email or you still insist this never happened and it was just technical difficulties as you and cm claimed. n You asked for future co-operation and harmony relationship but true friendships should be built upon mutual trust and respect. I don't see them at all if you people still don't admit the facts. Before you clean up the cloud, co-organize TT98 is too heavy for us for this moment.

Also I still don't understand as a gentleman like you and you still allow people to throw stones at our back and you seem to believe the garbage that people said. Please bring any concerns you may have and we can discuss them openly but don't keep shooting us from behind the scene. The following statements are just a few examples and was made by cm from an email to Fire and was forwarded to us.

>>> Let me also remind you that we have some reservations about Elton. He has >>> done good things for ICCS and we appreciate that. However, we heard that he >>> also has personal agenda, and has difficulty to work with others. WXF >>> Standing Committee knew this and that was the major reason why he was not >>> elected as WXF Vice President.

>>> You do not need anyone's permission to promote xiangqi, but using ICCS >>> without proper acknowledgment as show-off does seem to me a little arrogant, >>> or lack of professional courtesy to say the least.

Those are totally nonsense!.

I hope you, cm or Gao could give us some reply , and please excuse me to cc to most the fans in ICCS, I believe they have the right to know and also will and more rumor about this incident.

Regards,

Peter Sung

### Your (Tong's) original email ###

> Elton, fire, and all, > > Having read all your emails, I think that it's still important to clear > up the facts about the demo incident, which was from some > misunderstanding among us. > > 1 On about 11/13, 14, or 15, OO7 told us (cm, ychen, and me) that > oyang had intention to block the HK demo. Though all of us knew that the > demo would be sponsored by HKCCA and Elton, we felt responsibility to > support and protect the demo. Therefore, we asked OO7 to deliver a > message to oyang that we would talk to oyang on 12/3 to discuss all his > concerns provided that he cancels the plan of blocking demo. OO7 did it > and oyang agreed with it. (Later oyang said that he was just joking > about blocking) I mention this fact to let all of you know that we IXA > had never any intention to block the demo. > > 2 At about the demo time of 11/19, when was 2 am in my time zone, I > drove to my office to see the demo. All of IXA officers were there then. > I hope you understand that at 2 am, we were there not for blocking demo, > but for enjoying the exciting moment of demo. Unfortunately, there were > some technical difficulty for demo then. I remember that Elton, fire and > xmas talked to me about the difficulty. Elton told me how to set the > operator function for HKCCA to demo. I did it as Elton said, and xmas > told me he could demo again. At that time, xmas said a lot of thanks to > me and IXA. What I requested is only that xmas inform wgao what we did. > And xmas did promise to me to inform wgao within two hours. The > following day, before I went out of town for a conference, I messaged > xmas to ask the email address of fire and to tell him we IXA would let > HKCCA to use an admin account ztong to demo. I remember that I messaged > fire the password of the admin account ztong, which is HKCCA. > > 3 Unfortunately, it seemed to me that the demo experienced more > difficulties. On one side, Elton etc. were very angry about the > difficulties; on the other side, it seemed that xmas did not do what he > promised to do. > > All of you can testify if what I said above is 100% factual. If it is, I > think that that incident was from misunderstanding. Of course, some > damaged relationship and lack of trusting each other also played a role > causing the incident. > > To promote xiangqi in Internet, we need to work together and need to > resume our friendship. We IXA feel that we should be responsible for > some of the difficulty and repair our damaged relationship. That was why > Charles Bu emailed fire to apologize. And that is why we suggest that > this TT98 be jointly organized by IXA, HKCCA and TXA. We are very happy > that HKCCA has agreed to be co-organizer of TT98. I talked to fire more > than once and he agreed to me to take message to Elton and invite TXA or > Elton be co-organizer of TT98. We have not received the response from > Elton yet. Of course, we appreciate that fcf has agreed to be the > captain and regional organizer of Canada. > > Elton, if we can put all the personal things aside to promote xiangqi in > Internet, I again invite TXA to be a co-organizer of TT98. OO7 has told > me that he would put your name as an assistant organizer with fire and > wgao whenever you agree. Can we work together in a more harmony way? > Ø Zengxiang Tong (ztong, gardener, and aplayer in ICCS)

### Attached email #1 from cm ###

> Peter, Stephen, Hung Kui, YuKwong and Elton,
>
> Xi Chen has been extremely busy these days but he is delighted that World Cup
> games in HK will be shown at ICCS. He asked me to thank you, in particular, to
> thank people of HKCCA to set up a room with computers so the games can be
> demonstrated at ICCS. As a member of the IXA Standing Committee, I will do my
> best to help. We will try to maintain stable server, but if for whatever reason
> Harvard server is down, please connect to backup server at palmer.wellesley.edu
>
> I am confident that Palmer server should be open since I am a faculty there.
> I will try to log-in ICCS at HK time 3 PM (my account name is cm), and if there is
> anything you like us to assist, please do not hesitate to let me know. Other
> people like gardener, OO7 will also be glad to help. It is my hope that HK World Cup
> will be a huge success, and I commend you for the efforts to promote xiangqi on
> the Internet. Let me thank you on behalf of our fans.
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Charles Bu
> IXA
>
> cc: IXA/ICCS
>

### attached email #2 from fire ###

> Charles Bu wrote:
>
> > Mr. Luo,
> >
> > I can understand your frustration and again let me apologize for the
> > incident. It was my position that we always support HKCCA's efforts.
> > When I logged in ICCS during evening time (US), I did talk to fire
> > and said we are supportive. gardener, wgao and me agreed to
> > activate HKCCA account so it can broadcast games. I logged out at midnight
> > because I had to go sleep and work tomorrow.
>
> Before that , we have discussed with the log-in account on net for consecutive
> 2 days. No positive action have resulted ,i.e. we still could not use HKCCA
> log-in name to broadcast games. Why? just because we have to ask permission
> from wgao (Mr. Gao). In fact I have asked him, but no action was taken .
> Therefore I logged in ICCS hoping to meet gardener, or anyone/administrator
> of ICCS to solve the problem, on the very night before the day of demo, when I
> met (aplayer, not sure, ) Mr. BU. He promised to send email which I have never
> received. He was supportive but no concrete assistance was given. Any one who
> refer to the conversation between aplayer and fire that day.
>
> > We did not block HK site whatsoever, as admin block site actions are
> > recorded.
>
> Could Mr. Xchen care to look into the matter? Please find the conversation
> between xmas, gardener, wago, and fire between 19 and 23 Nov)HK time. Exactly,
> why the account of HKCCA lose the ability of broadcast games. Please entertain
> my request for explanation.
>
> > You really can not blame ICCS due to unstable net.
>
> As stated in last sentence, I am not blaming for unstable net. I want
> explanation why I have got so much trouble in soliciting help from your
> xiangqi friends. I have talked over with cccc and some players from USA or
> Toronto. No possible explanation.
> As a matter of precautionary measure, we have liaisoned beforehand with friends
> in Australia and booted up the Australia for the demo. Otherwise we could not
> demo the Internet function to the Top officials from World Xiangqi Federation
> .It was rather sad that the matter ended up like this .
>
> > Let me also remind you that we have some reservations about Elton. He has
> > done good things for ICCS and we appreciate that. However, we heard that he
> > also has personal agenda, and has difficulty to work with others. WXF
> > Standing Committee knew this and that was the major reason why he was not
> > elected as WXF Vice President.
>
> I have got in touch with Peter Sung and Elton, when I first arranged for the
> demo. Before that I only knew them by name. To my understanding, he was the
> Vice President before the World Cup, but he resigned sometimes in October.
>
> >
> >
> > IXA/ICCS will do our best to repair the damage caused by HK world cup
> > demo. Again I do apologize for misunderstandings.
>
> ICCS have do good service to HK xiangqi fans , all fans over the world. Up to
> this very moment I don't know the organization of IXA/ICCS. Please tell the
> connection , if any between IXA and ICCA. Please correct me , ICCS is the
> personally property of Mr. xchen, this has been the very impression when I had
> logged since two years ago. Have it been changed ?
>
> > However, I also hope that HKCCA would work with us, not just with Elton.
>
> Therefore I promise to work with your association on the coming team
> tournament.
>
> > You do not need anyone's permission to promote xiangqi, but using ICCS
> > without proper acknowledgment as show-off does seem to me a little arrogant,
> >
> > or lack of professional courtesy to say the least.
>
> Well, the arrangement of Internet demo have been successful and highly
> appreciated by top official of WXA. All this went to the credit of the prior
> hard work and contribution of Peter Sung and Elton. Before the World Cup, I
> came to know Elton as the capacity of administrator of ICCA. and got the
> impression he have already got the permission from Mr. xchen. I am very sure
> that Mr. xchen would have agreed to that arrangement. After all Mr. Chen has
> sent me email in providing log-in account for the broadcast(though a bit
> late)in response to my email .This is not a matter of courtesy or show-off.
>
> By the way, I have learned the World Cup games have been broadcasted by IXA
> /wgao. It was wonderful and I appreciate that very much. Any acknowledgment
> to HKCCA or WXF ? HKCCA would not need any acknowledgment, because the
> credit should go to wgao who are voluntary to contribute in spending efforts
> and hard work to broadcast games in the net. HKCCA and WXF should thank him.
>
> >
> >
> > TT98 is underway and is co-sponsored by IXA/HKCCA. I hope all sides
> > can work together and make it a successful event. Please tell other
> > HKCCA officials that we are delighted to work with them. This can not
> > be an one-way street, and we need to maintain communication. As I said
> > in my previous email, there was virtually no communication between
> > HKCCA and ICCS/IXA prior to HK World Cup.
>
> Okay, I will from now on communicate with ICCS and IXA. Please enlighten me
> the connection between ICCS and IXA.
>
> > This is regrettable.
> >
> > We wish HK team good luck in TT98.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Charles Bu

Here is a link: A test link