The business meeting of WSFS, held at Chicon, passed a resolution saying “[Sergey] Lukianenko should neither be platformed nor celebrated, and we ask the Chengdu 2023 committee, fans and members to refuse Sergei Lukianenko as your guest. it is shameful that he is honored by Worldcon.”

Leaving aside the sloppy language about “platforming,” I agree with the resolution, but it’s unlikely to have any effect on the guest list next year. As I’ve said before, the committee has to watch its step to avoid the Chinese government’s displeasure.

The File 770 report goes on: “Chengdu Worldcon co-chair Ben Yalow raised a Point of Order that the WSFS constitution forbids the interference of WSFS in the matter of Worldcon guests. The chair ruled against Yalow, because the resolution asks and does not direct or otherwise require action.” To date, I’ve bent over backwards not to criticize the Chengdu committee; if you live in a surveillance state that enforces ideological conformity, you have to be careful what you say. The concom doubtless ran the guest list by some officials and perhaps had to accept “suggestions.”

But I can’t extend the same courtesy to Ben Yalow. He’s an American with a huge amount of experience in running cons, and I’m sure the committee brought him in because he has the experience, as well as lots of connections to fandom in the West. His Fancyclopedia article says he has “been to more than 800 cons, and worked on about a third of them.” No Worldcon runs without lots of outside help, and non-local con chairs aren’t unusual. But he lacks the excuse of living under an autocratic state that can take away his livelihood and otherwise make him miserable. It’s fair that he didn’t want to endorse a position against his own con, but he didn’t have to try to block the resolution.

Ben said in a Q&A session that Chengdu will still have Lukianenko as a guest of honor. He simply answered “Yes” to a question, without offering any justification or excuse.

The Chengdu Worldcon, now more obviously than ever, is a travesty.

Recently I came across another call to boycott the convention which I hadn’t found before, from the editor of Amazing Stories. I’m happy to give a signal boost to any reasonable calls for boycotts.