Ideographic Rapporteur Group

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The Ideographic Rapporteur Group (IRG) advises the Unicode Consortium and the ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 on Han character additions to the repertoire of the Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646-1 (Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set) character set standards, and on Han unification. The working members of the IRG are either appointed by member governments, or are invited experts from other countries. Member nations include China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

The IRG has contributed several blocks of characters to Unicode/UCS, including the CJK Unified Ideographs, CJK Compatibility Ideographs, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B, and others. CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C is in preparation.

Note that the accusation that Unicode may destroy Asian countries' culture is generally countered by the fact that decisions on Han Unification are made primarily by Asian experts. However, the initial decision to perform Hanzi/Kanji Unification was made by the Unicode consortium, and before the merger, the unification was a subject of debate of ISO/IEC 10646-1.