transform.html_encode() and unicode strings

If you use the html_encode() method to transform strings, it seems to treat
a string of Unicode characters as ascii characters and encodes them into
html safe characters.

 

What is the recommended strategy for working with UTF-8 encoding in browser
and still be able to encode the most common html characters (like <, >, &)
into safe form for browser without affecting the bytes that represent the
Unicode characters?

 

Thanks for any pointers around these issues,

 

-Michael Lorenat