Airlines’ Taiwan listing change ‘positive’

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that the move by the three biggest US airlines to change how they refer to Taiwan on their booking websites was a “positive development”.

A check of the websites of American, Delta and United airlines on Wednesday afternoon showed only the airport code and city names of airports in Taiwan, without adding the name Taiwan behind them, as they did previously.

The airlines’ move came right before Wednesday’s deadline for the changes. But they didn’t use the expression “Taiwan, China”, as many other foreign airlines did after the Civil Aviation Administration of China demanded on April 25 that 44 foreign airlines review their websites and apps to cease listing the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan as independent countries.

The administration said the practice was a violation of Chinese law and goes against the one-China policy. It also said penalties would be imposed if the airlines failed to comply by the deadline.

“It is a positive development regarding the issue and we are aware of the progress the foreign airlines have made,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday.

He added that China is willing to share China’s development opportunities with foreign companies and welcomes their investment and operations in China.

American Airlines spokeswoman Shannon Gilson told Reuters on Tuesday that the company implemented the changes at China’s request, and that it’s in line with other carriers.

“Air travel is a global business, and we abide by the rules in countries where we operate,” she said.

The one-China policy represents a wide consensus in the international community and is the political foundation for the steady development of China-US relations, and something that’s not negotiable, Geng said on Tuesday.

Air travel is a global business, and we abide by the rules in countries where we operate.”

Shannon Gilson, American Airlines spokeswoman

Three months have passed since China’s civil aviation authority wrote to more than 40 international airlines asking them to remove from their websites information that refers Taiwan as an independent country. Beijing’s move did not come out of blue. It is in direct response to the increased push for the island’s “independence” since Tsai Ing-wen and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party took office. The more she denies the 1992 consensus that agrees there is only one China, and Taiwan is a part of it, the more Beijing will react by actively asserting that the island is an inalienable part of the country.

So far most of the carriers that the Civil Aviation Administration of China wrote to have already complied with its instruction before the July 25 deadline, calling the island “Taiwan, China” or “Chinese Taipei”. Although some of the late-doers are complying grudgingly. Some are reportedly using certain city names rather than referring to Taiwan as part of China.

Whether this will be enough remains to be seen. Given the stern warning issued by a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday that acknowledging there is only one China is something “nonnegotiable”, it is hard to imagine that it will be business as usual for those who take the instruction lightly.

Even US operators such as Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, which had been dragging their feet on the matter, are making the required changes.

American Airlines spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said in an email statement to Agence France Presse: “Like other carriers, American is implementing changes to address China’s request. Air travel is global business, and we abide by the rules in countries where we operate.”

It is normal that enterprises should have to play by the rules in the countries where they operate.

Yet unfortunately Washington has tried to paint the Chinese move in a bad light, calling it an effort by Beijing to “impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens”, and describing it as “Orwellian nonsense”.

Such an arrogant attitude has sent a wrong signal.

The White House forgets that it agreed to this political correctness as early as in 1972, when “the United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Straits maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China”, as the Shanghai Communiqué states.

Thus Beijing’s recent move is only restatement of a historical fact that all countries with normal relations with China must respect.