Name change
U.S. airlines are acceding to Beijing’s demand that they change the way they refer to Taiwan.
BEIJING — Under pressure from the Chinese government, U.S. airlines are acceding to Beijing’s demand that they change the way they refer to Taiwan — an edict the Trump administration has urged U.S. carriers to resist.
American Airlines wiped Taiwan from its website, and United Airlines said it was working to meet China’s requirements.
The moves come about three months after Beijing ordered dozens of foreign airlines to refer to the island as a Chinese territory or face consequences in the world’s second-largest aviation market.
“United Airlines has begun to roll out changes to its systems to address China’s requirements,” United spokesman Frank Benenati said.
By Wednesday morning, Chinese users could no longer see the name “Taiwan” on a map of Asia on the American Airlines website, while China, Japan and the Koreas remained.
“Air travel is global business, and we abide by the rules in countries where we operate,” American Airlines spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said.
President Xi Jinping demanded that the airlines stop listing the island online as its own country and instead call it “China Taiwan” or a similar title.
The State Department, however, said airlines should stand their ground. “We have told China that the United States strongly objects to China’s attempts to compel private firms to use specific words of a political nature in their publicly available content,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said.
Disobeying China can carry a steep economic risk for airlines. Analysts say Beijing can cripple access to its fliers by crashing websites, ordering ticket brokers to shun American carriers and reducing the number of tourists allowed to travel to the U.S.