I have not yet seen a thread on this. Mods, of course pls delete if a thread already exists.

Per an article in Foreign Policy, "http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/27/china-threatens-u-s-airlines-over-taiwan-references-united-american-flight-beijing/"

The article states that letters have been sent to both American and United reminding them they cannot encourage 'separatism' by referring to Taiwan, Macao, or Hong Kong as separate countries, by, for example, not including Hong Kong or Taipei under China in a pull-down for cities on their Web sites. Article further write that...

"The websites of both United and American list airports in Taiwan only as “Taiwan,” without reference to China. Chinese officials have increasingly pressured foreign companies and international organizations to explicitly refer to Taiwan as part of mainland China."

I know airlines once had to have a separate "airline" like, KLM Asia to fly to Taiwan, but this seems to be different. I wonder what would happen if Taiwan passed a law stating that Taiwan had to be listed under a separate country in airplane Web sites.

This leads me to wonder how other hot button issues are handled. For instance on moving maps, does Royal Air maroc have Western Sahara shown as part of Morocco? I flew on them six months ago and honestly, I don't think I looked - dereliction of duty on my part!!! On the Binter Canarias site, cities are grouped in Canary Islands, national (Spain) and International so Laayoune (El Aaiun) doesn't show up under either Morocco or Western Sahara - good way of sidestepping!

I flew on Emirates and IIRC countries were not pointed out on their moving maps and any city in Israel wasn't shown - one could say for space reasons - so that was a good way to sidestep the issue there. Does El Al show the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel?

Understand this could devolve into contentious politics but I am more concerned about airlines response to China on the Taiwan issue and more broadly on any other disputed territorial issue.

Wonder how Koreanair shows North Korea? It’s “Korea” obviously, but do Pyongyang, Wonsan, Hamhung etc show on the moving map, the map in the inflight magazine? I would guess so. (On the weather forecast on North Korean TV they do the entire peninsula, and both governments (Pyongyang & Seoul) appoint ministers for every province.)

Guaranteed El Al shows the West Bank as part of Israel.

I think not long ago EK had a similar recommendation with the flags Cabin crew used to wear, cabin crew from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China had different flags, now nobody wears flags and I think it was an easy way to be politically correct with everybody.


North Korea is totally different country from South Korea, so I don't see the problem, But I know many airlines don't have Israel or Tel Aviv in their maps.

Are they doing this only to US airlines' websites? How about airlines from other countries of the world? I guess it depends on how the website displays the cities - some have a list of only the city names, others organize them by country and city.
I don't think I've ever seen any (non-mainland China) airline website list Taipei, Hong Kong, and Macau under "China".

From video on Youtube, https://youtu.be/BpfbKCw_-Ow , it apoears that on KE's IFE route map, they do separate between North Korea and South Korea, but instead if a line it is a double lined boundary, which appears to reflect the shape of the demilitarized zone?

migair54 wrote:

I think not long ago EK had a similar recommendation with the flags Cabin crew used to wear, cabin crew from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China had different flags, now nobody wears flags and I think it was an easy way to be politically correct with everybody.


North Korea is totally different country from South Korea, so I don't see the problem, But I know many airlines don't have Israel or Tel Aviv in their maps.

Legally neither North Korea nor South Korea recognize the existence of the other country as a country and claim sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula

IFE maps are another issue... another example here aside from Taiwan is the South China Sea. I wonder if Chinese authorities also want to control the display of the names of the disputed islands? For example, the Philippines has its own names for some of the islands, for which China has its own names, too.

flyingdoc787 wrote:

Are they doing this only to US airlines' websites? How about airlines from other countries of the world? I guess it depends on how the website displays the cities - some have a list of only the city names, others organize them by country and city.
I don't think I've ever seen any (non-mainland China) airline website list Taipei, Hong Kong, and Macau under "China".

It was a few months ago that media in China published reports saying airlines list Taiwan as a country, or display Taiwan without saying it's part of China. Some airlines probably changed their representation since then and CAAC also met some airlines told all the airlines to go through all their own website/app/promotional material to fina out any problematic listing and correct their display or else punishments could be applied. Not sure if this particular letter was just for US airlines or not.

Has China requested this from other countries as well?

I don't know about KE but Asiana has North Korea as a separate country and their IFE even has several of their cities on it.

Taiwan is a own county. If the China is smart right now they shutup because Trump might not be assumed and also have some meausures in his sleeves /hair if US airliners are influenced.

Blerg wrote:

Has China requested this from other countries as well?.

Yes KLM was also in the news in the netherlands a few months ago. Sorry dutch only

https://www.haarlemsdagblad.nl/nieuws/k ... -om-taiwan

China's done stuff like this before. They 'punished' Marriott by shutting their Chinese website for a week back in January:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/12/marriott-apologises-to-china-over-tibet-and-taiwan-error

Money will come before politics, and United and American will change it. Both want more access to China or don't want to be shut out.

https://thediplomat.com/2015/06/chinas- ... -three-ts/

It's likely that US (and other) carriers will acquiesce, as they need access to Mainland China and wouldn't do anything to put their routes or partnerships in jeopardy. Taiwan, on the other hand, is an historically low yield market with a current grand total of one flight per day operated by a US airline. Even if Taiwan were to protest the same way the PROC is, US carriers would almost assuredly still choose the giant (growing) market that is Mainland China. It's a business decision, plain and simple.

Dear PRC, give up on Taiwan already. They're culturally too different at this point, even if they rejoined PRC they would never assimilate.

Jouhou wrote:

Dear PRC, give up on Taiwan already. They're culturally too different at this point, even if they rejoined PRC they would never assimilate.

Chinese culture is more about appearances than realities. It doesn’t matter how far apart the two have drifted or unlikely a reunification might be, all that matters is that the two *appear* united.

Hong Kong and Macao are Chinese territories and should appear under China, obviously, just like Guadeloupe and Tahiti should appear under France.

Taiwan is at "best" a disputed territory, I say at best because unlike most disputed territories, this one has all the attributes of a fully recognized country, and an advanced one at that, with the only problem being China's unwillingness to recognize its separate existence.

flyfresno wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

Dear PRC, give up on Taiwan already. They're culturally too different at this point, even if they rejoined PRC they would never assimilate.

Chinese culture is more about appearances than realities. It doesn’t matter how far apart the two have drifted or unlikely a reunification might be, all that matters is that the two *appear* united.

Someone should tell them that bullying the chinese government in exile after they won the civil war 70 years ago doesn't look like "saving face" to any other country, rather it looks quite pathetic. They're having enough trouble getting their actual SARs of HK and Macau to accept chinese rule as it is.

Also, to be more on topic, Hong Kong and Macau have their own passports and visa requirements, and flights to them and Taiwan are treated as international flights when flying out of the PRC. It makes sense for an airline to treat them like different countries. It doesn't look like a foray into Chinese politics to me.

They might want to police their own Airlines first
even CX which the communist party has a 30% share in , puts Hong Kong as a different country.....

This happens frequently, including earlier this year:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKBN1F10YA

The problem the Chinese mainland doesn't realize is that Taiwan is pretty much an independent country with its OWN currency, border controls and also part of the US VISA Waiver Program. I think its time for Beijing to gain some wisdom... Yes I realize Chinese culture is all about face regardless of the underlying facts...

devron wrote:

Blerg wrote:

Has China requested this from other countries as well?.

Yes KLM was also in the news in the netherlands a few months ago. Sorry dutch only

https://www.haarlemsdagblad.nl/nieuws/k ... -om-taiwan

Yet they stil list Taiwan as the country without referring to China.

Kashmon wrote:

They might want to police their own Airlines first
even CX which the communist party has a 30% share in , puts Hong Kong as a different country.....

Please wash your mouth out, the “communist party has 30% share”, what utter flame bait.

Have you every been to PEK ? In the terminal they have in big letters in Chinese and English, international departures, and Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

亚洲航空标注“中国台湾”台当局“严正抗议” Taiwan strongly protested against AirAsia over “Taiwan China” reference

The linked Chinese article reported a similar version of story on the other side lately
Basically, a tug of “war” on various fronts across Taiwan Straits

Kashmon wrote:

They might want to police their own Airlines first
even CX which the communist party has a 30% share in , puts Hong Kong as a different country.....

It is acceptable to them if the name of the list is "countries/regions" instead of simply "countries", when it come to marking for Hong Kong

If the US/China relationship does not please China, the US should reduce China's slot allocation until the feelings become more positive and respectful toward the US side. Or eliminate them entirely.

c933103 wrote:

Kashmon wrote:

They might want to police their own Airlines first
even CX which the communist party has a 30% share in , puts Hong Kong as a different country.....

It is acceptable to them if the name of the list is "countries/regions" instead of simply "countries", when it come to marking for Hong Kong

Saying "Region" is how a lot of organizations handle it.

Flighty wrote:

If the US/China relationship does not please China, the US should reduce China's slot allocation until the feelings become more positive and respectful toward the US side. Or eliminate them entirely.

Pretty sure AA, UA, and DL would not be happy with that. Chinese carriers have more seat miles on US-China routes, but it's the US carriers that are making the bulk of the profit because they are able to fill their business cabins at significantly higher fares.

Jouhou wrote:

Dear PRC, give up on Taiwan already. They're culturally too different at this point, even if they rejoined PRC they would never assimilate.

China is not actually that united of a country - there are a lot of ethnic minorities that are not “assimilated” or particularly loyal to Beijing and if China’s economy (or probably more importantly, their military) collapsed, then the country would likely splinter. Tibet is the most well known of the regions that don’t identify as Chinese (though China is of course working very hard to change that).

Nearly half of the land area of mainland China are “autonomous regions”, plus the two SARs. If Taiwan (God forbid) was ever placed under PRC control, then China would of course give them a high degree of autonomy as that is the best way to prevent an uprising, and then slowly build up their influence until it’s “indisputably”Chinese, at least on the surface.

Airlines (and governments of the other countries involved) should just tell China to get over themselves. And if China decides to screw with airlines from particular countries? Fine. Then we just retaliate. Chinese carriers no longer fly here. Siimple.

flyfresno wrote:

It's likely that US (and other) carriers will acquiesce, as they need access to Mainland China and wouldn't do anything to put their routes or partnerships in jeopardy.

That works two ways ya know.....

Be a shame for Chinese carriers to suddenly lose all that capacity into LAX/SFO/JFK/ORD/SJC/LAS/SEA/HNL/BOS/IAH/IAD/etc

China makes a lot of noise, but they're not fool enough to have lost sight of that.

LAX772LR wrote:

flyfresno wrote:

It's likely that US (and other) carriers will acquiesce, as they need access to Mainland China and wouldn't do anything to put their routes or partnerships in jeopardy.

That works two ways ya know.....

Be a shame for Chinese carriers to suddenly lose all that capacity into LAX/SFO/JFK/ORD/SJC/LAS/SEA/HNL/BOS/IAH/IAD/etc

China makes a lot of noise, but they're not fool enough to have lost sight of that.

This is possibly true (and more likely with the current administration), but no US carrier wants to see it escalate to that (although the Chinese government might, at least temporarily, if the transgression were egregious enough). They would much rather find a way to placate China (without pissing off Taiwan too much) than begin some sort of air (trade?) war...

This report Airlines caving to Beijing on Taiwan despite White House protest has got the latest development regarding the issue of Taiwan references so far

The Associated Press found 20 carriers now refer to Taiwan as a part of China on their global websites

More specifically,Air Canada, Lufthansa, British Airways, Finnair, Garuda Indonesia, Asiana Airlines, and Philippine Airlines all have changed the way they refer to Taiwan to bring their global websites in line with the stance of Beijing.

SAS airlines, Swissair, Malaysia Airlines, Cebu Pacific Air, Aeroflot, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, Air Mauritius, Etihad Airways, Spain's Iberia, Israel's EL AL, MIAT Mongolian Airlines and Russia's S7 Airlines all also refer to Taiwan as part of China

By contrast, major U.S. carriers have not yet caved. United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta and Hawaiian Airlines, as well as Australia's Qantas Airways — all of which received April letters from CAAC, did not refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites as of Tuesday

It will be very interesting to note what consequences there would be for QF, and the US4 if they choose not to cave into the demand of CAAC after the deadline with three days to go

And when they purport to "take back" Japan, what will we do then? It never helps to give in to bullies.

Hong Kong now IS part of China. So is Macau. But Taiwan is a different story.

Since Cathay, Hong Kong Airlines and Air Macau are partially owned by Chinese entities, how they display on their websites should be acceptable by the Chinese government, right? They all show by "region": Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Air Macau actually lump Taiwan and Macau in "Macau/Taiwan District". For example, you go to PVG or PEK for departure, you will see signs for "Domestic", "Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan" and "International".

So follow Cathay's classification should be an easy way to dance around the issue. My 2 cents.

Zoedyn wrote:

This report Airlines caving to Beijing on Taiwan despite White House protest has got the latest development regarding the issue of Taiwan references so far

The Associated Press found 20 carriers now refer to Taiwan as a part of China on their global websites

More specifically,Air Canada, Lufthansa, British Airways, Finnair, Garuda Indonesia, Asiana Airlines, and Philippine Airlines all have changed the way they refer to Taiwan to bring their global websites in line with the stance of Beijing.

SAS airlines, Swissair, Malaysia Airlines, Cebu Pacific Air, Aeroflot, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, Air Mauritius, Etihad Airways, Spain's Iberia, Israel's EL AL, MIAT Mongolian Airlines and Russia's S7 Airlines all also refer to Taiwan as part of China

By contrast, major U.S. carriers have not yet caved. United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta and Hawaiian Airlines, as well as Australia's Qantas Airways — all of which received April letters from CAAC, did not refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites as of Tuesday

It will be very interesting to note what consequences there would be for QF, and the US4 if they choose not to cave into the demand of CAAC after the deadline with three days to go

Press in China stated that those carriers who failed to comply with the restriction might fund their route authority being limited or might see restrictions on access to their ticketing system, for example Chinese government might request mobile app stores to remove app of those carriers from their listing

The press in China also mentioned that AF, JL, NH, TG, KE, EK, Qatar, SQ, Air India, TK, etc still marked Taiwan "incorrectly" and especially single out KE for listing Taiwan as part of the SEA/India region is something that "cannot be tolerated".

LAX772LR wrote:

flyfresno wrote:

It's likely that US (and other) carriers will acquiesce, as they need access to Mainland China and wouldn't do anything to put their routes or partnerships in jeopardy.

That works two ways ya know.....

Be a shame for Chinese carriers to suddenly lose all that capacity into LAX/SFO/JFK/ORD/SJC/LAS/SEA/HNL/BOS/IAH/IAD/etc

China makes a lot of noise, but they're not fool enough to have lost sight of that.

I hope that there would be enough balls in American politics to actually pull something like that off in retaliation. I'm not holding my breath though, I fully expect most, or even all, airlines to give in to the pettiness and childishness of the PRC government.

And the US airlines with Chinese deadline tomorrow will remove references to Taiwan as a nation. (a correct business move imo)

U.S. Airlines Cave In to Chinese Demands About Taiwan
https://skift.com/2018/07/24/u-s-airlin ... ut-taiwan/

What's next, asking airlines to list all of Asia as China?

TheEuphorian wrote:

What's next, asking airlines to list all of Asia as China?

Or maybe asking them to start showing the nine dash line in their route maps (both online and in in-flight magazines).

Cheers,

C.

shintaenam wrote:

China Airlines, EVA Air still listing Taibei, Gaoxiong and other destinations in Taiwan Province in PRC as Taiwan, as if it is an independent country. The Central government should push all countries in the world to cancel the landing and overflying right of those airlines.

Yeah, good luck with that.

shintaenam wrote:

planemanofnz wrote:

TheEuphorian wrote:

What's next, asking airlines to list all of Asia as China?

Or maybe asking them to start showing the nine dash line in their route maps (both online and in in-flight magazines).

Cheers,

C.

South China Sea is an inner marine body of China since it was found five millennia ago. This is indisputable.

Nothing is indisputable. That's a retard communist idea.

planemanofnz wrote:

TheEuphorian wrote:

What's next, asking airlines to list all of Asia as China?

Or maybe asking them to start showing the nine dash line in their route maps (both online and in in-flight magazines).

Cheers,

C.

South China Sea is an inner marine body of China since it was found five millennia ago. This is indisputable.

shintaenam wrote:

planemanofnz wrote:

TheEuphorian wrote:

What's next, asking airlines to list all of Asia as China?

Or maybe asking them to start showing the nine dash line in their route maps (both online and in in-flight magazines).

Cheers,

C.

South China Sea is an inner marine body of China since it was found five millennia ago. This is indisputable.

What a stupid comment.

I hate the pettiness displayed by the PRC government in this issue, and the way the west just bends to their demands without hesitation. it’s not just the airlines that hey wound into this, a child’s school artwork of the Taiwanese flag in a public display in Queensland was painted over without consent before a group of Chinese businessmen visited the city but that’s more a conversation for non av. with the airlines unfortunately without government support they really have no choice but to concede to the stupid demands.

TheFlyingRaven wrote:

China's done stuff like this before. They 'punished' Marriott by shutting their Chinese website for a week back in January:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/12/marriott-apologises-to-china-over-tibet-and-taiwan-error

Money will come before politics, and United and American will change it. Both want more access to China or don't want to be shut out.

Curious why the US Government doesn't take a stance on this. The Chinese Government is essentially coercing American companies to complying with their view of the world. As we've seen in the past, China has gone as far as to take punitive action against American companies who haven't complied.

While it is likely American companies doing business will comply with China's demands why doesn't the US government advise China that punitive action to any of the US airlines will be reciprocated in kind to the Chinese airlines flying to the US. The US Government has held many a company liable for transgressions, perceived or otherwise, but never seems to the case with Chinese companies. I get China is a big market for US companies and a contentious partner of the US Government but that doesn't mean they should be largely beyond reprieve, especially when the same cannot be said for other countries or their companies.

77H

77H wrote:

TheFlyingRaven wrote:

China's done stuff like this before. They 'punished' Marriott by shutting their Chinese website for a week back in January:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/12/marriott-apologises-to-china-over-tibet-and-taiwan-error

Money will come before politics, and United and American will change it. Both want more access to China or don't want to be shut out.

Curious why the US Government doesn't take a stance on this. The Chinese Government is essentially coercing American companies to complying with their view of the world. As we've seen in the past, China has gone as far as to take punitive action against American companies who haven't complied.

While it is likely American companies doing business will comply with China's demands why doesn't the US government advise China that punitive action to any of the US airlines will be reciprocated in kind to the Chinese airlines flying to the US. The US Government has held many a company liable for transgressions, perceived or otherwise, but never seems to the case with Chinese companies. I get China is a big market for US companies and a contentious partner of the US Government but that doesn't mean they should be largely beyond reprieve, especially when the same cannot be said for other countries or their companies.

77H

Because one China principle is the official stance of US government.

c933103 wrote:

It was a few months ago that media in China published reports saying airlines list Taiwan as a country, or display Taiwan without saying it's part of China..

Now that ain't a problem. Just refer to both China's as Republic of China and they belong together. Problem solved.

Best regards
Thomas

tommy1808 wrote:

c933103 wrote:

It was a few months ago that media in China published reports saying airlines list Taiwan as a country, or display Taiwan without saying it's part of China..

Now that ain't a problem. Just refer to both China's as Republic of China and they belong together. Problem solved.

Best regards
Thomas

Exactly. China didn't force airlines to list People's republic of China. Marking both sides of the strait is respecting Constitutions of both sides.

andrewying wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

c933103 wrote:

It was a few months ago that media in China published reports saying airlines list Taiwan as a country, or display Taiwan without saying it's part of China..

Now that ain't a problem. Just refer to both China's as Republic of China and they belong together. Problem solved.

Best regards
Thomas

Exactly. China didn't force airlines to list People's republic of China. Marking both sides of the strait is respecting Constitutions of both sides.

That is called "Two China Theory". PRC think this is also a form of pro-Taiwanese-Independent explanation. In fact, among all those airlines who separately listed Taiwan, one of them say Republic.of China (Taiwan), and that airlines was singled out by Chinese press and say it is especially bad.

c933103 wrote:

andrewying wrote:

tommy1808 wrote:

Now that ain't a problem. Just refer to both China's as Republic of China and they belong together. Problem solved.

Best regards
Thomas

Exactly. China didn't force airlines to list People's republic of China. Marking both sides of the strait is respecting Constitutions of both sides.

That is called "Two China Theory". PRC think this is also a form of pro-Taiwanese-Independent explanation. In fact, among all those airlines who separately listed Taiwan, one of them say Republic.of China (Taiwan), and that airlines was singled out by Chinese press and say it is especially bad.

Understood. Although China isn't enforcing airlines to say PRC, it doesn't mean it wants airlines to list Taiwan as ROC. The most ideal situation would be list it as China only, and it is subject to interpretation of different parties. There is no legitimacy in listing Taiwan as a country by itself. Listing Taiwan even disregard ROC Constitution. thanks

patrickw421 wrote:

Apparently the country/region approach that cathay was using isn't good enough for China this time around as cathay hasalso just added the word China as well on their website.

To me China's request is pretty pointless and childish since no one is gonna change their view just because how airlines list it and most people with sufficient knowledge can see it's 2 separate and different countries.

Really? It's because of Western media manipulation. Even some of my friends from Taiwan don't want independence. I have lived in the US for almost 10 years and met dozens of Taiwanese. Plus, what stake do you have in this conversation? Honestly, what you think doesn't matter. Only the 1.4 billion Chinese and 23 million Taiwanese people have a say on this matter.

Apparently the country/region approach that cathay was using isn't good enough for China this time around as cathay hasalso just added the word China as well on their website.

To me China's request is pretty pointless and childish since no one is gonna change their view just because how airlines list it and most people with sufficient knowledge can see it's 2 separate and different countries.

andrewying wrote:

There is no legitimacy in listing Taiwan as a country by itself. Listing Taiwan even disregard ROC Constitution. thanks

But you can put Republic of China, may disturb the people wanting Taiwan to be an independent country, but falls in line with what the rest of the country is thinking. I am yet to meet a Taiwanese that wants Taiwan to be part of the PRC.

andrewying wrote:

Only the 1.4 billion Chinese and 23 million Taiwanese people have a say on this matter.

Not quite, there may come a day when we have to decide how much killing and dying we are willing to do to protect the Republic of Taiwans sovereignty. For personal reasons and based on principle, no change of territory by force ever, i am well on the as-much-as-it-takes side.

best regards
Thomas