US Airlines Change Taiwan Reference On Websites Ahead of Chinese Deadline (cnbc.com)

hackingbear writes from a report via CNBC: After dragging their feet for months and requesting help from the Trump administration, all three major U.S. airlines -- American, Delta and United -- decided to change how they refer to Taiwan airports on their websites to avoid Chinese penalties right before the Wednesday deadline. Earlier this year, China demanded that foreign firms, and airlines in particular, not refer to Taiwan as a non-Chinese territory on their websites, as such practice violates Chinese laws. The White House in May slammed the demand as "Orwellian nonsense." Numerous non-U.S. airlines including Air Canada, Lufthansa, and British Airways had already made changes to their websites. The airlines "now only list Taipei's airport code and city, but not the name Taiwan," reports CNBC. It was unclear how China might punish airlines that don't comply, but it did add a clause saying regulators could change a company's permit if it did not meet "the demand of public interest." An American Airlines spokeswoman said in a statement: "Air travel is global business, and we abide by the rules in countries where we operate."

Comments

Re:Free Taiwan is dead

[taiwanjohn]

At first China will just demand a token governor be appointed, with only ceremonial powers, as symbolic recognition.

This would be a non-starter in Taiwan. The people have always favored the "status-quo" (as opposed to outright independence) simply to avoid friction with the mainland. But they chafe at this sort of diplomatic isolation, such as participating in the Olympics as "Chinese Taipei". The more the PRC pushes, the more they push the Taiwanese people away. I find it difficult to imagine any sort of "unification" beyond a superficial "Greater-China Federation" agreement wherein PRC and ROC are co-equal partners. Anything that smacks of control from the mainland will be resoundingly rejected by the population.

I don't pretend to know how all this will work out in the long run, and I would be skeptical of anyone who claims to know.

Re:Free Taiwan is dead

[jrumney]

Taiwan is nothing like Hong Kong. It is a breakaway republic started by an exiled former government. Hong Kong was leased for a fixed period, and the handover back to China and gradual transition was planned all along.

Re:Solution

[youngone]

What makes you think the US gives a toss about human rights?
Here's a quick list of human rights abusing dictators the US has installed or supported or both over the last 70 years or so: Franco in Spain
Suharto in Indonesia
Hussain in Iraq
Pahlavi in Iran
Pinochet in Chile
various Somozas in Nicaragua
Ubico & Castillo Armas in Guatemala (among others).
Marcos in Philippines
Frankly that's just off the top of my head without thinking about it too much.
If you think manufacturing is coming back to the US you don't understand how multinational corporations work.
But based on you wanting to nuke China I am pretty sure you don't understand much.

Two points...

[hyades1]

First of all, this is yet another example of supposed "Free World" corporations knuckling under to a totalitarian dictatorship because it's profitable to do so.

Perhaps less obvious is that in order to stay airworthy, the planes those airlines fly depend on cheap Chinese-made parts, and cut-rate labour in places like Singapore and Indonesia. Does anybody here believe an airline that stood up to China would continue to enjoy access to those lovely, cheap replacement parts? Would maintenance hubs like Singapore even pretend to stand up to China if they said Carrier X or Y was on its "shit list"?

Re:Crystal ball

[blindseer]

If you think for one second that Trump would go to war with China over Taiwan, you're delusional.

A war with China? That should be a fun half hour.

First, he doesn't even know the difference between the two.

Trump owns his own airplane, which he's flown all over the world. You want to pretend that Trump doesn't know where these countries are? I'll admit that he's not the most educated man but I'm guessing he knows where these places are and how they do business.

Second, he'll follow the money, which is China.

I read about what he did to get Otto Warmbier home. When Trump heard about Warmbier being ill he basically called up North Korea and told them that he was sending a plane to come pick him up. There was no negotiation, there was a demand. North Korea folded, granted a pardon to Warmbier and allowed the plane to leave with him on board. That's not "following the money". It's also far more than Obama tried to do.

I have no idea what Trump might do. I'm guessing that he'd like to flatten some of these nations that have caused trouble for the USA for so long, but if it isn't his better judgement stopping him then it's his advisors.

If Trump was just following the money then he wouldn't be in a trade war with China right now. I'm not all that pleased that POTUS has such authority to effectively dictate the price of steel but that's an authority granted to Congress in the Constitution and Congress delegated some of this authority to POTUS. I'd like to see Congress get in the business of... well, doing their damned job.

That brings up another authority Congress delegated to POTUS, the ability to effectively enact a war without first getting permission from Congress. That was real funny hearing Congress making a bunch of noise on POTUS after POTUS waging war all over the world. At the same time Congress approved the budget to wage war, and did nothing to dial back the delegated authority of POTUS to continue waging war.

I've noticed that much of the world stopped laughing at the USA now that Trump is in the Oval Office. That's probably because they realize that Trump just might be crazy enough to wage a war on China.