Word play

Some sixty-eight years later the issue not only remains a hot political potato, it has now become a major issue for airlines. China wants all carriers to refer to Taiwan on their websites as part of China and threatens to take action if they don’t. Most, including Qantas, are complying, mainly by the simple measure of adjusting the name from Taiwan to Chinese Taiwan.

But not everyone. America’s big three – United, Delta and American – have so far refused to bow to the demand, taking their cue from Washington, where a bipartisan group of US senators urged them to stand up to Chinese “bullying” and President Donald Trump described the demands as “Orwellian nonsense”.

Not surprisingly, Taiwan’s own China Airlines is another hold-out. Others who have been dragging their heels in bowing to Chinese demands are Korea’s Asiana and Korean Air, Air India and Vietnam Airlines, all of whom have some reason to drag their heels, given their countries have various territorial disputes with China.

Its seems even attempts to get around the issue through subterfuge are also attracting Beijing’s wrath. For example, Japan’s two major operators, Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) have altered their Chinese language website, using the term Chinese Taiwan. But they haven’t done so on their websites in other languages.

Ironically, this has landed the Japanese operators in trouble with both ends of the dispute. The Chinese don’t like it and neither does Taiwan, a destination to which JAL and ANA operate a large number of flights. That, said an editorial appearing in the nationalist Chinese tabloid Global Times, was a trick and using different terminologies to suit different viewers “won’t fly.”

An official of the Chinese aviation watchdog, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) warned that foreign airlines that continue to ignore the one-China policy, especially those in Japan and the US, could face market restrictions for their words and deeds. Given how seriously the Chinese take all this, that could even mean suspension of flying rights or being denied new slots in a market that is extremely important to everyone.

Of course, that raises another threat. If China takes action against US carriers it is almost certain that Washington would retaliate with action against Chinese operators, which have been fast expanding their services into the US. All of this might be regarded in the West as rather farce-like if it were not for the fact that everyone, particularly the aviation community, is on edge over the possibility of a serious trade war between the US and China following Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing’s public utterances that it will retaliate in the strongest way possible.

That, for example, could mean China buying more aircraft from Airbus and fewer from Boeing. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s visited Beijing last month and the word was a deal would be sealed for more than 180 Airbus A320 jets worth $18-billion order.

Jin Wei, an aviation researcher at China Center for Information Industry Development, a state-backed think tank in Beijing, said that sends a strong signal to the US that China has effective options to hit hard where it hurts. It could also have serious implications for trade flows, given that Asia Pacific airlines carry some 40 per cent of global air freight.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents the world’s airlines, has clearly decided it won’t get involved, despite the repeated insistence of its director general Alexandre de Juniac that aviation is “the business of freedom”. He essentially says it is up to individual airlines to follow the rules of the countries they fly to.

‘IATA has clearly decided it won’t get involved.’

An IATA spokesperson later added that “airlines are nonpolitical businesses serving many global markets,” and they find it tough “when government requirements are politically rather than operationally motivated”.

Those who question this ongoing Chinese policy would point out that by all the rules of common sense and sovereignty, Taiwan has been a democratic, independent nation for nearly seven decades. It was a founding member of the United Nations and the ROC actually represented China at the UN until 1971, when it lost its seat to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Of course, Beijing begs to differ. But threatening airlines with punitive action at a time they face so many other challenges to their sustainability, from rising fuel and labour costs to worsening congestion on the ground and in the air, seems utterly pointless.

If aviation is, indeed, the business of freedom, semantics shouldn’t be a player. Airlines have enough to worry about.