The White House has pushed back against China’s efforts to control how U.S. airlines refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau in promotional materials, calling the push to make them comply with Chinese standards “Orwellian nonsense.”
The response came in the form of strong words issued by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as she addressed reports that China’s Civil Aviation Administration had demanded that some 36 foreign airlines toe the line as to how they regard Chinese territories.
“This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies,’’ Sanders said in a weekend statement.
“[Trump] ran against political correctness in the United States [and as president he will] stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens,” she added. “China’s efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted.’’
The Chinese government considers the entities of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan to be part of China and objects to references that indicate they are independent.
In a response to the White House yesterday, government spokesman Geng Shuang wrote that Washington “cannot change the objective fact that there is only one China in the world and that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are indivisible parts of Chinese territory.” Simultaneously, China’s foreign ministry appealed for the U.S. to “respect the national feelings of the Chinese people.”
Macau and Hong Kong are sometimes identified as separate territories on the promotional materials of foreign companies for ease of distinguishing them from the mainland, where different laws and rules apply. Many companies use the official designation, Special Administrative Region of China.
Meanwhile, the self-ruled island of Taiwan has been fighting a losing battle against Beijing for decades, seeking greater international recognition in spite of the mainland’s isolation strategy. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been frosty since incumbent Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen refused to embrace the 1992 Consensus stating there is but one China.
Yesterday, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs thanked the White House and urged the international community to resist similar demands in the future.
Last month, China’s Civil Aviation Authority sent a letter to three dozen foreign airlines instructing that public information which suggested that Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau were different entities be removed.
According to several media reports, failure to comply with the Authority’s demands would result in the matter being referred to “the relevant cyber-security authorities,” implying that the airlines’ websites would be blocked in China.
The letter recalls action taken by Beijing in January, when it temporarily blocked Marriott’s website in China after the hotel company listed these same territories as “countries” rather than “territories” in an online survey sent to Chinese consumers.
Also last weekend, a high- level trade delegation led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from negotiations in China, following what many are calling the beginning of a trade war between the world’s two largest economies, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with a member of the Chinese Communist Party leadership. DB
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