Qantas removes references to Taiwan as a country following Chinese pressure

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aussie
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Qantas removes references to Taiwan as a country following Chinese pressure

Post by aussie »

I was just watching the Australian channel and they mentioned that the Australian government has been asked by China to make airlines at Australian airports remove any references to Taiwan as a seperate country to China. The Australian government refused. Earlier this year Qantas did show Taiwan as a part of China on flight routes but I just checked the Qantas website and they now have Taiwan as a seperate entity to China so maybe they had a change of policy.

"Beijing is cracking down on companies that refer to the island of Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), as a different nation to the People's Republic of China (PRC). This is despite them having separate governments for 70 years, since the formation of the Communist regime on the mainland."

http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-up ... 2eafeab2ab

Like fountainhall i have many gay and some str8 Taiwanese friends and i do not know any that are keen on becoming part of China. Unfortunately I do fear that it is only a matter of time before China decides to move on Taiwan. A recent quote from

https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/c ... 07317.html

"Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned Taiwan that it would face the “punishment of history” if it moves to split from China.

Xi made the comments in a speech to about 3,000 delegates at the end of the National People’s Congress legislative meeting in Beijing.

Xi discussed many issues during his speech but comments on Taiwan received a great deal of attention. He said mainland China would do more to permit Taiwan to take part in the “opportunities of China’s development.” He also called for efforts toward a “peaceful reunification of the motherland.”
fountainhall

Re: Qantas removes references to Taiwan as a country following Chinese pressure

Post by fountainhall »

It’s not only Qantas. The media today has been reviewing the problem for US Airlines.

As for Taiwan, for a long time there has been an agreement that It competes in sports events under a “Chinese Taipei” banner, and few seem to have objected to that. My own reading of the situation for what it’s worth is that China is not going to do anything as long as others don’t start talking about an independent Taiwan. I am perhaps a little more optimistic than aussie.

The real problem is that legally and under UN agreements there is little chance of Taiwan claiming they are independent of China. China was the sovereign power for about 250 years before the Japanese invasion. After World War II, it was handed back to a China then ruled by the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek. Few then believed Mao and his cohorts would beat Chiang and assume power. When they did, the China lobby in the USA ably led by Congress and a variety of oddballs including Chiang’s wife tried to switch sovereignty to the Nationalists in Taiwan. That couldn't and didn’t last. Nixon and Kissinger saw to that.

After one country has been the sovereign power over another for several hundred years, I reckon it’s hard in international law to deny that it remains the sovereign power. As I mentioned in another thread, go back to the time before China assumed power. If the Chinese are not entitled to the island, who is? The Spanish, Dutch or Portuguese who all occupied it for a while? Surely it should be the native aboriginal Taiwanese of whom there are millions still living in Taiwan? But if you accept that argument, what do you believe about the Australian aborigines, the native Americans and other indigenous peoples around the world who were in some cases all but wiped out by invaders? If you argue that China has no right to Taiwan, surely the Australians and the Americans have no rights to the countries they now call their own?

My friends would all prefer to see an independent Taiwan, but most realise that there has to be some accommodation with mainland China,
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