Chief executive Alan Joyce says Qantas will comply with demand that airlines operating in the country refer only to ‘Taiwan China’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Qantas has bowed to Chinese pressure to change the way it refers to Taiwan on its website.

The chief executive, Alan Joyce, revealed on Monday that the airline is in the process of making the change after China’s aviation regulator in April gave more than 40 airlines a deadline of 25 May to do so.

“Our intention is to meet the requirements. It’s just taking time to get there,” Joyce told reporters at the International Air Transport Association annual meeting in Sydney.

Last month the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said there should be “no pressure from governments” that threaten the ordinary operations of business. On Tuesday she reiterated that position, saying Qantas was free to make its own corporate decisions.

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“Private companies should be free to conduct their usual business operations free from political pressure of governments,” Bishop said. “The decision of how Qantas structures its website is a matter for the company.”

China’s aviation regulator in April ordered airlines operating in China to refer to self-ruled Taiwan as “Taiwan China” on their websites, or risk facing legal action.



While many airlines quickly complied, Qantas and some US airlines, including Delta and United Airlines, missed the deadline.

Qantas was given an extension to make the changes, which have previously been blasted by the White House as “Orwellian nonsense”.

Flight Centre website tweaks 'were not done under Chinese pressure' Read more

The head of Qantas International, Alison Webster, said making the changes on the Qantas website was a complex task.



“This is not just a Qantas Airline, it’s a Qantas Group piece that needs to be adjusted – the IT and technology that underpins our websites and the connectivity takes time for us to get to grips with changes that need to be put into the programming stages of that,” she said.

Beijing has also put pressure on other multinational companies to change the way they refer to Taiwan, which is governed separately from China.

Qantas argues that the changes are in line with the Australian government’s one China policy.