In April of 2018, China’s aviation regulator set a deadline for more than 40 airlines around the world to make changes to the contents of their websites. These companies’ supposed mistake: failing to describe the self-ruled democratic island of Taiwan as “part of China.” Never mind that Beijing has never exercised sovereignty over Taiwan: many companies yielded immediately to China’s whims.

Others, such as Qantas, did not respond immediately. But on Monday, the 29th anniversary of China’s violent suppression of protests in its capital, news broke that Qantas would also be editing its website to re-label “Taiwan” as “Taiwan, China.”

There is a certain irony in this rapid relabelling of Taiwan by airlines across the world. In fact, China’s policy toward Taiwan in recent decades could not have been more of a failure, such that Taiwan and China today could not be further apart.

When Taiwan elects pro-independence presidents, such as current president Tsai Ing-wen, Beijing repeatedly ratchets up its warnings and seeks to isolate Taiwan, even blocking participation in the World Health Organization. And when Taiwan elects presidents that take a more conciliatory line toward China, such as former president Ma Ying-jeou, Beijing and its allies promote policies that would effectively erase Taiwan’s independent status. Such was the case when in 2014 a coalition of students and civic groups occupied Taiwan’s legislative Yuan in protest against a cross-strait service trade agreement that would have made Taiwan’s economy overly reliant on China.

Unsurprisingly, amid the policy shifts between sticks and then more sticks disguised as carrots, public opinion in Taiwan has only grown ever more resistant to Beijing and its particular vision of “Chineseness.” A June 2017 poll found that 80% of respondents identified as Taiwanese, while only 13% identified as Chinese. Only 12% of Taiwanese supported unification with China, a task that is still portrayed as a “sacred mission” in Beijing, with ever impending deadlines.

Having completely failed to win over hearts and minds in Taiwan, and militarily incapable of annexation, Beijing has focused its sights in recent months on wooing away Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies and pressuring companies around the world to refer to Taiwan as part of China. This approach has been for all intents and purposes wildly successful. Few airlines, which all fly to China, have put up any resistance. As a result, Beijing has essentially outsourced its erasure of Taiwan, making us all its accomplices.

Rather than changing China’s political system, as many assumed, China’s rapid economic growth is instead changing the way businesses, academics, and politicians around the world talk.



This is indeed “Orwellian nonsense,” as one White House press statement declared, but it is Orwellian nonsense of a completely unprecedented type: a politically closed system deploys its economic weight in the global free market to compel democratic countries to renounce their ideals of free expression and support for other democratic countries.

Such challenges will not stop with Qantas. As China’s political system continues to become ever more restrictive and its interference abroad becomes ever more aggressive, open societies will need to develop an effective response to these challenges. Embracing the erasure of a democratic ally, we must be clear, does not qualify as an effective response.

• Kevin Carrico is lecturer in Chinese Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia