Kowtowing to Beijing: Southwest Airlines
Another company is pulled into the Red Matrix
“China’s internal Internet repression is world-famous. China’s efforts to export its censorship and political correctness to Americans and the rest of the free world will be resisted.” ―White House, May 5th, 2018
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an authoritarian regime seeking to mold the current world order in its revisionist, dystopian vision, has been spreading its red tentacles across every corner of the world. Democratic nations, international organizations, and foreign private companies are targets for CCP infiltration. The purpose of Beijing’s infiltration is to exert political and economic measures to coerce foreign entities into accepting the Communist Party’s official viewpoint. Unfortunately, many American companies have also been corrupted.
Emily Wu, the founder of Ghost Island media, recently posted a screenshot of Southwest Airline’s name designation for Taiwan, which was Chinese Taipei. This has caused a backlash on Twitter, prompting pro-Taiwanese users to question the reasoning behind the sudden name rectification. When pressed on the issue, Southwest’s responded by mentioning the carrier has been compliant with CAAC requirements since 2018.
CAAC is the abbreviation for the Civil Administration of China. In 2018, Beijing sent letters to a total of 44 international airline carriers, demanding for them not to list Taiwan as a separate country, as doing so would be a violation of the CCP’s so-called “One China principle”. Failure to comply with the demands of the CCP could result in administration fines, restricted access to the Chinese market, removing the carrier’s apps and booking system inside China.
Despite Taiwan never being ruled by the PRC, most US-based airlines kowtowed to Beijing’s wishes, and dropped any reference to Taiwan’s independence on their official website. Now when a customer books a flight to Taiwan through an American based airline, they would most likely see “Taipei”, the capital of Taiwan, as the name designation for Taiwan. By forcing airlines to mislabel Taiwan, it allows the CCP to control the narrative that Taiwan falsely belongs to People’s Republic. The White House slammed the Chinese regime for its “Orwellian Nonsense”, and accused the Communist regime of imposing Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens.
Southwest only travels to 14 international destinations outside the United States, all of which are located in North America such as Mexico, Cuba, Belize, Jamaica, just to name a few. Southwest Airlines doesn’t travel to China at all, in fact they don’t even offer flights to any destination in Asia. This begs the question on why a domestic American airline would blindly comply with a foreign entity that it doesn’t conduct official business with? So far, Southwest Airlines has failed to respond. It seems Beijing’s Orwellian nonsense has reached a point where even companies that do not have business interests in China are now self-censoring themselves.
The US government has responded to Chinese infiltration into US-based private companies. In a joint letter to America’s top 500 fortunate companies last year, the Department of State, Commerce and Agriculture encouraged them to deepen business relations with Taiwan through common values that both nations share. According to the letter:
Taiwan plays a key role in the international trading system, and U.S. states and businesses have had robust ties with Taiwan for many decades. The U.S. Government does not dictate how private companies choose to label Taiwan and has publicly expressed our position that no government should impose political standards on how companies present information to their customers.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned state governments of conducting business with the Chinese government. Secretary Pompeo emphasized not cutting separate deals with Beijing that could jeopardize America’s national policy. He cited the case of former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, who received threats from the CCP for visiting Taiwan, as a dark example of the Chinese regime’s relentless effort to marginalize Taiwan.
Corporations such as ESPN, Marriot International, and Gap have already kowtowed to Beijing, and become vessels for China’s delusions such as Taiwan being a province of the PRC, and Beijing’s imaginary 9-dash line. The Chinese government has even exploited Florida and California’s state pension programs to indirectly invest into People’s Liberation Army via linked companies, and into surveillance technology companies to track persecuted Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Authoritarian regimes have absolutely no right meddling into the corporate affairs of transnational companies. The CCP bemoans nations of willfully “meddling” in China’s internal affairs, yet it imposes its autocratic values upon foreign entities, expecting them to fall in line with CCP values. American companies prospered because of laissez-faire economics, meaning non-interference from the Federal government. Washington doesn’t dictate private corporations political views, why should Beijing?
