US Representative Ted Yoho, chairman of the House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, on Thursday wrote a letter to US carriers urging them to resist pressure from Beijing and Chinese political correctness.
In his letter to Delta, American and United Airlines, Yoho addressed a letter China’s Civil Aviation Administration had sent to foreign airlines asking them to list Taiwan as a province or region of China, under threat of penalties.
The lawmaker agreed with the White House, which on Saturday last week called those demands “Orwellian nonsense,” and pledged congressional support for US companies against such threats.
“Congress will also stand behind US companies that prudently refuse to be drafted into the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party] political warfare against Taiwan,” Yoho said in the letter.
The demands not only “falsely imply that Chinese law controls the carriers’ global communications,” but are inconsistent with US policy on Taiwan, he wrote.
Acknowledging that China has used what academics have termed economic blackmail to compel private companies to follow their agenda, Yoho urged the airlines and others in the private sector “to remember that with your global prominence comes corporate responsibility.”
He added that these businesses should not lend “undue legitimacy to the CCP’s attempts at thought control” or be hijacked to be a CCP mouthpiece.
While American and United Airlines have yet to respond to China’s demands, Delta in January apologized for listing Taiwan and Tibet as countries on its Web site.
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