Italy on Friday last week banned all flights from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and China, stranding 768 Taiwanese passengers in Italy. Soon after this, completely out of the blue, Vietnam announced a ban on all incoming flights from those same places.
However, following talks between the governments of Taiwan and Vietnam, Hanoi lifted the ban on Taiwan three hours after it was announced, but not before an EVA Airways flight had been forced to turn back in midair, while China Airlines passengers headed to Vietnam had to disembark after boarding their flight and a StarLux Airlines flight preparing for takeoff was told to taxi back to the apron.
China is the source of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, and Hong Kong and Macau are its special administrative regions. The coronavirus has spread beyond China and people are fearful. It was appropriate for the beleaguered Italy and Vietnam to ban incoming flights from Hong Kong, Macau and other parts of China.
Taiwan has also been busy defending itself from the outbreak, but now has been lumped together with China in Italy and Vietnam’s flight bans.
Above and beyond the protestations of innocence, the feelings of helplessness, the frustration and even the anger, Taiwanese should perhaps take a moment to reflect on what led to this. Such reflection might show a way to prevent such a thing from happening again.
Did this happen because Taiwan has been hard hit by the epidemic? Not really.
As of Monday, Japan had reported 20 confirmed cases, Thailand 19, Singapore 18, South Korea 15 and Australia 12, all of which were higher than the 10 cases reported in Taiwan. Why, then, were bans not equally applied to Japan, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Australia?
Taking a step back and looking at this objectively, Taiwan can be blamed at least in part for how others perceive it.
Italy and Vietnam should not be blamed for associating Taiwan with China. With the topic of the outbreak on everyone’s lips, people around the world — especially in the US and Europe — only see and hear names such as the Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and China Airlines.
Can they really be faulted for confusing the distinctions between the Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the People’s Republic of China? Is it so far-fetched for someone to assume that China Airlines might be a Chinese airline? Is it not entirely forgivable if people confuse China Airlines with the Chinese airline Air China?
If the nation refuses to use a more distinctive name such as Taiwan or to call its national carrier Taiwan Airlines — names not automatically affiliated with China the country — but continues to use the Republic of China in referring to itself and emblazon “China Airlines” on its airplanes, then who is to blame but Taiwanese when people in other countries get confused? What right do Taiwanese have to direct their anger elsewhere?
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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