The Times of India
Date: May 8, 2018, 6:55 PM 
By: Rudroneel Ghosh

In China’s latest move to put pressure on Taiwan, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration had on April 25 sent a letter to foreign airlines – including two American ones – demanding that they remove all descriptions of Taiwan as a country from their websites and promotional materials. This drew a strong rebuke from the US government as it described the Chinese move as an attempt to interfere in foreign companies. While China says it is only asking the airlines to follow its ‘One China’ principle, the matter is much more than that.

Taiwan, as is well known, is a self-governed, democratic island state. Though China insists that Taiwan is a mere Chinese province, the reality of 23 million Taiwanese people thriving in a liberal, open political environment cannot be more different than the situation on the mainland. And while China hasn’t completely ruled out reuniting Taiwan with the mainland by force – and has been undertaking threatening military drills around Taiwan in recent times – a military invasion of Taiwan will be catastrophic for Beijing. In any case, I don’t think China is contemplating such action in the near future.
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