US: Airlines' website changes to Taiwan references 'incomplete', says China

Forty of 44 international airlines have amended their website references to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, China's civil aviation regulator said on Thursday, adding that measures taken by US airlines were still incomplete. China has demanded that foreign firms, and airlines in particular, do not refer to self-ruled Taiwan as a non-Chinese territory on their websites, a demand the White House slammed in May as "Orwellian nonsense." Taiwan is China's most sensitive territorial issue. Beijing considers the island a wayward province of "one China" and has not renounced the possible use of force to bring it under its control. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), which has been pushing airlines to make the change, said four airlines had submitted rectification reports Wednesday and sought a two-week extension for website audits. The four were American Airlines, Delta, United and Hawaiian Airlines, it added. The aviation regulator did not say in what way the amendments by the four airlines were incomplete. Checks on Wednesday showed all four of the US airlines now list only Taipei's airport code and city, but not the name Taiwan. They made the changes in a bid to avoid Chinese penalties ahead of a deadline that had been set for July 25.<br/>