China's Orwellian nonsense

U.S. Airlines Unbowed by Beijing’s Demand to Call Taiwan Part of China
Delta, American and United hold out after Chinese insist they change websites, other materials
By Trefor Moss

A United Airlines Boeing 777 takes off from Hong Kong. 

SHANGHAI—Many global airlines have bowed to Chinese demands to refer to Taiwan as part of China, but a handful of others—including the three main U.S. international carriers—haven’t, amid a U.S. backlash against Beijing’s insistence on conformity with its views.
The U.S. airlines look to be taking their cue from Washington, with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators urging the carriers to stand up to Chinese bullying and the White House branding China’s request “Orwellian nonsense.”
“We have deferred the matter to the U.S. government since this is a diplomatic issue to be resolved among governments,” a United Airlines spokesman said in a statement given to The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Though China claims Taiwan, the island is run by its own democratically elected government.
A spokeswoman for Delta Air Lines, which has yet to change its stance, said the airline was in close consultation with the U.S. government on the matter. 

An American Airlines spokeswoman declined to comment on the carrier’s noncompliance.
Other holdouts as of Thursday included Japan’s ANA and JAL, Korea’s Asiana and Korean Air , Air India and Vietnam Airlines. 

These carriers are from countries with historical or political reasons for wanting to stand up to China—including territorial disputes. 

Beijing has set a June 24 deadline for compliance.

A model China Southern Airlines Co. aircraft displayed at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in Guangzhou, China, last month. U.S. airlines have thus far not bent to Beijing’s demands to refer to Taiwan as part of China. 

“This is another example of China using its growing global heft to ensure that its view of the world informs the behavior of organizations, countries and companies world-wide,” said Kenneth Jarrett, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
“For companies doing business in China this may eventually boil down to a choice: Amend your global websites to reflect China’s view of its territorial sovereignty, or face being excluded from or disrupted in the China market,” Mr. Jarrett said.
China wrote to airlines in April demanding that they change their websites and other materials—not just in China, but globally—and adopt language approved by Beijing regarding self-ruled Taiwan.
Hong Kong and Macau, which are special administrative regions of China, are also included in the order.
Airlines were initially given 30 days to comply, though the deadline was later extended until June 24 to give them extra time to make the required changes. 

Airlines that don’t comply are liable for punishments including more frequent government inspections and the loss of landing slots at Chinese airports, according to China’s civil aviation authority.
The country’s authorities are more aggressively demanding that consumer-facing information reflect China’s world view. 

This year alone, at least a dozen U.S. and other Western brands and companies—including Marriott International, the Zara apparel chain and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz unit—have drawn Beijing’s ire for what it considered inflammatory content.

The Taipei Marriott hotel earlier this year. The international hospitality giant has come under fire from China’s government. 

Most companies have acquiesced, fearful of being cut out of the world’s second-largest economy. Marriott even fired an hourly worker who used a company Twitter account to “like” a tweet by a Tibetan separatist group. 

Beijing has zero tolerance for "separatist" movements in Tibet, which is a colony of China.
But China’s latest demands are drawing political counter-fire in the U.S., from the Trump administration and from the bipartisan group of senators, which wrote to U.S. airline chief executives last month vowing to oppose Chinese interference in American companies.
The demands come against a backdrop of trade tensions between the U.S. and China and more interaction between Washington and Taipei.
The U.S.-backed American Institute in Taiwan on Tuesday opened a new $240 million de facto embassy in the Taiwanese capital, a move which drew stern criticism from Beijing.
Surprisingly, two Hong Kong-based airlines with strong links to the Beijing government have so far not made the changes demanded.
Cathay Pacific is 20%-owned by state-run Air China, while Hong Kong Airlines is controlled by HNA Group, another Chinese state company. 

Yet the two carriers don’t describe Taiwan as part of China or refer to Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China.
Neither airline responded to questions.
Among the airlines that have complied with China’s wishes are Air France , British Airways, Lufthansa , Emirates, Qatar Airways, Malaysia Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Singapore Airlines , Thai Airways , Turkish Airlines and Air Canada. 

They now refer to “Taiwan, China” in their list of destinations.
Australia’s Qantas had yet to make changes to its website, though its chief executive, Alan Joyce, said last week that the airline would do so before the deadline.
A spokesman for Montreal-based International Air Transport Association said China had set out some “very stringent requirements” in demanding that airlines make global changes.
“Airlines are nonpolitical businesses serving many global markets,” he said, adding that they find it tough “when government requirements are politically rather than operationally motivated.”

Fake News

In China, rumors are flying about David Đào Duy Anh’s $140 million settlement from United Airlines
By Haifeng Huang

Travelers check in at the United Airlines ticket counter at Terminal 1 in O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.

It took United Airlines only a few weeks to reach a confidential settlement with David Đào Duy Anh, the Vietnamese passenger who was violently removed from a flight April 9. 

U.S. legal analysts suggested that Đào Duy Anh would receive up to several million dollars.
On the other side of the globe, rumors that the settlement was a whopping $140 million quickly went viral. 

A much-shared Chinese social media post had this title: “Vietnamese passenger receives 140 million U.S. dollars in compensation; Internet users declare they will take United Airlines as long as the beating will not result in death.”
Another popular post drew more general conclusions, including “it’s still better to fly with an American airline” and “if you’re to be beaten, it’s better to be beaten by a foreigner, because you won’t get anything even if you are beaten to death by a Chinese.”
Undoubtedly some of these are dark jokes, but many in China seem to believe the unsubstantiated payout of $140 million, as the many comments on the popular microblogging platform Weibo suggest.
Why people believe this rumor reveals much about social anxiety and political trust in China.
Fake news may be particularly prevalent in authoritarian states
The issue of misinformation, fake news and rumors has become highly salient following the recent elections in the United States and France. 

Its implications for democratic politics have also received increasing scholarly attention.
In contrast, there has been little systematic examination of the political effects of rumors in non-democracies, even though rumors are particularly likely to flourish where there is a lack of independent mainstream media, a feature of most authoritarian countries.
My recent article in the British Journal of Political Science shows that Chinese citizens from diverse sociopolitical backgrounds are similarly susceptible to unsubstantiated rumors. 

Even Chinese Communist Party members believe rumors implicating the government, and they do so almost as much as non-Party members. 

This is different from democratic countries, where individuals’ belief in misinformation is usually shaped by partisanship.
Are the rumors indicative of deep anxiety and distrust in China?
But what does the widespread rumor about the United Airlines settlement say about public opinion and political trust in China? 

After all, the story does not relate directly to China or the Chinese government, and Dao was originally from Vietnam.
It actually says quite a bit.
Psychological studies suggest that rumors often spread amid social anxiety and reflect believers’ stress, fear or resentment. 

The discussions in China about the huge settlement revealed that people contrast this large amount with the potential compensation that mistreated individuals in similar or worse situations could receive in China.
These online discussions sometimes brought up references to the father of a tainted milk victim, who was indicted on a charge of “blackmailing” when he demanded an additional 3 million yuan (about $435,000) in compensation after his daughter sustained kidney damage from the melamine added to a dairy company’s baby formula sold in China. 

He had agreed initially to a settlement of 400,000 yuan (about $58,000) — then spent five years in jail and was only recently declared innocent by a higher court.
Incidents such as this and the general perception of the lack of justice and fairness in China made the $140 million United settlement rumor go viral. 

The rapid spread of the rumor also may relate in part to the rosy images Chinese people often have about the outside world, which influence their domestic attitudes and even exit intentions, as my previous research has found.
Can rebuttals improve the public’s trust of the government?
My work also shows how the Chinese government attempts to combat rumors, particularly those that put it in a negative light. 

Because the United settlement was not directly about China, the Chinese government had no official response to the rumor, but some media outlets and websites discussed why $140 million is not a very plausible amount.
There’s a deeper story, though. 

For the believers, rumors often serve as symbolic warning tales about some larger social and policy issues, regardless of the veracity of the specific “facts” those rumors allege. 

My research, therefore, focuses on individuals’ opinion on social and policy issues related to the rumors, not just their belief about the rumors’ specific content.
My experimental study finds that anti-government rumors reduce citizens’ trust in the government. 

Perhaps more importantly, it suggests that rebuttals can generally reduce people’s belief in the specific content of rumors — but often fail to restore public trust in the Chinese government on policy issues related to the rumors.
For example, following a high-speed train collision in Wenzhou a few years ago, a viral rumor claimed that the family of the foreign victim received 30 million euros (about $38.9 million at the time) in compensation, whereas the families of Chinese victims each received only 915,000 yuan (about $145,000). 

The Chinese government denied the rumor, saying every victim was treated the same.
My survey experiment found that the rumor increased the participants’ belief that the Chinese government gives foreign citizens preferential treatment over Chinese citizens. 

The rebuttal reduced their belief that the foreign victim’s family got 30 million euros in compensation — but did not convince them that the government treats Chinese and foreign citizens equally.
My research also shows that, under some circumstances, rebuttals can recover people’s trust in the government. 

This happens when the rebuttal is detailed, vivid, and able to conclusively prove the rumor wrong, or when a well-known public figure perceived to be independent of the government — e.g., an outspoken government critic — rebuts a rumor.
But effective rebuttals are hard to come by. 

Rumors are usually about inherently ambiguous situations and therefore difficult to refute conclusively. 

For example, because the United Airlines settlement is confidential, it is difficult to prove beyond doubt that it was less than $140 million. 

At the same time, government critics cannot regularly come to the government’s defense because they will lose their reputations for being independent.
What is the overall implication of the United rumor?
The United settlement rumor reminded people in China of the inadequacy of consumer protections in the country — and about other shortcomings in China’s political and legal systems. 

My research suggests that the rebuttals that have appeared on some Chinese websites may not do much to change this perception, even if people come to doubt the specific $140 million figure.
Ultimately, without addressing the larger social and political issues that have given rise to citizens’ anxiety, rumors such as this will erode political trust in China. 

Tightening control of the mainstream media may make things worse since such restrictions could make Chinese citizens more cynical of the government — and increase their reliance on rumors as an information source.

Was that doctor dragged off the United Airlines flight because he was Asian? Many in China think so.

By Simon Denyer 

United Airlines said a man wouldn’t give up his spot on an overbooked flight. According to witnesses, he was pulled screaming from his seat by security and back to the terminal at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. 

BEIJING — News that a passenger was forcibly dragged off a United Airlines plane has gone viral all over the world, but in China the outrage has been fueled by one uncomfortable fact: The doctor who was pulled off the plane, first screaming and then bleeding, appeared to be of Asian origin and was overheard complaining that this might have been a factor in his treatment.
“He said, more or less, ‘I’m being selected because I’m Chinese,’” fellow passenger Tyler Bridges was quoted as saying by The Washington Post.
That quote, translated into Chinese, was widely circulated on social media here. (Another witness on the plane said the man was originally from Vietnam, according to the BBC.)
By late afternoon on Tuesday, the topic had attracted 160 million readers on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, and 97,000 comments. 

Petitions to boycott United Airlines were also going viral on WeChat, a popular messaging service.
“United Airlines just randomly chose an Asian? It’s blatant racial discrimination,” a user called @Rhando_hiclarie wrote in a typical post. 

“UA is super rubbish.”
The airline first offered compensation to passengers who volunteered to give up their seats, but no one came forward. 

Passengers were then reportedly told by a manager that a computer would select four people to get off.
Later, however, Charlie Hobart, a United spokesman, would not say whether the bumped passengers were chosen by a computer, an employee or some combination of the two, according to the New York Times.
Some users pointed out the irony of United’s motto: “Fly the friendly skies,” but many saw the incident as an example of American hypocrisy, and what one user called “a perfect illustration” of human rights in the United States.
“I am going to tell you a joke: ‘America is the country with the best human rights in the World,’” one user called @Youthliteratureandart wrote in a post that attracted more than 4,000 likes.
“Americans often say they have democracy and human rights, but they can’t even respect people who have different skin colors,” @Nanchigirl wrote.
“Americans are so barbarous,” @_tua wrote. 

“Overbooking is the airline company’s own problem. This passenger didn’t break the law. The security guy beat him until his face is covered in blood, is this the so-called American democratic society?”
Chinese media drew attention to an online petition entitled #ChineseLivesMatter calling for a federal investigation into the incident, while public figures also joined in the chorus of complaints.
"Reflecting on my three nightmare-like experinces with United, I can say with responsibility that United is the worst airline, not one of the worst," Richard Liu, the CEO of popular online shopping platform JD.COM posted on weibo.
Chinese-born comedian Joe Wong urged his followers to join the boycott of United.
“Many Chinese people feel they’ve been subject to discrimination, but [fear of losing] face prevents them from speaking out, which leads to mainstream media in the West and the public not taking discrimination against Asians seriously,” he said.
Others made similar points.
“Why don’t you randomly choose a black person?” another user asked in a post that attracted 1,294 likes, implying an Asian was an easier target for racial discrimination than an African American.
The calls for a boycott in China could have a real impact on the company’s bottom line, with shares of United Airlines parent United Continental Holdings Inc falling in early trade Tuesday.
United has often billed itself as the top American carrier to China, operating more nonstop U.S.-China flights, and to more cities in China, than any other airline.

It offers direct flights from various American cities to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong, adding Hangzhou and a seasonal flight to Xi'an in 2016. 

The company got about 14 percent of its 2016 revenue from flying Pacific routes.