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The
moves follow a regulator's decision on Thursday to suspend
Marriott International Inc's <MAR.O> Chinese website for a week
to punish the world's biggest hotel chain for listing Tibet,
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries in a customer
questionnaire.
The apparent intensification of efforts to police how foreign
businesses refer to Chinese-claimed territories - even if only
in pull-down menus - underscores just how sensitive the issue of
sovereignty has become in a China that is increasingly
emboldened on the international stage.
The involvment of more than one Chinese authority in rebuking
businesses across different industries suggested possible
coordination at a high level of government.
"It's hard not to see it as part of the wider trend where
nationalist issues are being emphasized very deliberately as
part of the new era," said a China-based Western businessman who
declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the topic.
"It's hard not to think that this is the shape of things to come
for foreign companies, having to be even more careful about
these sensitivities."
Hong Kong and Macau are former European colonies that are now
part of China but run largely autonomously. China annexed Tibet
in 1950, although Beijing has long claimed the Himalayan region
has been an indivisible part of China throughout history.
Taiwan is China's most sensitive territorial issue. The ruling
Communist Party considers the self-ruled, democratic island a
wayward province and refuses to renounce the threat of force to
bring it into the fold.
On Friday, the Civil Aviation Administration of China asked
Delta to investigate the listing of Taiwan and Tibet as
countries on its website, and called for an "immediate and
public" apology.
The aviation authority also said it would require all foreign
airlines operating routes to China to conduct comprehensive
investigations of their websites, apps and customer-related
information and "strictly comply with China's laws and
regulations to prevent a similar thing from happening".
In a statement, Delta apologized for making "an inadvertent
error with no business or political intention", saying it
recognized the seriousness of the issue and had taken steps to
resolve it.
Separately, the same regulator that penalized Marriott - the
Shanghai branch of the state cyberspace administration - accused
Zara of placing Taiwan in a pull-down list of countries on its
Chinese website.
Medtronic had also put "Republic of China (Taiwan)" on one of
its websites, the office said in a WeChat post, giving both
companies until 6 pm local time to apologize.
Medtronic issued an apology via social media, saying it had
updated the website. An executive who answered the phone at
Zara's Shanghai office was not able to immediately comment.
China has long-running territorial disputes with several
neighbors and has never been shy about correcting what it sees
as misrepresentations of Chinese territory.
Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing on
Friday that Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Tibet were all part of
China.
"The companies that come to China should respect China's
sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by China's laws,
and respect the feelings of the Chinese people. This is the
minimum requirement of any company going to another country to
carry out business and investment," he said.
Last year, German carmaker Audi AG apologized for using a map
that excluded Taiwan and parts of Tibet and the western Xinjiang
region after it was heavily crticized on Chinese social media.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh and John Ruwitch; Additional Reporting
by Christian Shepherd in BEIJING and SHANGHAI Newsroom; Editing
by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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