china

Tag Archives for china.

Taiwan May Retaliate Against Airlines for Complying With Chinese Speech Demands

temple
Aug 07 2018

When the US administration amped up trade rhetoric on China, China began squeezing US companies especially ones with visible brands. Marriott fired a social media employee who ‘liked’ a Friends of Tibet tweet, and even self-reported a banned book in the lobby of one of its hotels. China has insisted travel companies not list Taiwan as a separate country.

Of course, they’ve largely complied. US airlines though haven’t gone so far as to identify Taiwan as explicitly part of China as many world airlines have. Indeed US airlines are trapped between their Chinese regulators and needing to appease the government at home which has publicly rebuked China for attempting to regulate US corporate speech.

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Partially Caving to China’s Demands, Here’s How US Airlines Refer to Taiwan Now

temple
Jul 25 2018

While at first it appeared that American’s Chairman Parker and United’s Chair Garvey had surrendered to Chairman Mao, the reality seems a little more nuanced than that.

We’ll see if these State Department-worthy maneuvers suffice to stay out of China’s crosshairs, whether China declares US airlines to be failing to comply, or whether there are problems with airport slots in China, with convenient gate access, or myriad other permit problems on the ground.

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China Warns Its Citizens That the US is Too Dangerous to Visit

boiler
Jul 09 2018

We all have perceptions of risk, and they often vary widely from what the data actually says. My willingness to visit certain parts of the world is colored in the opposite direction from most people. Living for many years in Alexandria, Virginia and working in Arlington my daily commute took me past the Pentagon. This wasn’t just a potential primary military target, it had actually been attacked directly on 9/11 when a hijacked aircraft crashed into the building. Most places have less risk than this. Years ago when I traveled to Cyprus as a result of Alitalia’s $33+tax fat finger business class fare from Toronto which allowed stopovers in Italy, a friend of my wife’s was afraid for us. Turkey invaded, after all, in 1974 following a military coup there. Beach in Cyprus I’ll be…

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New Free Web Browser Offers Built-In VPN Features, Browse Privately Even in China

temple
Jun 07 2018

There’s a simple solution to browse the web privately, to access internet sites through China’s Great Firewall, and it’s cheaper than using a paid VPN (because it’s free) and faster than using a free VPN.

It’s a web browser that builds in the functionality of a VPN. That way you can privately access content from anywhere in the world. You’re accessing their servers and their servers are calling the sites you want and delivering them to you.

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China’s ‘Social Credit’ System Has Banned People From Taking 11 Million Flights

temple
May 23 2018

China’s ‘social credit system’ monitors citizen behavior and punishes them with travel bans, bans from four and five star hotels, preventing them from sending children to expensive schools, and throttling internet speeds.

New data suggests that China has used this social credit system to block its citizens from taking 11.14 million airline flights and 4.25 million high speed train trips.

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China Dictating US Airline Website Design and Award Charts

temple
May 06 2018

In January China flexed its muscles against Marriott at a time that the US President began making rumblings of a trade war. They shut down Marriott’s booking engines in the country. Marriott Marriott fired an hourly worker who rather innocuously ‘liked’ a tweet about Tibet and even removed a banned book from one of their hotels.

At the time I wrote that China would be cracking down on airlines, too.

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Are You Being Spied on in Your Hotel Room? Here’s How to Check

temple
May 01 2018

The number one thing that gives me security when I travel is obscurity, there’s no one who wants to spy on me. I’m simply not important or valuable enough to be worth the effort.

At the same time I assume any device I carry with me to China is compromised. And in many countries the room I’m staying in may be set up for monitoring because of other people who might stay there either before or after me. Business espionage is at least as common as national security espionage.

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Marriott Demonstrates That China Rules All of Us

temple
Jan 13 2018

When Austin tried to impose its own regulations on Uber, they learned that they were too small a market to matter. California and New York may be able to influence a company’s behavior, but Austin cannot. As regulation is increasingly global, the most important markets set the rules.

China is the next big thing. That was true 15 years ago, and it will be true 15 years from now. But for companies making a big bet in the country, Beijing is able to exercise global sway.

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