AIRWAYS SPECIAL China & Taiwan
10 While in a less restrictive way , the People ’ s Republic of China also threatened those airlines that operated flights to the semiautonomous region of Hong Kong .
11 Founded in 2018 , Starlux Airlines aims to be the successor of premium air travel in Taiwan , with a product especially dedicated to business travelers . // ALBERTO CUCINI
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Lufthansa , interestingly , did not establish its own Asian subsidiary . Rather , it leased a Boeing 747-400M to Condor Flugdienst for the purpose .
ERASING GOVERNMENT TIES
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of Japan Asia Airways , which severed all political ties with the government of Japan and was registered in Taiwan .
The People ’ s Republic of China found itself in a gray legal area , as it could not sanction Japan for these flights because they were not operated by a Japanese airline , even if the name and livery were derived from its parent company JAL . During the next decades , a massive wave of subsidiaries were formed along similar lines across Europe .
By 1995 , at Taipei-Taoyuan Airport ( TPE ), you could find planes belonging to British Asia Airways , Japan Asia Airways , Air France Asie , KLM Asia , Swissair Asia , Australia Asia Airlines by Qantas , and even Air Sinai , an offshoot of the Egyptair flag carrier .
All these companies had one characteristic in common : they were either partially or fully state-owned . But , to erase any links with geopolitics and their respective governments , most subsidiaries flew without national marks like flags , crowns , or logos .
Instead , they wore traditional symbols in Mandarin to merge with the local culture . It was also a clever form of marketing to attract Chinese and Taiwanese customers , as the Mandarin language is one of the aspects that still connect the two rival states .
Meantime , the Republic of China ( Taiwan ) formed its own flag carrier under the name of China Airlines ( CI ) in 1959 .
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