China urges hotels to review websites as 'country' crackdown grows

Suspended Marriott International's Chinese website for a week for listing Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate countries

China’s tourism authority has urged accommodation companies to review their websites and apps to fix what Beijing deems to be inaccurate labelling of Taiwan or other Chinese-claimed territories as countries.

The move expands the Chinese government’s efforts of recent days to police how foreign businesses refer to parts of China, or territories claimed by Beijing, including Taiwan and Hong Kong - even if only in pull-down menus on websites.

On Thursday the government suspended Marriott International’s 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.

No activities that challenge China’s “legal red lines” would be permitted, the state news agency Xinhua quoted a China National Tourism Administration official as saying.