Taiwan's parliament approved a proposal on July 22 to rebrand China Airlines (CI, Taipei Taoyuan), the island's biggest carrier, in order to avoid confusion with airlines based in the People's Republic of China, the news agency Agence France-Presse reported.

China Airlines, which was founded in Taiwan in 1959, is themajority state-owned national carrier of the Republic of China - commonly known as Taiwan - and it is frequently mistaken for the mainland's own flag carrier Air China (CA, Beijing Capital). Given rising tensions between the two of late, there have been calls for years to make it more obviously Taiwanese.

The issue has come to the fore lately because during the coronavirus crisis the self-governing state frequently sent goodwill medical aid overseas, often on China Airlines aircraft. This has sometimes provoked confusion as to where the shipments have come from.

On July 22, members of the Legislative Yuan, the country's parliament, approved a proposal requiring the transport ministry to create both short-term and long-term rebranding plans for the wholly government-owned carrier. No deadlines for the plans were given.

The rebranding should make it "more identifiable internationally with Taiwanese images to protect Taiwan's national interests, as overseas it is mistaken for a Chinese airline," parliament speaker Yu Shyi-kun said while announcing the proposal.

The airline itself has remained tight-lipped on the issue, with Tsao-Yang Liu, vice president for corporate communications, telling CNN: "Please be advised that China Airlines has no comments on this topic at the moment."

China Airlines currently operates a fleet of 88 aircraft, including twenty-three A330-300s, fourteen A350-900s, nineteen B737-800s, four B747-400s, eighteen B747-400FSCDs, and ten B777-300ERs, according to the ch-aviation fleets module.