Taiwan's Wings Clipped

It may seem like a minor, technical issue, but it became clear to me on a visit to Taipei earlier this month that the Taiwanese government was furious that it might be blocked from even observing the triennial meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is just getting underway in Montreal. (For more background on this issue, see here.) At the time of my visit, ICAO had not yet responded to Taipei’s request to attend as a guest, as it did in 2013. (ICAO is a U.N. body—Taiwan, as a non-member of the U.N., is not invited as a matter of course.) Well, now the organization has responded: Taiwan has been locked out of the meeting, which is largely focused on hashing out safety-related issues in civil aviation.