China’s imposition of a no-fly zone north of Taiwan for 27 minutes tomorrow is expected to affect 33 international flights in the region, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said.
Wang on Wednesday said he spoke with officials at the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau about Beijing’s restriction, which is thought to be related to expected debris from a Chinese satellite launch. Commercial vessels have also been told to avoid the 85-nautical-mile (157km) area north of Taiwan, he said.
The ministry on Wednesday said that Beijing reduced the flight-restriction period from three days to less than 30 minutes following protests from Taiwanese civil aviation officials. It is unlikely that Beijing made such a major change to its plans to respect Taiwan, and much more likely that it had miscalculated the scope of its effect on other countries, which most likely also lodged strong protests. Wang said that the original plans would have affected about 480 international flights over the course of three days. The economic impact would have been extensive, especially given that airline traffic is beginning to return to normal following the COVID-19 pandemic.
That China was able to narrow the window of the debris ocean impact to less than 30 minutes shows that the likely reason for the initial three-day flight restriction was to increase pressure on Taiwan and the US. China conducted three days of military exercises in the Taiwan Strait following a meeting between President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The day after those drills ended, the US began its largest joint exercises with the Philippines, only a few weeks after the Philippines granted the US access to four new military bases. It can be no coincidence that China suddenly attempted to impose a three-day no-fly zone within the Taipei Flight Information Region after the start of those drills.
The flight restriction was likely a part of Beijing’s “gray zone” warfare strategy against Taiwan, which security analyst William Chung (鍾志東) first warned about in June 2020. China has imposed air and sea restrictions against Taiwan in the past, such as in October 2020 when it prevented a military chartered supply flight operated by Uni Air from flying to the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea, saying that “dangerous activities” were being conducted in Hong Kong airspace, which the Pratas Islands fall within.
Retired lieutenant general Chang Yen-ting (張延廷) at the time warned that the government must have a contingency plan should China prevent flights from reaching other Taiwan-controlled islands, such as those in Kinmen and Lienchiang counties. In August last year when then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi made a stopover in Taipei, China held drills around Taiwan disrupting air and sea traffic in the area for several days.
Analysts said that China scaled back the recent drills due to the backlash it received from the drills following Pelosi’s Taipei visit. The immediacy with which Beijing reduced its three-day flight restriction to only 27 minutes, likely also following international pressure, demonstrates that Beijing practices caution despite its clamorous rhetoric.
The importance of Taiwanese semiconductors to the global economy, and the importance of Taipei as a hub for travel and trade, means that China is limited in how much pressure it can exert on Taiwan. However, the government must ensure its ability to respond quickly to China by maintaining good communication with friendly nations, and continue efforts to join the International Civil Aviation Organization.
China is unlikely to scale up drills around Taiwan, or to attempt an invasion of Taiwan, in the near future, as it knows that doing so would be detrimental to its own interests. Nevertheless, Taiwan must be ready for every contingency.
Deterrence is fading; war is looming on the Taiwan Strait and for other targets of the China-enabled dictatorship alliance, and after three years the cure is just dawning on the Biden Administration. Now mind you, for a May 28, 2024 interview with Time magazine, President Joe Biden made his 5th public commitment that the United States would defend Taiwan. Less than three weeks later the United States Navy, along with ships from navies of Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, and France, were conducting the Valiant Shield joint force exercise in the Philippine Sea south of Taiwan and in the South China Sea to
The official media of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reacted to the May 20 inauguration speech of President William Lai (賴清德) by asserting: “Lai’s words reveal his true intention of sacrificing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait for his own desire for power.” This baseless accusation by Beijing that Lai is manipulating Taiwanese to resist unification with China for his personal gain, is part of a broader CCP information warfare campaign that has intensified since Lai’s election. This campaign, orchestrated by the United Front Work Department, the CCP’s agency for coordinating influence operations and propaganda, aims to demoralize Taiwanese,
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) on Friday said the ministry supports keeping priority seats on public transportation, but is considering expanding the eligibility criteria and renaming the seats. Chiu’s remarks came after local news media over the past few weeks reported incidents involving priority seats, once again sparking heated discussion about whether the seats should be abolished or regulations regarding them should be revised. On June 11, an older woman asked a young woman on a Taipei MRT train to yield her priority seat. The young woman refused, saying that she needed the seat after working a 12-hour shift.