Letters | Chinese flights near Taiwan understandable given history, tensions
- The history behind Taiwan’s air defence identification zone and the lack of formality around the median line help explain China’s recent actions
- Even so, the biggest driver of flights towards the island is the tension between Beijing and Taipei
Non-military aircraft fly to Taiwan several times each day. There is a vast amount of air travel across the Taiwan Strait, a product of large amounts of commerce and tourism. A rub is sometimes created because Taiwan is not a member of the International Civil Aviation Organization and Taipei complains that it is excluded, even citing this as a danger.
But this is not new. Contrary to what is sometimes reported, Chinese warplanes do not overfly Taiwan or fly into what should be called Taiwan’s airspace.
Another matter is the so-called median line, an invisible marker in the middle of the Taiwan Strait that air force planes from both sides long did not cross. But the inviolability of this line was never rendered into a formal agreement, and China recently claimed that no such line exists. Thus, it could be said that China has repudiated a relevant but informal practice.
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Taiwan denounces mainland China for ‘over the top’ flights into island’s air defence zone