China’s aviation regulator said Friday it has opened new air routes to the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Fuzhou with flight paths very close to the Taiwan-controlled islands of Kinmen and Matsu, a move likely to anger Taipei.
The Taiwanese government expressed anger in January after China “unilaterally” changed a flight path named M503, close to the sensitive median line in the Taiwan Strait. The new routes to Xiamen and Fuzhou connect to the M503 flight route.
The center line had served for years as an unofficial dividing line between Chinese-claimed Taiwan and China and was not crossed by fighter planes from either side.
But China says it does not recognize the line’s existence and Chinese warplanes now regularly fly over it as Beijing tries to pressure Taipei into accepting its claims of sovereignty.
China had said in January it would open west-east routes – in other words towards Taiwan – on the two flight routes of Xiamen and Fuzhou, but had not yet announced when they would go into service.
China’s civil aviation regulator said in its brief statement on Friday that these routes were now in use, adding that it would “further optimize” the airspace around Fuzhou airport from May 16. It was not elaborated.
The regulator added that the changes in flight routes will help meet the “development needs” of flights along China’s coast, ensure flight safety, enhance the ability to respond to thunderstorms and improve normal flight operations.
There was no immediate response from the Taiwanese government, which previously accused China of threatening aviation safety and using flight routes to further pressure Taipei for political purposes.
Kinmen and Matsu both have regular flights to Taiwan, and Chinese aircraft are banned by Taiwan from flying in the airspace Taipei controls around both island groups.
Flights to and from Taiwan and China’s Xiamen and Fuzhou take a circuitous route along the center line rather than flying directly over the strait.
Taiwan has complained about the M503 route before, in 2018, when it said China had opened the northern part of it without first notifying Taipei, in violation of a 2015 agreement to discuss such flight routes first.
Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Chinese claims of sovereignty and says only the island’s people can decide their future.
