According to Lianhe Zaobao, the mainland announced that starting in February, it will cancel the flight configuration of the M503 route on the west side of the "middle line" of the Taiwan Strait from north to south, and at the same time start the M503 route W122 and W123 connecting routes from west to east. According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the move is to improve the efficiency of airspace operations. However, the Taiwan authorities have expressed protest and dissatisfaction with the mainland's change of shipping routes, saying that they may change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
The M503 route is a civil aviation route demarcated by the mainland in early 2015, but the Taiwan side believes that this route is too close to the "middle line of the strait" and sensitive airspace, and has raised objections to the mainland. After cross-strait consultations, the mainland agreed to move the M503 route six nautical miles westward, and agreed to sail in one direction from north to south, and the three east-west routes will not be opened for the time being. In 2018, the mainland announced the relaunch of three east-west routes connecting Dongshan, Fuzhou and Xiamen. Now, the 6-nautical-mile offset of the M503 route has also been canceled, and the two routes W122 and W123 have also begun to fly from west to east in the direction of Taiwan.
The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said that the establishment and launch of the M503 route is a routine task in the management of the mainland's civil aviation domain, which is to alleviate the pressure on regional flight growth, ensure flight safety, meet the needs of air transport development in the Asia-Pacific region, and also help improve cross-strait flight operations and further enhance cross-strait personnel exchanges, which is in line with the common interests of both sides of the strait.
The mainland no longer made concessions to the Taiwan authorities, which provoked a fierce reaction from the Taiwan authorities. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement expressing protest and dissatisfaction and demanding that the mainland immediately stop its "irresponsible" flight operations. The MAC said in writing that the mainland had opened the relevant air routes and had not communicated with the Taiwan authorities, thus "disrespecting Taiwan." It is "deliberately using civil aviation to package political and even military intentions against Taiwan, and there are doubts about changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait." The MAC demanded that the mainland stop implementing the relevant decision, otherwise it would "bear the serious consequences that will affect cross-strait relations."
With regard to the sudden opening of air routes on the mainland, Chen Yixin, a representative of the Kuomintang people's opinion, said that on the issue of cross-strait relations, the DPP authorities have always only been talking about it, and they have not taken actual action, which has caused the current situation. The mainland's failure to coordinate with the Taiwan side is tantamount to substantially canceling the "middle line of the strait." Increasing the east-west route will also increase the difficulty of identification, and the plane will rush directly from Fujian, and Taiwan's response time will become very short.
Chen Yixin said that after Lai Qingde was elected, the outside world initially thought that the mainland would give the DPP time for inspection, but no "observation period" was given whether it was the severance of diplomatic relations from Nauru or the sudden adjustment of the M503 route. He stressed that the top priority of the DPP authorities is to implement the normalization of cross-strait exchanges and interactions.
There is no so-called "middle line of the strait" in the Taiwan Strait, and the mainland's adjustment of the M503 route is not only in line with the law, but also conducive to the needs of shipping development. In the past, the mainland made some concessions in order to accommodate the sentiments of the Taiwan side, but when the DPP authorities refused to recognize the "consensus of '92" and advocated that the two sides of the strait "are not subordinate to each other," there was no need for the mainland to make any further concessions.
The mainland's civil aviation flights flying over the Taiwan Strait are reasonable and legal, and the Taiwan authorities should not have any opinions. As for the "defense security" claimed by the Taiwan authorities, this is not in the scope of consideration. Taiwan is part of China's territory, and the airspace over the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan Island is China's territorial airspace, and no matter how it flies, it is the freedom of the PLA.
Earlier, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had claimed that if the PLA military plane crossed the "center line," the Taiwan military would intercept and drive it away. Today, the PLA military aircraft has crossed the "middle line" on a regular basis, and the DPP should have long been accustomed to it. If the Taiwan authorities hope that the mainland will "respect Taiwan," they must come up with concrete measures to ease cross-strait relations.