China cancels M503 flight increasing pressure on Taiwan's air defense monitoring: Report

Jan 30, 2024

Taipei [Taiwan], January 30 (ANI/CNA): The Civil Aviation Administration of China announced that on February 1 From now on, the deviation of the M503 route from north to south will be cancelled, and the M503 route W122 and W123 connecting route will be activated to fly from west to east. Scholars analyzed that the intention was to blur the central line of the Strait and increase the pressure on Taiwan's air defence monitoring.
Shen Mingshi, director of the National Security Research Institute of the National Defense and Security Research Institute, said in an interview with the Central News Agency on the evening of the 30th that the M503 route was offset by 6 nautical miles to the west of the central line of the Strait due to Taiwan's protest at that time. The symbolic meaning of the line will also increase the pressure on Taiwan's air defence monitoring. "The change of the route used by the Chinese Communist Party is an operation in the grey area between war and peace."
Shen Mingshi pointed out that this was obviously in response to the results of Taiwan's presidential election and that he had withdrawn his original goodwill. In the past period, Chinese military aircraft had crossed the central line of the Taiwan Strait. However, this was still an occasional incident. Civilian aircraft were required to fly due to transportation needs. , there are also technical deviations; now that the tacit understanding in the past has been broken, it means that the central line of the strait has become blurred. Taiwan's air defence monitoring must be not only for military aircraft but also for civilian aircraft.
Shen Mingshi believes that mainland China has launched the W122 and W123 connecting routes to fly from west to east, which will have a greater impact on the security of the Taiwan Strait. Previously, only Taiwanese aircraft flew back and forth to Kinmen and Matsu. Now, Chinese military aircraft and civilian aircraft are also flying along the Taiwan Strait. Flying over the centre line, or even crossing it, will increase the pressure on Taiwan's air defence monitoring.
Chen Guoming, interview director of Global Defense Magazine, told Central News Agency that mainland China's unilateral change of the M503 route can be interpreted as putting pressure on the incoming new government. Judging from the CCP's series of actions against Taiwan, it can be estimated that before the presidential inauguration day on May 20, There will be other means of pressure.
Chen Guoming believes that in the past, most discussions on the M503 route have focused on the "Trojan horse massacre", which means that they are worried about whether the Chinese Communist Party will use this route to pose a threat to Taiwan by disguising military aircraft as civilian aircraft, or even capture the airport.
He emphasized that this possibility is quite low. Firstly, the air transport capacity is limited, and secondly, the Chinese army definitely has the ability to counterattack. The cost of this method for the CCP is very high, and the probability of occurrence is too low.
Chen Guoming pointed out that the purpose of mainland China's change of flight routes is to combine previous economic and trade coercion, fruit and vegetable embargoes and other measures against Taiwan in an attempt to cause panic among the Taiwanese people; since it used "easing the pressure on flight growth in relevant areas" as a reason, it locates the problem in civilian transportation, it is recommended that civil aviation units should take corresponding actions as soon as possible. (ANI/CNA)