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Taiwan media say the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is talking with Manila and Tokyo for safe cargo flight routes as China’s live-fire military drills begin
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Taipei’s Taoyuan Airport cancelled 51 flights arriving and departing Thursday (August 4)
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Group of 7 says no justification for Beijing to use US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visit as pretext for aggressive military activity
Taiwan is reportedly coordinating with the Philippines and Japan to plan alternative cargo flight routes, as China’s military began live-fire drills around the island at noon on August 4 in response to a controversial visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
If the new routes are finalized, they will be announced immediately, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) in Taipei was quoted as saying by Liberty Times, a Chinese-language sister publication of Taiwan Times, on Wednesday, August 3.
PortCalls asked MOTC about the two countries’ response to Taiwan’s initiative but the department said it has forwarded the queries to “the responsible department for prompt action”.
The report quoted MOTC as saying it had considered the scope of the possible impact of the drills late Tuesday night.
Reports from Taipei said Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport cancelled 51 flights on Thursday, but that the airport denied the live firing was the reason. The airport’s website said 26 cancellations included flights arriving from Shanghai, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Osaka and Fukuoka.
At least 25 flights departing Taipei Osaka, Ho Chi Minh City and other destinations were also cancelled.
Taiwan’s Maritime and Port Bureau has already issued a notice warning ships in surrounding waters to avoid the areas marked by China as drill sites, the newspaper reported.
China announced that it will hold military exercises, including live-fire drills in six zones surrounding Taiwan, minutes after and her party arrived aboard a US Air Force Boeing C-40C at 10:44pm at Taipei Songshan Airport on Tuesday. Pelosi and her entourage flew to Seoul on Wednesday evening.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said the “important military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills” were underway in the six areas around Taiwan proper from August 4 to August 7.
A map released by the PLA marked the drill zones. Two were on waters north of Taipei and Keelung, one straddling the Taiwan Strait divide, one each off Kaohsiung and Hengchun, and the sixth about 40 kilometers outside Taiwan’s territorial waters.
Reports said two Chinese warships were tracked in international waters off the coast of Lanyu Island in eastern Taiwan early Tuesday morning.
In addition to the military exercise, Beijing said it would punish organizations related to die-hard “Taiwan independence” elements, and suspend natural sand exports to Taiwan as well as the imports of some farm produce from the island.
In a post on his Tweeter account, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken joined his fellow Group of Seven foreign ministers in expressing concern over China’s military drills around Taiwan over the visit and “reaffirming our shared commitment to maintaining the rules-based international order, peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and beyond.”
The G7 foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and the High Representative of the European Union issued the statement earlier in the day.
“We are concerned by recent and announced threatening actions by (China), particularly live-fire exercises and economic coercion, which risk unnecessary escalation. There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait,” they said.
They urged China “not to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region, and to resolve cross-Strait differences by peaceful means. There is no change in the respective one China policies, where applicable, and basic positions on Taiwan of the G7 members.
