Microblog of PLA Daily: Don't hype up flight delay

The "flight delay" has become a buzzword online these days.

Unlike previous delays caused by thunderstorm, typhoon, mechanical failure, smog and flight flow control, "military drill" makes another reason for the delay this time.

Therefore, many fingers pointed at the military, and some media even used titles like "military drills cause massive flight delays", blaming the military drills as the only reason for the flight delay.

As a matter of fact, flight delay has been a hot topic of concentrated online complaints for many years, although military drills have seldom played a role in it.

As summer is the season of frequent bad weather such as typhoon and thunderstorm, flights were hardly punctual in past years when there was no military drill. However, there is no denying that the military drills this time have aggravated the flight delay and made people's travel more inconvenient.

Whether the military drill is the main reason for the flight delay or not, targeted criticism has swarmed in from various directions with growing intensity.

After Japanese media accused China's recent military drills of targeting Japan, media in the western world including the U.S. hyped up the idea that China put national defense security above economic development, followed by the cliché of the "China threat theory". Some so-called "U.S. experts on international strategy" even asserted that Chinese civil flights will be engaged in military operations to "prepare for long-term or near-term military conflicts".

Echoing with such views, some "opinion leaders" in the domestic network also held fast to this topic and kept making sarcastic and smearing comments about the government and the military.

It is true in every country in the world that military drills would exert certain influences on civil aviation.

However, China has always adhered to economic development as the center in the past few decades, and the military has always given top priority to the overall situation and been subordinate to and in the service of the nation's overall economic construction.

For those who arbitrarily allege that China's policies have changed because the Chinese military conducts a routine drill according to its normal training plan, they either have no common sense or have ulterior motives.