Mainland's adjustment to Straits flight route serves aviation safety(3)

The overreacted DPP

Besides opposition from Taiwan's mainland affairs authority, the island's civil aviation department and even the "external affairs" authority on the island also expressed strong opposition, which is rarely seen.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the "external affairs" authority on the island of Taiwan said they launched "the harshest condemnation" against the mainland. But they replaced the term mainland with "China," showing a strong sense of secession.

Pro-DPP analysts on the island advocated that the mainland's move "will increase the pressure on Taiwan's air defense," and negate the island's "restricted airspace" in the way of "legal warfare."

"The DPP authorities are overreacting," Li said, "The mainland is adjusting civil aviation routes, which is a technical issue, not a political or military one."

The DPP authorities' subjective surmise is probably based on its guilty conscience, fearing that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will come over at any time, Li said.

When the airspace over the Taiwan Straits is cleared of all civil aviation, that is the time when secessionists should be really afraid of, Li said.

The adjustment should not be viewed as mainland countermeasures after secessionist Lai Ching-te won the 2024 Taiwan regional election, Ni said. "The DPP only considers its own political interests and does not care about the needs of Taiwan compatriots and international tourists at all," he remarked.

"This route is a peaceful route and the more international and cross-Straits flights use it, the lower the risks in the Taiwan Straits," Ni said. He believes that personnel exchanges cross the Taiwan Straits are a security guarantee.

However, the DPP is attempting to disconnect the two sides of the Straits, so that there will be no cross-Straits exchanges, no interaction and no cooperation, which is completely contrary to the majority public opinion of Taiwan people, Ni said.

This is not the first time in January that the DPP authorities have deceived and scared Taiwan people by hyping up "mainland threats."

Less than one week before the Taiwan regional election, the DPP authorities launched a mistaken air raid alert with the word "missile" after a mainland satellite flew over the southern part of the island. The DPP also hyped the mainland's meteorological balloons flying near the island as an act of "cognitive warfare."

The DPP authorities are trying to create cross-Straits tensions, create fear and hostility among the Taiwan people toward the mainland, create a public opinion base for the road to Taiwan secession, and at the same time portray an image of themselves as not being afraid of the mainland's pressure, Li Fei, a professor at the Taiwan Research Center at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Wednesday.