Kamal Ghorui
China has banned civil aviation from a large airspace off Shanghai for 40 days without specifying a reason, according to a notice to aviators (NOTAM) published by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).The restriction will remain in force until May 6. The notice announcing the same was posted online on March 27 at 1150 GMT and took effect a few hours later.The restricted airspace covers 73,000 square kilometres — about twice the size of Taiwan — and lies a few hundred kilometres north of the island.The ban applies to two zones over the Yellow Sea, between China and South Korea, and three others stretching across the Yellow Sea and East China Sea, between China and Japan.The closed areas are separated by an air corridor about 100 kilometres wide, allowing access to Shanghai from the Yellow Sea.NOTAMs are issued to alert aviators to unusual conditions affecting airspace and are generally published ahead of military exercises or during exceptional events such as fires or volcanic eruptions. But experts said the scale and nature of the restriction are unusual.“There is no possible use other than military” for this type of airspace restriction, maritime security expert Benjamin Blandin told AFP. “It could be to fire missiles, carry out air exercises, etc. We don’t know,” he added.Aviation and defence consultant Xavier Tytelman said the restriction is “out of the ordinary” because of its size, duration and the lack of any limits on altitude, either high or low.In this particular case, it means that “the government is reserving a zone for itself,” said Tytelman.Restricted access applies to civil aviation but not necessarily to military planes, helicopters or drones.Blandin, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), said this is “the very first time” that China has restricted access to its airspace in a way that is “so sudden, geographically extensive, prolonged over time, and so poorly documented”.“Normally this is announced weeks or months in advance, and there are explanations and justifications,” said Blandin, adding that the reserved airspace is limited in altitude “to allow the passage of commercial aircraft”.According to a Taiwan senior security official, China is taking advantage of the US being distracted by the Middle East war to expand its active military presence and conduct harassment in the Indo-Pacific.China aims to deter the US’ allies in the region and weaken the US military influence in the Indo-Pacific, he said.For Blandin, this NOTAM is part of a “continuing series of access denials” and “bolsters China’s strategy of nibbling away at the land and sea borders of its neighbours” over the past 15 years.
