Stop being so paranoid, you splittist deviationists who must one day reunite with the mainland! Said the Taiwan Affairs Office of China:
China said on Wednesday Taiwan should not be so suspicious of its intentions after Taipei protested against Beijing's decision to open new domestic commercial air routes over the Taiwan Strait separating the diplomatic rivals.
These are civilian flights! Stop being suspicious!
Wait. What?
Meanwhile, the Chinese commercial aviation fleet currently consists of some 2,000 aircraft. That’s more than double what was available in 2005. This has now more than doubled, because larger aircraft are being used. China has over two dozen airlines, and one (China United Airlines, with nearly a hundred aircraft) is actually owned by the Chinese air force, and can use military air space.
By law, China can still order all these aircraft into military service. As a practical matter, only China United Airline sends it airliners off to train with the troops once or twice a year. Actually, within the air force, China United Airlines is known as the 34th Air Division. Most of the airline employees are active duty or reserve air force personnel The Chinese military was supposed to sell off their huge business empire in the late 1990s, but only about half the assets were disposed of and keeping the 34th Air Division was sold as “military necessity.”.
So China United Airline is also called the 34th Division of the PLA air force? Huh.
Yeah, combined with lots of men's softball teams taking tours of Taiwan,
And Chinese ships in Taiwanese ports might have extra passengers.
And then the invasion is on.
