Beijing planning to close airspace north of Taiwan. An area that could impact international aviation, especially for neighboring countries like Japan and Korea, as well as the U.S.
The statement comes from Taiwan’s defense ministry Wednesday. The department noted the no-fly zone would fall within its air defense identification zone—about 85 nautical miles north of its shores.
A Japanese news agency said the no-fly zone also included Part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Hours later, the island said it had successfully urged China to drastically narrow its plan—shortening the no-fly zone’s timeframe to about half an hour. That’s down for the originally-scheduled three days.
The change will help avoid severe travel distributions, as happened during Chinese military drills last August.