Beijing Newspeak

On Tuesday, a journalist friend of mine tried to fly from southern China to Shanghai. The whole process took 11 hours. My friend was told the People’s Liberation Army, those lovers of late notice, had imposed airspace controls over eastern China in order to carry out a military exercise (Note to editor: I didn’t learn this from Xinhua so the writing of that line does not constitute a sackable offence). The delays were substantial. Not that this information was released to the public. The airports - and of course Xinhua - were not allowed to divulge the reason for the controls by order of the Central Military Commission. Air travellers were instead fed a phrase sure to make them nod their heads in understanding, relax with an overpriced cup of Blue Mountain coffee and be happy for their plane to take as long it needed. “The controls have been imposed for unspecified reasons.”

The first Xinhua report, released on Tuesday evening, went like this:

Air controls imposed on Tuesday morning delayed at least ten flights at Baiyun airport in the southern city of Guangzhou and stranded about 1,600 passengers, sources with China Southern Airlines said.

The controls were imposed for unspecified reasons over eastern regions of China. Flights bound for Nanchang, Shanghai, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Dalian were postponed.

Flights started to resume from 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

The airline sent staff to provide water and food for passengers whose flights were delayed.

Airport sources said the controls might persist for days, and they advised passengers to adjust their travel plans and follow updated flight schedules.

I once again reverted to indignant polisher mode, demanding follow-ups for every day the controls were still in place. I realised the large majority of air travellers affected would be Chinese, and therefore unlikely to be regular readers of Xinhua’s English-language service, but the incident really bugged me for several reasons:

1) It reminded me of a similar occurrence at almost the same time last year. Shanghai’s Pudong international airport was closed on the orders of the PLA (China’s airspace is controlled by the military) but Xinhua didn’t even report the closure let alone the reason because the whole palaver was a “state secret”. By all accounts, the PLA had not given the airport authority any prior warning. Reuters reported a passenger flight and a cargo flight from Japan airlines had been forced to turn back to Japan. A textbook example to illustrate what can happen when the PLA is not answerable to the State. This latest incident again went some way to highlighting how much the PLA considers the people in its decision-making processes.

2) Xinhua seemed to have deemed the case closed despite the vague warning coming in the last paragraph that the airspace controls would last for days resulting in continued disruption. An awareness of an audience other than its own “leaders” has never been the agency’s strong point. In addition, the initial report only referred to delays in Guangzhou yet there were hundreds of flights affected all over eastern China. There was barely any coverage in the Chinese-language press and only a nib in Shanghai Daily.

3) I am British. Therefore I have an inbuilt mechanism to express fury at even the smallest delay to travel plans. Back in July 2003, chaos reigned at London’s Heathrow Airport due to staff strikes. Images of fuming holidaymakers dominated the television news for days. “Unspecified reasons” would have met with rebellion.

On Wednesay, after being told everything was back to normal in Guangzhou, I found myself saying to a colleague a line that was comical in hindsight but at the time so wretched. “I beg you, please, I beg you, please phone Shanghai airport. You can pretend to be a passenger if you want.”

So when the following update arrived in the evening, instead of it being a bog standard report which had three paragraphs of new information and little clarification (in reality this is exactly what it was), it took on the appearance of a Pullitzer Prize-winning investigative epic for which I felt compelled to lavish praise on the writer.

SHANGHAI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) — About 7,000 passengers were affected as airspace controls continued in eastern China on Wednesday, this time primarily affecting Shanghai, according to sources with Shanghai Airlines.

By 4 p.m., 150 flights from the city’s two airports bound for Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Beijing and Dalian had been postponed.

The controls were imposed beginning on Tuesday over eastern China, for unspecified reasons.

Passengers whose flights were delayed are eligible for refunds. Those stranded in the Pudong and Hongqiao airports in Shanghai were provided with water and food.

The effect in Guangzhou, where 1,600 passengers were stranded at the Baiyun Airport on Tuesday, appeared less severe on Wednesday and confined to several flights to Shanghai.

It is unknown how long the controls will persist and airport sources advised passengers to adjust their travel plans and follow updated flight schedules.

Two more updates came over the next two days. The airports were reluctant to give out information so many of the quotes came from the airlines. Eventually the Civil Aviation Administration of China told Xinhua the airspace controls would end at midnight on Saturday.

Amusingly, the delays coincided with the implementation of new airspace regulations that came into effect on Thursday which opened up more of China’s airspace to civilian aircraft. They are expected to double the number of aircraft flying in China’s skies and reduce delays for travellers.

Reuters implicitly linked the airspace controls with the Kitty Hawk PR disaster in which China blocked the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk from a Thanksgiving visit to Hong Kong only to change its mind when it was too late.

Beijing’s move coincided with “airspace controls” introduced on Wednesday which the Xinhua news agency said affected the air travel plans of 7,000 people in south and east China.

The controls had been ordered for “unspecified reasons”.

(Note: the airspace controls were actually introduced on Tuesday). The only link I can think of is that the PLA denied Kitty Hawk access to Hong Kong because it was busy with its military exercise and didn’t want a US aircraft carrier in the vicinity. But then that’s the kind of wild speculation that gives blogs a bad reputation.

This article by the LA Times put forth a few theories on why Kitty Hawk was denied access to Hong Kong.

Pundits near and far sought to explain what appeared to be behind the Chinese government’s blunt yet hazy message.

Theories included anger over President Bush’s recent meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Chinese-held Tibet; displeasure over an announced $940-million U.S. upgrade to Taiwan’s Patriot II antimissile shield; a desire to send a message before an imminent Hong Kong election; and pique over a U.S. report that criticized Chinese espionage activities.

Whatever the reasons, this paragraph from the LA Times sums up the problems that arise from last-minute decisions such as those involving Kitty Hawk and the airspace controls (and the closure of Shanghai airport last year and the destruction of that satellite earlier this year …)

This is not the only time recently that China has made a military move without apparently considering its public relations implications. In January, the Foreign Ministry was caught flat-footed when the People’s Liberation Army destroyed an aging satellite, spewing debris in space and sparking questions about the PLA’s intentions, why there was no warning and even whether China’s senior leadership had been fully informed in advance.

A PR department is not coming to the PLA any time soon.

SIGNIFICANT UPDATE: Thanks to a link provided by Jim in the comments section, it would appear it’s one-nil to wild speculation. Xiao Qiang at China Digital Times has translated an article from Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper which starts like this:

According to sources in China, in recent days the East and South China Sea fleets of the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] have carried out a large-scale “campaign-level [zhanyi ji] naval exercise”; the two big fleets staged a joint combat exercise in the Pacific east of Taiwan; the recent aviation controls in east and south China, which are related to this major exercise, will end tomorrow. Further reports claim that the PLA fleet on exercise had a “chance encounter” with the USS Kitty Hawk battle group which was heading for Hong Kong.

According to foreign news agencies, US Pacific Commander Keating said yesterday that he was “perplexed and concerned” that the Chinese side had refused Kitty Hawk entry to Hong Kong, holding that this was “absolutely not positive.” Keating also confirmed that this was the second time in one week that US ships had been refused entry to Hong Kong; three or four days prior to the Kitty Hawk incident, two US minesweepers requested to anchor in Hong Kong to refuel, having been affected by bad weather in the South China Sea, but this was refused by the Chinese Government. Kitty Hawk has now returned to its base in Japan, and the officers and men were forced to spend Thanksgiving at sea on 22 November.

According to websites in the interior, the joint exercise of the East and South China Sea fleets was conducted east of Taiwan and north of the Philippine archipelago, and its objective was to envelop and make a pincer attack on Taiwan from the sea.

Umm, “a chance encounter”. I think the advance of military technology ruled out the likelihood of one of those quite a long time ago. If this is all true, then the US must have had a pretty good idea why Kitty Hawk’s Thanksgiving Party was cancelled all along. And most importantly Chinese air travellers have their answer …