(Reuters) – China plans to close airspace north of Taiwan for about half an hour on Sunday, instead of the three days originally announced, due to the fall of an object from a satellite launcher, officials in Taiwan and South Korea said.
Yan Yu-hsien, deputy chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, said earlier in response to a Reuters report that the “no-fly zone” would be in the area of air defense identification (Adiz) of the country, about 85 nautical miles (158 km) north of its coast.
In the absence of details on the duration of the closure, this information has caused concern in the region, due to tensions between China and Taiwan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said he was unaware of the situation.
Japan, for its part, indicated that China had notified it of the establishment of an exclusion zone, outside Japanese territorial waters, from April 16 to 18 due to aerospace activities.
Taiwan’s transport ministry later announced that China had cut the length to 27 minutes on Sunday after protests.
According to the South Korean Ministry of Transport, this closure would be linked to the fall of an object from a satellite launcher.
Previous restrictions imposed during Chinese military exercises last August led to major flight disruptions in the region, forcing some pilots to carry extra fuel, according to Opsgroup, an association that advises on flight risks. .
Japanese authorities said there were no major cancellations of flights to or from Japan during the fiscal years.
(Report Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee in Taipei, Liz Lee and Laurie Chen in Beijing, Sakura Murakami and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; French version Kate Entringer, edited by Matthieu Protard and Blandine Hénault)
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