Tai-Chi
Long-ish coverage on 'Tai'wan, 'Chi'na, and the Martial Arts that are Cross-Strait Relations.
Worldview Weekly: A Review of Taiwan-Related Developments
A lot has happened in the past two weeks when it comes to China-Taiwan cross-Strait relations, with the US thrown into the potpourri of developments. Firstly, in this edition, I hope to discuss two compelling ones – the passing of the ‘Taiwan Non-Discrimination Bill’ by the US HoR and the launch of the M503 Flight route’s W121 offset. I will endeavour to cover another development – Lai Ching-te’s ‘10 Talks on the Country’ – in the next edition. These speeches started on June 22, 2025; of the ten, four have been delivered so far. Till then, I hope you enjoy reading what I have for you today, including a breakdown of the recent “go-bag” fear phenomenon on the island, and what the Chinese and the Taiwanese have to say about that.
In this edition (use hyperlinks to navigate to your topic of interest):
The M503 Flight Route Issue
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced on July 6 the activation of the M503 and the W121 connecting flight routes. Chen Binhua, spokesperson of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said that this measure is intended to ease the pressure from increasing flight traffic in the relevant region, ensure flight safety, reduce delays, and protect passengers’ rights and interests. He further argued that it is beneficial to people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The M503 route lies within the Shanghai Flight Information Region (FIR). Establishing and activating this route is routine in China’s civil aviation airspace management, and has regularly caused Taiwan issues. Chen believes that since the M503 route and the W122 and W123 connecting routes were put into use, overall operations have been “safe and stable,” significantly improving cross-Strait flight operations and further facilitating travel between the two sides.
The changing of the dynamics of this civilian flight route are a regular affair in cross-Strait relations, especially in the early weeks of a year (near Lunar Year celebrations), when many of the native Taiwanese entrepreneurs doing business out of the mainland visit home for celebrations, and there is extensive air traffic exiting the mainland and heading to Taiwan. In 2024, with the Lunar New Year approaching on February 10, the CAAC announced that the north-south offset of the M503 route was to be closed to ease air traffic, and the east-west offsets, the W-121, 122 and 123, were to become operational (to understand the offsets, please refer to the graphic below).
This graphic explains the two ways in which the M503 route is used. First is the north-south offset of the route, which runs almost parallely to the median line of the Straits, at a distance of about 11 kilometers (or 6 nautical miles). This is the adjusted distance, separate from the initially planned route at a distance of about 7.4 kilometers (4.2 nautical miles) from the median line.
Second is the three east-west offsets of the route, namely the W121 from Dongshan, the W122 from Fuzhou and the W123 from Xiamen, which connect these three hubs of East China’s Fujian Province with the M503.
Why this is a controversial route and decision, is because of three factors:
The closeness of the route to the median line of Taiwan’s Air-Defense Identification Zone, which is also considered the median line in the Taiwan Straits and, therefore, a de-facto maritime border between the two sides;
The fact that since 2018, Chinese flights operating on this route have been doing so with unilateral permission from the CAAC on the mainland, without the government being in consultations with Taiwanese authorities; and
Flowing from point 2, despite continued protests from Taiwan surrounding the pressure China’s unilateral decisions exert on the island’s air defence systems and interference with the ADIZ training routes of the ROC Air Force (ROCAF), China has repeatedly ignored Taiwan’s protests and politicised cross-straits travel (as usual).
The issue is also exacerbated by the heightened sortie activities of Chinese fighter jets, UAVs, and balloons, which have been frequenting the airspace beyond the median line of Taiwan’s ADIZ in huge numbers in the past few years. At a time when Taiwan’s air force is already on high alert, civilian flight diversions close to the M503 can enhance collision risk and require greater communication between the two sides, which, today, is not the case.
So with the activation of the 3Ws, the threat, basically, is this: The 90° angle at which the 3Ws join the central M503 airway, and the proximity of the joining points to the median line (not more than 98 nautical miles and not less than just 58 nm), can, amid flight traffic, enable Chinese aircraft to approach the median line and quickly even veer beyond it quickly. Chinese military aircraft can fly under the radar and use civilian veiling, taking off from say Xiamen using the W123, slickly merging with air traffic, and soon ending up beyond the median line of the Strait.
A Brief History
Before the M503 was operationalised, about 1,200 daily flights used the airspace over the A470 route along the eastern coast of mainland China. This caused great trouble vis-à-vis air congestion and collision risks.
Even though the M503 route was meant to kick off in March 2015 and direct cross-strait flights had started even back in 2009, under the then-Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou, who belonged to the KMT, relations with Beijing were relatively stable. So Taiwan was able to talk its way through the potential concerns surrounding the M503, under provisions of the communication clause in the 2009 Supplementary Agreement on Cross-Strait Air Transportation. At that time, China agreed to shift M503 six nautical miles west as a “concession.”
However, on January 4, 2018, again just weeks before the Lunar New Year, China announced a unilateral decision to kick off the M503’s north-south offset, in a bid to reduce frequent delays faced by flights from China and ease flight congestion. Even at this time, flights using the M503 flew to places like Hong Kong, Macau and other locations in South/ Southeast Asia, and not across the median line to Taiwan. At the time, Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, made a statement, arguing the following:
The south-to-north operation of the M503 flight route from January 4, 2018, involves no Taiwan flight route or destination and will not affect Taiwan flight safety.
The M503 flight route is located close to the mainland in the Taiwan Strait and in the Shanghai Flight Information Region (the territorial airspace and the airspace over the high seas around Shanghai have been established with consideration to smooth and safe air traffic flow). The establishment and operation of the M503 route is routine work for the mainland’s civil aviation authorities.
Figures from 2017 showed that flight from Hong Kong to Pudong of Shanghai was delayed at an average of 103 minutes, the delay being up 5.1 percent year-on-year. The average on-schedule rate of the airway was also only 46 per cent.
Of course, Ma also said that the Chinese didn’t need Taiwan’s permission to launch flights on this route.
Taiwan’s Responses
Because the fact remained that the 2018 move by the CAAC was made without consultation with Taiwanese authorities, they responded. For example, they first blocked Chinese airlines’ applications for additional charter flights on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. Subsequently, on January 30, 2018, the affected airlines announced that they would no longer wait for a decision from Taiwan and cancelled 176 charter flights, leaving 50,000 passengers stranded on the mainland, while re-burdening the A470.
These actions also had economic consequences for Taipei, because, in addition to Taiwanese businessmen remaining stranded on the mainland, according to a report KMT News published that year, while cross-Strait flights accounted for only 1-2% of the revenue for Mainland airlines, for Taiwanese airlines, they accounted for 10-20%.
Last year, too, retorting to the CAAC announcement from January 30, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense has said:
In response to the Chinese Communist Party’s announcement of the cancellation of measures such as the flight offset for the M503 route, Ministry of National Defense today stated that the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait are crucial to the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region and are a shared responsibility of all parties in the region. The unilateral and arrogant actions of the Chinese Communist Party are highly likely to escalate tensions, impact the current security and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and the Beijing authorities should take responsibility and immediately cease such actions.
The Ministry emphasised that the armed forces are prepared for war without seeking it and will not shy away from it when necessary. They will utilise joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance means to continuously monitor and grasp the dynamics of the sea and airspace around the Taiwan Strait. In response to changes in the threat situation, appropriate alert levels and public announcements will be made, and measures to issue warnings will be taken. Unidentified aircraft entering our airspace identification zone will be dealt with according to operational procedures and emergency handling regulations to ensure the safety of our airspace.
This year, with the July 6 announcement, the Taiwanese Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) condemned the CAAC’s unilateral decision to activate the W121 (East-West corridor), and in doing so, breaking the terms of the 2015 agreement for a third time. The MAC also believes that the claims that activating the W121 and putting emphasis on the utilisation of M503 will reduce flight traffic, are groundless.
There is a compelling concept, ‘coercive gradualism’, used by ROC Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Liang Chenyang to explain what China aims to achieve with the M503. There are a few too many things to take away from his assessment, and that of others on the M503 issue. A few distillations:
Coercive gradualism doesn’t proceed as a full-frontal assault. Instead, it combines long-term ‘cooperation’ tactics — such as consultations and technical negotiations — with sudden ‘coercive’ moves at politically sensitive moments. This creates the illusion of flexibility, but the underlying trajectory is predetermined and strategically expansionist. The idea seems to apply well to the Chinese approach to negotiating with and imposing on Taiwan its whims vis-à-vis the M503 between 2015, 2018 and 2025.
Beijing had at least three alternative options to relieve air traffic on A470:
Shift M503 further west, away from the median line.
Increase flexibility within existing flight paths through flow control.
Create entirely new routes on the western side of Chinese airspace.
However, it took up the option that most demonstrated military and coercive power and created the most political controversy and pressure on the island.
The M503 and its connecting ‘3W’ routes (W121/122/123) now form a tight squeeze on Taiwan’s Kinmen and Matsu terminal control zones. This leaves the island proper with very little room to expand, adjust, or restructure its airspace in response to traffic growth or security needs without China’s involvement. This is strategic preemption through route design, an aviation version of the ‘cabbage strategy’ (包心菜戰術), where layers of control are gradually wrapped around a contested space.
An internationalisation argument is also to be made here. It must be vital to any party wishing to curb Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait, to bring up unilateral changes to M503 at the ICAO. Since 2015, ICAO has included the M503 route in its published notes, aeronautical charts and flight manuals, and advocated for traffic diversion from A470 to the M503. But even if Taiwan FIR or Hong Kong FIR officials were consulted, ICAO meetings can bring up any issues day-to-day, to which Taiwanese authorities wouldn’t have access. One can argue that the ICAO has sanctioned Chinese airway traffic manipulation.
In 2016, the PRC forced a Taiwanese delegation out of an ICAO meeting. Taiwan’s subsequent exclusion continued between 2016 and 2021, during the tenure of PRC representative Fang Liu, ICAO’s 12th Secretary-General. And why Taiwan’s inclusion in the ICAO is more pertinent than ever today, is because China’s fly-by and aerial sortie activities in the island’s Air-Defence Identification Zone have become a cause of international concern. They disrupt aerial routes not just for the Taiwanese military, but also for global commercial flights. Recognising China’s heightened activity in Taiwan’s ADIZ, countries could issue concerns backing Taipei’s representation in the ICAO, and deem it vital to regional security.
Picture Story – The ‘Go-Bag’ Controversy
An interesting article appearing on June 26, 2025, on 81.cn talks about how disaster evacuation kits are being sold at soaring prices in Taiwan, on both the island proper and the outlying islands. The piece is dramatically titled, ‘Profiting from War and Taxing Intelligence – Shen Boyang’s Kind Meet Their Demise in the Light of Day’ (“发战争财”“收智商税”, 沈伯洋之流“见光死”). Before we delve into the piece’s contentions, let’s look at developments in the run-up to the piece.
The Context
On 10 and 11 June, 2025, the Kaohsiung branch office of the de-facto “embassy” of the US in Taiwan, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), published three posts on Facebook calling on Taiwanese citizens to be prepared with a “Go-Bag” (避難包) for any disasters and emergencies. In a June 10 post, the AIT Facebook page writes:
If an emergency like a fire or earthquake happens, are you and your family ready to evacuate your home? This month, AIT Kaohsiung is launching a new social media campaign to explain what to put in your “Go Bag.” Stay tuned to find out what Amigu [the AIT Branch’s cartoon pig mascot] and Branch Chief Neil pack in their Go Bags. Let’s get prepared together!
[萬一發生火災或地震, 你和家人有準備好隨時撤離的 #避難包 嗎? 這個月, AIT高雄分處全新社群活動上線啦～我們會告訴大家避難包裡應該放些什麼! 還有阿米牛跟AIT/K處長張子霖的避難包內容搶先看! 他們都準備了什麼? 你猜猜看～記得追蹤我們粉絲頁, –起把防災動起來! #避難包 #防災準備].
Essentially, the campaign announcement emphasises that if there is a disaster-like situation (natural or man-made), people should be ready to pick up a set “go-bag” of vital items and evacuate. On the morning of June 11, the AIT account posts a pictograph with Amigu discussing what the said “Go-Bag” should contain.
That same day, a similar post with a detailed graphic enunciated all items necessary to have in the go-bag. The text accompanying the graphic, says important documents, water and snacks, First aid kit, flashlight and batteries, extra clothing, phone charger, and personal hygiene items are some such items.
Now the AIT Branch may have had the Taiwanese people’s best interests at heart. Typhoon Danas, which recently hit Southern Taiwan hard, was the right context too. Not to mention, nearly everyday, there is tectonic activity, and the island is no stranger to tremors and earthquakes.
But that didn’t stop speculation surrounding this campaign fearing or threatening war. As a consequence, Taiwanese netizens began searching ‘Go-Bag’ or ‘shelter bag’ (避難包) in large numbers. Search data from Google Trends indicates clearly that after June 11, specifically between June 13 and 16, searches for ‘Go-Bag’ hit their peak in Taiwan.
There was also a digital survey launched on the Line social media platform (which I discovered in a recent article on The Diplomat), asking, “Disaster Prevention is Important: Is Your Shelter-/Go-Bag Ready?” The Survey acknowledges that there are not only internal disasters happening frequently in Taiwan, but also that the international situation is tense. In this light, the question the survey poses, has invited over 27000 votes. The largest minority of respondents (43.45%) say that they have started to prepare their bags but are yet to finish, while the second largest (35.75%) interestingly say that they never thought about preparing it. Nearly equal numbers of respondents (respective 2.28% and 2.32%) say that they either started preparing after seeing the tense global situation, or after a recent natural disaster. AIT’s warnings prompted 2.9% of respondents to take action.
Naturally, when there is demand, a market opens. KUMA Academy (or ‘Black Bear’ Academy), founded by Democratic Progressive Party legislator Shen Boyang (or Puma Shen), took notes and prepared what they refer to as a high-quality and comprehensive evacuation bag, and put it on sale for a price of NT$1380. The Academy is a Taiwanese non-profit organisation with the aim of imparting civil defence education to 3 million people within three years. If I am not wrong, 2025-26 is supposed to be the final year of the 3-year agenda. And given its motto, “If you want peace, prepare for war,” both the Academy and Puma Shen are continually under narrative attack and sanction from Beijing. So naturally, when the price tag of their evacuation bag was revealed, the Chinese took the opportunity to mock it as an attempt to fleece the Taiwanese (only, in their cartoon, 81.cn labelled it ‘1380元’ – yuan instead of NT$).
The Chinese Article’s Contention
The writer of the abovementioned 81.cn article, Li Qingtong (李庆桐; most likely an editor with China military media network) primarily argues that a haphazardly assembled ‘disaster evacuation kit’ lacking even basic wound disinfection and bandaging supplies is being sold at a sky-high price in Taiwan in a simple cardboard box, and this is “shamelessly branded” a “special offer.” When it comes to exploiting their own people, “Taiwan independence” elements not only “wield a sharp sickle” but do so without the slightest hesitation.
The job of the Chinese writers was made easier by netizens in Taiwan, who, maybe rightfully so, also questioned the price, saying it was far too expensive. A lot of of this discussion has been happening on a fan-based, knock-offish website based on a very popular and open bulletin board system (BBS) platform called PTT. The fans of PTT say that this new website, PTT.BEST, was created so that young people could be enticed to use BBS-based, OG PPT. In any case, the picture below shows some comments made on the KUMA bag’s pricing on PTT.BEST (translated and snapshotted):
… And a lot of comments follow under this post, blaming the ‘Bluebird movement’ for “making Black Bear rich” (感謝青鳥捧場 黑熊賺爛了). The Chinese also caught on to some of these comments, quoting the highlighted text, claiming that an Island-based physician Su Yifeng revealed that the included items like gauze and cotton swabs would cost only around NT$400–450 if purchased individually – or even NT$300 when bought wholesale. Yet despite this clear lack of value, the kit somehow sold out. The bit about the box being targeted at “low IQ” individuals was especially catchy to the Chinese.
The whole thing also allowed the article’s writer to smash Puma Shen’s credibility. They quote that Taiwanese media have previously exposed that Shen Boyang admitted during an offline meeting that he had received funding from AIT — something AIT later confirmed. Moreover, Shen’s ‘Taiwan Democracy Lab’ (his think tank institution, the DoubleThink Lab), where he formerly served as executive director and now sits on the board, reportedly received nearly US$1.35 million from USAID over five years. Taken together, this clearly reflects a coordinated inside-outside scheme with ulterior motives: AIT stokes panic and anxiety, while “Taiwan independence” figures exploit the situation for profit.
Further, because KUMA Academy is in the business of teaching preparedness, they have launched paid courses and other protective gear in the past. Again, the Chinese used this to say that the Academy has a “record of money-grabbing [that] is long and damning,” and includes selling “standard raincoats and water bottles – identical to those sold on e-commerce platforms for a few hundred NT$” – for some NT$1,580 and NT$1,280 respectively on its site. To any reader putting threads together, the picture would look pretty bad from Puma Shen’s lens.
Responses
Here, it is also essential to look at the Academy’s response to the controversy. In an article appearing on their website on 18 June 2025, clarifying the “misunderstandings” (關於黑熊學院避難包(防災盒)的誤解與澄清), basically makes three points:
The content copied from PTT is rarely read or fact-checked. These posts intentionally omit certain items in the kit and then attack us for charging so much for what’s left. Then, a bunch of fake accounts flood the post with upvotes.
Producing this kit was about serving the Black Bear community:
Ensuring the tourniquet is genuine and certified
Carefully selecting non-China-made emergency items
Packaging everything together to save shipping costs for the buyer
These factors justify why the kit costs NT$1380. As their article says, “good products are never dirt cheap.”
Last time, a KMT spokesperson criticised their NT$2,027 online evacuation course in a press conference, but spent so much time describing it that it caused a sales boom. So that should tell a reader that the “blue camp” is basically doing publicity for them.
Subsequently, an interview article appearing on the ROC Taiwan government’s Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) website also defended the idea of preparing or buying ‘go-bags’. This is a relatively recent piece, led by CNA, a Singaporean news agency, and published on July 7. There are three main quotes to consider from the article:
Bonny Lu (盧秉慧), CEO of SafeTaiwan, which sells go bags online, told CNA that overall sales doubled on June 11 compared to the previous day and jumped eight times to the June 10 level on June 12. Among the customers she had spoken to over the past two months, the top reason for preparing go bags was concern about “war.”
Lin Thung-hong (林宗弘), a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, said that despite long-standing government promotion of go bags, the idea “never sparked a widespread trend,” but the recent surge “clearly reflects a heightened sense of awareness across civil society.”
Living in a multi-story house in Taoyuan near several air-raid shelters, a school teacher, Amy Chang, considered sheltering in place the best option for her family of three. She planned to restock emergency supplies during the summer break, stocking 2-3 months’ worth of food and water. Interestingly, she said, “Taiwan is an island country. We don't really have the means to fight a prolonged war.”
Ultimately, the story of the Academy’s evacuation kit is less about a cardboard box with medical supplies and more about the overlapping fear, need for preparedness, politics, and propaganda. On one hand, heightened public interest in disaster readiness is a positive development for any society prone to both natural and geopolitical shocks. On the other hand, Taiwan’s civic efforts to promote resilience, especially when spearheaded by legislators like Puma Shen, inevitably draw scrutiny, both domestically and in the mainland. 81.cn’s portrayal of this episode as profiteering and psychological manipulation reflects not just a desire to discredit Taiwan’s civil defence initiatives, but also a more profound unease with a society that is beginning to prepare – both materially and mentally – for an uncertain future. Whether these go-bags are overpriced or not, their real weight lies in what they symbolise - a population increasingly aware of its vulnerabilities, and willing to act.
Non-Discrimination Bill
Continuing on the topic of internationalisation and Taiwan’s multilateral representation, on June 23, 2025, the US House of Representatives (HoR) passed the ‘Taiwan Non-Discrimination Bill’ (H.R. 910; hereby ‘ND Bill’ for convenience), and the next day, it was placed on the Senate’s calendar for review. Representatives Young Kim (CA-40) and Al Green (TX-09) introduced the bill in February 2025 to support Taiwan’s participation in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The goal of the legislation, as put forth by Rep. Young Kim, is to ensure that the U.S. governor of the IMF advocates for:
Taiwan’s admission into the IMF as a member;
Taiwan’s participation in the IMF’s regular surveillance activities relating to Taiwan’s economic and financial policies;
Employment opportunities at the IMF for Taiwan nationals; and,
Taiwan’s ability to receive IMF technical assistance and training.
A similar bill was introduced by Kim and Green in January 2024, but it did not pass Senate. The 2025 Bill has important assertions, regardless of the fact it may be ambitious even by the US’s bipartisan standards on the Taiwan issue.
First is that it clearly highlights how important Taiwan is an economic actor to the US. Per Section 2 (Findings), Clause (4), which quotes the January 2020 Report on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States, published by the US Department of the Treasury, Taiwan held $471,900,000,000 in foreign exchange reserves, more than major economies such as India, South Korea, and Brazil.
Further, there is some attempt to draw historical and legislative legitimacy for the argument. For example, per clause 2,(6) of the ND Bill, Taiwan held membership in the IMF for 9 years following the recognition of the PRC by the UN, and 16 Taiwan staff members at the Fund were allowed to continue their employment after the PRC was seated at the IMF in 1980. As James M. Boughton has noted in his book, ‘Silent Revolution: The International Monetary Fund 1979–1989’, even as the PRC was seated, the United States Executive Director to the IMF, Sam Y. Cross, expressed support on behalf of the United States Government for “some kind of association between Taiwan and the Fund.”
Per clause 2,(12), there is manoeuvring room for the island’s authoritative inclusion, too. As quoted, in the IMF publication ‘Membership and Nonmembership in the International Monetary Fund: A Study in International Law and Organization’ (1985; chapter 3), Joseph Gold, the then-General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department of the IMF, observed:
In the practice of the Fund the concepts of independence and sovereignty have been avoided on the whole as a mode of expressing a criterion for membership in the Fund.
For this, the important example, as mentioned in 2,(13), is the Republic of Kosovo, which, though not a member of the UN, is a member of both the IMF and the World Bank, having joined both organisations on June 29, 2009. From the US’s perspective, provision 2,(5) also points to precedence for advocating involvement, as laid out in the Taiwan Relations Act (Public Law 96–8), enacted on April 10, 1979. On the face of it, the TRA as a whole seems to shun closer ties with Taiwan and only advocates surface-level diplomacy. But ccording to section 4(d) of the TRA:
Nothing in this Act may be construed as a basis for supporting the exclusion or expulsion of Taiwan from continued membership in any international financial institution or any other international organization.
In 1997, the Library of Congress, US Govt., published a report titled, ‘Taiwan: Can the Legal Requirements for Membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Be Met?’ An interesting assertion of this report was:
If Taiwan were a member of the IMF and other organizations of a similar stature, in all probability it would be treated as a de-facto independent country in the world community, even by those countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and it might make Taiwan even less willing than it is already to accept PRC sovereignty as a Special Administrative Region under the “one country, two systems” model. This would not be acceptable to the PRC, which to date is not very flexible on the sovereignty issue. On the other hand, if Taiwan were to become a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, like Hong Kong, there would very likely be no objection on the part of the PRC to Taiwan’s membership in the IMF.
It seems that from the time this report was written, to today, US policy has become more accommodating of Taiwan’s concerns, primarily because the PRC itself has made the situation so. However, the fact is that Trump’s personality and remarks make it difficult to put faith in the idea of American commitments to Taiwan, or of bills being seen through beyond paper. Nonetheless, even if the bill isn’t passed in Senate, it represents crucial narrative support for Taiwan, and continues to keep the issue of its multilateral and diplomatic space alive.
Nothing out of the blue, so I wouldn’t delve into it, but here, one can peruse the Chinese MOFA’s response.
Eye on China is a weekly newsletter curated by the Indo-Pacific Studies Programme at The Takshashila Institution, a public policy think-tank based out of Bengaluru, India.
