Recently, a foreign passenger on a China Civil Aviation flight recorded military equipment outside the window. After being reported by a passenger in the back seat, the man handed over to the police. The Chinese Ministry of Security disclosed that nearly one-third of the airports currently operated in China are military-civilian airports, and cited an example of a passenger who was administratively detained for 7 days for taking photos of facilities around military-civilian airports. As of the beginning of 2022, there were 238 civil airports in China. Based on this calculation, there should be nearly 80 military-civilian airports.
According to a report on Sichuan Observation Weibo on Sunday (16th), on June 12th, a foreign passenger on the CA1880 flight from Yiwu to Beijing stuck his phone in the sunshade to take photos of the civil-military airport, and the passengers in the back seat reported it. The relevant video shows that a passenger put his phone between the sunshade and the transparent window panel of the window next to the seat on the plane to take photos of the scenery outside the window. The staff of Yiwu Airport said that taking photos on the runway of the civil-military airport is not allowed, and the police will be reported to see how the police will deal with it.
Mr. Zhang, who filmed the video and reported the incident, said that the plane was about to take off and the flight attendant reminded passengers to close all the sunshades. He said: "The people who filmed the incident looked like foreigners, and the flight attendant spoke to them in a foreign language." So he reported the incident to the mini program (a platform for reporting to national security agencies).
In this regard, Mr. Xiao, a Jiangxi legal professional, said in an interview with our station on Tuesday that he had also heard about this incident and felt that there were potential illegal traps everywhere: "According to this logic, even walking and looking at something, even if you don't take pictures, it constitutes a crime and a violation of the law, because in their minds, everything is confidential and everything is for military use. Doing this does not show the so-called confidence of a great power, nor does it show basic tolerance, nothing."
A week later, on June 24, the WeChat official account of China's Ministry of State Security stated that since civil-military airports are often deployed with important military equipment and undertake daily training tasks, civil aviation passengers should abide by relevant regulations and must not take pictures of sensitive military areas and military equipment without authorization.
Nearly one-third of China's airports are used by both the military and civilian sectors
The article said that according to relevant statistics, nearly one-third of China's current operating airports are military-civilian airports. Most of them are located in coastal and border areas, with prominent strategic positions and important military value. In order to ensure military security and prevent passengers from "inadvertently" obtaining or leaking military secrets, when civil aircraft take off, land, or taxi at military-civilian airports, passengers should close the sunshade according to the requirements of the flight attendants, and are not allowed to take photos or videos without permission or even upload the relevant content to the Internet.
Current affairs commentator Lu Jun believes that civil airports are public places, and if the authorities need to keep military equipment secret, they should not place military facilities in civil airports. He told our station: "Even if the military part needs to be kept secret, it should be strictly covered or repeatedly informed to civil aviation passengers. As it is now, without strict covering and repeated and sufficient notification, the passengers are detained. This is obviously an abuse of confidentiality."
The article of the Ministry of State Security of China cited an example that not long ago, at a civil-military airport in the southeast coastal area, a passenger named Liu ignored the cabin broadcast and the reminders of the flight attendants during the taxiing and takeoff of the plane, and arbitrarily placed his mobile phone with the video function turned on between the window shade and the window, and repeatedly opened the shade to record the facilities, buildings and military aircraft around the airport, intending to post it on WeChat Moments to show off. Liu's actions not only caused the flight he was on to be delayed and affected the itinerary plans of passengers on the same plane, but also were suspected of disrupting the public transportation order, and were punished by the relevant departments with 7 days of administrative detention in accordance with the law.
Lu Jun believes that there are only two possibilities for the authorities to arrest passengers. One is that Yiwu Airport has certain confidentiality requirements, but the confidentiality work was not done properly, which is a dereliction of duty. The managers of the airport's military equipment should be held accountable, not the passengers. Another possibility, Lu Jun said: "Military airports are not confidential at all and do not need to be strictly confidential. Why are passengers being detained now? It is because the authorities are using these unfounded so-called cases to exaggerate state secrets and military secrets and incite the public to catch spies.
China may have 80 civil-military airports by 2022
According to the Weibo account "China Military", as of 2017, China had 64 civil-military airports in operation, accounting for 28.4% of the total number of transport airports in China. Such airports are often built in areas with relatively backward infrastructure. By the beginning of 2022, China will have about 238 civil airports. Based on the calculation that nearly 30% of civil-military airports are civil-military airports, the number of civil-military airports in China should increase to nearly 80.
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