Tsai’s travel trick will not avail her

It seems the Tsai Ing-wen administration has forgotten the inconvenience it caused Taiwan compatriots during the Spring Festival holiday last year, when it prevented some airlines from providing additional flights. It opposed a new route they were using near the middle line of the Taiwan Straits, declaring it to be a threat to the island’s security. In all, nearly 200 flights, about one-third of the additional holiday flights were canceled during the annual rush season, which meant many Taiwan residents who work on the mainland had to pay nearly three times the normal fare, or spend a whole day traveling because they had to make a detour to a third place to go back home.

In fact, the air route launched in January last year connecting Shanghai and Guangzhou is exclusively for civil aircraft and in line with all international and civil aviation conventions and it proved indispensable in relieving the air traffic pressure between the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta during the Spring Festival travel rush last year.

This time, the festival spirit is being dampened by the island’s aviation administrative department declining the request of its mainland counterpart to extend the period for added flights during the Lunar New Year from last year’s 28 days to about 42 days, according to the Taiwan

Affairs Office of the State Council.

It remains to be seen what excuse the Tsai administration will offer this time to obstruct the practice of providing more flights than usual during the most important traditional Chinese holiday, which has become a normal practice since 2008 following the calls of Taiwan people living on the mainland wishing to return to the island for family reunions.

But whatever justification it gives, it is clear that the secessionist Tsai administration does not want to see the hundreds of thousands Taiwan compatriots living on the mainland returning to the island during the election, lest they cast their votes against her.

Tsai does not have the confidence that she can win the support of those flying back across the Straits. Which is why the island’s civil aviation department has not explained its refusal, as it is nothing but a politically motivated decision exposing the extent to which the island’s public services have been hijacked by the partisan interests of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party.

More than 9 million cross-Straits trips are made every year, with the figure increasing year by year, making the increasingly frequent people-to-people exchanges across the Straits a historical trend. No matter what tricks Tsai plays, she cannot reverse this trend.