China taking big step into the normal world

As someone who spent his youth studying communist systems, this is a big deal that popped out at me yesterday in the FT.  For all the chatter about the PLA getting more bold, etc., this says they just lost out on a major point of internal control.  The winners?  Western businesses that get in, Chinese businesses and wealthy who can now take advantage, and frankly, the Chinese people in general because this says China is becoming that much more like everybody else on a mundane subject that nonetheless has long been a source of huge anxiety/security for the military.

China is opening up its airspace to small commercial and private aircraft:

China plans to open its airspace below 4,000 metres to civilian aircraft, a decision that is likely to open up one of the world’s largest untapped markets for corporate and other private aviation.

The Central Military Commission – the supreme institution governing the People’s Liberation Army – and the state council, China’s cabinet, said in a policy paper that low altitude airspace would be gradually opened to private aircraft, according to people who have seen the document and reports posted on the websites of the defence ministry and the state council.

Helicopters and light aircraft are virtually absent from Chinese skies because of extremely tight military control over all airspace and restrictive regulations that require all private aircraft flights to be approved in advance by military and civil aviation authorities, which can take weeks or longer.

“Right now it is basically impossible to use general aviation aircraft in China and some aircraft owners are already pushing the envelope by flying without permission,” said Jason Liao, chairman and chief executive of China Business Aviation Group, who has been lobbying for the past decade to get Beijing to open China’s lower altitude airspace.

“This is a huge step for China and almost certainly means the country will eventually become the second-largest market in the world for general aviation aircraft like helicopters and turboprop aircraft [after the US].”

At present the PLA has the final say over the use of China’s airspace and often schedules air drills and weapons tests at short notice, severely disrupting commercial aviation operations and exacerbating the country’s chronic flight delays.

According to the policy paper any aircraft flying at 1,000m or lower will be able to take off and fly without any prior approval or paperwork.

And you thought only billionaire Bruce Wayne could fly his planes over China without prior approval!

Really a big deal, of course, for the industry, but - again - a very positive sign of China opening up and trusting its public and its own secure standing in the world a lot more.

And what will be ever cooler to watch is how the Chinese, with their new found wealth, will go after new ideas, like maybe this flying-street-legal car from Terrafugia:

That's a core concept of mine, the old New Core sets the New Rules.  China is still very frontier in a lot of economic ways.  Biases aren't yet established, so the wild-and-wooly that might not fly in the U.S. for this or that reason, could break through that much faster over there, because China's got that brave new world vibe going on.  So I could easily imagine the right rich Chinese industrialist saying to himself, "I've gotta have that flying car!" and booyah!  All of a sudden there's a market that over times doubles back this way, making the idea that much more believable/acceptable in our market. 

We've been THAT market for the world for so long that we'll really be shocked by somebody else stepping in and playing that role more and more.  Japan's been that country for us a little bit in certain technologies, but China is going to play that role big time, if for no other reason that it's undergoing such explosive urbanization, building something like cities for half a billion people in an historical blink of an eye.  When you're doing that much from scratch, you set the new rules, the new standards, the new tastes, the new technologies, the new breakthroughs, the new everything.  

This isn't just an opportunity for Western firms to make money, this is a chance for America to learn something at a point when we need new ideas, new competition in such thinking, and new spurs to our own inestimable ability to reinvent ourselves.

Comments

[zenpundit]

This ultralight flying car prototype is much better suited, being lighter, simpler and cheaper to "rising middle-class" countries like China and India with bad or nonexistent rural road systems than the heavy-duty one above. Sort of a motorbike equivalent of flying cars, in reach of the successful small businessman in a way that a plane or more advanced flying car would not be.

It would look to be a better functioning car as well.

http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=635469588001

[Allen howell]

Just got back from China attending the Air Show in Zhuhai. general Aviation in all of it's forms is starting to come alive. I believe the powers that make decisions recognize the economic benefit ot a diverse aviation system to provide efficient travel and create high paying jobs in manufacturing and servicing of aircraft. It is exciting to see. The question is not if but when, how fast will they let it develop.

We are hosting a delegation of aviation experts and business people from china in Tennessee in December to dialogue aboutnthe future of general aviation in china.