On October 9, China's Ministry of Commerce issued six consecutive announcements in one day, announcing the implementation of export controls on five kinds of medium and heavy rare earths, lithium batteries and artificial graphite anode materials related to superhard materials, rare earth equipment and raw materials, and holmium. When the news came out, it immediately attracted great attention from the outside world.

On October 9, local time, U.S. President Donald Trump said at the White House Cabinet meeting that on how to deal with China's new rare earth rules, he had Minister of Finance Bessent and Minister of Commerce Lutnik to discuss the response. On the same day, Trump began threatening China, and gave a final consensus, and gave only two days to consider.

Reuters reported that Trump issued a threat on October 9 to ban China airlines from flying over Russian airspace on flights to and from the United States, citing the fact that American airlines and China airlines were at a disadvantage in competition. Simply put, Trump will issue a "no-fly order" on China airlines, not allowing China passenger jets to fly over Russian airspace when flying to the United States.

Reuters reported that American airlines have long expressed dissatisfaction with Chinese airlines' routes flying over Russian airspace, believing that this allows Chinese airlines to shorten flights, reduce fuel consumption, and reduce costs, thereby gaining obvious competitive advantages. Isn't it ridiculous? If it's not a real report, it's easy to think it's a fake news piece.

Almost at the same time, the U.S. Department of Transportation also stood up, saying that this imbalance between Chinese and American airlines has become "this imbalance has become an important competitive factor", and the main purpose of proposing to ban Chinese airlines from flying over Russian airspace is to "narrow the competitive gap between Chinese and American airlines."

At Trump's request, the U.S. Department of Transportation said it had given China two days to respond to the proposal, with the final order likely to come into effect in November.

After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022, the US West banned Russian airlines from flying over their own airspace. As a countermeasure, Russia also banned US Airways and other Western airlines from flying over their airspace.

If according to the United States, China airlines use the northern route of Russian airspace, which is shorter than the route of American airlines around Alaska or the Pacific Ocean. In addition to saving about 2-3 hours of flight time, it can also save 15%-20% of fuel costs.

For example, if British airlines fly from London to China, it takes 2.5 hours more than China airlines because it needs to detour. Based on this, China airlines can offer lower fares whether they fly to the UK or the United States, especially in high-margin classes such as business class.

In early May 2023, the U.S. Ministry of Transport issued a notice, saying that China Airways would be allowed to operate 12 regular flights to the U.S. every week, involving China Airways with national, capital, East, Southern, naval, Kawasaki and Xiamen.

At that time, the U.S. Department of Transportation pointed out that the reason for such a decision was that after full evaluation, it was believed that a balanced and gradual reopening was in the best interest of the public to ensure the orderly normalization of the Sino-U.S. air transport market. In February 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that starting from March 31, the number of round-trip flights between China and the United States allowed by Chinese airlines will increase from 35 to 50.

Regarding this incident, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded at the time, saying, "Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning pointed out in response to media reporters at the time." However, American airlines quickly suffered heavy losses due to the government's wrong decisions, and this time they blamed China again.

Only a month later, American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and others formed a lobby group, which spoke on behalf of American Airlines in Congress, claiming that foreign airlines could pass more convenient routes, which put American Airlines at a disadvantage in competition, the annual loss of market share conservation estimated at $2 billion.

The heads of these American airlines also directly reported to Trump that the economy of direct flights from the east coast of the United States to China has dropped significantly due to the inability to fly over Russian airspace. To cope with the losses, some flights even had to leave some seats empty and reduce cargo volumes to cope with the additional costs associated with longer voyages.

It was originally the US sanctions against Russia, but the US in turn blamed China, what is the logic?In fact, the US does this harmful and unselfish thing, not this time.

At the same time, Trump proposed to ban Chinese airlines from using Russian airspace to fly to the United States, a move that was made at a time when tensions between China and the United States intensified due to a series of issues, apparently to put pressure on China in the next Sino-U.S. economic and trade negotiations.

At the regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spokesperson Guo Jiakun only said two sentences:

The first sentence is that the United States imposes restrictions on the operations of China airlines, which is not conducive to personnel exchanges between the two countries; the second sentence is that the United States should reflect on the impact of its own policies on domestic companies, rather than unreasonably suppressing other countries and making global consumers pay the bill.

China's meaning is very clear. Playing any tricks is not the right way to deal with China. Now the U.S. airlines are encountering difficulties, and the root cause is still the Russia-Ukraine conflict provoked by the United States and the West, and has used this to impose rounds of sanctions on Russia.

In short, the U.S. side not only does not reflect, but instead requires Chinese airlines not to pass through Russian airspace, again reflecting the U.S. "double goal" position.