Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has released a video showing a time-lapse of landings and takeoffs at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to advocate Taiwan’s inclusion in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The video, titled “Flight Pattern,” has received more than 700,000 views on YouTube and MOFA’s Trending Taiwan Facebook page.

The video calls for ICAO to “give Taiwan a voice” and uphold its goal of creating a “seamless sky.”

“The Taiwan Flight Information Region provided over 1.53 million instances of air traffic control services and handled 58 million passengers in 2015. These numbers will soar this year, but Taiwan remains a blank space on the global aviation radar,” the video says.

Despite the U.S. and Japan, among other countries, lobbying for Taiwan's inclusion at the ICAO assembly in Montreal last week, the country was still blocked from attending the summit, presumably by China.

Taiwanese journalists were also kept out of the event.

A Paraguayan official has claimed that ICAO secretary general Fang Liu (柳芳), who is from China, warned representatives that their microphones would be muted if they tried to speak on behalf of Taiwan, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

First Editor: Olivia Yang
Second Editor: Edward White